Iconoclasm
summary
Argues that being an iconoclast means three concrete skills: see the world differently (examples: Florence Nightingale uses a pie chart to force hand‑washing and cuts deaths, Chihuly abandons symmetry after losing an eye and builds a 100‑person studio), embrace fear (DHH defends Rails despite backlash, Kasparov loses to Deep Blue), and build familiarity and reputation (Picasso monetizes 13,000 works, Linux publishes source). Offers actionable lens, not theory.
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chapters (17)
- 0:00Start
- 0:57Keynote
- 3:15The Psat
- 4:38The Path to Financial Independence
- 22:14Alan Kay
- 23:42The Pragmatic Press
- 28:00Pattern Recognition
- 29:25Optical Illusion Which of those Horizontal Lines Is Longer the Top One or the Bottom
- 39:29Florence Nightingale
- 42:42It Is Medical Malpractice for a Doctor To Operate on You in any Sort of Non-Emergency Scenario without Having Washed His Hands without Having Scrubbed Up before the Operation Begins the Iconoclast Sees Things Differently the Econo Classed in some Cases Has that Different Vision Thrust upon Them Like When Chihuly Lost an Eye or in some Cases because They Happen To Be Observant When Florence Nightingale Noticed that some Men Were Dying and some Men Weren't and What Was the Commonality between those That Were and those That Weren't Etcetera
- 51:25You'Re Now Making Two Logically Inconsistent Statements Back-to-Back I Believe this Has More White Marbles I Believe this Has More Black Marbles Assuming that Has the Same Number of Marbles these Two Statements CanNot Be Correct and You Have Fallen Victim to the Ellsberg Paradox because the Brain Prefers the the Non-Ambiguous It Prefers the Place Where We Believe We Have More Information Your Desire To Pull from the Known Urn Is because of Ambiguity Aversion Your Fear of the Unknown How Many People Recognize this Craft and Answers of Space Shuttle or Only Partial Right You Get You Get Partial Credit What Happens if I Show You this
- 1:02:34And in those People That Actually Have Suffered Physical Trauma to the Brain Such that They Do Not Feel Emotion any Manner Psychologists Have Reported that It's Absolutely Impossible for these People To Do any To Make any Kind of Decision Even Just What Time Would You Like the Appointment Next Week They Gauge in all Kinds of Analysis Well if I Do It at this Time Then I Have To Think about this but if I Do It at this Other Time Then I Have To Think about How I'M GonNa Get from a to B They Get into an Analysis Paralysis It Literally Requires Emotion To Make that Decision We Can't Just Leave Emotion at the Door We Need It in Order To Make those Decisions this Is the Most Important Thing about this the Iconoclast Feels that Fear They Know Damn Well What They'Re Doing When I Stand Up Here and Tell You Micra Services Are Absolutely Overvalued and It's Really Just another Way To Think about Component Sizing Your Code
- 1:06:15He Discovered that the Fm Radio Band Was Actually Quite Superior to Am Radio Which Was the Technical Superiority of the Time and He Was So Excited about His Invention that He Went to His Best Friend David Sarnoff Who Was in Fact an Executive Vice President at Rca I'M Sorry He Was President of Rca and He Said David David David Check this Out this Is So Much Better than What You'Ve Got Now and Sarnoff Looked Out Figuratively and Literally at the Virtual Forest of Am Radio Towers That They Had Just Installed on Buildings All across New York
- 1:08:42It's Really Easy as a Software Engineer To Say You Know What I Believe that Elixir Is like the Best Thing Ever Huh this Is Such a Cool Technology Great I'M GonNa Put You in Charge of Our Next Mission Critical Project and Not Only Will You Be Fired if this Fails but So Will Your Entire Team You'Re Still Ready To Bet on the Elixir You Ready To Bet Your Career As Well as those of Your Teammates because You Know They'Re GonNa Be a Little Pissed at You if You'Re Wrong How Do You Communicate this How Do You Get this across this Is Social Intelligence
- 1:09:10Because You Know They'Re GonNa Be a Little Pissed at You if You'Re Wrong How Do You Communicate this How Do You Get this across this Is Social Intelligence this Is How We Actually Get People To Buy into What We Are Selling Now You Could Of Course Just Wait You Just Kind Of Hang Back and See whether or Not this Becomes Mainstream Which Means at that Point You'Re Not Really an Iconoclast You'Re Just You Know Maybe Somebody Who Had a Better Eye for Detail than the Rest of Us and None of the Rewards Will Come with
- 1:15:35If You'Re Going To Be an Iconoclast You Need To Challenge both of these and One of the Interesting Things about the Social Intelligence Is It Doesn't Necessarily Mean It Has To Be in Person You Don't Have To Go Out to a Conference and Stand Up in Front of a Room It Helps because Then You Become More Familiar and Then People Can Identify More Closely with You and What You'Re Doing and Who You Are Etc but You Can Also Do this a Lot through Open Source if You Want To Commit to a Series of Projects if You Become a Core Committer People Get To Know Who You Are and They Can Judge Your Work
- 1:18:39You Want To Look at the World Differently You Want To Embrace the Fear That Comes with It and You Want To Figure Out How To Communicate that to Other People Using Your Familiarity and Your Reputation if You Want To Convince Your Vice-President that Elixir Is the Best Thing That You Should Use Going Forward Then You Have To Build the Familiarity and the Reputation To Make that Stick and if You Do that
