

Paul Graham's wrong on the value of a hacker culture (sadly) - coderdude
http://petewarden.typepad.com/searchbrowser/2010/08/paul-grahams-wrong-on-the-value-of-a-hacker-culture.html

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noonespecial
If you must substitute a cultural element in your company for hackers, make
sure its designers or artists. You can still pull out a win with these folks.
If you sub in bureaucrats or marketers instead, you're done.

Most companies go hackers -> suits, sharks are jumped, people start talking
about the good ol' days.

Apple instead chose a path hackers -> designers. (They did take an almost
fatal detour sans Jobs through suit territory.) This makes them an outlier of
the first order and probably not a very good example for establishing a
general case like the essay attempts.

The most that could be said is that a culture of design is a viable substitute
for a hacker culture in some instances.

~~~
kenjackson
But then there is eBay, Intel, CraigsList, SAP, Oracle, etc...

In fact I'd argue that most companies succeed based on being good at customer
engagement more than hacker/artist/designer culture. There are only two strong
counters to this I can think of which are Google and Apple.

~~~
noonespecial
I'd definitely leave CraigsList off that list, but it seems that once a
certain level of market dominance is achieved (through hacker culture, esp. in
the case of Intel and eBay) you can switch to almost any old pointy-haired-
boss management scheme and still survive. They fossilize and move unstoppably
on pure inertia.

Ebay illustrates this perfectly. Nearly everyone who sells on ebay and gets
paid through paypal wishes there was a better alternative, but there just
isn't.

~~~
wh-uws
"...you can switch to almost any old pointy-haired-boss management scheme and
still survive"

That's actually exactly the way its supposed to work in the minds of <for lack
of better person to put here> suits

Steve Blank has a great articles about this.

<http://steveblank.com/2009/10/01/durant-versus-sloan-part-1/>

------
pg
There was a comment thread about this question a few months ago in which
people from Apple talked about whether it had a hackerly culture:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1596733>

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phjohnst
I always took PG's Hacker-centric culture to mean one of hacking in a broader
sense, and not strictly applied to coding.

I believe that a hacker-centric culture is one that promotes innovation and is
purely meritocratic, with a constant drive to improve and better absolutely
_everything_.

So from my (very much outsider) perspective, Apple would definitely have a
hacker culture, but it's not just about the code.

~~~
trjordan
Loosening the definition of hacker culture to "successful companies promote
innovation and grade on merit", then yes, I agree. However, at that point, you
can also claim the Toyota, earlier days of GE, and Walmart have hacker
cultures, and I don't think that's true at all.

You can broaden pg's statement so it's never false, but that strips it of its
interest and utility.

~~~
phjohnst
I think you're absolutely right: if you take it to mean anything, then it has
no meaning.

However, as mechanical_fish touches on below, the definition of what a
'hacker' is (I think) is pretty misunderstood. Hacking is a creative process;
are we trying to define creative people/roles/cultures merely by the tools
that they use? That sort of limited scope feels extremely hubristic.

So maybe I didnt clearly express my point, and used bad examples: I'll accept
that. The article seems to believe that Hacking = coding, and thus Hacking
Culture = coding culture, which I think is a pretty limited way to look at
things. Hacker culture is all about rejecting restrictive and unnecessary
bureaucracy and procedures, and instead focussing on giving people the freedom
and tools necessary to perform better and in a more creative way. Which I dont
think really applies to your examples. A lot of places that claim innovation
and free thinking still do so within a pretty rigid set of rules.

~~~
bad_user
I don't think anyone can agree on what hacking is, so discussing it is
pointless, as is this article.

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replicatorblog
Ebay is another interesting counterpoint to PG's essay. They are a company
constantly made fun of in the tech community as monopolistic,
unoriginal/innovative, without visionary guidance, but somehow they are more
profitable than Amazon. Hackers are critical in many businesses, In Yahoo's
case they need them to stay on top of changes to media, but if you can get
significant network lock in like eBay then hackers may not be as important in
the medium term. In the long term I think they'll face disruption in much the
same way a company like AirBNB disrupted Craigslist which has a similar
profile to eBay.

~~~
rwmj
I have a suspicion that eBay are Altavista to some other company's Google. I
don't know which company that will be, but surely it's possible to be 10 times
better than eBay and overcome the network effects.

(Plus I did some consulting for eBay and saw first hand how ineffective and
stupid their management are)

~~~
hga
eBay is the beneficiary of an intense network effect that Altavista and Google
search never could be.

Until the newer management, the Bain & Company mafia that e.g. don't
understand or want the traditional eBay sellers, screw things up enough, it's
likely to keep its position despite how horrible it is on so many levels.

Check out Gunbroker.com for a pretty big auction site that indeed does things
"10 times better"; it started up shortly after eBay wimped out and banned gun
and gun accessory etc. sales, so it benefits from the same sort of network
effects. Having used both, there's absolutely no comparison.

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scott_s
I think the argument applies to the internal culture of the company, not how
they behave externally.

~~~
mechanical_fish
I also think the OP has an awfully limited definition of _hacker_. I'm not
allowed to have a sense of theater? I'm not allowed to also be a designer?

~~~
sudont
Steve prefers artists and artisans. Artists can hack and code, but there is a
different worldview.

~~~
mechanical_fish
I'm with PG: The distinction between an artist and a hacker is thin to the
point of nonexistence.

Don't be fooled by the fact that, say, emacs isn't pretty to look at: Even
emacs is a work of art. It isn't just a utilitarian tool for typing stuff, it
certainly wasn't designed just to make money, and it is opinionated software
that makes a statement, at every level from the implementation language to the
architecture to the workflow to the license.

A lot of hacking is _performance_ art. Think: _why the lucky stiff. Think: Zed
Shaw.

~~~
sudont
True. I guess I meant programmers.

programmers : hackers :: designers : artists.

The difference between an artist and a designer is that the designer is
incapable of using ugliness to express a truth. (Also, money.)

I like to liken programmers to poets, but only because of the volume of bad
meter and code humanity has produced.

~~~
armandososa
Being a designer by trade and programmer by accident, I've always found this
funny. That programmers have no problem having their work being compared to
poetry or art in general. Designers, on the other hand, get enraged on the
sole mention that design is an art or --worse-- a craft.

~~~
sudont
Heh, I'm actually a designer as well, and a printmaker who was vetted for the
tamarind institute a while ago. Designers don't want to be boxed into the art
world, as modern art is strictly solipsistic, and attempts to make a statement
in and of itself and it's context. Design attempts to amplify a statement, to
add value, clarify and guide. Saying design is art and craft is like saying
engineering is intuition and emotion. There are a shade of in both, but it's
missing the point.

Programming on the other hand, is not a strictly visual field which helps any
analogy, and while the product is engineering, the act of _is_ comparable to
an art. There's no such thing as perfect code, and the hacky little stuff is
analogous to the troubled motion's of Jackson Pollck's arms struggling against
the constraints of physics to make a statement.

------
richcollins
Hacking is about coming up with creative solutions to problems, not being
open. By this definition, Apple has a very hacker centric culture. Being open
lowers the barrier of entry to hacking but it isn't a prerequisite.

~~~
nadam
What I am not sure is that the word 'hacker' is a useful word. There were
other words widely used before the word hacker appeared: 'smart people',
'creative people', 'artists', 'scientists', 'mathematicians', 'engineers',
'polymaths' etc...

The word 'hacker' is a feel-good word for us programmers: we feel that we are
more than just programmers, we are some kind of 'polymaths'. But the truth is
that so are other smart people: noone should think that a very smart
mathematicin, phyiscists, other engineers cannot be good in other disciplines.
(And engineers especially were always a bit polymaths, because ergonomy,
technical difficulties and business considerations always were there
paralelly.) As it is with every successful essayists, pg's essays have some
feel-good values. As I grow older I no more like the feel-good component of
essays. I am not a hcker, I am an engineer, and I was that ever. This does not
mean that I have to be totally idiot in every other disciplines, but being
good at something requires lots of practice. People are called engineers
because they practiced engineering a lot, people are called mathematicians
because they practiced mathematics a lot, etc... If somebody could be called a
'hacker' it is the caliber of somebody like von Neumann, but even him we call
just a 'mathematician' (and we call Einstein 'just' a physicist). Why previous
generations did not need the word 'hacker'? Why we suddenly need this word for
no other reasons of feeling good?

~~~
j_baker
What's wrong with feeling good? I, for one, like feeling good.

And the reason previous generations didn't need the word "hacker" is simply
because computers hadn't been invented yet. But computing is hardly the first
field with this kind of verbal distinction. What's the difference between a
reporter and a journalist? Or a painter and an artist? Or an actor and a star?

~~~
nadam
I think programmers are special kind of engineers. We could call them software
engineers. My feeling is that the word 'hacker' is invented to state that
hackers are somehow more than engineers. As if engineers were dumb people
without creativity, who can only follow predefined processes. As if there were
no engineer geniuses. As if engineers could not be enthusiast and as if
sometimes engineering could not be treated as art the same way programming can
be. 'Hacker' is a romantic word some people use to describe _themselves_, not
a word society describes these people. In my opinion this wording is not
really necessary. There were/are/will-be bad/good/exceptionally-good engineers
in history of mankind. I just have a feeling that 200 years later the word
'hacker' will be forgotten but the word engineer will still live. (This is
just my feeling.)

~~~
SapphireSun
Thank you. I have trouble understanding how this is even an argument. Maybe
the word hacker will still be around, maybe not. Being creative, academically
informed, and practically skilled will always be around.

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simonjoe
I disagree wholeheartedly with his analysis. Yes, Apple is more closed.
But…you can do a lot with OS X, other than the window manager and desktop
system.

I rooted my iPhone. Just like a lot of people.

I script everything.

I don't run the apple versions of openssh or openssl or a bunch of other
things, all just done with the ordering of folders in my path.

Almost everything I want to do on Linux, I can do on OS X. And the things that
I can't aren't GUI-based, so ssh works fine.

It's worth having to run another computer (or a virtual machine) to run some
OSX/Windows-only apps. And it's not worth running windows.

The hacker culture is alive and well on OS X, and I don't see Apple as doing
anything to stop it…you just have to learn a bit more…in a lot of cases,
that's not even necessary.

But, I guess that fits…because it's all about user experience instead of
coding the actual OS.

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mseebach
> "in the software business, you can't afford not to have a hacker-centric
> culture" can be contradicted with a single word. Apple.

Since when is Apple a software company? They make consumer hardware, and the
bare minimum of software needed to make this hardware deliver the value users
expect. That's why OS X isn't supported on other hardware than Apples own.
That's why you need iTunes to interact with your i{Pod/Pad/Phone}, rather than
exposing a standard interface.

To Apple, like Yahoo, programming is little more than a commodity.

~~~
wtracy
OS X and iOS sell Apple hardware.

How many people would really buy Macbooks with Vista installed? How many
people would really buy iPhones with Symbian installed?

Yes, Apple's income technically comes mostly from hardware, but all that would
dry up without their software.

~~~
philwelch
Honestly, if I needed a Windows notebook, I'd still be pretty tempted to go
with Apple hardware. Conversely, I'd be loath to carry around a Dell or HP
box, even with Mac OS X installed. Apple's hardware is a positive competitive
advantage, not just a lock-in scheme for them to extort more money for their
software.

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kreek
I love my Mac, IPhone etc. but Apple is not the be all end all of success
stories. They have one culture, Google has another (more hacker-centric), and
other successful companies have even more of a hacker culture.

Apple is a hardware company first, software second, with web services a
distant third. So one could also argue that Apple's top down, less hacker,
culture has produced some mediocre web services compared to Google and even
Yahoo.

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al05
I disagree, steve is defiantly a hacker in the wider sense of the word.
Especially since him and the other steve was so much into phone phreaking in
there youth.

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hasenj
I think PG's definition of The Hacker Culture is not quite the same as ESR's
definition.

ESR's definition falls more in the kernel and system tools end of hackerdom,
where the only users are other hackers.

PG's definition extends to products and applications and generally stuff where
the users are not necessarily hackers.

By ESR's definition, Apple is not hackerly at all. By PG's definition, they
_are_ very hackerly.

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jonasvp
This is probably off-topic but I'd never heard of Inventables
(<http://www.inventables.com>, referenced in the article) before. I'm having a
geekgasm just browsing through the weird and wonderful articles on there. Love
the mini-faq below each one. This is going to make me blow so much money...

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retroafroman
Apple is externally antihacker, but internally they prefer hacker type
programmers, not mediocre code monkeys who don't actually get things done.
They want people to solve interesting problems as well. They just need to be
prepared to have Jobs tell them it sucks and to do it differently.

~~~
orangecat
Right, and their anti-hacker public position is relatively new. Mac OS X has
always been hacker friendly; you don't need to tweak it to have a good
experience, but Apple never tried to stop you if you wanted to. It's only with
iOS that they've called their customers criminals for trying to gain control
of their own hardware. I wouldn't be surprised if that shift ends up affecting
their recruiting ability.

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shaunxcode
I think you are forgetting that apple started out as the very epitome of
hacker culture (dudes in a garage soldering shit together while listening to
rush and eating their parents food) - where they are now is a direct result of
their initial launch trajectory.

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varjag
There are tons of successful hacker driven companies. There's only one Apple.
It is interesting how author still uses a sole outlier as a counterpoint. I
guess love is blind :)

(Also, there that was Wozniak guy _hint_ _hint_ )

~~~
borism
there are tons of non-hacker driven successful companies too. In fact the
majority of them.

~~~
philwelch
But how many of them are tech companies? You don't need a hacker culture to
drill oil or make breakfast cereal.

~~~
varjag
I thought the article discussed tech companies..

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iliketosleep
it actually depends on the phase of the tech in question. apple is
capitalising on a period of consolidation of the cool tech that had been
created at an astonishing rate. you could say that a lot of innovation was
done by hackers, but consolidation of that tech in the market place was done
by marketing gurus such as steve jobs. a company which gains its competitive
advantage through constant innovation needs a hacker-centric culture. a
company which simply consolidates on existing tech does not.

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lukeqsee
If you don't consider the iPod and iPhone radically hacking up their markets,
he has a point.

It is not all-is-acceptable hacking. Jobs, nonetheless, is hacking and
innovating.

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cloudhead
Congrats on completely misunderstanding his essay, and confusing the consumer
with the developer.

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drdo
That would actually matter if Apple had good products. At least I can't stand
the nazi experience that OS X is (i own a macbook, my first and last Apple
product, now running Archlinux).

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astrange
You sound really mad about something! If only you said what it was.

~~~
drdo
My bad choice when purchasing a laptop.

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garret
_Hackers love to experiment in public._

<http://www.apple.com/ipad/>

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barmstrong
Apple is a hardware company.

~~~
glhaynes
Apple is a product company. Those products are a combination of hardware and
software. This is absolutely key to understanding their success.

------
techbio
TL,DR: Paul Graham? NO! Steve Jobs!

~~~
mcantor
I usually don't approve of laconic 4chan memes on Hacker News, but this one
actually seems like a pretty fair summary of the article.

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jawartak
I like your essay, but you're way off-base in your latest analysis of Paul
Graham's essay. Your conclusion that 'Paul Graham's wrong on the value of a
hacker culture (sadly)' can be contradicted with a single word. Software.

You make a great argument, but Apple is not in the software business.

~~~
glhaynes
This distinction between being in the "hardware business" or the "software
business" is what much of the rest of the industry follows and, as a result,
has allowed Apple many of its inroads in the last decade. People want and buy
_products_ , and good high-tech products are a result of good software running
on good hardware.

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robwgibbons
This article doesn't really disprove PG's point. Remember that Steve Wozniak
was an incredible hacker. Sure, Apple has since turned into a locked-down
technological empire, but that is probably largely due to Steve Jobs' business
savvy, and willingness to give up any hacker culture to make money. But the
company was started by one of the most famous hackers of all, and you can bet
he had an influence on the culture.

