8 ms·

Palantir’s accelerated security clearance plan for students

47 points by sblank 2y ago

bell-cot 2y ago
Rule of Thumb: Unless either (1) your family has been "in that line of work" for several decades, or (2) a Clearance is needed for long-term success in your chosen field, the grief & weirdness of getting & maintaining a Security Clearance is Just Not Worth It.
- Narhem 2y ago
  The upside being having a security clearance is means almost always having a job available.
  - carom 2y ago
    Very much this. The USA has a jobs program and it is the defense industry. You just have to not do drugs to participate.
- martinky24 2y ago
  If you don't do drugs, don't commit felonies, and don't have a ton of foreign friends (particularly from a few key, problematic countries), it's really not _that_ bad. You have some more annual paperwork that you're paid to do, you might have some restrictions on certain international travel, but for many people, nothing of meaning really changes before/after getting one. It's not for everyone, but for plenty it's not a huge burden. Even if their family hasn't been "in that line of work" for several decades. And it unlocks the ability to work on certain things that simply don't exist elsewhere (no, not just weapons).
greyface- 2y ago
Getting a security clearance comes with liability and potential downside that doesn't exist in the private sector. Some examples: * Restrictions and reporting requirements around international travel and contact with foreign nationals * Restrictions on discussing work with friends and family * Prohibition on cannabis use * Prohibition on reading publicly leaked secret documents (from the Snowden days: https://web.archive.org/web/20211120154017/https://sgp.fas.org/othergov/dod/notice.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20211120154017/https://sgp.fas.o...) Interns-to-be should consider carefully whether this lasting infringement on personal liberty is worth any upside of employment at a defense contractor for 3 months.
- basementcat 2y ago
  Note that there are different clearances with different restrictions and obligations. Lower level clearances are not much different than standard background checks to obtain an HSPF-12 credential (US Gov ID badge) while higher level clearances may require periodic polygraph tests and other additional restrictions. https://www.commerce.gov/osy/programs/credentialing/hspd-12-credentialing https://www.commerce.gov/osy/programs/credentialing/hspd-12-... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_clearance https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_clearance
- jonnybgood 2y ago
  I believe the only lasting restriction is speaking about the work due to an NDA, which is not that different than NDA restrictions on speaking about private sector trade secrets and intellectual property. The other restrictions only last if seeking to maintain the clearance or employed in a position that requires a clearance. Clearances expire except for the NDA.
  - seo-speedwagon 2y ago
    These NDAs are backed with extremely onerous jail sentences, which is IMO a meaningful distinction vs. other types of NDAs. Beyond that, all your paperwork to get that clearance is in the government’s hands now. In my case that included a full SF-86 and fingerprints, which the government would otherwise not have from me. So it’s IMO accurate to describe the consequences as “lifelong”. Truth be told, having left that line of work long ago, it bothers me these pieces of info about me are out there somewhere in Uncle Sam’s possession.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- walterbell 2y ago
  > Interns-to-be should consider carefully The fictional on-off-boarding of TV series "Burn Notice" (2007-2013), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burn_Notice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burn_Notice & https://burn-notice.djmed.net https://burn-notice.djmed.net
buildsjets 2y ago
A job that requires a security clearance is not a job that I want to be doing, ever.
- j_bum 2y ago
  Why’s that? I’m really not familiar with the ins and outs of clearance. Do you have ethical reasons? Or practical?
  - 1oooqooq 2y ago
    Did you miss the several times on the news where whistleblowers had their lives destroyed after speaking up about literal knowingly bombing of children?
  - girvo 2y ago
    For myself it's somewhat ethical, and somewhat practical: there's no way I'd get cleared anyway, due to my history of hard drug addiction in my teens and early 20s. Despite being sober for... gosh, over a decade now, it's a moot point in that process.
    - upfrog 2y ago
      Don't assume that your history would be an immediate dealbreaker. With enough time, they are happy to ignore a lot of that stuff. Just be honest. Of course, if you don't believe in any of the causes you might need a clearance for, it doesn't matter, but don't be too quick to make that assumption either. A lot of stuff gets classified by the government, and not all of it is morally noisome.
    - dgacmu 2y ago
      You might be surprised. I have some friends who did a lot of drugs at one point or another in their life and ended up later holding a clearance. Addiction might be different, but I wouldn't let your past deter you from looking if there was an opportunity you really liked. The clearance process looks more at if you have a problem that can be exploited. (Now, that said, holding a clearance can be a pain for other reasons already detailed in this thread. A lifetime ban on talking about some things can be an annoying cognitive burden to carry, also.)
rdl 2y ago
Having done startups in the national security space (and had to deal with clearances) -- it's a bad system from both directions -- overly onerous compliance for good people AND ineffective at addressing modern security risks. It made sense in the 1950s as a way to protect large development and operational programs with long tenure employment against penetration by an external adversary (USSR), and to a limited extent, ideological or financially motivated defectors. It doesn't work as well today where someone can become "radicalized" online, foreign/international contacts are routine, etc. Just being a citizenship bar, even if it did nothing else, really complicates hiring in tech -- what you often end up doing is having as much work as possible done uncleared/commercially and then thrown over the wall to cleared people who can implement it with the client. Works well in infosec with mostly systems integrated with commercial stuff; doesn't work with jet engines or missiles as well Clearances being handed out like relative candy to 18-28 year olds in the military (so, for someone like Manning, approximately zero information responsive to requests (as minor records excluded, and the 7-10 year lookback isn't relevant when you have far fewer adult years), extreme reluctance to suspend or revoke a clearance when granted), and ineffective reporting of incidents. The hassle of holding a clearance to some extent depends on the issuing agency/level (DOD Secret is relatively non-hassle; law enforcement ones are more lifestyle focused on paper at lower levels; substantial travel restrictions for levels/programs come in above Secret too). There is also the difference between official restrictions and reality -- given OPM hack and general government incompetence, it's safe to assume your info becomes public or at least known to adversaries, so even after a clearance expires, it would probably be unwise to travel to some countries for a much longer period. Also exposes your family/other contacts to hassle from both USG investigators and potential foreign adversaries.
MattPalmer1086 2y ago
It definitely takes a long time and makes it hard to employ people. I've had SC clearance twice in the UK, which isn't too bad, just a couple of months or so. Even so, I saw people sit around waiting for their clearance, unable to do anything, and then leave before they had managed to do anything. One job I applied for needed a DV clearance, and that takes a really long time. They advised me to get another job in the meantime, but it was just too much hassle, so I passed on it.
altairprime 2y ago
I think this submission title should be modified to: > Palantir’s accelerated security clearance plan for students This addresses several issues with the headline as presented: - It’s capitalized appropriately for HN. - It clearly states that this is about students only, reducing the scope of the effort from the unstated framing: “all workers”. - It reflects the single-company focus of Palantir in the article, improving HN submission search results for that company. - It reuses the exact wording of the most key heading in the article with only two words added: “for students”.
- tedmiston 2y ago
  Yeah, this is a much more accurate title than Security Clearances at the Speed of Startups. I think you need to email dang <hn@ycombinator.com> to see if he'll agree to update.
- dang 2y ago
  Ok, let's give that a try. Thanks!
- AlchemistCamp 2y ago
  The original title’s capitalization was correct. In fact, AP, Chicago and Wikipedia styles all suggest exactly the capitalization the author used.
  - altairprime 2y ago
    AP capitalization style is not HN capitalization style. For example, HN mods will turn NASA into Nasa, which is anathema to AP style (and to me). You could email them if you have questions about it, as I’m not a mod, just a user.
    - AlchemistCamp 2y ago
      I suspect that would be a waste of time for me to email them, but thanks for sharing.
vineyardlabs 2y ago
Not sure why this article (or Palantir) is trying to paint this as a new thing. I started at a legacy defense contractor immediately after graduating from undergrad. I was hired and had my security clearance process initiated during the fall of my senior year. Unfortunately this was during the great backup of ~2016 so I still wasn't cleared by the time I started, but they still had unclassified work I could do.
- kevin_thibedeau 2y ago
  You should never submit an SF-86 before your first day of work. That is used to trick you into an interim clearance review that can lead to the job being revoked before you report for work. Once you're an official employee you can't be fired for denial of clearance, though an effort at constructive dismissal will likely ensue if they can't find an uncleared role for you.
  - vineyardlabs 2y ago
    That wouldn't have mattered for me. The contractor I worked for (and most that I'm aware of) required me to complete a questionnaire that they used to assess my likelihood of getting a clearance before extending me an offer. Not trying to doubt you, but I find the idea that a company can't terminate an employee for failing to get a clearance for a job that requires a clearance to be tough to believe. You have a source?
  - jdmarble 2y ago
    Is there a law that prevents a company from firing you if you can't get a clearance? I've seen job postings with something like "the ability to acquire and hold a [Top] Secret security clearance is required for this position". Is this illegal or necessary to be able to fire someone because they couldn't get or lost their clearance?
    - lukas099 2y ago
      I think companies can fire you for pretty much any reason (or no reason) in America, other than discrimination.
1oooqooq 2y ago
> Over the last five years more of my students have understood that Russia’s brutal war in Ukraine and strategic competition with the People’s Republic of China mean that the world is no longer a stable and safe place. This has convinced many of them to work on national security problems in defense startups. oh so that is why there's always that crap on the news? Man I miss when they lured smart kids with the false promises of moon rockets
- 0x1ch 2y ago
  I don't know a single graduate that joined a defense contractor to help Ukraine lol. Maybe their bank accounts perhaps, but that isn't a false promise.
  - 1oooqooq 2y ago
    I was being facetious for humor, on the fact that now several senate hearings are public in which NASA budget was justified as such recruiting.
jdmarble 2y ago
I think that a better strategy is to make the work that requires a clearance as "small" as possible. Consider two contractors: Contractor A does everything in a closed area. All software is written, built, and tested on classified information systems. In this situation, it is impractical to move anything out, regardless if the software is actually classified. It's easy to move things back and forth between the developer's machines and the (necessarily) classified test/production system, but now you have the problem from TFA: you can only hire cleared employees or you eat the cost of them doing nothing useful for ~1 year. Contractor B has arranged things so that the work that has to be done in a closed area is only on the specific information that _must_ be classified as described in the security classification guide for that program. Depending on the program this could be a small software library or even a configuration file. Interns and first-year employees can work on the majority of the system with dummy/stub libraries and fake data, then hand their work over to cleared employees for further testing in the closed area (if that is even necessary for the work at hand). It is not very hard to move software from an unclassified to a classified area. It is harder to move test results from a classified to an unclassified area. A description of what happened when an unclassified piece of software runs in a classified environment _can_ be sanitized and still leave all information necessary to continue work outside. Aside from the situation described in TFA, this also reduces the "it is miserable working in the SCIF" retention problem. It requires work to arrange things in this way, but not much more work if the software is written using best practices. Maybe this strategy only applies to software development. There are other professions out there I've heard. :)
josh_carterPDX 2y ago
Security clearances should take a long time because the risk of information being leaked is so high. Not sure I'm aligned here with Palantir or Steve Blank that the process needs to be sped up. Sounds like a recipe for disaster given all of the leaks we've seen over the past decade or more.
- bpshaver 2y ago
  The article does not mention speeding up the process, only starting it sooner.
bpshaver 2y ago
I work in this industry and I thought the practice described here was common. I'm aware of multiple companies, including my own, that put in for security clearances for interns so they can have a clearance on the first day of their full time employment.
- martinky24 2y ago
  Yeah. Pretty sure everyone does it. I've seen it every place I've worked.
enjoyyourlife 2y ago
This is how the hiring process already works at government agencies. You get a CJO (Conditional Job Offer) are able to start the clearance process and get the FJO (Final Job Offer) once you receive the clearance.
walterbell 2y ago
Daniel Ellsberg giving advice to Henry Kissinger about security clearances, in 1968, from his book "Secrets", https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2010/02/daniel-ellsberg-limitations-knowledge/ https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2010/02/daniel-ellsbe... > You will deal with a person who doesn’t have those clearances only from the point of view of what you want him to believe and what impression you want him to go away with, since you’ll have to lie carefully to him about what you know. In effect, you will have to manipulate him. You’ll give up trying to assess what he has to say. The danger is, you’ll become something like a moron. You’ll become incapable of learning from most people in the world, no matter how much experience they may have in their particular areas that may be much greater than yours. Full quote: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36364006 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36364006 HN ranking history for this thread: https://hnrankings.info/41238823 https://hnrankings.info/41238823

47 points by sblank 2y ago

Rule of Thumb: Unless either (1) your family has been "in that line of work" for several decades, or (2) a Clearance is needed for long-term success in your chosen field, the grief & weirdness of getting & maintaining a Security Clearance is Just Not Worth It.

Narhem 2y ago
The upside being having a security clearance is means almost always having a job available.
- carom 2y ago
  Very much this. The USA has a jobs program and it is the defense industry. You just have to not do drugs to participate.
martinky24 2y ago
If you don't do drugs, don't commit felonies, and don't have a ton of foreign friends (particularly from a few key, problematic countries), it's really not _that_ bad. You have some more annual paperwork that you're paid to do, you might have some restrictions on certain international travel, but for many people, nothing of meaning really changes before/after getting one. It's not for everyone, but for plenty it's not a huge burden. Even if their family hasn't been "in that line of work" for several decades. And it unlocks the ability to work on certain things that simply don't exist elsewhere (no, not just weapons).

greyface- 2y ago

Getting a security clearance comes with liability and potential downside that doesn't exist in the private sector. Some examples: * Restrictions and reporting requirements around international travel and contact with foreign nationals * Restrictions on discussing work with friends and family * Prohibition on cannabis use * Prohibition on reading publicly leaked secret documents (from the Snowden days: https://web.archive.org/web/20211120154017/https://sgp.fas.org/othergov/dod/notice.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20211120154017/https://sgp.fas.o...) Interns-to-be should consider carefully whether this lasting infringement on personal liberty is worth any upside of employment at a defense contractor for 3 months.

basementcat 2y ago
Note that there are different clearances with different restrictions and obligations. Lower level clearances are not much different than standard background checks to obtain an HSPF-12 credential (US Gov ID badge) while higher level clearances may require periodic polygraph tests and other additional restrictions. https://www.commerce.gov/osy/programs/credentialing/hspd-12-credentialing https://www.commerce.gov/osy/programs/credentialing/hspd-12-... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_clearance https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_clearance
jonnybgood 2y ago
I believe the only lasting restriction is speaking about the work due to an NDA, which is not that different than NDA restrictions on speaking about private sector trade secrets and intellectual property. The other restrictions only last if seeking to maintain the clearance or employed in a position that requires a clearance. Clearances expire except for the NDA.
- seo-speedwagon 2y ago
  These NDAs are backed with extremely onerous jail sentences, which is IMO a meaningful distinction vs. other types of NDAs. Beyond that, all your paperwork to get that clearance is in the government’s hands now. In my case that included a full SF-86 and fingerprints, which the government would otherwise not have from me. So it’s IMO accurate to describe the consequences as “lifelong”. Truth be told, having left that line of work long ago, it bothers me these pieces of info about me are out there somewhere in Uncle Sam’s possession.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
walterbell 2y ago
> Interns-to-be should consider carefully The fictional on-off-boarding of TV series "Burn Notice" (2007-2013), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burn_Notice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burn_Notice & https://burn-notice.djmed.net https://burn-notice.djmed.net

buildsjets 2y ago

A job that requires a security clearance is not a job that I want to be doing, ever.

j_bum 2y ago
Why’s that? I’m really not familiar with the ins and outs of clearance. Do you have ethical reasons? Or practical?
- 1oooqooq 2y ago
  Did you miss the several times on the news where whistleblowers had their lives destroyed after speaking up about literal knowingly bombing of children?
- girvo 2y ago
  For myself it's somewhat ethical, and somewhat practical: there's no way I'd get cleared anyway, due to my history of hard drug addiction in my teens and early 20s. Despite being sober for... gosh, over a decade now, it's a moot point in that process.
  - upfrog 2y ago
    Don't assume that your history would be an immediate dealbreaker. With enough time, they are happy to ignore a lot of that stuff. Just be honest. Of course, if you don't believe in any of the causes you might need a clearance for, it doesn't matter, but don't be too quick to make that assumption either. A lot of stuff gets classified by the government, and not all of it is morally noisome.
  - dgacmu 2y ago
    You might be surprised. I have some friends who did a lot of drugs at one point or another in their life and ended up later holding a clearance. Addiction might be different, but I wouldn't let your past deter you from looking if there was an opportunity you really liked. The clearance process looks more at if you have a problem that can be exploited. (Now, that said, holding a clearance can be a pain for other reasons already detailed in this thread. A lifetime ban on talking about some things can be an annoying cognitive burden to carry, also.)

rdl 2y ago

Having done startups in the national security space (and had to deal with clearances) -- it's a bad system from both directions -- overly onerous compliance for good people AND ineffective at addressing modern security risks. It made sense in the 1950s as a way to protect large development and operational programs with long tenure employment against penetration by an external adversary (USSR), and to a limited extent, ideological or financially motivated defectors. It doesn't work as well today where someone can become "radicalized" online, foreign/international contacts are routine, etc. Just being a citizenship bar, even if it did nothing else, really complicates hiring in tech -- what you often end up doing is having as much work as possible done uncleared/commercially and then thrown over the wall to cleared people who can implement it with the client. Works well in infosec with mostly systems integrated with commercial stuff; doesn't work with jet engines or missiles as well Clearances being handed out like relative candy to 18-28 year olds in the military (so, for someone like Manning, approximately zero information responsive to requests (as minor records excluded, and the 7-10 year lookback isn't relevant when you have far fewer adult years), extreme reluctance to suspend or revoke a clearance when granted), and ineffective reporting of incidents. The hassle of holding a clearance to some extent depends on the issuing agency/level (DOD Secret is relatively non-hassle; law enforcement ones are more lifestyle focused on paper at lower levels; substantial travel restrictions for levels/programs come in above Secret too). There is also the difference between official restrictions and reality -- given OPM hack and general government incompetence, it's safe to assume your info becomes public or at least known to adversaries, so even after a clearance expires, it would probably be unwise to travel to some countries for a much longer period. Also exposes your family/other contacts to hassle from both USG investigators and potential foreign adversaries.

MattPalmer1086 2y ago

It definitely takes a long time and makes it hard to employ people. I've had SC clearance twice in the UK, which isn't too bad, just a couple of months or so. Even so, I saw people sit around waiting for their clearance, unable to do anything, and then leave before they had managed to do anything. One job I applied for needed a DV clearance, and that takes a really long time. They advised me to get another job in the meantime, but it was just too much hassle, so I passed on it.

altairprime 2y ago

I think this submission title should be modified to: > Palantir’s accelerated security clearance plan for students This addresses several issues with the headline as presented: - It’s capitalized appropriately for HN. - It clearly states that this is about students only, reducing the scope of the effort from the unstated framing: “all workers”. - It reflects the single-company focus of Palantir in the article, improving HN submission search results for that company. - It reuses the exact wording of the most key heading in the article with only two words added: “for students”.

tedmiston 2y ago
Yeah, this is a much more accurate title than Security Clearances at the Speed of Startups. I think you need to email dang <hn@ycombinator.com> to see if he'll agree to update.
dang 2y ago
Ok, let's give that a try. Thanks!
AlchemistCamp 2y ago
The original title’s capitalization was correct. In fact, AP, Chicago and Wikipedia styles all suggest exactly the capitalization the author used.
- altairprime 2y ago
  AP capitalization style is not HN capitalization style. For example, HN mods will turn NASA into Nasa, which is anathema to AP style (and to me). You could email them if you have questions about it, as I’m not a mod, just a user.
  - AlchemistCamp 2y ago
    I suspect that would be a waste of time for me to email them, but thanks for sharing.

vineyardlabs 2y ago

Not sure why this article (or Palantir) is trying to paint this as a new thing. I started at a legacy defense contractor immediately after graduating from undergrad. I was hired and had my security clearance process initiated during the fall of my senior year. Unfortunately this was during the great backup of ~2016 so I still wasn't cleared by the time I started, but they still had unclassified work I could do.

kevin_thibedeau 2y ago
You should never submit an SF-86 before your first day of work. That is used to trick you into an interim clearance review that can lead to the job being revoked before you report for work. Once you're an official employee you can't be fired for denial of clearance, though an effort at constructive dismissal will likely ensue if they can't find an uncleared role for you.
- vineyardlabs 2y ago
  That wouldn't have mattered for me. The contractor I worked for (and most that I'm aware of) required me to complete a questionnaire that they used to assess my likelihood of getting a clearance before extending me an offer. Not trying to doubt you, but I find the idea that a company can't terminate an employee for failing to get a clearance for a job that requires a clearance to be tough to believe. You have a source?
- jdmarble 2y ago
  Is there a law that prevents a company from firing you if you can't get a clearance? I've seen job postings with something like "the ability to acquire and hold a [Top] Secret security clearance is required for this position". Is this illegal or necessary to be able to fire someone because they couldn't get or lost their clearance?
  - lukas099 2y ago
    I think companies can fire you for pretty much any reason (or no reason) in America, other than discrimination.

1oooqooq 2y ago

> Over the last five years more of my students have understood that Russia’s brutal war in Ukraine and strategic competition with the People’s Republic of China mean that the world is no longer a stable and safe place. This has convinced many of them to work on national security problems in defense startups. oh so that is why there's always that crap on the news? Man I miss when they lured smart kids with the false promises of moon rockets

0x1ch 2y ago
I don't know a single graduate that joined a defense contractor to help Ukraine lol. Maybe their bank accounts perhaps, but that isn't a false promise.
- 1oooqooq 2y ago
  I was being facetious for humor, on the fact that now several senate hearings are public in which NASA budget was justified as such recruiting.

jdmarble 2y ago

I think that a better strategy is to make the work that requires a clearance as "small" as possible. Consider two contractors: Contractor A does everything in a closed area. All software is written, built, and tested on classified information systems. In this situation, it is impractical to move anything out, regardless if the software is actually classified. It's easy to move things back and forth between the developer's machines and the (necessarily) classified test/production system, but now you have the problem from TFA: you can only hire cleared employees or you eat the cost of them doing nothing useful for ~1 year. Contractor B has arranged things so that the work that has to be done in a closed area is only on the specific information that _must_ be classified as described in the security classification guide for that program. Depending on the program this could be a small software library or even a configuration file. Interns and first-year employees can work on the majority of the system with dummy/stub libraries and fake data, then hand their work over to cleared employees for further testing in the closed area (if that is even necessary for the work at hand). It is not very hard to move software from an unclassified to a classified area. It is harder to move test results from a classified to an unclassified area. A description of what happened when an unclassified piece of software runs in a classified environment _can_ be sanitized and still leave all information necessary to continue work outside. Aside from the situation described in TFA, this also reduces the "it is miserable working in the SCIF" retention problem. It requires work to arrange things in this way, but not much more work if the software is written using best practices. Maybe this strategy only applies to software development. There are other professions out there I've heard. :)

josh_carterPDX 2y ago

Security clearances should take a long time because the risk of information being leaked is so high. Not sure I'm aligned here with Palantir or Steve Blank that the process needs to be sped up. Sounds like a recipe for disaster given all of the leaks we've seen over the past decade or more.

bpshaver 2y ago
The article does not mention speeding up the process, only starting it sooner.

bpshaver 2y ago

I work in this industry and I thought the practice described here was common. I'm aware of multiple companies, including my own, that put in for security clearances for interns so they can have a clearance on the first day of their full time employment.

martinky24 2y ago
Yeah. Pretty sure everyone does it. I've seen it every place I've worked.

enjoyyourlife 2y ago

This is how the hiring process already works at government agencies. You get a CJO (Conditional Job Offer) are able to start the clearance process and get the FJO (Final Job Offer) once you receive the clearance.

walterbell 2y ago

Daniel Ellsberg giving advice to Henry Kissinger about security clearances, in 1968, from his book "Secrets", https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2010/02/daniel-ellsberg-limitations-knowledge/ https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2010/02/daniel-ellsbe... > You will deal with a person who doesn’t have those clearances only from the point of view of what you want him to believe and what impression you want him to go away with, since you’ll have to lie carefully to him about what you know. In effect, you will have to manipulate him. You’ll give up trying to assess what he has to say. The danger is, you’ll become something like a moron. You’ll become incapable of learning from most people in the world, no matter how much experience they may have in their particular areas that may be much greater than yours. Full quote: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36364006 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36364006 HN ranking history for this thread: https://hnrankings.info/41238823 https://hnrankings.info/41238823