Ask HN: What are the smartest people you know working on? - pkpp1233
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chatmasta
Four years out of college: Some combination of working at Google, Facebook,
$BIGBANK, or going to law/med school.

The smartest all jumped on career ladders because of the head start from their
degrees and grades. The non-technical went to banks because what other
profession pays $100k a year for a liberal arts degree? The technical went to
the most recognizable companies that would take them and pay them a lot of
money.

The entrepreneurs are a much more interesting bunch; most are technical, some
never had a corporate job, some did YC, some left their corporate job and are
mindlessly trying to be entrepreneurs, lots have raised funding, and a very
select few have exited or hit Series C.

~~~
LyndsySimon
> some left their corporate job and are mindlessly trying to be entrepreneurs

"mindlessly"?

What are they missing? I'm curious, because this is a path that has always
appealed to me, but that I didn't take in my twenties or early thirties. I
hope to be in a position to be _able_ to do it in my late thirties, but am not
committed to the idea.

~~~
cVwEq
This resonated with me because I was a corporate drone that left to
"mindlessly" become an entrepreneur. More charitably, I believe it's being in
love with the idea of being an entrepreneur but pursuing that path based on
pop-culture information (think Entrepreneur magazine articles) and less on
direct experience.

Nonetheless, even though my business ultimately failed, I thank my lucky stars
I'm not working in the cube farm anymore. On to business #2!

~~~
ILikeConemowk
>Nonetheless, even though my business ultimately failed, I thank my lucky
stars I'm not working in the cube farm anymore. On to business #2!

Mind sharing the story of your first business and what you're working on now?

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IpV8
Getting people to click on advertisements.

~~~
aphextron
>Getting people to click on advertisements.

Came here to post the same, as I take a break from getting people to click on
advertisements, at a job that pays way too much money to even consider
anything else.

It's pretty damn depressing that the brightest minds of our generation have
been sucked up by these companies that really do nothing but further
meaningless consumerism. When people ask what I do, I say I work at a button
factory.

~~~
btrettel
> at a job that pays way too much money to even consider anything else.

I've seen this sentiment expressed elsewhere, and I don't understand it. While
I can't speak for others, there are many jobs I probably wouldn't take
regardless of how much they paid. These jobs often harm society or are bad for
other reasons (lack of autonomy, burnout, etc.).

Most jobs I'm qualified for pay me enough that I'm happy. Once I reach that
point, I'm optimizing other axes.

~~~
eloff
I think everyone has a price. Offer me enough and I'll reluctantly optimize
advertising click through working with a 20 year old code base written in PHP
with no tests and the only comments being the sarcastic rants of the anguished
souls crushed before me.

~~~
jackgolding
yep and the problem with this is its a lot harder to move from 100k down to
50k a year than what people think.

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nexus2045
High frequency trading. Built enough of a nest egg (probably < 5MM) at age of
30 and will go off to pursue his own goals. Before you think that "talent was
wasted on a zero-sum game", keep in mind that the rest of my peers in the same
age group are likely to be working even more inconsequential desk jobs while
paying off mortgages for the rest of their lives.

~~~
rajacombinator
Working for himself or for a fund? Just curious if there's really room in that
space for 1-5mm with all the big fish in the water. Feel free to ping me
offline if up for it.

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sgtmas2006
Ruining their lives with substances.

~~~
LyndsySimon
From anecdotal experience it seems to me that high intelligence has a strong
correlation with emotional instability, which in turn often manifests in the
form of substance abuse.

~~~
sgtmas2006
I've suffered from it myself. Extremely rough period of depression followed by
me being kicked from school (which was a major contributor to my depression
due to abuse of my nature,) leaving my apartment, moving back in with my
parents, and abusing anything I could get my hands on that wasn't a street
drug.

Glad to say I've overcome it, but I still take Methylphenidate as it helps
with my severe depression.

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otras
Smartest person I know works on smarter-than-human artificial intelligence at
the Machine Intelligence Research Institute [0]. Previously at Microsoft and
Google, he decided to get involved in smarter-than-human AI and is now the
Executive Director at MIRI. Definitely inspiring!

[0] - [https://intelligence.org/](https://intelligence.org/)

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CM30
Video game mods and hacks?

I mean, I know plenty of people working in web development and app
development, but I still think the people writing assembly for a system that's
not been in development for a decade or two are doing pretty damn well at it.
Doing anything particularly complicated with ASM is both tricky and tedious as
all hell.

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Cshelton
As I'm thinking about this question, I just realized while pondering it that..
I can't identify a single person, or few people, I know as "the smartest".

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evincarofautumn
Different people:

• Low-level infrastructural/optimisation stuff, such as large-scale data
analysis systems, language runtimes, and operating systems. Work is hard but
even small wins have high impact.

• Developer tools, including using machine learning to help tools help
developers better. Improving the state of programming is always welcome.

• Online advertising—such are the times.

• Avoiding the tech industry for a while to relieve burnout and work on
personal projects—this person inspired me to do the same.

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codingdave
Retiring young, to enjoy the rest of their life on their own terms.

~~~
iamjk
Amen to this!

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btrettel
Perhaps it would be best to _avoid_ the more popular answers to this question
in one's own career, depending on your goals.

My own strategy is to intentionally target areas that have been neglected for
no good reason. While there are plenty of smart people in my field (fluid
dynamics), I feel that if the field had a wider reputation, even more smart
people would join, and the number of opportunities I have would shrink.
Marketing folks seem to call this the "blue ocean strategy".

So what can you learn from how smart people behave? It would be better to try
to distill rational principles from their behavior rather than saying choice X
is optimal. For example, ask why choice X is optimal rather than just
believing choice X is optimal.

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rootsudo
ETH and bitcoin market speculation and smart contracts.

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BjoernKW
Some currently spend a lot of their time on servicing and properly
orchestrating Docker and related infrastructure (the actual product they're
working on, mark you, isn't Docker-related ...).

On a much more positive note though a particularly smart person I know works
on speech recognition software that uses linguistic features in order to
assess communication skills and to some extent psychological properties (in an
anonymous, privacy-compliant fashion) such as current predisposition for
depression (which can manifest in features like pitch, voice melody and
prosody).

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InterestBazinga
I always wondered the definition of "smart" in context of these questions. Am
I considered a smart person if I work hard on a subject and succeed at it, or
if I am a naturally talented prodigy, and excel on that same topic?

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mabynogy
Terry Davis (who did [http://www.templeos.org/](http://www.templeos.org/)) is
the smartest programmer I know but he doesn't work.

He is currently homeless and needs your help:
[https://www.paypal.com/donate/?token=51kJATJUJxik3DjLLxQB6dw...](https://www.paypal.com/donate/?token=51kJATJUJxik3DjLLxQB6dwJ_V9Viy4zqXQe8soR8bUV1gMvXLdMOHWNqhcE5yRr4Ujow0&country.x=US&locale.x=US)

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JauntTrooper
Biochemistry research, investigative journalism, crisis PR, surgery, solar
power finance, and one is operating a brewery.

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hellofunk
Banking, unfortunately.

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walrus01
10 gigabit ethernet to the home over singlemode fiber, with the extreme
challenge that it needs to have a reasonable ROI for the ISP, fast build
process, and reasonable per unit passed costs. And five nines uptime goal over
1 year of statistical measurement.

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flossball
If I was douchie enough - I am working on p2p internetless cryptocurrency
transfers and distributed ID. Otherwise it would be antiphishing, improved
open source debuggers, and RISCV implementations.

~~~
DoctorOetker
I am interested in your idea on offline cryptocurrency, how would that work?

Also the distributed ID.

Where can I read your thoughts?

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nils-m-holm
Not much, because their life is a mess.

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Someone1234
Vehicle navigation and automation.

Definitely the right time to be in that field ($$$$) but it isn't without its
moral hazards. I find the area interesting, but the high level maths is beyond
me.

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patch_cable
Studying comparative literature

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jimnotgym
Their sun-tan, their golf swing, and their fly-casting.

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gabept
Nothing.

He's living amongst the forests, homeschooling his children, after indulging
and destroying himself with consumerism, alcohol and drugs.

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scruple
Computer vision and robotics (with Agricultural Science applications), RF
communications, and one person who works in games development because it
affords him his work on a C++ committee sub-group. Outside of technology, an
economist for the DoJ and a lawyer who works in non-profits (not sure where
she is right now / what sort of work).

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reitanqild
From school? Playing poker online.

People I've learned to know recently? Writing web applications.

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rishav
I see responses here with a certain tone of derision. That's sad and may be
unproductive. Maybe shouldn't the question be what should "we", not just the
smartest people working on and how ?

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bloodorange
GPU architecture, CPU architecture and high performance computing.

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ncfausti
Natural language processing and how it can be used to research health/well-
being

Getting people to click on ads

Biochemistry MD/PhDs

Geologist for a lithium mining company

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deweller
R&D of applying cryptocurrency and blockchain technology to real world
problems.

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fogzen
Teaching high school history.

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chasd00
trying to figure out what they want to work on and what to do with their life

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patrickmay
Well, this morning I hacked some Python to generate advertising performance
metrics....

;-)

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Overtonwindow
Going to Mars and trying to build a better patent system.

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bllguo
quant finance :/

~~~
walrus01
HFT microwave network architecture and engineering

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rthomas6
He's working on some sort of startup for radar.

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LyndsySimon
Disclaimer: My perspective is obviously shaped by the places I've worked; I
don't know the people I don't know. Here's my LinkedIn profile in you want
that context(note - I'm _not_ looking for a job):
[https://www.linkedin.com/in/lyndsysimon/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/lyndsysimon/)

Healthcare. There were lots of changes brought about by Obamacare, and while
of course many of the political aspects have either been changed or are at
risk of being changed with little or no notice, the implementation also
created great changes in the industry that aren't going away regardless of the
political climate. There are all kinds of niches where something not much more
complicated than a simple CRUD app on an iPad can _significantly_ reduce costs
and/or improve outcomes. The industry has realized this, and it's going to be
a hot place to work for the foreseeable future - and one that can make a real
difference in people's lives.

Government. The last I looked was ~2016, but 18F was doing some great things
at the time. They had far more latitude in hiring and compensation than is
typical for the public sector, but I'm not sure if this is still the case.

Dev community outreach. In my experience, there are at least two kinds of
"developer evangelists" \- those that are skilled socially (and have to gain
the respect of developers) and those that are skilled technically (and may
have to learn how to do the social side). Those who are technically-skilled
and have proven themselves before taking on the role tend to be both very
effective and well compensated. There are a couple of people I know in those
roles, but they are people I very much respect.

Devops. Especially at a junior level, I've encountered far more people I would
consider to be exceptionally talented on the ops side of things than purely
development. I don't know where their careers will end up taking them from
there, but I've seen those people rise quickly through the junior > mid-level
> senior progression. If a team has someone who is exceptionally smart,
motivated, and productive, devops is easily the role I'd want them to be in.
Their work there can make the entire team substantially more productive. I
think (good) managers see this as well, which is why devops seems to have a
higher proportion of very talented people.

Finally, there is something of a revolution happening in academic publishing.
It's yet to be seen if the lessons learned by the F/OSS software world can
compete and win the cultural war between established academic publishers (e.g.
Elsevier), but the people I know who are working in that space definitely
qualify as the smartest people I know.

~~~
zacharycohn
Former 18Fer here. Still doing great things. Still have latitude in
compensation and hiring.

~~~
LyndsySimon
Awesome!

From what I've seen, 18F serves a very valid purpose, has a lot of room to do
great things, and would be a rewarding job. I never really looked into it
myself because my ideology wouldn't allow me work for a government entity, but
otherwise it would be near the top of my list.

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tynman
Fact-oriented Domain-Driven Design modeling tools.

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david927
Dubious startups

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testplzignore
Creating proteins for biological research.

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GolDDranks
Quantum annealing using the D-Wave.

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psyc
Extremely complex video game tech.

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SteveNuts
Trying to implement "DevOps" and centralized logging at one of the largest
companies in the USA.

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Toine
Art

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rance
developing internal tools for a large ecommerce corporation

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gormz
Alcohol dependency.

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berbec
Working at $BIGBANK

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z3t4
serving food ...

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amai
Data Science

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romanpoet
Ethereum

