Drop outs - January 25, 2008

God helps those who help themselves.
-Benjamin Franklin

If I didn't already have a job, I would go do this. (Emphasis mine)

We've decided to start a recruiting program to bring in computer science folks out of school (or still in school and looking to drop out) so they can learn from these old Jedi.
...

We're not looking for specific skills sets, but rather personality types: positive, hard working, considered, and who believe in doing not trying.

Not because I'm a huge fan of Mahalo (which I think is some type of index for hawaiian pineapple farming) and not because I'm a huge Jason Calacanis fan (I do read his blog). I'd go work there because they're onto the Right Thing. It's not about how much you know or how smart you are. It's not even about what skills you have, skills can be taught. The only thing that matters is how hard you're willing to work, everything else is just noise.

All day I'm surrounded by smart people. Smart lazy people. Smart lazy people who do what they need to do to get by and not much else. They go to class, get the grades, work part time jobs but that's all they're doing. They are the next generation of the fattened middle. They're the ones with the degrees who don't remember much of what they were taught. They're your boss when you're an intern with cookie cutter lives in cookie cutter houses and cookie cutter children and well, I think you can see where I'm going with this. They're the ones who like to talk about what "could have been" if they'd only "gotten a break."

That job posting above, that's a break. That's a chance. Maybe the job sucks, maybe their team sucks, maybe you're there a week and you quit or get fired. You never know until you try. Most people never try.

Posted by Ben Corman at 5:24 PM

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I don't think so, man.

Smart lazy people are about as effective as hard working stupid people. They're semi-effective but their weaknesses (laziness, stupidity) hold them back.

Looking at it economically, I like to think of intelligence as a fixed cost and hard work as a variable cost. The latter will bring you farther, but the former is important to get the head start that will help you keep your edge.

Posted by: Ilan Bouchard at January 26, 2008 11:05 PM

Hey Ilan,

I don't agree but I'm not talking about smart vs stupid, I'm talking about smart and lazy vs average and hard working. I go to school with some very smart people and certainly the average intelligence here (at UCLA) is higher than in any other formal institution I've attended. Even the dumb kids here are miles ahead of the dumb kids I knew in high school. And the dumb kids here are an entirely different breed of human than (and light years ahead of) the average kids I met in community college.

But given a smart but lazy kid here at UCLA and an average but hardworking kid here at UCLA -- I'll take the average kid every time. Smarts are just a potential. Hard work leads to valuable, tangible things like skills and life experience.

That's what I mean when I say that skills can be taught. The person who is going to learn them however is the person who has the drive to learn them. Smart and lazy, there's no drive there.

Anyway, I have a lot more to say on this, I'll probably blog about it soon. Thanks, as always, for the comment.

Posted by: Ben Corman at January 27, 2008 02:20 AM

I've been following your blog since the day it took off so I'm glad I finally had an opportunity to comment. (Great blog, by the way.)

I can relate to your experience; I transferred to George Washington University from a community college. People here are smarter and a lot of them work hard. But I met a lot of people who worked hard in community college and high school... the difference was that they just weren't smart enough to overcome that level of work.

I understand what you're saying about drive and ambition being essential for success; no one will go anywhere if they think their success is going to be effortless. But working smarter is more effective than working harder.

Posted by: Ilan Bouchard at January 27, 2008 11:46 AM

Thanks, it's always nice to hear people are reading.

I think we basically agree. Hard work is essential for success and that's what I like about the mahalo job thing, they want people with a work ethic and people who are driven to succeed. A fancy resume is nice and all, but I think that drive is essential and more important than any particular skill one can bring.

I'm not going to write more here, I've got a whole post I'm working on around this.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for the comments.

Posted by: Ben Corman at January 27, 2008 03:21 PM