

The Startup Developer Superstar Detection Quiz - __
http://onstartups.com/home/tabid/3339/bid/3504/Startup-Developers-Telling-Scmucks-from-Superstars-5-min-quiz.aspx

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imsteve
My additions, for super-coders:

1\. Have, more than once, wished to stop time, exit society and live on an
isolated island so you can figure out this incredible algorithm that you know
will change and amaze the world.

2\. Has grasped the importance of concentrating for long contiguous periods of
time to work out very deep problems. Probably worked out a very strict,
detailed set of priorities to ensure that this can happen on demand.

3\. Focuses more on whether he can beat the hardest unsolved problems than
bragging that he is the best coder. Realizes that such a definitive metric
doesn't really exist. The point is that by focusing on the science itself, you
can always be challenged and won't be held back by the satisfaction of being
better than some other bum. Although, this doesn't mean that he doesn't have a
strong ego internally, just knows that it can only be proved through code.

4\. Has some deep-seated inspiration.

5\. If forced to stop working on at least something incredible for more than a
few weeks, he will go crazy with a large machine gun. If he hasn't had this
desire for a good while then he probably hasn't put in the effort to become
great. This holds until the day he gets burt out..

~~~
ardit33
Sorry, but your list looks like is searching for psychotic people. I know that
some great coders are very passionate about what they do, who borderline into
obsession.

I also know, that the best coder/engineer I have ever met, is married, very
balanced, works 9-5:30, so he can be home with his kids, and is super super
productive, and a very great guy to be around.

~~~
imsteve
Honestly, he doesn't sound like he'd be the best for a startup. Not the best
for an OSS project (which are always done on your own time) either. Certainly
not going to make any breakthroughs in mathematics. He's going to live a
wonderfully marginal life.

He may be the best around, but what's he going to amount too? Nothing
different than a million other good engineers working their asses off in some
giant corp in china.

I'm completely certain that some of the best painters where psychotic too. Go
ahead and fault them for it if that's what you like to do.

~~~
ardit33
He is the kind of guy that wakes up one morning, and writes a interpreter of a
4g scripting language in a couple of days, just for the heck of it. And he is
very normal, (maybe, probably boring too you as he doesn't look like a mad
scientist, or have thick framed glasses, or hipster looking), but he is much
more productive in those 8hrs than any of you heroic "young guns" who decide
to sleep on the desk.

Please tell me, you can be very productive more than 8hrs a day on the long
run.

Remember, staying longer in office, doesn't mean you work harder. Some of the
people that stay longer at work, do it b/c to compesate for their inability to
code fast. They have to pull longer hours to keep up with their peers.

BTW, he is smart and some good money during the last tech boom.

~~~
imsteve
Not to sound too argumentative, but let me clarify:

> "young guns"

Age has nothing to do with my list.

> He is the kind of guy that wakes up one morning, and writes a interpreter of
> a 4g scripting language in a couple of day

fluff talk. You cannot recognize a man who is said to do this by his
acquaintances. Almost always, when someone is said to be like this, it turns
out to be a gross misinterpretation of their actual ability.

> And he is very normal,

I am not at all saying that such people cannot appear and act so. This is
important, _I am talking about what the person thinks, in his head._ NOT how
he appears or acts.

> Please tell me, you can be very productive more than 8hrs a day on the long
> run.

I'm just talking about being able to get into the zone and stay there for as
long as possible. Nothing to do with work schedules. You've really got me
wrong on that one. I'm not saying the same amount of work has to be done every
day either.

> made some good money during the last tech boom.

Unfortunately, that's not a good metric either because a ton of both morons
and smart people got rich.

(Aside: Wow it sucks to not be able to edit comments here now..)

~~~
Retric
The best living programmer I know cut back to a more normal schedule to spend
more time with his wife and kids. (I have seen him program a cooperatively
multi threaded app that's resistant to memory errors on a 16khz embedded chip
with around 380 bytes of ram and 2000 bytes ROM data.)

You can work 100 hours a week but you will never match a 9-5er that's 30x more
productive than you are.

~~~
imsteve
Where the heck are you guys getting the idea that I said that long work weeks
are good? Somewhere this discussion got derailed..

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iamwil
I remember when Guy Kawasaki started blogging, he made a point about having
short, bulleted, easy to digest posts to read. And while that's certainly
easier on the readers, it's like eating a lots of junk food: too much of it
often leaves me feeling full, yet discontent. And I wasn't sure why at first.

While bulleted points are good in moderation, it's one step away from
superstar detection quizzes. Reminds me of quizzes in magazines like Maxim and
Cosmo. "Are you having enough hot sex?" quizzes.

I find myself hungering for a good readably long article with new information
and good support that makes me think when I see too many of these on hacker
news.

~~~
dshah
Fair point. I'm glad I didn't use my original title idea:

13 Ways To Tell If Your Lover Is Cheating, But 14 Ways To Tell If You'd Make A
Good Developer For A Startup

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jajoneill
Well put. Even a basic quiz like this highlights the difficulty to hire for
startups where every idea and effort of every individual impacts success
(positive or negative).

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apathy
I was going to rant about this, but their company actually has something
resembling an original premise, and principals from MIT, as opposed to the
usual social-network-rails-2.0 crap. And it is a very engaging ad which
appears to have homed in on a large concentration of its target audience.

Good stuff, and well played -- a case study in low-effort, high-payoff
marketing in an unorthodox capacity. Smart guys.

~~~
dshah
Thanks, I think. :)

<self-serving-crap> For the record, we're a bit different from many startups
in that we believe in "User Generated Revenue" (what was previously known as
"sales"). We're growing revenue (not traffic) at double-digit rates a month
and having a pretty good time with it.

And yes, we have a bit of an MIT slant. Not just both the founders, but 7
(over 25%) of the team has MIT roots. This could be partly because we're
located right in Kendall square too -- but we like to think it's because even
smart people like to make money. </self-serving-crap>

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wallflower
I don't interview usually but when meeting a fellow programmer - my favorite
question is what is your title - e.g. if they say Software Engineer - i ask
them if they truly believe software can be engineered.. it's a way to open
them up - i like to hear their philosophical views on the construction of
software.

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brk
For some reason test #6 (You've been impressed with someone else's code at
some point in your life)

reminded me of this old PG essay:

<http://www.paulgraham.com/gh.html>

:)

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bayareaguy
I think I'd consider hiring someone with laser focus who answered no to all
but #7 and #14.

Actually, come to think of it some of the better windows programmers I've met
are that way.

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edw519
"1. You're more of a pragmatist than a perfectionist. [Yes/No]"

I've always had a problem with this one. Not really sure why.

I hate the word "perfectionist", but I think that's what I am. Perhaps
"precisionist" or "maximizer" would be a better word.

Once I started insisting that my app was just right, I was able to move up to
the next level of "hackerdom". Some days I write a thousand lines of code and
the next day I will agonize over one little construct because deep in my gut,
I know it's not what it needs to be. I don't mind being this way.

Of course, I understand the downside of this thinking. You don't want to
obsess so much that you never release. But you don't want to release and come
back and fix bad stuff too much, either. Experience, and a gut feeling, oughta
tell you how far to push.

One of the things that made me feel much better about this was reading about
Woz's obsession with making everything just right when he designed the Apple
II. Chapter 3 of "Founders at Work" by Jessica Livingston. Which was Woz, the
perfectionist or the pragmatist?

(If you don't have the book and haven't read it yet, must reading for all
aspiring superstars...

<http://www.foundersatwork.com/steve-wozniak.html>)

~~~
__
"Which was Woz, the perfectionist or the pragmatist?"

Over time, I've learned that it's not always an either-or thing. Many --
perhaps most -- people are both, depending on the activity. I'm a
perfectionist about writing (code and natural language), but I'm certainly
_not_ a perfectionist about fashion or cooking, for example.

~~~
apathy
Another way to look at it -- "the best is the enemy of the good". Which side
of that battle you take will depend upon your desired outcome and time frame.

