

Ask HN: How can a brilliant hacker make the greatest impact on the world? - apu

Let's assume the hacker is really fucking good at hacking, and reasonably intelligent/capable at other stuff.<p>Here are the options I see:<p>1. Start a Startup - Everything I've read suggests that the founders (and first ~5 employees) of a startup will be spending a lot of their time on non-hacking stuff.<p>2. Join a big company like Google - How much impact can a single employee have at a big company? Particularly a junior one who just joins (regardless of hacking ability).<p>3. Industrial research lab like Microsoft Research - Hacking ability is usually a distant second compared to research ability as a requirement for these type of jobs.<p>4. Academia - Even more so than (3).<p>5. "Side-projects" - This seems like the most effective way to me, but it requires another source of funding to sustain yourself.<p>What am I missing? Where am I wrong?
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jacquesm
You make it seem as though those are all choices that you get to make
yourself. The assumption 'really fucking good at hacking' rarely holds true
though.

Once you've proven yourself then those doors will open.

For someone that's simply convinced they are that good but without a track-
record the only options are (1) and (5), all the rest will require some form
of proof beyond 'your saying so'.

~~~
apu
Let's assume those are all available options. Which one should he pick?

~~~
jacquesm
If 'he' were that good 'he' would know.

But assuming he is that good and through some freak of history perceives (1)
through (5) as being exactly equally applicable I'd take (2).

Because that's the best place to learn that you're really not that hot after
all. Some humility goes a long way towards becoming better, it will help you
find teachers instead of thinking you know it all already.

Just speaking from personal experience here, when I got started in this field
in the land of the blind in my backwater the guy with one eye was king. I had
_two_ eyes, and was considered a pretty hot coder by those in my environment
and I started to believe it.

Then, after another decade or so I met a couple of guys that _really_ could
program and in a year I learned more than in the 18 years or so preceding
that.

Now, with access to the vast repository of source code available on the
internet you'd have to be either out of your mind or an undiscovered genius of
very rare quality to describe yourself as such.

Most 'fucking good coders' aren't. They just haven't been out much yet, or
they've just been writing and have not been reading.

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nfnaaron
If "the hacker" is truly brilliant, at hacking, then he likely will be
brilliant or smart at other things too.

Besides your options 1-5, think about things that are wrong or lacking in the
world, and work on fixing some of them. That might require code, but most
problems don't. Even problems that do require code are not saved by the code,
they're saved by recognizing the problem and doing anything at all that's
effective. Coders don't save the world; deployers of code and other resources
save the world.

Your 1, 2 and 5 will build your chops, whether the first focus of those
efforts are world changing or not. You also might benefit by working with
someone who has a vision and has figured out how to execute on it.

If you take away the implied requirement that 1, 2 and 5 need to be code-
focused, your first efforts might build chops and allow you to focus on
problems rather than solutions in search of problems.

I'm not saying you shouldn't code, just open your mind.

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plinkplonk
A hacker who is "really fucking good at hacking" wouldn't wait for an answer
to "what is the best way to make an impact".

He would have _done_ significant things in one or more of (1) thru (5)(or even
more options he thought of himself) and the _doing_ will teach him more about
the "best way" than any amount of abstract theorizing about an essentially
unanswerable question.

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adrianwaj
Kiva's doing a good job of it. "Kiva's mission is to connect people, through
lending, for the sake of alleviating poverty."

So try and think of ways to save lives systematically.

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hga
I'm interested in "leverage" in the sense of powerful tools, methods, etc.,
e.g. look at <http://www.vpri.org/html/work/ifnct.htm>

If you can help to _significantly_ improve the general purpose technologies
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_purpose_technology>) that are available
(i.e. better than 10x, not little stuff) you'll potentially make a great
impact.

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tdmackey
By doing what he does best, hacking on what he loves. The rest will fall into
place.

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junkbit
Can you fix cut and paste?

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rick_2047
_1\. Start a Startup - Everything I've read suggests that the founders (and
first ~5 employees) of a startup will be spending a lot of their time on non-
hacking stuff._

I would like a comment on this. Is hacking all and only about code? Isn't
doing business another type of hacking? Hacking is all about doing something
cool and different, right? Why can't a company hack business models? Like
google for example.

I know after a certain size is attained by a company, business is just
business. But why can't we have companies which hack business models in the
time of there inception.

