[tptacek]

Maciej Ceglowski has a good bit in one of his idlewords posts about how the "what makes hackers tick" genre is full of pieces that are really "how to be someone just like the author". There's probably nobody that remark applies to more than ESR, and ESR is probably not someone you'd want to work to resemble more closely.

So, in reality, if you want to understand your technical cofounders, it is probably not a good idea to take ESR seriously when he says that you should find a "real" Unix (your technical cofounders are, actuarially speaking, almost certainly macOS people), hand-write lots of HTML, or "serve" th "tribal elders of open source". And the idea that "attitude is not a substitute for competence" among hackers is both funny on a variety of levels, and also a singularly bad note for understanding software developers you work with.

The Mythical Mammoth doesn't have any of these problems, and is a great book, and one worth reading simply so you can have a sense of what building software actually entails (Dynamics of Software Development is another older book that has aged somewhat well --- as have all of Joel Spolsky's posts on Joel on Software; in fact, I'd probably start there). But while this stuff will help you understand the work that's happening on your team, it probably won't do much to help you with the mindset of your team members.

There probably isn't a substitute for just talking to your cofounders, a lot, and asking lots of questions.

[tedunangst]

Mythical Mammoth is a delightful correction.

[pen2l]

I had to wiki ESR, I'd needed to remind myself who he was.

And, tptacek, guess whose name I stumbled upon while I was reading his wiki page? Incidentally, I think that section of the wiki is poorly written. I'm left even more confused due to lack of context.

[tptacek]

I agree; obviously, I didn't write it. Feel free to delete it.