

Being "smart" is hard work - extantproject
http://extantproject.wordpress.com/2007/03/05/being-smart-is-hard-work/
Is being a founder similar?
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extantproject
Is founding a startup looked on by non-founders as something that takes a
special type of person (a "smart" person, for example) when really it's just
plain old work? Physics seemed like this huge daunting thing I'd never get my
arms around, until I buckled down and got to work.

~~~
nostrademons
Sometimes it's looked on by founders as something that takes a special type of
person. I've had 3 different entrepreneurs all tell me something to the effect
of "It takes a certain kind of person to be their own boss." (Amusingly, one
thought I was that type of person, one thought I wasn't, and one withheld
judgment either way.)

I disagree with the premise, BTW. I think entrepreneurship - just like
intelligence - is nothing more or less than a certain set of behaviors. Some
people start with an advantage, because they naturally do those behaviors
anyway. Some don't. But it can still be learned.

~~~
pg
One sign independence can be learned is that it can be unlearned. It's
remarkable how working for a big company turns hackers into tame animals.

~~~
mark-t
I would have thought it would be just the opposite. Going to school drives me
bonkers. By the end of the quarter, I can't wait to stop being taught all this
garbage and get back to my own studies/projects. I presume you're talking
about people who feel the same way. What's so different about employment?

~~~
nostrademons
When you're at school, you have a time limit. No matter how soulsucking it is,
you know that if you wait a semester, you'll have vacation all to yourself.
And if you wait 4 years, you'll have a degree and can do whatever you want.

Cognitive dissonance is bearable for short periods. It's excruciatingly
mindwracking when it persists over an open-ended time period with no end in
sight. If you're a technical employee at most software firms, you _will_
eventually find yourself in a situation where you have to obey a technical
decision that you know is wrong. Your options then are:

1\. Don't, and get fired.

2\. Convince yourself that the decision in question really _is_ good. This
explains many Java programmers, actually.

3\. Accept that the decision sucks, but that you often have to go along with
sucky decisions for the sake of the team. This is how good programmers un-
learn independence.

Many people face this dilemma early on in their school career, probably back
when the teacher first assigns busywork (which is now in what, 3rd grade?).
I'd estimate that 90-95% un-learn independence before graduating high school.
A few people make it through high school and college as rebels and
underachievers - they never quite buy into "This is pointless, but I have to
do it anyway." Most will change their mind after getting a job - after all,
most jobs really aren't _that_ bad if you're not in a perpetual power struggle
with your boss.

~~~
whacked_new
Amen to this and the OP.

Speaking of the time limit, it's already blatantly obvious that putting
everyone on the same, fixed time track learning a subject with a fixed
curriculum is out of date and suboptimal. But who's going to challenge
generations of tradition, and the lucrative business called university
education?

That's why modern schools suck in so many ways.

------
dood
Reminds me of Gary Player's quip, in response to the suggestion that he was a
particularly lucky golfer, "the harder you practice, the luckier you get."

