
Steve Yegge: Follow Up to His Accidentally Public Rant - janzer
https://plus.google.com/u/0/110981030061712822816/posts/AaygmbzVeRq
======
Jun8
I hate fear-driven cultures where presentations/meetings/casual talk with the
CEO are treated as a gladiator match. In addition to Bezos, of course Jobs and
(from what I read) Gates created such cultures. Another interesting, lesser
known example was Col. Robert R.MacCormick, the editor for the _Chicago
Tribune_ for long years. He was described as "remote, coldly aloof, ruthless
aristocrat, living in lonely magnificence, disdaining the common people... an
exceptional man, a lone wolf whose strength and courage could be looked up to,
but at the same time had to be feared; an eccentric, misanthropic genius whose
haughty bearing, cold eye and steely reserve made it impossible to like or
trust him." [Interesting anecdote: He had all the walls of his penthouse
office at the _Tribune_ covered with dark wood, including the door, so that
after your meeting ended, you would have great difficulty finding the door to
get back out, suffering under his humiliating gaze.]

That _doesn't_ mean that such draconian cultures are unsuccessful, just the
opposite. The problem is, success becomes very much dependent on the quality
of the leader(s), e.g. compare Libya and China; the performance becomes very
brittle.

The main paradox of humanity, of course, is why people continuously create
such fear-driven, hero-worshiping hierarchies, although it causes great
personal stress to them. Belief in a strong, super-genius, infallible leader
that we can _never_ equal and/or please, may be ingrained in our brains, be it
religion or, as in this case, CEO worship.

~~~
srdev
My observation is that a fear-driven culture is often not intentional. They
usually stem from a culture where cutting the bullshit and getting to the
point is encouraged. Most people are used to a culture where niceties are
important, and when they are put in front of a person that cares about results
more than niceties, they can misinterpret that behavior for aggressiveness. In
turn, the people who misinterpret that behavior take their cues from it, and
turn it into actual aggressiveness, in sort-of a cultural game of telephone.

~~~
drzaiusapelord
> They usually stem from a culture where cutting the bullshit and getting to
> the point is encouraged.

My observation is the opposite. The incompetent use fear and anger. The
competent don't need to resort to the lizard part of their brain to
communicate with their subordinates.

Imagine if this guy worked at Apple. He'd be fired and blacklisted. Some
companies just have better cultures than others. Sorry I just don't buy the
whole "ubermen should piss on everyone else because they are better than
everyone and any show of manners is a show of weakness!!" Ayn Rand-fest.

While I undestand the importance of good work and brevity and being
challenged, I suggest you actually read about what its like working with
characters like Steve Jobs. Phrases like "What the fuck is wrong with you,
moron?" are casually tossed around. That's not executive bullshit cutting,
that's petty personal and childish attacks.

~~~
srdev
I think there's a balance. One should spend effort on showing manner and being
considerate of peoples' feelings. At the same time, sometimes these sorts of
things can become pathological to the point where you spend more time making
people feel good rather than getting things done.

As an example, I'm thinking of meetings where everyone speaks up to be heard
whether or not they have something valuable to say. Often times, its warranted
to simply say "Let's stay on-topic," or "Let's off-line that discussion."
Peoples' feelings will be hurt by this, but its necessary to stay productive.
Likewise, if someone has an uber-urgent task for me to accomplish that isn't
_really_ urgent, I'll tell politely but firmly tell them that I don't have the
time and that they should put it in my back-log. This sometimes results in
hurt feelings, but its necessary to keep focused.

Regardless, that's a digression from my main point, which is that I don't
think the fear-based culture is always intentional. Your experiences don't
reflect mine, which is fine, and I concede that incompetent may use fear and
anger to keep people in line. I've simply not worked in those sorts of
organizations before.

------
varelse
I worked at google for a couple months this year. My experience of their so-
called open corporate culture was a bizarre mix of elements from William
Gibson's _The Belonging Kind_ and Robot Chicken's _Our Newest Member, Calvin_.
It was one of the loneliest and depressing experiences of my adult life (but
with really good food).

That said, it turned out that way because I was stupid and naive and let
myself get flung into the russian roulette of their blind allocation process.
This put me on a team doing work for which I had no real relevant experience
and working under a manager who promptly forgot I existed for 3 months.

I'd call my experience an outlier, and it all turned out well in the end when
I fled the place for a better offer doing work far more relevant to my
previous job experience, except that I keep running into others that had
almost exactly the same thing happen to them.

Amidst the hooplah of Larry and Sergei's Montessori for overgrown gifted kids,
there's something very rotten, elitist, and ineffective going on at the
googleplex and the initial frustration in Steve's rant hinted to me that deep
down he knows this too. Perhaps I'm wrong. But I had such high hopes for the
place and they were utterly dashed on the rocks.

~~~
puredemo
>there's something very rotten, elitist, and ineffective going on at the
googleplex and the initial frustration in Steve's rant hinted to me that deep
down he knows this too.

He does.

He wrote the original to pander to them, while bashing Amazon.

------
ctdonath
The issue of "so smart he needs a challenge so leave something for him to
find" may overlap with "so narcissistic he needs something to smack you with
so make a deliberate 'mistake' for him to find". I've found this quite
effective; some people just need to find _something_ wrong with your
idea/presentation/execution, so when they're going to review it, don't polish
it to perfection - leave an error somewhere; you know what the mistake is, you
know what the solution is, you'll take care of it right after it's noticed,
and you'll give him _something_ to criticize so he doesn't have to invent some
off-the-wall delusion which you must now accommodate.

I'm not equating smart with narcissistic, just noting similar behavior with
similar ways to mitigate damage vectors.

~~~
ArbitraryLimits
I've always called this tactic "The Admiral's Pipe" after this story:
<http://blogs.msdn.com/b/brada/archive/2005/05/12/417064.aspx>

~~~
thristian
It's also been called The Duck:

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2349378/new-
programming-j...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2349378/new-programming-
jargon-you-coined/2444361#2444361)

------
ot
His description of presentations to Bezos reminds the infamous BillG reviews

<http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/06/16.html>

~~~
scrame
> The cult of the MBA likes to believe that you can run organizations that do
> things that you don't understand.

Exactly.

A few years back, I found myself in a one-on-one saying: "you would think
someone taking a job managing a hog farm would at least know what a hog is."

Though, that was about web-development.

A suitable allegory.

~~~
ilamont
Except it doesn't always apply.

Lou Gerstner and Meg Whitman are two examples from the technology world. Both
came into their jobs at IBM and eBay with zero tech experience, but got up to
speed very quickly. Of course, had they failed to do so they would have been
out within a year or two.

~~~
mmahemoff
The life and times of eBay does not say good things about the IT-challenged
MBA.

Speaking of Yegge and Amazon: [http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2011/07/ebay-
patents-10-clic...](http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2011/07/ebay-
patents-10-click-checkout.html)

Amazon has continued to grow in simplicity and coverage, including ease of
purchase with third-parties (eBay's dealer market). Meanwhile, buying on eBay
is still a huge pain, with no integration between eBay and its own subsidiary.

------
bad_user

        The last step before you’re ready to present to 
        him is this: Delete every third paragraph.
    

This must have been excruciatingly difficult for Yegge :-)

~~~
moomin
Harder for the the guy with only two paragraphs, though...

~~~
shasta
Easier, I'd say. I was hoping "I deleted eery third paragraph" was going to be
his response to "why isn't data mining on here?".

------
cavalcade
Is it me or does this read like a big ass-kissing of Bezos after he tore him
apart in the accidentally leaked memo? Not saying it isnt true but...

~~~
staunch
He said it himself _"I’ve always skirted any perceived shortcomings and
focused on what they do well."_

Now he's doing that again, in a big way. He's saying "Bezos is a genius" and
not saying "Bezos is a micromanaging asshole"

~~~
gjm11
And yet everyone reading it seems to have worked out that Bezos is a
micromanaging asshole as well as a genius. Interesting, that.

------
brown9-2
I'm curious how these "Jeff Presentations" go.

Powerpoint presentations are banned, instead you have to write your arguments
as an essay.

So is the meeting essentially Bezos reading your writing, with the rest of the
room waiting for any indication about the emperor's mood?

Or does the presenter read from the prose as a script?

Can any Amazon-ers give any insight?

~~~
lurker17
Standard practice at Amazon is to quiet read the materials at the start of the
meeting. I think the logic goes that you want to make sure everyone reads the
material, so you may as well have everyone read the material at the same time,
and discuss it when it is fresh in mind.

As a related effect, it encourages people to write tightly focused documents
that can be read in 15 minutes.

It's not a horrible practice.

------
OoTheNigerian
Although it was a great read, to me it lacked a kind of authenticity.

The first Yegge post felt real, authentic, natural and fully charged. This
second one although better formatted and edited, lacked something. It just
seemed obigatory and bland.

It is rather amazing that you can feel emotions through words.

Or am I the only one thinking this way?

~~~
Tyrannosaurs
I think you're being harsh.

I think it was probably more considered but I'm guessing that everything he's
written since THAT post has been more considered - it would be a completely
natural reaction to having accidentally laid yourself bare. After all whom
amongst us having accidentally forwarded an e-mail to the wrong person hasn't
got a little more careful about what we say for a while afterwards?

But I still think it sounds genuine and honest, just a little more polished.

~~~
OoTheNigerian
Ok, maybe considered is less harsh than bland.

But do you think it is a good thing?

The first time I noticed this was when I listed to the original and then
studio version of 2 Pac's "Hit 'em up". In the first he was really and truly
angry and you could feel it. The second version was 'just there'.

When actors and actresses get "into character" it is really clear. They mean
what they act and it seems natural.

let us just say he was "in character" in the first post but not in the second.

~~~
Tyrannosaurs
The problem is that anger often sounds more authentic but anyone who has ever
been angry will testify that what you say when you're angry (or even just
irritated) doesn't necessarily reflect your actual view, just one facet of it.

Yegge's original piece was making a specific point and he came out with
examples that supported that but that doesn't mean that those examples
represent Yegge's overall view of Bezos and it's reasonable that he might want
to throw out the other side of it.

In terms of whether it's honest - from both pieces I think it's fairly clear
that Yegge doesn't believe that Bezos gives a shit what Yegge thinks so I see
no reason why Yegge wouldn't be being truthful.

But even if Yegge was toning himself down, I don't have an issue with that.

I think that among some in the tech community there is a feeling that
"honesty" and "truth" tend to trump everything. While that's great in theory
the baggage (usually personal offence) that comes with it has to be
considered.

Ultimately life is about getting stuff done and for most of us who aren't Jobs
or Bezos level genius where brutal honesty will be forgiven, a "polished"
truth will often get us better responses from others than it's more brutal
counterpart.

If that's the case we all have to ask ourselves do you want to be right, or do
you want to get things done?

Note: I'm not talking about lying here, I'm just talking about how you present
the truth.

~~~
OoTheNigerian
So how do you suggest you convey true emotions through words while being
diplomatic? As we both agree 'considered' posts can eliminate the true
feeling.

I do not think only anger can be conveyed.

I am not being specific about this very situation. And I agree that being
diplomatic can be more effective most times.

Edited: To provide contest for question.

~~~
Tyrannosaurs
I don't think considered posts do eliminate the true feeling.

They eliminate the visceral, immediate reaction but that's only one part of
the truth. If you're angry (or happy) at someone that's certainly a true
feeling but is it any truer than the way you feel 10 minutes later when you've
calmed down a bit and considered things?

If a colleague irritates me and I shout at him sure that's a representation of
part of what I feel at that moment, but it doesn't represent the fact that
ultimately I respect them and they normally do great work. So is shouting at
them really my true feeling or just one small element of it that ultimately
doesn't represent what I feel very well at all?

Ultimately though I think you have to ask yourself what am I try to achieve,
how is what I'm going to say going to achieve that and am I happy that it
really does represent "the truth" or is it just a knee jerk reaction (good or
bad).

~~~
OoTheNigerian
_If you're angry (or happy) at someone that's certainly a true feeling but is
it any truer than the way you feel 10 minutes later when you've calmed down a
bit and considered things?_

You have made great sense and raised a thought provoking questuion here.

 _Ultimately though I think you have to ask yourself what am I try to achieve,
how is what I'm going to say going to achieve that and am I happy..."_

You have summed it up perfectly.

Combining your two statements above is quite an insight. A great one. Thanks
:)

------
knowtheory
My apologies for straying near politics but i think Yegge's just defined the
best characterization of the 1% :P

> _In some sense you wouldn’t even be human anymore. People like Jeff are
> better regarded as hyper-intelligent aliens with a tangential interest in
> human affairs._

The difference between this description and Yegge's later description of Bezos
as being like the Dread Pirate Roberts of Princess Bride fame, is that Roberts
is a clever human putting on a very clever show to develop a reputation which
does work for Roberts.

Bezos on the other hand, by all accounts, actually does make people walk the
plank. Whether he does it because he's a super-human alien intellect, or some
other reason, doesn't change the fact that he's built up a climate of fear
around him. If anything, describing him as a super-human alien disturbs me
more than if he were acting out of the same motivation as the Dread Pirate
Roberts.

~~~
ovi256
Sorry, but you're way over-optimistic if you think the 1% has the kind of
intelligence (and I'm not talking pure IQ) and focus Bezos has. Bezos is more
like 0.01%.

And I'd venture to say that the OWS movement wouldn't have much against Bezos.
They're more against fratboys that rose to prominence and wealth through
connections. And finance. Yeah, definitely finance. It's there that they sense
some kind of unwarranted self-worth and wealth.

~~~
bigbird
Bezos started out on "Wall St", working at D.E. Shaw in NYC.

~~~
kanwisher
D.E Shaw was starting Internet startups in the early 90s, Bezos pitched them
Amazon and they did Netzero instead so he headed west

------
ananthrk
Steve, if you are reading this, any chance you can throw some light on _the
core skills a generalist engineer ought to know_?

~~~
TomasSedovic
I'll leave it up to Steve to answer that, but this may help you get the idea:

[https://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/five-essential-
pho...](https://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/five-essential-phone-screen-
questions)

This is a Steve's post on how he conducts and what he expects from phone
interviews.

It's over seven years old so proceed with care -- it's possible that his views
changed since then.

Also, this is probably more of a bare minimum rather than the whole picture.

------
danmaz74
By the way, the most important part of the post is where he says that Google
is following through on the problems he pointed out. I'd be curious to see
what (if) will come out of this - if they will expose their internal services
to third parties, that will be great news.

~~~
david927
No, that was just polite talk. This isn't new -- this has been a glaring issue
for a while.

And if they were serious about it, Brin wouldn't have replied so flippantly.
Google is just a one product company (with Gmail being the exception that
proves the rule) lacking the humility and gravitas to be more.

~~~
redthrowaway
Android, Youtube, and Maps aren't products?

~~~
mbreese
While I assume they meant the one product was search, it would probably be
accurate to stay that the product is advertising and that they rest exists to
feed the beast. But I doubt that was the innuendo of their rant.

~~~
statictype
In the same way that television shows are all about advertising and the
acting/stories/dialogue are just to 'feed the beast'?

You're confusing what Google's main product is with how they make money.

That's a bit insulting to the engineers at Google that make Search so good.

~~~
iy56
It's perfectly reasonable to decline calling something a "product" if it
doesn't make money. A widget company might produce a lot of memos in its daily
operation, and might have its own cafeteria that produces food for its
employees. But I think most people wouldn't count lunches or memos among the
company's "products," no matter how good they might be.

~~~
statictype
Not even close to being the same thing. Google does search. That's what they
are known for. Advertising is how they monetize search (which incidentally
came long after they launched their search engine). Only us geeks with an axe
to grind would associate Google with advertising before search. Would you call
a site like Daring Fireball a site that specializes in thoughtful essays on
technology? Or a site that tries to sell the customer's eyeballs to sponsors
and advertisers?

~~~
wanorris
A product is something you sell to a customer.

IMO, Emacs is one of the best pieces of code that the FSF makes, but there's
an important sense in which it's not accurate to call it a "product" of
theirs.

Google _sells_ advertising space to advertisers, while they _give away_ search
and maps to the users to facilitate the selling of said advertising. (GMail is
an exception because they offer business products built out of GMail.)

The fact that search might not be considered a product need not reflect a
value judgment. Either way, it is a very nice service they provide.

But when people refer to Google as an advertising company rather than a search
company, they are correct from a business standpoint. Likewise, many media
companies -- whether like the New York _Times_ or like Daring Fireball -- have
always "really" been in the advertising sales business. (Though some, like the
_Times_ are also in the content sales business.) Those companies obviously
take great pride in the content they produce that draw the eyeballs to those
ads, but it wouldn't be a viable business if the content was all they did.

~~~
jarek
If we want to be nitpicky, one could claim Google has multiple products since
they sell advertising in search, maps, gmail, and more.

~~~
wanorris
Are these discrete products to their AdSense customers? I would think it would
make more sense to break it down by display/text than by site.

------
skizm
Steve Yegge just might help g+ steal some market share from facebook yet.
Every time he releases something like this on g+ I end up spending a few
minutes on the site that I would not have otherwise.

~~~
jarek
I'm actually seeing a significant amount of longer-format posts (especially
from technically-minded people) on Google+. It's a mix of a Facebook status
update and a Facebook note and it's pretty easy to write and publish. (Steve's
privacy setting slip-up notwithstanding...) In a way Google+ seems to be doing
to Tumblr (and in lesser degree Posterous) what Facebook did to Myspace.

------
wccrawford
Actually, that is pretty close to how you should talk to -anyone- who likes
thinking and does it well. If they have a question, they will ask it. You
don't need to fill in every gap. (You need to KNOW it, but you don't need to
say it.)

I would leave out the 'delete every third paragraph' bit, though. Or change it
to 'delete anything that can be inferred.'

------
mun2mun
So he validates the post <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=465882> posted
here 3 years ago.

Snapshot of the blog
[http://web.archive.org/web/20090211060734/http://blog.layer8...](http://web.archive.org/web/20090211060734/http://blog.layer8.net/2009/01/i-was-
trying-to-avoid-this.html)

------
sapphirecat
Contrary to what he wrote here, Steve actually has ragged on Amazon in the
past, in particular in "Have You Ever Legalized Marijuana?" -- the imagery of
Amazon doing things by burning through people like little tea-lights _really_
stuck in my mind.

[http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2009/04/have-you-ever-
legali...](http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2009/04/have-you-ever-legalized-
marijuana.html)

------
harryf
I wonder if Steve needs to move to marketing? He's done an awesome job here of
highlighting one massive difference between GPlus and Facebook - that you can
really publish publicly to the whole world, the way the web was intended.

~~~
jaredsohn
This isn't a difference; you can do the same on Facebook.

Here are a couple of examples:

via a Facebook page called 'notes':
[http://www.facebook.com/notes/web20/robert-scoble-on-
cloud-c...](http://www.facebook.com/notes/web20/robert-scoble-on-cloud-
computing-bubble-or-revolution/10150270162038624?ref=nf)

via user Scoble's wall:
<http://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/10150358391274655>.

No Facebook account needed to view either.

~~~
timsally
Notes have been around for 5+ years and I've never seen them linked as news
stories. In contrast, I've seen Google+ updates consistently submitted as news
to HN and other sources. There _is_ a significant difference between Google+
updates and Facebook Notes and it's worth thinking about why. I suspect it has
to do with the fact that status updates and public posting in Google+ are the
same interface. For Facebook, status updates are character limited and you
have to click into the Notes tab in order to write something longer.

~~~
jaredsohn
While I agree those differences are important I think culture also plays a
large role.

Facebook started primarily as a website for college students to share
privately with their friends.

Google Plus started by emphasizing that you can choose who you want to share
with (including the public) and shipped with a "subscribe-like" feature that
allowed technical people to add many of the same tech celebrities that they
were following on Twitter. Since it takes awhile to convert one's friends to a
new service, for many tech people, reading public posts by these other tech
people became the prominent way they use the service.

You can mostly do the same things on each site (albeit at different levels of
convenience), but their beginnings help shape how people think about and use
the sites.

------
spicyj
Combined with all the talk of Isaacson's new Steve Jobs biography, makes me
want to read an in-depth biography of Bezos's life.

~~~
bgarbiak
Comes out next week: [http://www.amazon.com/One-Click-Jeff-Bezos-Amazon-
com/dp/159...](http://www.amazon.com/One-Click-Jeff-Bezos-Amazon-
com/dp/1591843758/)

~~~
davidw
I'm actually more interested to read this, for several reasons:

Much of the "Steve Jobs story" is quite public already - it's stuff that you
just can't help knowing. Reed, Wozniak, kicked out of Apple, Next, Pixar,
etc... I'm sure the bio will have some new details, but the basic plot is
pretty well known.

Jeff Bezos, OTOH, is someone I know relatively little about. Also, given that
my nascent LiberWriter business deals with Kindle formatting, decisions those
guys are making have a very real impact on me.

------
simondlr
Well written! Is Jeff Bezos really like he paints him to be?

~~~
potatolicious
I've presented to Bezos once. It went about the same as Yegge's experience,
except I didn't have his balls to laugh in my CEO's face ;)

The whole thing felt like I was meeting the President - layer after layer of
aides and executive assistants, tons of security, and briefings on where to
sit, where to not sit, where to stand, where to not stand, look him in the eye
when you shake his hand, etc etc. It was kind of surreal.

I haven't presented to any other big-corp CEO other than him, so I can't
really draw any comparisons.

One thing Yegge brought up that I also felt the same about walking out of that
room: Jeff is _really_ smart, like _really, really_ smart. I was warned about
this beforehand and spent two weeks poring over every single detail, potential
feature, _everything_ about the idea I was presenting. He _still_ managed to
come out of left field with relevant questions that none of us had even
thought of. So I can corroborate that side of the story.

The comparison to Liszt also seems apt - before we were even done presenting,
he'd already grokked it to a surprising degree, and was already expanding upon
the idea in out loud. You could _hear_ my manager scribbling like a madman
trying to get all of this down. This might not seem _especially_ amazing, but
the Director and VP level people I presented the very same idea to had not the
same depth of insight. I remember being very impressed on the spot.

I'm no longer with Amazon, and I don't particularly want to go back - but
that's not due to bad top management, IMO Bezos is one of the keenest tech
CEOs around. He might be the closest thing we have left to Jobs.

To balance it out a bit and not make this seems like a complete Amazon love-
fest: Jeff _loved_ our idea, he gave us the green light right away. We left
that room ecstatic thinking we were about to change the online retail
experience forever.

Then middle management showed up. There was political infighting about who
owns the project - it straddled multiple disciplines (hence why it was so
groundbreaking), and there was a mixture of both hot-potato-oh-god-you-take-it
and this-is-amazing-we-need-the-credit-on-this.

The teams that were interested were unwilling to yield to other teams that
(rightfully, given their expertise and domain) wanted in, and some teams we
needed support from kept punting it since it wasn't in their yearly plan (put
together, well, a year or more ago). The project would have provided very
powerfully tangible, very high-profile benefits to the customer, but said
benefits weren't part of the metrics on which our department was getting
judged, so at the VP level the willingness to devote resources was almost non-
existent. There was lots of lip service given - especially about how a few
people were able to hack together this _thing_ and make it all the way to a
Jeff Presentation.

But ultimately the project froze. It was, actually, probably _the_ main reason
I decided to leave Amazon for a smaller, more agile startup, where if the CEO
wants something done, by golly, it's gettin' done.

~~~
jonah
That's a good illustration of no matter how brilliant the leader is, a bad
team under them and/or poor execution can lead to failure.

Even with this infighting and whatnot going on Amazon is still doing amazing
things. I'd be interesting to see what it'd look like if they were able to
execute everything well.

It seems that's also a crucial role of the exec - if they see something that
needs to be happening and it's not, they need to get in there make the
necessary changes.

~~~
gaius
How does a good leader end up with a bad team? That's worth understanding.

~~~
stonemetal
There are probably a million different ways for it to go bad.

There is a theory that gets posted here from time to time that As hire As and
a few Bs that get through the filter, Bs hire Bs and a few Cs get through the
filter, and so on down the line until you have hired people you really
shouldn't have.

The other theory is promote until incompetent.

My guess is much more mundane, when you hire middle management they act like
middle management. Which works as long as Their sphere of responsibility and
control is well defined. When you need to cross cut concerns middle management
actively fights against it. All most like using inheritance for code reuse and
having deep inheritance hierarchies.

~~~
gaius
The theory is usually stated as A's hire A's and B's hire C's (because they
are afraid of being usurped)

~~~
loumf
Also B's can't tell the difference between A's, B's and C's.

~~~
jarek
Since classifying people appears to be so trivial it can be boiled down to one
character, does being bothered by the use of apostrophes in pluralization make
me an A, a B, or a C?

~~~
stonemetal
I think that puts you solidly in the B or C category for unwillingness to
think outside the box.</sarcasm>

------
sajid
Steve left out data mining and machine learning from his presentation and
Bezos spotted it. Is that an example of Bezos' smarts or just a silly omission
on Steve's part? Steve keeps emphasizing how smart Bezos is but I see no
evidence of it in this post. It just seems like Bezos is good at spotting
obvious mistakes people make.

------
reven
Link to the accidental post

[https://plus.google.com/112678702228711889851/posts/eVeouesv...](https://plus.google.com/112678702228711889851/posts/eVeouesvaVX)

------
linuxhansl
Whatever. Jeff might be super smart, but apparently he is not smart enough to
instill some happiness in the people he works with.

I cannot help it, but I have little respect for people who do this,
_especially_ if they are super smart.

~~~
iy56
Why is that a necessary quality for smartness? Amazon seems to be doing quite
well in spite of it.

~~~
j_baker
Just because you can be financially successful being an asshole doesn't make
being an asshole ok.

I think there's a subtle (but important) distinction. Smart people can get
away with having poor people skills: accidentally offending people, putting
their foot in their mouth, and forgetting about the _human_ element in
technology. That can be forgiven, and may even be an advantage.

At the same time, there's a difference between having poor people skills and
being an asshole: _intentionally_ offending people, putting others down so you
can get ahead, and willfully ignoring the human element make you an asshole. I
think this often (but unfortunately not often enough) hurts people more than
it helps.

Bezos sounds like a bit of a grey area. However, I don't think you can make a
decision on this based on the performance of amazon. He's certainly successful
at what he does, but there are any number of people who have created success
at too high a cost: demoralized people, broken laws, and ultimately a bigger
burden is placed on society than the gain that made them successful.

------
tlogan
I agree with this description of Jeff Bezos:; I hear the similar stories.

Actually, majority of successful leaders (founders, etc.) have s very strong
"bullshit detector": for kind of bullshit one can use to receive promotions
all way up to a director position - even up to VP.

And it also shows that some people are not succeeding because they are
paralyzed by fear of poverty.

------
jjm
The one paragraph that hits home to me was the last:

"That’s where the “Dread Pirate Bezos” line came from. I worked hard and had
fun, but every day I honestly worried they might fire me in the morning. Sure,
it was a kind of paranoia. But it was sort of healthy in a way. I kept my
resume up to date, and I kept my skills up to date, and I never worried about
saying something stupid and ruining my career. Because hey, they were most
likely going to fire me in the morning."

How else can you know your on the 'edge' of your own personal abilities? Nice
to know that no matter who you are, those feelings don't go away... unless
your Bezos (hey there has to be a few people like that around). :-)

------
scottjad
A hyper-intelligent alien is supposedly in our midst and the only evidence
given of his vast intelligence is that once upon a time he asked why two
software concepts that have been used prominently for years to great profit in
his software business that's been running for years were left off a list?
Really?

------
hndl
I feel this is a general perception of a leader at any large enough
institution. The sense of what they've accomplished makes us perceive them as
extraordinary. By the time we get to interact with them, we've created this
larger than life image.

Perhaps, inducing that into your team makes you a good leader. Perhaps not.

------
nethsix
I think that is a good way to approach anything in life. Prepare hard for it
but accept that there'll always be people smarter/better than you. That way,
you will worry less about bombing out during presentations, and be more
receptive to constructive criticisms.

------
josscrowcroft
Any copy of the original anywhere?

As an aside: did he just say Franz Liszt was "famous-ish"?!

~~~
defen
The fact that you reacted that way indicates that he's not actually as famous
as you'd like him to be. If he'd described George Washington as a "famous-ish"
general, you'd know he was being sarcastic.

~~~
keithpeter
I think this is e a cultural distance effect. I belong to a generation and
live in a place where Liszt is part of the core. I recognise other places and
generations may be different.

Back on topic, I always used to smile when I saw the Lisp interpreter known as
Franz Lisp load up. Pity they re-branded it.

------
edw519
Hey Steve, lots of Hacker News readers are just as smart as Jeff Bezos. Some
of us may even be smarter. You may remove every third paragraph for him, but
you can remove every third _word_ for us and we can fill in the rest with our
giant brains. Here goes:

Last week accidentally posted internal rant service platforms my public
account. It somehow viral, which nothing short stupefying given it was massive
Wall Text. The thing still surreal.

Amazingly, nothing happened to at Google. just laughed me a, all the up to
top, for committed what be the of all screwups in history.

But also listened, is super. I probably talk much it, but already figuring how
to with some the issues raised. I I shouldn’t surprised. When I in my post
that “does everything”, I meant. When they’re with any at all, it’s technical
organizational or, they set to solve in a way.

Anyway, whenever goes viral, start wondering it was or staged. accident was.
While I no proof, can offer what I is the convincing evidence: the last and a
years, I never once on Amazon. Even just months ago, a keynote I gave a
conference, was pretty when I about my there. I’ve skirted any shortcomings
and on what do well.

I still a lot friends at. In fact place is of people admire and. And up now I
prided myself my professionalism I have about Amazon. on the, even in internal
memo, uncharacteristically unprofessional me. So been feeling guilty for past
week.

Without retracting I said, like to a more picture for. I’m going try to that
picture some true that I’ve shared publicly. secondhand: it’s stuff I myself
there. hope you’ll the stories, because it’s hell of interesting place.

Amazon started Jeff, I’ll my stories one about.

Amazon War #1: Jeff

Over years I people give to Jeff and come bruised: emotionally, often career-
ily. you came with a or a, you were for joy. to Jeff a gauntlet tends to
people back the cave lick their and stay of the for a.

I say and you think PowerPoint, no: he PowerPoint there years ago. not allowed
the campus. you present Jeff, you it as.

One day came time me to to Jeff. felt like... don’t know, how they around you
you’re going meet the. People giving last-minute advice, you luck, you past of
admins security guards. like you’re a movie. gladiator movie.

I’d spent watching Jeff action before turn came, I had in an way. My
presentation --, roughly speaking about the skills a engineer ought know --
was resounding success. loved it. everyone was me on back and me like just
completed game-winning hail-mary or something. VP told privately:
“Presentations Jeff never that well.”

here’s the: I had suspected Jeff going to my presentation. see, I noticed two
about him, him over years, that had either caught on, or else had not out how
make the actionable.

Here how I. Amazon people, note. This will you. I dead serious.

prepare a for Jeff, make damn you know there is know about subject. Then a
prose explaining the and solution(s). it exactly way you write it a leading or
industry on the.

is: assume already knows about it. he knows than you about it. if you
groundbreakingly original in your, just pretend old hat him. Write prose in
succinct, direct, way that would write a world-leading on the.

almost done. last step you’re ready present to is this: every third.

Now you’re to present!

in the there was famous-ish composer/pianist Franz Liszt. is widely to have
the greatest who ever. He could anything you him, including stuff not written
for, like opera. He was staggeringly good sight-reading that brain was fully
engaged the first. After that get bored start embellishing his own.

Bezos is goddamned smart you have turn it a game him or be bored annoyed with.
That was first realization him. Who how smart was before became a -- let’s
just it was “frigging smart”, he did Amazon from. But for he’s had of people
care of for him. doesn’t have do anything all except himself in morning and
presentations all long. So really, REALLY at reading. He’s like Franz Liszt
sight-reading presentations.

you have start tearing whole paragraphs, even pages, make it for him. will
fill the gaps without missing beat. And brain will less time get annoyed the
slow of your.

I mean, what it be like start off an incredibly person, arguably first-class
genius, then somehow up in situation where have a view of industry battlefield
ten years. only do have more than anyone, and access more information anyone
else, also have long-term eagle-eye that only handful of in the enjoy.

In sense you even be anymore. People Jeff are regarded as aliens with
tangential interest human affairs.

how do prepare a for a alien? Well, my second: He will you. Knowing about your
is only first-line defense you. It’s armor that eat through the first minutes.
He going to at least deep insight the subject, there on spot, and going to you
look a complete.

me folks, saw this time and, for years. Bezos has these incredibly,
experienced domain surrounding him huge meetings, on a basis he of shit they
never coming. It’s guaranteed facepalm.

So I he was to think something that hadn’t. I know what might be, I’d spent
trying to of everything. had reviewed material with of people. it didn’t. I
knew was going blindside me, that’s what when you to Jeff.

you assume coming, then not going catch you as off-guard.

of course happened. I Data Mining. in the. He asked point-blank, very: “Why
aren’t Mining and Learning in list?” And laughed right his face, sent a wave
through stone-faced jury VPs who been listening silence, waiting a cue Jeff as
whether he going to happy or was headed the salt.

I laughed I was. He’d caught with my down around ankles, right front of,
despite all excruciating weeks preparation. I even deleted a third the
exposition to keep giant brain, but it matter. He’d it again, I looked a total
in front everyone. It was awesome.

So, of course couldn’t help. And I: “Yup, you me. I know why not in. It
should. I’m a. I’ll add.” And he, and we on, and was great. the VPs smiling.
It the hell of me they’d had wait for cue, but whatever. was good.

have to: most people scared around because they waaaay too about trying keep
their. People in positions sometimes a little much personal invested in
success. Can imagine how it must for him be around people all long? But --
well, I I was to get every single. So fuck. Might as aim high go out a ball
flame.

That’s the “Dread Bezos” line from. I hard and fun, but day I worried they
fire me the morning. it was kind of. But it sort of in a. I kept resume up
date, and kept my up to, and I worried about something stupid ruining my.
Because hey, were most going to me in morning.

~~~
jisaacstone
That was surprisingly legible!

And I don't think it is because of my 'giant brain', considering how long it
took me to understand Taylor Series in university.

~~~
yonran
It just reads like an annoying Google Voice transcript. Probably bears no
resemblance to the presentation to Bezos.

------
Maro
> That is: assume he already knows everything about it. Assume he knows more
> than you do about it. Even if you have groundbreakingly original ideas in
> your material, just pretend it’s old hat for him. Write your prose in the
> succinct, direct, no-explanations way that you would write for a world-
> leading expert on the material.

So if he knows everything, why am I writing for him?

~~~
barrkel
How do you know your minions are any good when you delegate tasks to them? How
do you find out if they can think for themselves?

------
jroseattle
This post actually is _more_ telling about the absurdity of working at Amazon
than the post he took down.

------
juliano_q
Anyone could please paste the follow up here? All social networks blocked at
my company.

~~~
dmoney
Same here. It's annoying that people are now using the social network for
content they'd otherwise post on a blog.

------
swah
With a company the size of Google, isn't releasing something for every
employee considered almost "making public" ?

------
barce
Misdirection and inauthentic, that's what I call Steve Yegge's follow up
piece.

Internet attention spans suck.

Remember his first post? Amazon is doing everything wrong and Google is doing
everything right.

If Bezos is a super intelligent alien, this begs the question, why is Amazon
doing everything wrong?

Also, Google didn't fire Steve Yegge because he did what their 6-figured
marketing people couldn't: With a single post, Steve Yegge brought millions of
uniques to Google+.

------
espeed
The Bezos-presentation formula would probably work well for Y Combinator
applications

------
barmstrong
I wouldnt be surprised if Steve has a book deal coming.

------
krookoo
I doubt it was actually "accidental".

------
adnam
Is Steve trying to win the award for the brownest nose in the tech industry?

------
exim
Gee.. This guy loves writing.

------
sumukh1
Interesting read on Bezos. Did not know that he was like that. I added Yegge
to my circles since he seems to tell a story well.

------
gbog
I still can't believe the first post was not a fake. Gosh, it didn't contain
any figures. How in a data-driven company can you propose some analysis
without them?

~~~
Confusion
The same way people don't need any figures to accept that a law prohibiting
murder is a good idea. You demonstrate a sufficiently compelling argument and
often only words are needed.

------
zerostar07
Liszt was "famous-ish"? No wonder nobody knows him today.

~~~
gaius
Franz Lisp is named after him.

