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Comment on Paul Gram, his following, and the hacker partialityparent

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A) Graham (as in Grahamcrackers)

B) The problem is that just as business types are bad at evaluating hackers, hackers are bad at evaluating business types. No one wants to work with someone awful, and the best chance hackers have at avoiding that is to work with people they know how to judge--other hackers.

The issue is not that hackers hate working with business people, its that they hate working with people who are not good at what they do. Given this they use the only proficiency they have--programming--to evaluate people they'll be investing a year or five in.

When a friend of mine proposes a new programming project, I am often really excited about it and can't wait to get working on it; when someone who isn't a programmer proposes ideas its a lot less pleasant because they don't understand the constraints of programming.

When non-programmer Jimmy suggests an idea what it is that Jimmy thinks it would be cool if someone else made this idea into reality and let him profit on it. When a hacker suggests an idea they are saying "lets build this together." Who in their right mind would pick the former if they have a choice?

"The problem is that just as business types are bad at evaluating hackers, hackers are bad at evaluating business types."

That's a very good point. Perhaps someone familiar with the subject should try writing "Great Business Types" and "The Suit Paradox".

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