Comment by privacypoller
8 years ago
Anyone here ever work with a genius who wasn't an asshole? I did and he'll always be a key part of the template to which I both aspire and measure others.
It's not like the stories about Carmack make him out to be a saintly, fuzzy human but I will definitely give him credit for standing firm on some big ideals/principals, even if I don't share them.
I guess I just hope that you can (a) be really good at your work - like -genius good - and also (b) a decent, empathetic human being.
Wishful thinking? maybe, but I don't really want to be top-level successful if you've gotta choose.
Most geniuses aren't assholes. But no one writes news stories about individuals that have no drama and are pleasant to work with.
Woz is a notable exception to your rule.
Er, John Carmack?
I maintain that my cofounder is a genius (computer vision and signal processing), and he's one of the kindest nicest people I have known.
Being good at something and not being toxic to humans you interact with are absolutely orthogonal -- it's just that a lot of geniuses can get away with being douches, that we let it happen.
One thing a lot of people seem to miss is that being nice is a choice [0] -- nicety to others is a learnable skill.
[0] https://www.princeton.edu/news/2010/05/30/2010-baccalaureate...
>Anyone here ever work with a genius who wasn't an asshole?
Absolutely. Those are the people we should want to work with and strive to become.
Knuth?
i mean, i've never worked with him, but he's apparently great.
He doesn't consider mathemetical flaws to be bugs. Not saying that makes him an asshole, but as a product person, this has has harmed TeX's ability to complete it goal of allowing anyone to create typeset documents.
Would you care to elaborate?
1 reply →
Correcting self (post obviopusly doesn't make sense otherwise):
Knuth doesn't consider NON mathemetical flaws to be bugs.
John Carmack himself? He seems like a great guy. Or wouldn't you call him a genius?
Hal Finney.