
The Wolf - filament
http://randsinrepose.com/archives/the-wolf/
======
themodelplumber
I was working as on a corporate dev team that hit a goldmine at one point,
causing management to freak out and go on a hiring spree. They brought at
least three wolves on board within a period of a couple months. One of them
reminded me of the portrayal of Kameto Kuroshima in the 1970 film "Tora Tora
Tora". He would think and think for hours on end, then he'd emerge from his
cubicle (all sweaty and dramatic) with a Plan. At that point everything had to
change because everyone knew his experience levels blew us all away. When he
attended meetings, it was like he was five steps ahead of everybody else, and
later I realized that it was because the meetings were usually called as a
result of something he decided should change. I could easily see most of the
people above him being fired if this guy ever got pissed.

One of the other wolves was an experienced college professor who was brought
in as a team lead, but who for all intents and purposes was an SVP in the
organizational hierarchy. He was financially independent at a fairly young age
and basically gave inspirational speeches and CS lectures instead of meetings.
We were all freshmen to this guy, and he was light years ahead of our
experience levels.

I liked these wolves, if that's what they were--they gave me hope that
somewhere an executive was really freaked out about making the right call at a
critical time.

~~~
S4M
Interesting explanation. Maybe you're not gonna be able to share that, but I
would be curious to see some examples of what they did, that is so
exceptional. Did they decide to rewrite some critical module using
language/framework X, which resulted in a crazy performance gain? Did they
completely change the architecture of something which made the whole company
(or a whole group of devs) much more efficient?

~~~
themodelplumber
As I recall, they made the existing software architecture more scalable,
maintainable, and available. This was no mean feat, either. Our clients were
pretty huge, well-known companies. There was quite a bit of language &
framework discussion to go along with all that. But I think their experience
levels also just allowed them to accomplish more in less time. To us, they
looked like superheroes. We'd get mental blocks trying to think through
situations that they had long ago met and conquered. In a similar vein, I
think if most of us here at HN went back to our first job, we'd be well ahead
of the curve and probably considered "wolves" in a very short time.

------
bsaul
I pity the new developpers just starting their career and reading those kind
of articles without the minimum amount of skepticism and distance required.
Please, if you don't have at least two or three years of actual programming in
a real company, don't try to become a "10x" something, or "ninja" or "wolf" or
whatever world of warcraft character a manager would like to describe people
as.

Just be a good employee. Do as being told, and as neil gaiman would say, just
"make good art".

~~~
McDoku
It is either in your nature or it is not. We all need good soldiers.

~~~
tbrownaw
It requires:

\+ At least moderate technical skill, which is acquired thru study and
experience.

\+ Significant domain knowledge (understanding of the problem being solved),
again acquired thru study and experience.

\+ Sufficient familiarity with the organization you're working in to know what
you can and can't get away with, acquired thru social interaction.

\+ Ability to find _unexpected_ better solutions to things. Unless someone's
figured out how to teach this, it just requires _lots_ of practice with good
feedback.

The only "in your nature" here, is whether you find these things interesting
enough to put in the required study/practice time.

~~~
andrewflnr
I think the key feature of a "wolf" as described here is a willingness to
ignore the official leadership and management structures. That is definitely
something that has a string built-in component.

~~~
McDoku
Maybe test social conformity. Mind you the second you do, well people will
game it

------
adwf
I really like the idea and agree since I've met a couple of people who could
meet that description. The problem always seems to be identifying the Wolves
from the Cowboys. ie. Telling the difference between a "10x" coder who will
live outside the rules and get things done, versus a "10x" coder who lives
outside the rules and leaves you with a humungous mess of undocumented,
unmaintainable spaghetti code when he leaves. Resulting in potential negative
productivity by the end.

Does anyone know any reliable ways of telling the difference? Beforehand I
mean; it's easy to tell in hindsight. Or is it better to avoid hiring both
Wolves and Cowboys, but count your blessings if you accidentally get a Wolf
anyway?

~~~
x0x0
Spaghetti code isn't necessarily bad code. It's impossible to decide without
understanding the business circumstances. Our job isn't to write code; it's to
create business value. If the business value of doing a hack job really fast
outweighs the cost of doing things in a maintainable way, it was the right
thing to do.

Finally, the problem with hiring a so-called wolf is you can't. Acting that
way relies on having credibility within the org that you can only build by
having a track record of delivering stuff for senior execs. And that you can
almost certainly only create by working for a company for a long time.

~~~
gknoy

      Spaghetti code isn't necessarily bad code. 
      .... understanding the business circumstances. 
      Our job isn't to write code; it's to create business value. 
    

I'm not sure I agree. Superficially, that's true. However, I've frequently
seen the "business circumstances" change dramatically from what had previously
implemented. Sometimes it's a month later, sometimes a year later, but having
a system where Someone Else can understand what's going on, and where there
was a coherent design to deliver the business logic, has been critical to
letting us change things easily, and know we did it right.

Hacking something out can work, but I'd be very very wary of saying "As long
as it's creating more business value, it's OK" \-- because it makes it more
expensive to deliver future/changed business value next time.

~~~
Schwolop
In my experience, the change in business circumstances is precisely what
creates the spaghetti code in the first place. It's far easier to write a
beautiful extensible system if you have solid unchanging requirements - when
the reqs change in foreseen ways that extensibility looks like great
foresight. When the reqs change unpredictably, often all that work on
extensibility is wasted or even detrimental because the changes required are
deeper or different to what the original system made possible.

I think some of the art of software engineering is in the softer skill or
predicting how requirements are likely to change in the future, and building
in extensibility only where its likely to be needed (or is easy to get for
free/cheap, which sometimes happens too.) It's like YAGNI vs pragmatism.

~~~
gknoy

      some of the art of software engineering is in ...
      predicting how requirements are likely to change in the 
      future, and building in extensibility only where needed
    

I agree. I've definitely fallen into the trap of overengineering an
extensible, multi-use solution for something that gets used once.

I've also been blessed to be encouraged by my boss to go all-in on reusability
on a different feature, which turned out to have really paid dividends now
that pretty much every subsequent feature request has been able to be handled
without hassle.

It's definitely a skill I expect to continue to improve at over my career. :)

------
idlewords
The Wolf-not to be confused with the "Free Electron" from a few years ago, or
whatever startup Mary Sue character Lopp comes up with next.

------
unclesaamm
It's times like this that I love that I got a psychology major. I can whip up
bullshit like this until managers are frothing at the mouths

~~~
idlewords
Ah, you must be what I like to call a "Bull" — an essential factor to startup
success!

------
rythie
In my experience they mostly hate management, thinking they make poor
decisions and don't understand the tech. They only want to talk to other very
good technical people, which effectively means not communicating very few
people. They probably are making good technical descisions that benefit the
company, but never communicate this, so don't get the credit. They probably
have an internal advocate (e.g. their boss) which communicates what they are
doing and defends them.

------
ianstallings
I know a guy that could be described like this. He's a great programmer and he
doesn't follow anyone else's rules but his own. And if you don't like it he'll
tell you, politely, why you're wrong and why you should shove off because he's
never going to do what you want him to. He has very little patience for
meetings, paperwork, or typical processes that don't add anything to the
software we're building.

When I first worked with him close to 20 years ago, he was fired very quickly.
Reason? Because he took our Windows machines and installed Linux on them. Now
that might be _cowboy_ to some but in his mind he was helping us. Windows was
shit in his mind and he was saving us. Doing the _right thing_ trumped the
consequences in his opinion.

I gotta say, he's had a tumultuous career, but he still manages to get paid
more than I do and do whatever the hell he feels like. And he's made a lot of
people a lot of money because of his ways.

~~~
crimsonalucard
Switching jobs often gives you more opportunity to raise your salary.

~~~
oofabz
But it drops your political capital to zero because now you're the new guy.

~~~
count
Depends on if you were recruited or if you applied for the job.

If someone is working to get you in, you come out of the gate with some
political capital...

------
gatehouse
I'm guessing he has chosen the name from Mr. Wolf in Pulp fiction: (profanity
warning)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWmRTjLRMfU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWmRTjLRMfU)

~~~
UweSchmidt
Was anyone else disappointed by that guy? "Please clean up the mess" is
basically what he said.

~~~
the_af
I think eliciting that kind of disappointment in the audience was part of the
"point" of the character :)

The Wolf also said the coffee was pretty good, by the way.

~~~
coldtea
What dissapointment? That's a bizarro reading of the scene.

The Wolf was put there to be impressive -- domineering, knowing how to handle
this shit like he's done it 100 times, professional, etc.

Not to mention the fact that Tarantino was a huge fan of Harvey.

~~~
dasil003
And of course Harvey was the reason that Reservoir Dogs got made and possibly
the only reason Tarantino has a career.

~~~
the_af
[citation needed] ?

------
siliconc0w
There was a guy at the last place we worked we jokingly referred to as "the
wolf" (pulp fiction man cite your sources). It basically worked like the movie
where you'd come over to his cubicle and describe your problem - he'd go "yeah
yeah aight mmmmhm" point by point like an interpreter. And the first time this
happen you think he isn't paying attention but when you are done he'd process
for a bit and the reliably spit out a usually great solution that took in
balance the effort required and the business needs.

------
hartator
I also feel it's wolves who make the best entrepreneurs.

But everything is make against the entrepreneur wolf. Even accelerators may
destroy the potential of a very strong vision that wolves can't explain. Steve
Jobs was certainly a wolf.

~~~
ams6110
Was he? I have't read his biographies but my general impression is that while
Steve Jobs was certainly a visionary and an entrepreneur, he was not really an
engineer. Did he write a lot of code? Did he really engineer anything? Or did
he surround himself with excellent engineers who could create his visions?

~~~
lutusp
I worked around Steve for years, I couldn't stand him so I spent as little
time in his company as possible, but I can say he wasn't an engineer or a
serious coder. He was what is now called a "visionary", a catch-all phrase
that can mean anything or nothing.

When Bill Gates saw bad code, he would sit down and rewrite the code to shame
the perpetrator. Steve didn't have that option. This is how he acquired a
deserved reputation as a tyrant -- he could only fire people or humiliate them
before their coworkers, but he couldn't outperform them.

In the early days at Apple, and not to oversimplify, people like me coded the
software, while Steve coded the customers.

On the general topic of Steve Jobs, I highly recommend the Isaacson biography,
excellent book, and one that openly acknowledges Steve's core malady --
pathological narcissism.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs_(book)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs_\(book\))

~~~
coldtea
> _I worked around Steve for years, I couldn 't stand him so I spent as little
> time in his company as possible_

So, did you tell that to his face? Because this sounds like post-mortem sour
grapes. As if all he did was shout at people and look at his fabulous self in
the mirror...

He created and brought several companies to the top -- on of those twice,
first from a garage, then from near banrunptcy.

And he did that while ignoring all the BS advice given by analysts and
industry pundits, as well as the directions and fads of the industry for a
whole decade.

Heck, his "most failed" company was sold off for $400 million, and ended up
domineering the buyer company, saving it and leading it to become the hugest
company in America.

~~~
lutusp
> So, did you tell that to his face?

Never. Couldn't take the risk -- we had a very lucrative relationship that
such a statement would have jeopardized:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Writer](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Writer)

> Because this sounds like post-mortem sour grapes.

Not really. Most people who worked closely with Jobs held the same views, and
didn't express them. But read the Isaacson book, see for yourself. Narcissists
aren't a role model for self-criticism or a willingness to hear the criticisms
of others.

> Heck, his "most failed" company was sold off for $400 million, and ended up
> domineering the buyer company, saving it and leading it to become the hugest
> company in America.

You're overlooking several factors -- the influence of very creative people
who worked with Jobs, a prime technological opportunity (new technical devices
and abilities culminating in the personal computer), and chance.

Of several companies in competition, if you somehow were able to erase
anything but superficial differences, one of them would still come out on top,
because of a snowball effect in which people decide en masse that they prefer
A to B for no particular reason.

~~~
coldtea
> _You 're overlooking several factors -- the influence of very creative
> people who worked with Jobs, a prime technological opportunity (new
> technical devices and abilities culminating in the personal computer), and
> chance._

I don't say he created OS X or the iPod, etc. Neither in their technical
details, nor even in their high level UI (although he had some influence in
that too)( _).

Just that he created a very specific climate and culture were those things
could be produced in the way they were, and steered towards specific
approaches to product lines, pricing, etc that could make those products
thrive.

Competitors with the same amount of assets (or even far more at the start),
and tons of "very creative people" couldn't get something as coherent out, and
seemed to miss the whole point time and again. Not with things that require
luck or money or access to talent, but with things that require specific
decisions.

Similarly, those "prime technological opportunities" were available for all
who could see it, and "very creative people" were working in all companies
too. It's not like Apple, NeXT, Apple-2-in-near-bankrupcy were even a
particularly attractive employer (at least before the iPod's success).

>_Of several companies in competition, if you somehow were able to erase
anything but superficial differences, one of them would still come out on top,
because of a snowball effect in which people decide en masse that they prefer
A to B for no particular reason.*

Don't know, the IBM PC market for example had IBM, Dell, HP, Compaq, etc
competing rather strongly for 2 decades or so (which are aeons in IT).

And I don't think most competitors to Apple products had just "superficial
differences". Following the scene since the late nineties I see a repeated,
generalized lack of a plan and understanding of the markets they tried to
compete with Apple in.

(*) Also I don't doubt that he had sociopathic aspects, although I'm not his
doctor and I didn't have to be around him, so I don't care about that. At
least he didn't kill anyone, which is better that lots of people in my book.
I'd call any banker or golden parachute type of manager a worse sociopath.

------
robobro
[http://www.bryanthankins.com/techblog/2009/04/12/the-myth-
of...](http://www.bryanthankins.com/techblog/2009/04/12/the-myth-of-the-
solitary-programmer/)

[http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/503542/TheplusMythplusof...](http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/503542/TheplusMythplusofplustheplusLoneplusHacker)

[http://www.safaribooksonline.com/library/view/team-
geek/9781...](http://www.safaribooksonline.com/library/view/team-
geek/9781449329839/ch01.html)

Counter argument.

------
simi_
Also a good read: [http://steve-yegge.blogspot.co.uk/2008/06/done-and-gets-
thin...](http://steve-yegge.blogspot.co.uk/2008/06/done-and-gets-things-
smart.html)

------
tbrownaw
This sounds like something that would come with a job title of "internal
consultant" or "<whatever> at large" or such, and be at the top of the
technical career track.

------
hellbanner
Are they talking about "good programmers"? Don't really see the difference
between the two or understand the name "the wolf".

~~~
JackMorgan
I've worked with plenty of "good programmers" who absolutely need a structure
and process in order to feel comfortable turning on their machines in the
morning. Some people need to feel like they have approval to do anything, and
would never suggest a new framework or toolset ever. Most would recoil in
horror at someone doing anything different from the Process. I'd argue these
developers can do really good work in certain teams, but they need some hand
holding.

