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Author is definitely a winner. He founded Bleacher Report. Disclaimer: I work there. It's fine to disagree, but it's a pretty lame attack him based on a select

Author is definitely a winner. He founded Bleacher Report. Disclaimer: I work there. It's fine to disagree, but it's a pretty lame attack him based on a selected portion of his bio.

d2vid 14y ago
That is what the author is espousing - judging people on a selected part of their bio, while disregarding any success they've had in the actual work they do.
RossDM 14y ago
This whole trend of categorizing people as "winners" or "losers" seems distasteful. What is winning? Favorable circumstances in the present?
- arockwell 14y ago
  I have to admit, I'm surprised at how polarizing the words "winners" and "losers" are to people in this thread. Replace the word winner with successful, and does it seem so bad?
  - RossDM 14y ago
    Sure, we could replace winners and losers with some term like "A players" and "B players." But even judging past success has its flaws; I feel that society as a whole tends to put success, or "winning", on a pedestal. How many great minds have we benefited from who had significant flaws in their time, or went unrecognized? People are probably a lot more complicated than we think. We try to sort them out into categories as best we can, but we should remember that our understanding of another person's value is limited at best. Calling out people as "losers" because they don't fit your purpose is immature.
  - Turing_Machine 14y ago
    "Success" is a continuum. "Winners/losers" is binary.
  - kamaal 14y ago
    Winner and Loser have personal traits attached to them. Loser almost implies that the individual had some problems personally and not in the way he executed the task. Success and Failure imply that the individual did task X, Y , Z to achieve a result S or not achieve result S. It has more to do with an individuals execution at the instance. Loser almost implies that the person is doomed and some how naturally incapable.
readme 14y ago
Selection of bio? The commenter above just wrote a small novel about why he's wrong. Talk about selective reading.
- arockwell 14y ago
  Ignoring that he has built a successful company (while needing to hire a ton of people to accomplish it) seems very selective to me. Also saying that "Maybe he'll be a winner in the future, and I wish him well" makes me think he completely missed that, or perhaps has never heard of Bleacher Report. The intersection of tech people and sports people does not seem very large.
maqr 14y ago
Do you happen to know if the author went to college? He seems to have this cute idea that you pay $120k to a institution of higher learning, then you dedicate all of your time to academics, then you emerge with a well-refined body of knowledge in your particular field. I thought this is how it worked too, before I attended a college. Maybe his point is that you shouldn't be taken seriously if you pay $120k and spend 4 years doing something where you're not deeply intellectually invested, but it's hard to have the confidence at 17 to be the contrarian that doesn't attend college.
- arockwell 14y ago
  Author went to college. Look at his questions from another angle. Would you hire a CS grad who couldn't answer the question "What's your favorite programming language?" I think his example might be overly specific, but the answers the candidate gave would certainly be a red flag.
  - tptacek 14y ago
    Yes. But then, we use a gamified version of a work-sample test, so I would know that despite the fact that the candidate doesn't really care about the difference between Python and Ruby, he can exploit blind SQL injection and reverse engineer a network protocol. Which is good, because the latter ability is predictive of success, and the former is predictive of lots of stupid unproductive arguments. This would be a nitpicking debate except that it gets to the heart of what makes the interview strategy in this article so dumb. There are lots of great programmers --- maybe some of the best --- who don't care all that much about language design or what language they'll be working in. There are, more importantly, a WHOLE MESS of programmers who can DEFINITELY talk your ears off about what the best language is... and then fail fizbuzz.
  - manicdee 14y ago
    I wouldn't be interested in someone who has a "favourite programming language." That's just asking for someone who thinks they're clever for figuring out how to drive screws with a hammer.
  - 14y ago
tptacek 14y ago
But it's a pretty lame attack him based on a selected portion of his bio. This comment is like 10,000 spoons, when all you need is one spoon.
- arockwell 14y ago
  Your comment is making me feel like a loser :P Can you explain what you mean?
  - tptacek 14y ago
    It's like rain, on your wedding day. A free ride, when you've already paid. Some good advice that you just didn't take.
    - mylittlepony 14y ago
      I don't get it.
      - krapp 14y ago
        They're lyrics from an Alanis Morisette song, "Ironic."
- dctoedt 14y ago
  The lyric is actually "when all you need is a knife" --- but that might have been intentional on your part, Thomas?
  - tptacek 14y ago
    I like to strike my little blow against how little irony is actually in that song.
potatolicious 14y ago
> "It's fine to disagree, but it's a pretty lame attack him based on a selected portion of his bio." As opposed to attacking an entire blanket group of people based on their ability to answer personal questions in an interview? tokenadult didn't start by calling people "losers". It's lame when know-it-alls write blog posts about how their unscientific, unverified approach to some task ought to be adopted by everyone. It's even more lame when successful people ascribe their successes to such unscientific hoo-hah (even though we all have them), proceed to spoon feed them to everyone within eye-shot, and point at people and call them losers on arbitrary criteria. The world is full of successful jerks - the jury is still out on whether your boss ever really had an effective hiring system.
wglb 14y ago
But doesn't he act on a select portion of this hapless applicant's bio?

Author is definitely a winner. He founded Bleacher Report. Disclaimer: I work there. It's fine to disagree, but it's a pretty lame attack him based on a selected portion of his bio.

d2vid 14y ago

That is what the author is espousing - judging people on a selected part of their bio, while disregarding any success they've had in the actual work they do.

RossDM 14y ago

This whole trend of categorizing people as "winners" or "losers" seems distasteful. What is winning? Favorable circumstances in the present?

arockwell 14y ago
I have to admit, I'm surprised at how polarizing the words "winners" and "losers" are to people in this thread. Replace the word winner with successful, and does it seem so bad?
- RossDM 14y ago
  Sure, we could replace winners and losers with some term like "A players" and "B players." But even judging past success has its flaws; I feel that society as a whole tends to put success, or "winning", on a pedestal. How many great minds have we benefited from who had significant flaws in their time, or went unrecognized? People are probably a lot more complicated than we think. We try to sort them out into categories as best we can, but we should remember that our understanding of another person's value is limited at best. Calling out people as "losers" because they don't fit your purpose is immature.
- Turing_Machine 14y ago
  "Success" is a continuum. "Winners/losers" is binary.
- kamaal 14y ago
  Winner and Loser have personal traits attached to them. Loser almost implies that the individual had some problems personally and not in the way he executed the task. Success and Failure imply that the individual did task X, Y , Z to achieve a result S or not achieve result S. It has more to do with an individuals execution at the instance. Loser almost implies that the person is doomed and some how naturally incapable.

readme 14y ago

Selection of bio? The commenter above just wrote a small novel about why he's wrong. Talk about selective reading.

arockwell 14y ago
Ignoring that he has built a successful company (while needing to hire a ton of people to accomplish it) seems very selective to me. Also saying that "Maybe he'll be a winner in the future, and I wish him well" makes me think he completely missed that, or perhaps has never heard of Bleacher Report. The intersection of tech people and sports people does not seem very large.

maqr 14y ago

Do you happen to know if the author went to college? He seems to have this cute idea that you pay $120k to a institution of higher learning, then you dedicate all of your time to academics, then you emerge with a well-refined body of knowledge in your particular field. I thought this is how it worked too, before I attended a college. Maybe his point is that you shouldn't be taken seriously if you pay $120k and spend 4 years doing something where you're not deeply intellectually invested, but it's hard to have the confidence at 17 to be the contrarian that doesn't attend college.

arockwell 14y ago
Author went to college. Look at his questions from another angle. Would you hire a CS grad who couldn't answer the question "What's your favorite programming language?" I think his example might be overly specific, but the answers the candidate gave would certainly be a red flag.
- tptacek 14y ago
  Yes. But then, we use a gamified version of a work-sample test, so I would know that despite the fact that the candidate doesn't really care about the difference between Python and Ruby, he can exploit blind SQL injection and reverse engineer a network protocol. Which is good, because the latter ability is predictive of success, and the former is predictive of lots of stupid unproductive arguments. This would be a nitpicking debate except that it gets to the heart of what makes the interview strategy in this article so dumb. There are lots of great programmers --- maybe some of the best --- who don't care all that much about language design or what language they'll be working in. There are, more importantly, a WHOLE MESS of programmers who can DEFINITELY talk your ears off about what the best language is... and then fail fizbuzz.
- manicdee 14y ago
  I wouldn't be interested in someone who has a "favourite programming language." That's just asking for someone who thinks they're clever for figuring out how to drive screws with a hammer.
- 14y ago

tptacek 14y ago

But it's a pretty lame attack him based on a selected portion of his bio. This comment is like 10,000 spoons, when all you need is one spoon.

arockwell 14y ago
Your comment is making me feel like a loser :P Can you explain what you mean?
- tptacek 14y ago
  It's like rain, on your wedding day. A free ride, when you've already paid. Some good advice that you just didn't take.
  - mylittlepony 14y ago
    I don't get it.
    - krapp 14y ago
      They're lyrics from an Alanis Morisette song, "Ironic."
dctoedt 14y ago
The lyric is actually "when all you need is a knife" --- but that might have been intentional on your part, Thomas?
- tptacek 14y ago
  I like to strike my little blow against how little irony is actually in that song.

potatolicious 14y ago

> "It's fine to disagree, but it's a pretty lame attack him based on a selected portion of his bio." As opposed to attacking an entire blanket group of people based on their ability to answer personal questions in an interview? tokenadult didn't start by calling people "losers". It's lame when know-it-alls write blog posts about how their unscientific, unverified approach to some task ought to be adopted by everyone. It's even more lame when successful people ascribe their successes to such unscientific hoo-hah (even though we all have them), proceed to spoon feed them to everyone within eye-shot, and point at people and call them losers on arbitrary criteria. The world is full of successful jerks - the jury is still out on whether your boss ever really had an effective hiring system.

wglb 14y ago

But doesn't he act on a select portion of this hapless applicant's bio?