Quest for the True North

Comments

1. kirk Said,

   you know, Rolling Stone magazine made a feature on young, brilliant geeks who have made millions out of computer programs and the like. silicon valley kids. those featured included the google founders. i forget their names. Zuckerberg was one of the geeks on the list.

   the feature said that the geek will rule the world. they do now.

2. Abaniko Said,

   They can retire in style now. How I envy them.

   BTW, Einstein was also a school dropout.

3. stoxbnx3 Said,

   @ kirk
   so the geeks do rule the world. i didn’t think that was literal, but i can see now that it is.

   @abaniko
   yes. and at their age, they can now spend the rest of their lives cruising around the world, without being burdened of the thing called earning a living. astig no?

4. nakajoe Said,

   Making money is all about understanding people–that those guys did so in a computer field is coincidental.

   Mullenweg, Zuckerberg, Gates, Jobs, and all the other big-bucks tech sector guys hardly earned a dollar in their life from technical knowledge. Their inspriation was taking largely existing tech and adapting it in a user-friendly manner, where it was adopted by huge numbers of people. Compare their fame and money with that of a true technical genius like Guido van Rossum (invented Python) or Ian Murdock (founder of Debian Linux) or Linus Torvalds (wrote the Linux kernel) or Larry Wall (invented Perl) or…

   Tech skills and luck will get you a good job, but never the kind of money and freedom the big guys get. There’s way more good techs working for less than factory worker wages at helpdesk jobs unable to pay back college loans than there are set for retirement.

   Meh, we geeks rule our own computers and our living rooms. Good businessmen and politicos rule the world.

5. stoxbnx3 Said,

   of all the names you listed, only Linus Torvalds’s name rang a bell. where are the others now? not beggars, i hope?

   but you have to owe it to them for having some technical knowledge. technical knowledge + business acumen, perhaps.

6. nakajoe Said,

   My point exactly. Even with near superhuman tech skills, one doesn’t get so rich as to be famous for it.

   I know Guido van Rossum was working for Google last I heard. Ian Murdock is working for Sun. Linus Torvalds works for the Linux Foundation, his nonprofit. Larry Wall, umm… ::googles:: looks like he’s a computer book author. All of them I’m sure are quite well off, but none have the mega-$$ that Zuckerberg or Gates enjoy. Knowing the machine is great and useful, but in the end it’s all about convincing somebody to pay you for something.

   Tech knowledge + business acumen, you’re got it. Wish I wasn’t lacking in one of those. (^_^)Y

7. evi Said,

   i guess they dropped out because they knew they are better than the instructors.

8. stoxbnx3 Said,

   @nakajoe
   well, business acumen can be developed, if you are open to it.

   @evi
   could be.

9. tiborsho Said,

   @evi - i agree more

10. rica Said,

    wow!hes just my age!

11. nakajoe Said,

    @stox
    Any skill can be developed, I agree.

    My take is that in skills, both talent and work figure in, with luck being hugely important in the execution. In my personal case, I lack any and all talent in business and people-skills, whereas I’m genuinely *good* in math and tech. I’d rather have a comfortable life doing what I’m good at than get into something that I’d have to really sweat at to even be average.

    But hey, to give the business types their credit–they sign my paycheck that I get working with stuff I’d never be able to afford on my own! (^_^)

12. stoxbnx3 Said,

    @rica
    and he’s just a year older than me..

    @nakajoe
    you are so pessimistic.

    but that is you. me, i can testify that skills can be developed, and that anyone who really try can be good at anything. excel at it, even. it has happened to me several times.

13. nakajoe Said,

    @stox
    Really? That was actually intended to be optimistic… (-_-)

14. stoxbnx3 Said,

    it was to me. sorry.

15. nakajoe Said,

    Nah, I’m sure it was me. That particular one just surprised me b/c I rewrote that comment twice to be less negative. Um, sorry.

16. stoxbnx3 Said,

    hey, you don’t have to be sorry.