Paul Graham has a Ph. D. in Applied Science specializing in computer
science. Joel Spolsky has a BS in computer science. Paul created LISP
and Joel has worked with Microsoft on its Visual Basic and Excel
products. I would hardly consider these endeavors as hacking projects.

Creating a programming language isn't a new process anymore the step
are fairly documented. As for working at Microsoft, well yes in the
early years Bill Gates was a hacker with his efforts to get BASIC to
work on the Altair computer but at this time I would find it difficult
to believe that existing product lines lend themselves to hacking out
a way to get a few more bytes of memory.

As to what they've accomplished I wouldn't take it with a grain of
salt but research what they did and how they did it.

I've worked and currently work at places that have a hacker mentality
employee's, when those employee's leave it takes years to find,
fix/replace and document all the things they "worked" on. The cost to
the company tends to be in the 10's to 100's of thousands of dollars.

>From researched the words hacker centric I would a-line it with
cowboy, the lone employee. Most companies need team oriented
employee's not employee's running of on there own personal objectives.

The hacker centric person starts there company but it doesn't stay
that way this would be called an entrepreneur or visionary a more
worthy title than hacker. Again, look at what Paul and Joel did they
started products and or companies.


On Tue, May 17, 2011 at 5:38 AM, Jason Hsu <jhsu802701 at jasonhsu.com> wrote:
> Thanks for your thoughts.  Now I wonder what else from Paul Graham and Joel Spolsky I should take with a shaker of salt.
> --
> Jason Hsu <jhsu802701 at jasonhsu.com>
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