[jiggawatts]

I've worked with several senior people ("Principal Enterprise Architect", etc...) who were music majors, and as a rule they were terrible at their jobs. They just... didn't care about anything even vaguely related to computers. Without exception they got into their positions through nepotism, ass-kissing, or dirty politics. None got there through talent.

People who like computers do it as a hobby. They learn programming at a young age, they get a CS degree or a hard science degree, and then they spend their spare time on tech forums like HN.

People who don't like computers play music, learn painting, or do something else. They get degrees in the arts or humanities. They spend their spare time playing music at the local pub, or whatever.

PS: One of the worst programmers I had ever met is also one of the best musicians I had ever met.

[electrondood]

Sorry, this is utter bullshit. Got into engineering late, and this mindset is just typical engineer snobbery. It's like the toxic "10x engineer" trope that also needs to die, as if taking an unconventional career path or not living and breathing open source contributions and tech blogs in your spare time means you aren't a Real EngineerTM

[stef25]

> People who like computers do it as a hobby. They learn programming at a young age, they get a CS degree or a hard science degree, and then they spend their spare time on tech forums like HN.

Well that's me and trust me, you don't want me in charge of any IT department. Maybe it's cause I also like music.

[coev]

Plenty of us like painting and programming. Your brush is way too broad man.

[hn_throwaway_99]

Sorry you had that experience, but that certainly wasn't mine. Don't want to reveal too much but some very high level people in the tech world that you've probably heard of (or at least heard of their companies) have strong musical backgrounds.

[jiggawatts]

Very high level people in the tech world are often politicians, climbing the ladder through their social skills.

I've observed an inverse relationship between technical skill and career progression in all technical industries.

It's always the pimply junior contractor tech who is the Global Administrator doing the actual work, and the "very high level people" struggle with copy-paste from one email to another.

[dncornholio]

That's pretty descriminating