I live a fairly social life and enjoy going to karaoke and going on hikes with friends or strangers not in tech/startups, and many of the others in the residency simply can't understand why I'd want to interact with people they perceive as less intelligent than them.
"Think about it. Think of the most average person you know. 50% are more stupid than them. And you won't get any value out of speaking to those"
That right there is very telling. They don't know the difference between median and average
"Who would you have me speak to instead? It’s not like I’m surrounded with geniuses anyway."
Possible response: “And yet they’re all still more intelligent, compassionate, interesting, and a better company than you.”
There are many others: “The average person I know is pretty smart. I’m sorry to hear about your family, though.”
Or: “You’re right, I do indeed not get any value out of listening to you. I feel stupider already.”
Alright, alright, let’s actually try to be kind and change some minds: “There are different kinds of intelligence, and everyone has a full life rich in perspectives that we know nothing about. Making a blanket statement that someone we never met is “stupid” is reductive, lacking in empathy, and stifling to our own personal growth. To put it in your terms: What’s the best <relevant tech stack>? The answer is, of course, that it depends. They all have strengths and weaknesses and to be good you must learn to identify what those are. People are similar. If you only hang out with one type of person, you are the proverbial hammer who sees everything and everyone as nails.”
There are the people doing actual work and science to move society forward, and then there's the people who stroll up and confidently peddle their idea to replace them with a barely thought-through app...
Most early stage startups around me right now are built on the premise of replacing groups of people. There's a startup strapping sensors and cameras onto blue collar workers in developing countries to take "egocentric" data and train "world models" to the get robots to replace skilled physical labor. Lots of "ambient capture" to then automate away the work of the employees getting recorded.
Even what I'm building right now, which was initially just a tool to help me with my ADHD and memory problems is slowly getting twisted towards the same direction based on where the money is.
I would love to know how to build a company that serves real humans rather than the accumulation of capital and the extractive nature of corporations.
That “below average” intelligence pool are well represented in upper management. FOMO is a powerful thing, smart people are often tricked by dumb ideas because they don’t want to miss out on something or be perceived to not understand the value of a bad idea
Wouldn’t we all. It is not possible, actually.
Clearly not. Otherwise Bezos wouldn’t create a culture where employees feel the need to pee in bottles and continue working while a colleague is dead on the floor.
> It is not possible, actually.
I don’t believe that. Sure, if you want to be filthy rich you’ll exploit people, but there are plenty of smaller companies who treat their employees well (some owners have even left their companies to their employees) and genuinely care about customers as people.
> I don’t believe that.
Of course not. Bezos is spending a lot to make sure you don’t.