[throwawaay]

Excuse me, but given your history of writing overly verbose, self-important Grand Proclamations: I imagine the only reason someone would have to hire you is if they wanted tomes written about how they could Do Things Right while probably not getting much actual work product done in return.

[fretless]

Yes, but the silver lining is that you'll open your thesaurus and learn words like

"jeremiad"

"screed"

"phillippic"

"tirade"

MOC is a strong advocate for scala and clojure, so I figure he's ok

[thucydides]

Church's writing is consistently insightful and interesting. This is a silly attack.

[throwawaay]

When someone spouts big talk like "start doing things right. Since you don't know how, you have to hire someone like me and give that person lots of autonomy, but it can be done" and all they're known for (please correct me if I'm wrong here) is writing a lot of text on HN, I don't think a little snark is out of line.

I get that railing against unsympathetic targets like big corporations makes for entertaining reading, but I don't think that actually qualifies anyone for the job he was describing.

[michaelochurch]

while probably not getting much actual work product done in return.

That was fucking low, man.

I'm actually extremely productive when things work right, but when people persist in fuck-uppery it's like a low-grade chronic earthquake-- not exactly dangerous, but jarring and impossible to ignore and eventually exhausting.

By the way, the danger of startups isn't failure. It's that you end up like me: someone who can't tolerate the mediocrity, idiocy, and resistance to creativity that most people bring to their working lives. In most corporate environments, those are affordable background noise. In startups, they're existential risks. Unfortunately, it's hard to unlearn an allergy to fuck-uppery.

[sliverstorm]

I don't approve of attacking other people, but when you sit such a high horse, don't be surprised when someone tries to pull you down.

[michaelochurch]

I am humble and arrogant at the same time.

I am humble in the sense that I have a keen awareness of my limitations. I don't know what happens after death. I don't know if there is a God. I don't know more than 1.5 natural languages. I'm a mediocre athlete. On most topics, I'm less smart than a person with a passing knowledge of the field, and my opinion is consequently less useful.

I'm arrogant insofar as I've seen through the corporate nonsense and, after having watched people way inferior to me making huge decisions that affect peoples' lives, I feel an urge to step up. I know for a fact that these intellectual children are not the best people to be making such calls, because I am better.

Now, that said, I'm far from the smartest person out there and if someone smarter than me steps up so I don't have to, then that's great! I don't care about being the leader and I'd rather not. I want a competent leader. If that person is someone other than me, then great! But usually the people who are smarter than me shy away from power; they're smart enough to realize that that competition is utterly soul-raping.

The world needs people like me with actual competence and the courage to, at least, try to turn it into something.

[sliverstorm]

Notice I am not objecting to you making the statements you have made; I'm just saying that with such statements, will come attacks. Justified or not, expect them.

[michaelochurch]

Yeah, you're absolutely right.

I like animated disagreement. My wife and I argue constantly. It's great, because although I have a lot of good ideas, I have plenty of bad ones. Ideas are best tempered with fire. Let's beat the damn thing until we have something good. It's a difficult, chaotic process and it takes a lot of passionate minds. Corporate processes tend toward creative mediocrity by default because no one cares. Well, if no one cares, then why are we having this fucking meeting? Just go off and do it, then.

Ad hominem attacks piss me off because they're just so fucking useless. They add nothing, but they change the discussion to a toxic one quickly.

Maybe he wasn't making an ad hominem attack. Maybe I'm just insecure because so much of my career has been wasted on manager-blessed bullshit and I'm finally waking up. I lost someone last winter, so the value of time has really been impressed on me of late.