The Black Liszt

How much is a computer science degree worth?

The median annual wage of a college grad with a computer, math or statistics degree is over $70,000. This is better than the vast majority of college majors, and compares really well with the median annual wage of high school grads, which is under $40,000. The conclusions are clear:

• Go to college
• Major in computers, math, statistics, architecture or engineering
• Otherwise, you’re screwed.
• Well, all right, majoring in education or psychology leads to crappy salaries, but at least it’s better than being just a high school grad.

Here is the data:

This is a test!

Trigger Warning! From here to the end of this post could trigger feelings of inadequacy among certain people. Others could feel anger towards the author, causing potentially dangerous heightening of the pulse rate. Others could feel that the author is hopelessly arrogant or elitist, resulting in generally uncomfortable feelings. So read on at your own risk.

This post is a test of whether you’re qualified to be a top computer programmer, or an outstanding achiever in any technical/quantitative field. The thoughts in this post up to this point summarize what the article accompanying the chart intends you to conclude, and what most people will think on looking at the chart.

The author of the article clearly failed the test.

Did you?

Understanding the data

If you haven’t already, look at the chart again. Note the big, fat explanation at the top. The endpoints of the lines represent 25^th and 75^th percentiles. The 75^th percentile for high school grads is about $50,000. This means that a quarter of high school grads have salaries above that. The 25^th percentile for computer etc. grads is roughly $50,000, perhaps a little more. Which means that a quarter of the computer etc. grads make less than $50,000. In summary: a quarter of high school grads have salaries that are greater than a quarter of college grads with degrees in computers, math or statistics. Read that sentence again. Get it? Did you figure it out before reading this?

Implications for Hiring Computer Programmers

I hope you’ve just seen why, when I’ve hired people, I really haven’t given a %^* about their education or their degree – in fact, the higher the education and the fancier the degree, the more concerned I am to weed out the folks with bad attitudes, the ones who have been granted the knowledge and the certification to prove it, and want to spend their lives resting on and/or milking their degrees. Some of the best programmers I’ve met in decades of programming did not have college degrees. Most of the ones who are less than excellent and/or have “risen” in management are experts at glancing at things and reaching the wrong conclusions. Like most people do when looking at the salary chart above. FWIW, here are some good examples of drop-outs who did pretty well. Including the Wright Brothers -- after all, how hard can inventing the airplane be?

The people who are best in computing combine big-picture, visual/conceptual abilities with an utterly uncompromising attention to detail. Computer programs shouldn’t have even a single byte wrong, and the bytes should be selected and arranged according to a deep conceptual understanding of the problem at hand. Amateurs and pretenders don’t do well at either of these jobs, much less in combination.

Conclusion

If you care about attracting, selecting and retaining the very best software people, you would be well advised to alter your hiring practices as required to select the people who ... get ready for it ... can actually do the work! Really well! Having degrees or whatever is not nearly as correlated to that outcome as you might think.

Nerds and Autism: Deficiency or Advantage?

Some of the very best nerds, the Top Nerds, the ones who are superb programmers, share important traits that are identified with that rapidly spreading "disease," autism.

Recent studies are starting to measure the differences between those with autistic traits and the majority who are mentally weaker.

...most people regard autism as a disease, a straightforward example of an impaired mind. But there's compelling evidence that autism is not merely a list of deficits. Rather, it represents an alternate way of making sense of the world, a cognitive difference that, in many instances, comes with unexpected benefits.

That's the lesson, at least, of a new study from the lab of Nilli Lavie at University College London. A few dozen adults, both with and without autism, were given a difficult perceptual task, in which they had to keep track of letters quickly flashed on a computer screen. At the same time, they also had to watch out for a small gray shape that occasionally appeared on the edge of the monitor.

When only a few letters appeared on the screen, both autistic and normal subjects could handle the task. However, when the number of letters was increased, subjects without autism—so-called neurotypicals—could no longer keep up. They were overwhelmed by the surplus of information.

Those adults with autism didn't have this problem. Even when the task became maddeningly difficult, their performance never flagged.

What explains this result? According to the scientists, autism confers a perceptual edge, allowing people with the disorder to process more information in a short amount of time. While scientists have long assumed that autistics are more vulnerable to distraction—an errant sound or conversation can steal their attention—that's not the case. As Prof. Lavie notes, "Our research suggests autism does not involve a distractibility deficit but rather an information-processing advantage."

It is well-known that history is written by the victors. It is also true that what is considered "normal" is determined by the majority, who simply describe themselves and call it "normal." People not like them are, by their definition, ab-normal or disabled.

The medical and intellectual establishments have firmly established their views: people who don't interact socially like they do are lacking something important, and must be labeled in a way that indicates the deficiency. There is a simple way to describe people who think this way: they are fools.

When you call a programmer "arrogant," are you committing libel?

The best programmers are often accused of being "arrogant." Are they? When you make the accusation, are you committing libel?

How to respond when accused of Arrogance

You can just tough it out. Dilbert shows us the way here:

In order to figure out how to respond, maybe we should understand just what arrogance is.

What is "arrogant," anyway?

Here's the scoop from the dictionary:

Definition of ARROGANT

1: exaggerating or disposed to exaggerate one's own worth or importance often by an overbearing manner <an arrogant official>

2: showing an offensive attitude of superiority : proceeding from or characterized by arrogance <an arrogant reply>

The second meaning is clear: you're arrogant if people don't like the way you act or talk; they somehow think that you think you're better than they are.

The first meaning is more interesting: it links the way you act to the facts of the case. You're arrogant if you act like you're better than you are. Hmmm...

Does this mean that you're arrogant if and only if you exaggerate how good you are? Sure sounds like it. So your arrogance is real arrogance IF your view of your self-worth is greater than your actual worth. Sounds reasonable, actually. If Eli Manning (the QB in the Superbowl who is not married to Giselle Bundchen) says "I'm a great quarterback," is he being arrogant? I'd say "no."

Arrogance is understandable and justified...

What happens when some aggressive, ignorant fool takes over a meeting, presses his own neanderthal solution and is close to getting it turned into marching orders for the less-aggressive ignorant fools? First of all, I'd say buddy, you're in the wrong place. Bail out! May Day! May Day! Second, I can completely understand getting everyone's attention, perhaps with some edge, and putting out a superior solution.

...Except when it's not!

The other problem is that sometimes the nerd is really wrong. He's just blown it. This is easy to understand. Are all nerds Top Nerds? Of course not! So there are whole lots of nerds that are wrong (or at least sub-optimal) on lots of subjects lots of the time! Yuck!! Even worse, such a nerd is, almost by definition, an "arrogant nerd," even if the nerd is behaving pretty well.

Arrogance and Libel

Suppose you call someone a lying tax cheat. In public. Their reputation is under attack, and they respond by suing you for defamation of character, i.e. libel. IF you can prove that the person in fact has lied about important things and has in fact cheated on their taxes, it's case closed: there is no libel, no defamation of character, when all you're doing is speaking the truth. 

Now suppose you call someone an arrogant programmer. In public.Their reputation is under attack, and they respond by saying they're not arrogant, they're just right and you're wrong -- get over it! IF you can prove that the person in fact writes bad programs, designs them poorly and that there is in fact a better way of doing things, it's case closed: they are arrogant! There is no libel, no defamation of character, when all you're doing is speaking the truth.

Conclusion

There is a great deal to be said about nerds and arrogance. In the end, it's pretty simple. Try to be nice most of the time. When someone's being a fool, be kind. But you still can't let fools determine technical outcomes. Have you missed something? Are you really smarter in this case? If so, get the right outcome. Will you be called "arrogant?" Probably. Let them prove it!

(Most) Nerds are Introverts

A book on Introverts was just published. Mostly it states things that are obviously true. But since most people don't know these things and they're not part of mainstream cultural thinking, it's worth reading.

Jobs and Wozniak

One review of the book refers to the hoopla about the "wonderful, creative" Steve Jobs. Here's an excerpt:

If you look at how Mr. Wozniak got the work done — the sheer hard work of creating something from nothing — he did it alone. Late at night, all by himself.

Intentionally so. In his memoir, Mr. Wozniak offers this guidance to aspiring inventors:

“Most inventors and engineers I’ve met are like me ... they live in their heads. They’re almost like artists. In fact, the very best of them are artists. And artists work best alone .... I’m going to give you some advice that might be hard to take. That advice is: Work alone... Not on a committee. Not on a team.”

Introverts

Not every introvert is a nerd (far from it); and not every nerd is an introvert (though most of them are, I think). So this book is worth looking at because of the high overlap. I was particularly struck by the transformation in American society to elevate the extrovert to the image of what is desireable in a human being. To the point of admissions officers at top universities saying they'd rather have someone who was good at sports and slapping backs than someone who (among other things) doesn't put going with the crowd above all else.

"Top Nerd:" Nerd Values and Attitudes

Though the subject of unapologetic humor, nerd values and attitudes are wonderful. Society would be better off with more nerds.

When other groups have gotten status and prestige, or just respect, in the past, they have had to either (1) exercise aggressive dominance, or (2) do the victim thing. Nerds are getting respect like never before by just coming out, valuing who they are and what they do, making a bit of fun of themselves, and by the simple fact that people actually know stuff and can get stuff done with passion and complete dedication are really valuable, admirable people who tend to enjoy what they do! 

I found a delightful blog post by Liz Andrade, a self-described nerd, who describes some nerd values that also illustrates why nerds are so valuable.

Here are a couple excerpts:

Nerds are Inspiring!

Part of being a nerd has to do with having some strong opinions on whatever it is you’re nerdy for — be it Star Wars, video games or typography — nerds pride themselves on knowing a lot about what they are into and your opinions on the matter are part of your identity.

...

This past year I shopped for glasses ... and the experience I had ... made something that in the past was nothing more than a necessary task into a remarkable experience! How? The people at these locations were total eye wear nerds!

This is a sect of nerd I was not even aware existed ... They were able to suggest ideas based on my face shape and style, they knew about eye wear designers, frame shapes, materials, vintage styles and their enthusiasm for the subject was infectious!

When you are passionate about what you do, you inspire the people around you – and who doesn’t want to work with someone inspiring!?

Nerds are Authentic

Part of being nerdy is accepting yourself for who you are and what you are into even if isn’t what fits into the status quo or flow into the mainstream. Those who are able to embrace their nerdisms and not be ashamed of them have this obvious badge of honesty.

Whether it is real or imagined, if someone can be totally open and honest about their Red Dwarf obsession, you feel they are probably transparent about other things in their life, like business practices and ethics.

Nerds are Memorable

Nerds are usually stand out from the crowd… and being unique makes you easier to remember, as simple as that. It is each of our unique experiences and abilities that make us valuable individuals, blending in has become a liability to any business trying to be remarkable!

 

Of course the work of nerdy, remarkable people like Temple Grandin has gotten some attention and helped the cause as well. Temple has had to overcome some obnoxious and inexcusable barriers ... to make the world a better place! Not to mention, to get her job done! More of us should be more like Temple....

 

"Top Nerd" Activities: Work Hard, Save the Day and Have Fun

There are nerds. There are super-nerds. And then there are ... Top Nerds. What do Top Nerds do? Simple:

• Top Nerds work hard. Really hard. Why? They like hard work.
• Top Nerds save the day. One of my Top Nerds buddies is doing it as I write this. No "software project" of any kind, however well-run, could possibly pull off what he's pulling off.
• Top Nerds have fun. They're exploring, pioneering, accomplishing, learning. This is the best kind of fun!

I just hosted a gathering of Top Nerds. Having them all together for a long weekend was fun for everyone -- who else spends the first more-than-half of the Fourth of July in a conference room going deep into the details of machine learning techniques and applications, solves leading-edge problems in their practical application and discovers new, transformative uses for them, ... and has a blast? Well, we sure did!

Naturally, Top Nerds scramble and solve obstacles as they arise. One of our number was too busy saving the day for his company to be able to commit a holiday weekend to being in New York City with the rest of us. But he skyped in (that's him on the screen in the picture), told us what he was doing, how and why, and in the interaction that ensued, everyone ended up ahead of the game, and thoroughly entertained as a side-effect!

Because that's what Top Nerds do!

The new "Top Gun" is "Top Nerd"

"Top Gun" is so last-century. Now nerds are on top of the heap, and being "Top Nerd" is best of all.

When the hottest, coolest thing around is fighter planes...

... it makes sense that the coolest dude around would be the best fighter pilot. This is what the 1986 movie "Top Gun" was all about.

Top Gun is macho alpha male behavior to the max. It's competitive guys who look at other capable guys as something in the spectrum of rival to enemy. Everyone else is just stuff to be vanquished in primal combat.

Fast-forward to 2011. When I walk around the streets, everyone who isn't about to be retired (and an amazing number of ones who are) is either plugged in, communicating via their portable device and/or (increasingly on buses and trains) absorbed in their e-readers. Advertising is rapidly shifting to digital media, and similar digital transformations are taking place in other domains. Are fighter planes at the heart of this world-wide, all-pervading transformation? Hardly. It's computers and the software who make them do what we want (mostly). And who's the fighter pilot for the computers? It's the people who write the software; in other words, it's nerds!

This is a really good changing of the guard. With rare exceptions, nerds are much nicer people than "Top Gun" types. Nerds are much more interested in learning and accomplishing things than non-nerds. Cooperation and collaboration are characteristics that are well within nerd-normal behavior. This is illustrated by the fact that when you've got a "Top Gun," you've often got a bunch of bitter, defeated rivals, while "Top Nerd" is normally designated by acclamation by hard-working, admiring fellow nerds.

In my opinion, this is a good thing. Good for nerds, and good for the world.

 

Nerds in Norway

I can personally attest that there are nerds in Norway. I have been there. I have seen them. I interacted with them, for hours and hours. They are, indeed, nerdy. Most, though not all, are Norwegian nerds; others are simply nerds who happen, at the moment, to be in Norway.

It may be that the folks roaming the streets in Oslo are largely nerds; maybe few of them are; I can’t say. What I can say is that there is a whole passel of them in the offices of Point Carbon, a company I visited earlier this week.

Computer nerds all over the world have lots of things in common, which is part of why it’s so much fun to visit them. Part of the fun is also seeing how they’re different.

The most obvious differences spring from the fact that these nerds are in, well, Norway, which is kind of far north and is loaded with mountains. Norway, as you may know, came away from the recent Winter Olympics with a huge number of Gold Medals, which only strikes you as the amazing accomplishment it truly is when you realize that the whole country has fewer people than Brooklyn and Queens put together. So I guess it’s not so very surprising that you see skis leaning up against the computer-laden desks of these urban nerds.

Marianne Amble, their head techie, was kind enough to give me permission to post a couple pictures from a recent winter party she and her nerds had, by way of illustration of the Norwegian-ness of the Point Carbonites.

Here are nerds getting ready to race down the hill, like the mature adults they all, undoubtedly, are…

 

 

 

OK, nerds, get ready, get set…

 

 

GO!

 

 

 

After all that work, it’s time for some relaxation, but let’s have some dry ice to remind us what part of the world we live in, and a colorful greeting from Espen…

 

 

I had a lot of fun on my recent visit, and really appreciate the hospitality and good, honest, open work we got to do together.

Nerds and the "Yakkity-Yaks"

We have some really smart people at some of our companies. The trouble is, there's more than one kind of smart; when everyone settles on the idea that their kind of smart is the only kind, bad things can happen.

There is a kind of smart that tends to be really successful in normal worldly terms. This kind of smart is highly verbal, good at communication and interaction. You see loads of these people at prestigious schools, elite institutions, and so on. They are quick on their (verbal) feet and subtle. They know how to shift tone, when to get personal and how much, and when to bring in what kinds of facts and references into a conversation. Get a group of these folks together, and you can just sit back and watch the maneuvering as they attempt to establish hierarchy among themselves.

What happens to this kind of smart people? They tend to climb organizational hierarchies really well, particularly since their elite institutional training gives them a head start. They do the "important, strategic" work; they hire people to do the regular work.

I fully accept this kind of "mainstream elite" as a kind of smart. But it's not the only kind.

One of the kinds of smart that I particularly value is often called "nerdy." An extreme view of the contrast between "talk-y, strategic, people-smart" and nerdy was nicely put today by a nerd's nerd. Here is the start of an interview with Temple Grandin:

'Who do you think made the first stone spear?" asks Temple Grandin. "That wasn't the yakkity yaks sitting around the campfire. It was some Aspberger sitting in the back of a cave figuring out how to chip rocks into spearheads. Without some autistic traits you wouldn't even have a recording device to record this conversation on."

While Ms. Grandin has become famous because she is an autistic who is accomplished, what is remarkable about her is how truly accomplished she is. For example:

Today, half of the cattle in this country pass through the slaughter systems that Ms. Grandin invented. She's a consultant to companies like McDonalds and Burger King. Yet—and she might well be the only person with these two associations—she's also been honored as a "visionary" by PETA for making slaughterhouses more humane.

Temple Grandin has transformed a huge industry, and she clearly lacks "yakkity yak" type smarts. Before Ms. Grandin came along, there were all sorts of "mainstream smart" people involved in meat packing, an industry that employs over half a million people. If you went to the executive conference rooms of this industry that slaughters roughly 10 billion animals a year in the US alone, you would find piles of well-paid, highly accomplished yakkity yaks who would never dream of actually paying attention to "details" like the walls of the corrals, whether they're curved or straight, solid or slatted. And yet it is details like curvature and slope of walls that determine whether or not a slaughter operation is efficient (not to mention humane). Generations of executives in this industry were all one kind of smart -- the kind of smart that impresses other similarly smart people, the kind that is too absorbed with "strategy" and other in-the-clouds kinds of things, the kind whose time is way too valuable to get "lost in the weeds" of details like corral design.

In a technology-fueled enterprise, it is really important to have smart people. But not just one kind of smart.

• Yakkity yaks are really valuable to have. They can be great leaders, and they can help find the way to make a company with a disruptive innovation real-world successful.
• Nerds are really valuable to have. They get totally absorbed in the objects (physical or logical) that need transforming, and can make it happen.

When the balance between the kinds of smarts is wrong, bad things happen. If the yakkity yaks get out of control and run the show their way, somehow the software doesn't ever work and the cool stuff never gets delivered. If the nerds are left to their own devices, they might spend too much of their time solving problems without real-world relevance.

When the yakkity yaks and the nerds cooperate, collaborate and work towards a common goal, watch out -- that's a place that's going to invent cool stuff that people actually need and use, become a meaningful business, and be barrels of fun for everyone involved.

Xiotech Nerdfest Attitudes

Xiotech's Nerdfest was a wonderful thing. One of the best thing of course was the nerds in full display, wearing their "colors."

Naturally, one expects a good nerd to have some attitude ... err, I mean self-confidence. CTO Steve Sicola's t-shirt displayed an attitude that was widely shared at the fest:

Naturally, there were also comments on various technical-religious issues. Here is a particularly out-there one:

(Pictures courtesy of one of the nerd attendees, Marshall Midden.)

Old Nerds at Xiotech

Xiotech has some amazing old nerds. See descriptions here and pictures here.

Most nerds who entered some computer-oriented field in the 1960's (like I did) gradually figured out that being a nerd was the best way to do most of the work and get the least of the credit, money and appreciation. So they wised up, dressed up, cleaned up and moved up the management hierarchy.

Of the remaining nerds, most kind of drifted along being role players, fulfilling some incredibly narrow function.

But some nerds were so strong, so self-motivated and so, well, nerdy, that they marched along actually doing real work, solving new problems, and creating products that changed industries. They didn't deny their inner nerdiness. They were proud of it during the days when it wasn't something to be proud of.

One of the many amazing things about Xiotech's CTO, Steve Sicola, is that he is a world-class "nerd herder." Now that he is aided and abetted by the terrific Xiotech CEO, Alan Atkinson, he has been able to attract an amazing group of wildly productive and experienced nerds.The ones pictured on the web site aren't the only ones, either! Just to name a couple, there is Todd Burkey, Randy Roberson, Marshall Midden, Mark Rustad, and even that isn't everyone.

This isn't just of historical or sociological interest. Old nerds of this kind, when given resources and focused on a juicy business problem, can conceive and build better products, more quickly and efficiently, than whole departments of well-qualified engineers working at established companies. It's like everyone else has a bunch of beginners at chess, organized and led by a bunch of chess "managers" (what a concept!), while Xiotech has an elite team of energized and focused chess grand masters. The rest of the world is hopelessly outclassed.

Xiotech Nerdfest

I just attended the Xiotech Nerdfest -- an unqualified success!

What an idea -- get all the nerds in the company together to geek out. Everyone, the field architects, the customer service people, everyone who wants or needs to know how the innovative Xiotech storage products work.

It's a great model for tech-centric companies to follow.

Here is an insider posting about it:

http://pjselin.wordpress.com/2010/01/20/nerdfest-2010-day-3-2/