[aaron-lebo]

This is an interesting comment.

My visceral reaction was that it was a huge generalization, but when I think about it more, I do have a difficult time thinking of people that are both charismatic and tech-savvy. The obvious example is Jobs, but even he wasn't the "tech" guy in a sense, we always associate that with Woz or others.

I guess for a lot of people here Musk is maybe an example of it? Is there some left/right brain separation that keeps techies from being charistmatic, is it a historical, cultural thing?

Or is it just a stereotype after all? :) It seems like a fascinating topic, though.

[nthj]

> Is there some left/right brain separation that keeps techies from being charistmatic

Nah. It's just that most techies are too busy doing brain things to learn soft skills like how to interact with people.

— a guy who struggled with being pretty awkward in high school, worked hard at socializing for a few years, and now does very well with business meetings / networking / parties even though he'd prefer to be delivering code

P.S.: "So if intelligence in itself is not a factor in popularity, why are smart kids so consistently unpopular? The answer, I think, is that they don't really want to be popular."

http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html

[pradocchia]

my own charisma is inversely proportional to the hours I spend each day coding. more coding -> less charisma. so I don't think it is just a stereotype at all, but rather an emergent phenomenon of how we spend our time, and where our interests lead us.