[gtowey]

Wisdom is not appreciated in our industry. Everyone in tech with a modicum of status or power thinks they got there because they're smarter than everyone else and there is nothing of value to be learned from others. Thus, our leaders blunder in to the same mistakes everyone else is making over and over again. We never learn.

[jurgenaut23]

This is so true. It is a direct result of the American dream and the (misdirected) idea that one’s success is a direct (and inevitable) consequence of hard work, talent and intelligence. Flash news: it is not, and success is massively dependent on luck and initial conditions. Dumb, lazy a$$holes with a rich/powerful dad will beat smart, hard working poor bastards almost every time, barring some black swan events. Now of course lots of people will jump to my throat with tons of counter examples, to which I respond: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

[tracerbulletx]

Yeah every year almost 100 people win over a million dollars in a lottery. That's a lot of counter examples, but I don't recommend you make winning the lottery your financial strategy.

[MyHonestOpinon]

Not disagreeing with you. Successfull people tend to have IQs between 120 and 135. (citation needed) It makes sense because there are a LOT more people in that range than in the 135+ range. 120-135 is often sufficient. I suspect that something similar on the rich scale. People like Gates, Bezos and Musk were not fabulous wealthy, but they had enough to be able to bet big and take big chances.

[saghm]

The point they were making is that no matter how smart you are or hard you work, there are factors outside of your control that can prevent you from succeeding. That's not to say being smart or working hard doesn't improve the likelihood of success, but they're not a guarantee.

[palmotea]

> Wisdom is not appreciated in our industry. Everyone in tech with a modicum of status or power thinks they got there because they're smarter than everyone else and there is nothing of value to be learned from others. Thus, our leaders blunder in to the same mistakes everyone else is making over and over again. We never learn.

It's not just people "with a modicum of status or power," it's almost everywhere in tech. Just look at all the software engineers that contemptuously look down on other fields (except maybe hard science and economics), or talk like they're experts because they read a couple of papers.

IIRC there was a recent blog post or article (I wish I could find it) that had a nice section just running through a series of software-engineer ideas (like Effective Altruism), and pointing out they're basically re-inventing wheels that were already better explored by Philosophy. And the people who do that think they're brilliant innovators.

[Chu4eeno]

Mocking effective altruism is not really a difficult or complex philosophic endeavor though, even without pointing out how it's old ideas for a new audience.

And most philosophers aren't exactly immune to the quasi-Gell-Mann-Dunning-Kruger effect that plagues engineers.

[_doctor_love]

> We never learn.

To my mind, the key is that it's leaders who never learn. The sad thing is that the system gives them no incentives to do so. If you look into the work of Bob Emiliani, this seems to be the tragic conclusion he's come to in recent years. We "know" all the right things to do, but time and time again, management dehumanizes the floor staff and refuses to listen. It's often not even out of malice but because that leader simply has no reason whatsoever to change.

[palmotea]

> We "know" all the right things to do, but time and time again, management dehumanizes the floor staff and refuses to listen. It's often not even out of malice but because that leader simply has no reason whatsoever to change.

There's another possibility that the people who gravitate to "leadership" have certain personality problems that cause those behaviors, e.g. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/22/opinion/office-work-wfh-b....

> Over the past six years, we’ve studied why some leaders continue to support remote work, while others resist it. We surveyed thousands of executives, middle managers and frontline supervisors on a host of personality traits. When we later asked them about their stances on hybrid and remote work, their answers didn’t correlate with how much they trusted their employees or how much they loved being around people. The only trait that consistently predicted objections to remote work was narcissism — the tendency to be self-centered and entitled. The higher the opinions of themselves leaders expressed, the more they coveted power and status — and the more they favored return-to-office mandates.

It wouldn't be a bad idea to figure out how to weed those types out before they get to leadership positions. The trouble is how.

[schmuhblaster]

This somehow resonates with me and I feel this is one of the negative side effects of a CS/Maths dominated culture and mindset that strongly emphasizes intellectual achievement, but hasn’t yet matured enough to appreciate the more messy and irrational parts of our existence.

[_doctor_love]

I am a great admirer of the late Dr. Richard Hamming and he said basically the same thing. Math and science education is important, but humanities is missing for most engineers to their great detriment.

I have a BA in Economics though I am a 20-year software veteran and I can honestly say that this degree has probably helped my career more than any CS knowledge I have. My family was also heavily into the humanities in general, plus a number of my parents were in leadership positions (both corporate and military). All the stories I heard growing up had to do with people and social relations, literally never anything technical. (For context, one of my parents has an electrical engineering background and was a hardware startup founder.)

Human factors dominate all other factors and most engineers/devs/whatever tend to learn this way too late in their career. There's a sincere but ultimately naive hope that if the tech could just be really excellent then all that messy human stuff just wouldn't be a problem.

[a34729t]

Humanities in academia is just as bad as human factors. The biggest thing that can help is having a shitty low paying job or two early in one's career. And then working formal a stable, normal company where there is real mentorship.

[Chu4eeno]

The biggest problem with humanities in academia is that they sometimes seem allergic to epistemic humility (which I guess was Feynman's critique of parts of the humanities).

[_doctor_love]

When I say humanities, I mean having a humanistic attitude. Looking at the social and environmental dynamics before looking at any specific technical issue in detail. Not necessarily anything to do with academia.

Strong agree that everyone would benefit from having a shitty service job or two when they're young to learn what life is really like for most people. I worked a bunch of different service jobs in high school and college, it's shocking how poorly most people treat someone just because they're standing behind the counter.

In the corporate world I find it's usually very obvious who has real life experience and who doesn't.

[Upvoter33]

Which Hamming quote, btw, do you refer to? I think he mostly talks about talking with other "smart" people, and communicating what you are working on a lot (like giving talks, etc.). But, this doesn't read like much of a case for the humanities, per se.

[MyHonestOpinon]

I always thought that an Engineering degree with an MBA is a very good combination. You get very practical, useful things when you are younger. Once you have acquired enough life and work experience then you can appreciate the subtleties of cases that you study in an MBA.

[mrhottakes]

Two degrees with practically zero education in the liberal arts, humanities, or philosophy. You're missing a big chunk there.

[miiiiiike]

You still study the humanities. I majored in software engineering, minored in business. I still took a full year of philosophy classes. Literature too.

Four years is a long time, you’re not just focused on business and engineering every waking second.

I’ve talked to a lot of journalists over the years and they almost always make this point if the conversation drifts to education. After a few years I started replying with, “Yes, I’ve studied X, maybe not as in depth as you have, but I did spend a semester on it. Have you ever taken a calculus class? Physics? Computer Science? What about economics? Statistics? Industrial and organizational psychology?”

The answer is almost always no. You get tech writers who’ve never touched a compiler and business reporters that have never studied economics. Don’t even get me started on “entertainment journalists.” It’s why almost every article, no matter the topic, feels like it was written through someone viewing the world through a very particular lens.

Engineers and business people should absolutely study the humanities. And, humanities people should absolutely study science, engineering, and economics. Specialization is for insects.

“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”

―Heinlein

[kcexn]

It's a side effect of rewarding 20-somethings with lots of money to do 'smart' things with stuff they learn in an undergraduate degree.

It's easy to conflate recognition with achievement when that's all you know in life.

[yoDogItIswutis]

Given the state of politics all these complaints are not really a young person problem; stubborn judges who refuse to step aside despite cancer in their geriatric years. Reps and Senators sliding into dementia live on TV!

Most of them with law degrees and education in domains far removed from CS/math.

CS/math has nothing to do with this. It's just boring biological self selection. Why would I listen to you of all people?

Your existential dread is for you and your therapist. Not on others to coddle your ego.

The problem is Americans believe(d) all the televised to the spec of network censors propaganda about their exceptionalism. Tens of millions of 50+ year olds really came to believe they are the center of the universe. Nope, just more randos who never had a say in their existence because the messy and irrational aspects of reality don't care you exist.

[JohnBooty]

    because they're smarter than everyone else and
    there is nothing of value to be learned from others

Yeah. It's absolutely unreal how often this is seen in our industry.

Especially since everybody in the industry tends to be pretty smart.

When two people with intelligence within a single standard deviation of each other, each of them is going to have competencies and expertise the other does not. There are going to be specific skills where one truly is 10x or even 100x the other, but not too many efforts boil down to one specific narrow skill.

[analognoise]

This is more an age thing, and it's fixed by experience. Which is why there's such a focus on youth - who else can you get to sacrifice themselves with the whisper promise that it will make them rich, who else is easily goaded with "You're so smart you should work more"?

We learn, but that's not what The Machine optimizes for, so when you realize it you leave. Other bodies throw themselves on the gears, the cycle repeats.

[ChrisMarshallNY]

> "Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment."

- Attributed to Nasrudin

[kakacik]

> This is more an age thing, and it's fixed by experience.

There is a simple trick for that, its called ageism. Good luck finding job in some youngish teams when you are over 50, you need to show extraordinary talent, experience and flexibility to be considered.

I agree with others - people often think they are smarter than others, and smart folks tend to fall into that trap easily, triple that with young age. It works sometimes for some folks and thats it.

[mothballed]

At age 50 you contract to do the thing the young bucks butchered after the investors / executives realize what happened and beg for a "hired gun" to get it done. Then you GTFO.

[01284a7e]

Been doing this since my early 30's, and doing it currently.

I guess all the "rock stars" are dead at 27 so the point stands.

[Upvoter33]

this is true in all human endeavors. Tech is not special in this regard, alas.