

Great Hacker != Great Hire - antiform
http://www.ericsink.com/entries/No_Great_Hackers.html

======
nostrademons
It's probably worth noting that Eric Sink and PG are in different industries.
Eric Sink started a company that sells software. PG started a company that
sells a service enabled by software, and invests largely in similar companies.

One of the reasons PG suggests building server-based software is that you have
more flexibility in language choice, and hence more ability to hire great
hackers. But there are other reasons to go for that business model: recurring
revenue, fewer distribution hurdles, less chance of incompatibilities,
ownership of customer data, network effects, etc.

I think there was an article about open-source software and Sun's cash
hemorrhage that made it to Hacker News recently - it was either here or
Proggit. That's another instance. Google was cited in the article as a company
that supports open-source - well, that's because Google's business model is
selling services supported by software, and so it behooves them to get the
price of software down as low as possible.

For that matter - hardware, software, and software services are all
complements (in a microeconomic sense), and so each of them has an incentive
to commoditize the others. Hence we have Google supporting open-source and
buying commodity hardware; Sun and RedHat supporting open-source; Microsoft
training lots of developers and providing plenty of tools for them; Apple
basing OS X on open UNIX instead of proprietary MacOS 9; and great hackers
everywhere supporting open source, because it drives up the value of the
service they provide.

~~~
pg
The difference is not so much where the software runs as what the goal of the
company is. I'm interested in startups: companies that at least try to grow
huge. Whereas the "small ISVs" he writes about are just ordinary small
businesses that happen to write software. Since in the latter there's little
scope for brilliance, you're not willing to trade other things for it.

An ordinary small business doesn't need people so smart that they can redefine
the problem. They just need people who are cheap and reliable. Whereas
startups generally try to hire the smartest people they can, even if they're
difficult or expensive.

~~~
demallien
Paul, that distinction you use: _I'm interested in startups: companies that at
least try to grow huge. Whereas the "small ISVs" he writes about are just
ordinary small businesses that happen to write software_ is more a
justification of your own prejudices than reality. For every Google, there's a
Microsoft, or an Adobe.

Software as a Service, and plain old ISV application software can both scale
immensely. I do not need to hire extra bodies if I'm selling 1 million copies
a day of my app than if I'm selling 10 copies. The only thing stopping an ISV
from growing is the popularity of the software, just as the only thing
stopping a Service from growing is popularity of their webapp. In neither case
there is no roadblock to growth caused by a lack of resources.

ISV != small. It never has, and it probably never will.

~~~
ScottWhigham
_I do not need to hire extra bodies if I'm selling 1 million copies a day of
my app than if I'm selling 10 copies. The only thing stopping an ISV from
growing is the popularity of the software..._

Give me a break. If Intuit sells 10mm copies of QuickBooks a year, why don't
they just have 5 or 6 employees instead of the hundreds that they have (that
work on the QB side)?

Your "Build a better mousetrap and the users will come" approach just apply to
every scenario. Maybe to yours, but not to everyone's.

~~~
nostrademons
"If Intuit sells 10mm copies of QuickBooks a year, why don't they just have 5
or 6 employees instead of the hundreds that they have"

Why do Google and Yahoo have 5000+ employees, when Craigslist gets by with
about 20?

Many companies hire people because they can, and because cash in the bank gets
a miserably low return. The extra employees aren't strictly necessary, though
they do help (presumably over the marginal return of cash, which is about 0
when you figure in inflation).

BTW, Intuit's sales took off when they _did_ only have 5 or 6 people. They
probably wouldn't have been able to release anything else if they hadn't hired
more people - the engineers (all 2 of them ;-)) were answering phone calls all
day instead of coding. But they could've grown quite large just on Quicken.

There're a bunch of other ISVs that grew very large on very small teams, eg.
Aladdin (StuffIt) and NullSoft (Winamp). Weren't many of Borland's early
products (Quattro Pro, Turbo Pascal) also done by teams of about 4?

------
IsaacSchlueter
Yet another response from someone who missed the whole point of one of pg's
articles.

In my experience, "great hackers", or stevie's "done, and gets things smart"
types, and so on, are _exactly_ the ones who seem to care the most about
users.

Great hackers don't suffer inefficiency; they correct it. If you want your
nasty little problems solved elegantly, expose the great hackers to them. If
you want to throw warm bodies at annoyed customers, find someone mediocre and
reliable.

Great hackers are the ones that cringe in revulsion at a sloppy code
structure, not (just) because they're OCD about that kind of thing, but
because inconsistency gets in the way of creating beauty.

Erik seems to say that pg is suggesting we should hire a bunch of prima donnas
who don't do "real" work. What I got out of the GH essay is that, if you can
hire Edison, it's madness to put him to work installing light switches. Great
hackers are the game changers, and if you're not a game changing institution,
you won't get them.

 _Hire people who care about users._

Great hackers do. More than Eric seems to realize.

 _Hire people who understand the difference between a job and a hobby._

The difference seems to be that you enjoy your hobby and not your job. I'm not
convinced that's a good thing.

 _Hire people who want to contribute in lots of different ways to the success
of the product._

Great hackers turn mediocrity into gold. They make everyone on the team more
productive, and add value all over the place.

~~~
hello_moto
The same can be said as a CEO, CTO, CIO, Managers, Accountant, Athletes or
basically, anybody who works hard and always try to improve their skills to be
successful.

------
pg
A great hacker might well be a bad match for the sort of company that calls
itself an "ISV." But they seem to be appreciated at ones like Google, and they
make good founders.

~~~
hello_moto
Like-minded people appreciate and respect each other (e.g. hackers praised
other hackers, developers praised other developers). But that doesn't mean
they're the answer to all software development issues.

Case and point: Software development process at Google vs Microsoft. The
former is more like code-n-shoot (not all, but some), the latter is more
disciplined due to years of experience. The former is close to the definition
of "hackers" while the latter is more of "developers" type.

~~~
pg
Results of the two approaches:
[http://finance.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chd...](http://finance.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&chvs=maximized&chdeh=0&chdet=1215904750477&chddm=381616&cmpto=NASDAQ:MSFT&q=NASDAQ:GOOG&);

~~~
ardit33
not a fair comparison. You are comparing a 5 years old company (publicly) that
had huge growth, to a mature one. If you compare current google with msft of
the 80s, you will see that msft actually performed better.
[http://finance.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ%3AMSFT&hl=en](http://finance.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ%3AMSFT&hl=en)
(expand the chart to the max timeline, to see the huge ramp growth MSFT had on
its earlier years).

If you put a dollar in msft in 86, that would have turned into $6.02 in 1990
and $11.09 in 96.

If you bought a dollar is shares of goog in 2004, you would have about $3.93
now.

So the MSFT of the 80s and early 90s hugely outperfomed the current google.
But Microsoft was probably a very different company at the time. As it gets
bigger, it would be much hard to sustain the same path of growth.

And all those people that say "google is different", and wont make the same
mistakes as MSFT, probably are wrong, as at some point, the sheer size of the
company will make it harder to grow, and it will slowly turn just like any
other larg corp.

~~~
pg
It's largely _because_ Google is a young company and Microsoft is an old one
that they have the different approaches to development that they do.

The early Microsoft, from what I've heard, depended more on good hackers and
less on discipline and organization. So it's not surprising that when they
were more like Google, they had growth more like Google's.

~~~
tptacek
That sounds good, but you haven't supported it with evidence. MSFT was firing
on all cylinders during the mid-90's, when Joel wrote "The Joel Test", noting
that Microsoft wasn't conceding anything on process.

Microsoft suffers from lack of vision and strategic direction as they do from
anything else these days. People still accept 60%-of-industry salaries to work
there, after grueling interviews.

~~~
hello_moto
MS salary is above average for fresh grad.

Their benefits are better in overall (depending how you view it I guess). If
you're young and single, you probably don't care much of this-n-that. But if
you're planning to own a house and family, MS compensates you quite well.

------
gaius
_We have learned to value the needs of the users over our own preferences._

He's missed the main point that PG makes about languages - if you are writing
software to run on your own servers and is delivered through HTTP, no-one
cares what language you use. In that context, fussiness is fine.

~~~
jrockway
Languages are especially irrelevant these days. If you want to write a Java
desktop app, you don't have to use the Java language anymore. Clojure, kawa,
JRuby, ... are all options.

If you want to write a server app, which is pretty much what everything is
these days, you can use any language. They'll all do fine. The choice of
language is never going to be your scalability problem.

------
d0mine
_If Graham is right, a great hacker is someone who believes that his own
preferences are more important than doing what is best for the users. Small
ISVs don't need people like that._

 _If Graham is right, a great hacker is someone who is not willing to do any
of the un-fun things that need to be done. Small ISVs don't need people like
that._

 _If Graham is right, a great hacker is someone who is not willing to help the
people who use the software he creates. Small ISVs don't need people like
that._

I've read "Great Hackers" too but noticed nothing of the sort.

~~~
jrockway
Can you edit your post to not stretch the page? Surround the text of the
article with asterisks:

 _Here is a direct quote_

Here is my reply.

    
    
      this->is_for('code'); # not direct quotes
    

Edit: thanks!

~~~
aston
Plus one for blockquotes on news.yc

------
erdos2
"But the essay causes concern. I worry that lots of small ISVs will read his
article and believe that they need to hire great hackers."

Why does this rise to the level of concern? If these small ISVs take what the
author considers misguided advice, they will be less competitive and his
dreary SourceSafe-based business will do even better.

~~~
giles_bowkett
hahahahahaha

a business based on SourceSafe.

------
edw519
My favorite interpretation of the hacker/painter metaphor is that great things
_can_ be done by a team of one.

Try as I may, I simply cannot wrap my mind around the concept of "building a
team" to create the Mona Lisa or paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

Just look at this for 5 minutes and try to imagine it was designed and built
by anything other than a team of one:

[http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?object_id=...](http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?object_id=78386)

Kinda makes the "Great Hacker != Great Hire" argument kinda moot, huh?

~~~
pavelludiq
that's just noise for me. This is a better example:

[http://tn3-1.deviantart.com/fs25/300W/f/2008/043/7/9/perfekt...](http://tn3-1.deviantart.com/fs25/300W/f/2008/043/7/9/perfektna_krasota_by_nasimo.jpg)

its made by Nastera(aka Nasimo), one of Bulgaria's best graffiti artists and a
Balkan champion. What you show doesn't look like it was designed at all. It
was paint pored on the floor!?!? But still you point is correct, just not your
example.

ps I did choose my example very fast, but im a long time graffiti art fan, so
i knew what to look for. I didn't look specifically for this work, but i knew
what artist i wanted to show.

------
giles_bowkett
It's official. This site has completely jumped the shark. Even if it is a
weekend, which is the opposite of prime time for a site like this, the fact
that this link appears in the top ten, it means Hacker News is OVER.

Easily one of the stupidest things I've ever read. I've seen better logic on
the back of cereal boxes. I seriously, sincerely believe that my dog Kaia who
recently passed away (RIP) was smarter than the person who wrote this post.

~~~
pg
Sometimes sites get onto themes. Lately one theme has been to post all the
best-known essays disagreeing with things I wrote. Don't worry, though. There
aren't that many left. And you liked the recent one about New York, even
though that seemed to me roughly equivalent.

~~~
giles_bowkett
No I didn't. That post about New York was stupid too, nowhere near this
stupid, but still not particularly impressive. I can't go into detail about
every random piece of stupidity I encounter.

I can't even read every random piece of stupidity I encounter. Neither this
nor the one about New York was worth reading all the way through. I'm a
writer, I need to avoid stupidity "for the same reason models avoid
cheeseburgers."

I agreed that you were wrong about New York, and I took the effort to conceal
my contempt for the post itself because I figured it was the low point and
people would move on. Obviously the low point was yet to come!

In either case what's more important is the expression of dissent - people on
the site are disagreeing with you. They're trying to launch arrows of
criticism but the points are so pathetically blunt it's more a feeble attempt
at a public stoning than anything else.

My hope was the dissent might provoke you to work harder. That nonsense about
New York, you wouldn't have wasted anyone's time with that in the "Hackers &
Painters" days. This site has completely ruined you as a writer, and you used
to be pretty fucking good. You too need to avoid stupidity for the same reason
models avoid cheeseburgers. I bet you read this ridiculous Eric Sink crap all
the way through, every last word. Those braincells are dead now and nothing
will bring them back.

You should kill Hacker News. Revenge for your slaughtered neurons. A favor to
those of your readers who actually understand the things you write and don't
just read them to kill time after lunch when they should be working. Any site
of this nature is inherently, inevitably, built into its design, a magnet for
the type of jackass who only reads blogs because if they played Warcraft in
the office they wouldn't be able to fool themselves. This site is a diseased
mutant doomed from birth. Give it some tranquilizer so it dies in peace, but
the minute it loses consciousness, take it out back and CUT OFF ITS HEAD.

And before you build the next one, read "The Wisdom Of Crowds." Free votes for
everyone is a recipe for groupthink factories.

Also, the thing about my dog? TOTALLY TRUE. My dog was absolutely smarter than
this Eric Sink guy. Probably by orders of magnitude. Eric Sink has gills and
lives on a diet of algae, pond scum, and moss.

And they're not "essays", dude. They're blog posts. It's a good intention to
elevate the discourse, but it won't work, because what really elevates the
discourse (or lowers it) is the economics of participation. You can call it
anything you want but if it's cheap to publish, cheap to link, and everybody
has one, then it'll display a very wide range in quality and maturity, and
that's just life.

I don't know what the hell is wrong with people that this economics of
participation thing is so obscure. Vote costs nothing but time? Vote becomes
expensive for people with no time and cheap for people with nothing but.
Supply and demand.

The same thing holds for comments, which is why I made it so personal. I'm
going to remember writing it, so you're going to remember reading it. I don't
have time for another one.

Kill this fucker. KILL IT.

~~~
gaika
What do you think about jaanix system? When the "votes" are not votes, but a
feedback to the recommendation system that learns what you think is important.
There's no front page and there's no groupthink. If you "vote up" stupid
stories you're the one who will suffer the most next time a stupid story is
recommended to you.

