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by x87678r 2166 days ago
> What I discovered was that most of these brilliant people would not share a lot of their knowledge

I'm someone who has spent a lot of time training up juniors. TBH I dont have a lot of show for it. I really wish I spent my time trying to learn things myself, many of the people I've trained have much better careers than I do. I'm guessing your group of successful smart people are that way because they don't waste time trying to share their knowledge.

1 comments

I hear what you're saying. Though the feeling of helping someone else is wonderful (regardless of whether you later end up with "something to show for it", job wise).

Don't you think that trying to teach someone something ends up helping you solidify your understanding, maybe even making you question what you took for granted?

You are right, do you do learn when you have to teach something. Often though you're teaching how a internal system or codebase works, so you're learning/teaching stuff that isn't useful for you anywhere else.
You're delusional if you believe that.
If I believe what? That explaining something helps me with my own understanding? Plenty of teachers and professors report the same feeling, so I'm not alone in this.

If what you meant is that helping people understand something doesn't feel wonderful to you, then of course you're entitled to that opinion. One really can't argue with subjective feelings.

Empathic, not delusional. This person has a different set of values and I resonate with what they expressed.