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0 pointssaagarjha6y ago0 comments

> I've never encountered someone that I think is genuinely a 10x programmer.

I have. (Interestingly, some of these people knew this and had a surprising lack of modesty about it as well…) Usually I think it boils down to being able to have the experience to consistently guess right on things, come up with new ideas, and not get tangled in the weeds: most of them are smart, but not so smart that you’re just lost when talking to them.

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m0zg6y ago

>> not so smart that you’re just lost when talking to them

That, BTW, is a sure sign that someone is trying to appear smarter than they really are. Having worked at 2 research labs over the course of my career I know more than my fair share of genius-level people. Without fail, they are humble about it, and can explain complex concepts in a way the rest of us can understand. This is something that just blows my mind pretty consistently actually, and IMO it is a sign of true, deep understanding of a complex subject. The person didn't just memorize formulas (although many of them excel at that as well), they understand why things are the way they are, the real meaning behind it all.

It could be that this is selection bias though, and I only got to know geniuses who aren't also assholes.

afarrell6y ago

> a sure sign that someone is trying to

Nope. Explaining things well is a skill. One can be non-excellent at it. Its possible to have a moderately-good grasp of something that you can use while working with it, but not yet have come up with good ways to make your knowledge explicit in a well-organized fashion.

learnstats26y ago

Moderately-good is not genius.

Part of being great at something includes an ability to abstract out common difficulties, which helps other people to understand (even when you are not that great at explaining).

I'm not aware that I've ever met a genius who was working on completely different principles to other people - everyone reaches the same difficulties and has to find a way to resolve those.

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saagarjhaOP6y ago

No, not always. I have talked to a lot of people who are doing something I just fundamentally know nothing about, and I just cannot follow them. In my experience, people who are trying to appear smart are often intentionally unhelpful when you ask them for clarification or details (though there are of course smart people who just choose to be this way…)

prostheticvamp6y ago

As Feynman said: you don’t really understand a subject until you can explain it to your grandfather.

username906y ago

Just a note, Feynman was very bad at explaining things to uneducated people. He was famous for his insights and ability to explain things to other professionals, but his lectures were very badly received by the students. So I'd take that statement with a grain of salt, as Feynman obviously have way better understanding than an average lecturer.

1337shadow6y ago

And that's how I explained the cloud to my grandma: the company buys big daddy servers which make baby computers that the company sells for profit. She was so happy she finally understood what my job was at the time.

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