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Comment by frank_nitti | Hacker News Reader

Maybe - I think the missing component is their level of "laziness" as Bill Gates defined it. A brilliant, but "lazy", coder will find the most efficient way to compose a solution that meets the requirements.

But it's definitely not an oxymoron to say that some brilliant coders can go down rabbit holes at the expense of their own (and company's) time and productivity. They may spend lots of time reading white papers, improving a design/implementation/test-suite beyond what is required, etc. It's just these coders don't place a high value on being as efficient as possible from a PM's perspective, but might be able to solve a problem 10x as difficult as the guy who is closing his tickets within hours of assignment.

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This reminds me of the following by General Freiherr von Hammerstein-Equord:

> "I divide my officers into four classes as follows: The clever, the industrious, the lazy, and the stupid. Each officer always possesses two of these qualities.

> Those who are clever and industrious I appoint to the General Staff. Use can under certain circumstances be made of those who are stupid and lazy. The man who is clever and lazy qualifies for the highest leadership posts. He has the requisite nerves and the mental clarity for difficult decisions. But whoever is stupid and industrious must be got rid of, for he is too dangerous."

I'm clever and stupid.

I like to call it strategic laziness. Knowing what to do, and more importantly what not to do is key.

Or you know, writing an entire library instead of filing four PRs against an existing one, with a user base, documentation, stack overflow entries and resume appeal.

Nothing more dangerous than a smart but bored developer.

'efficient as possible' is only measurable in terms of the task at hand. Being smart educated and hardworking does not necessarily make you better at your job if you spend most of your effort tilting at windmills.

At times it really is better for everyone to just move on from a comfortable position and stretch your wings as it where.

I would much rather be refactoring code from that guy... I seem to be refactoring the industrious and stupid code.

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