Hacker News Reader

Comment by pmjordan | Hacker News Reader

I'd tend to agree. I only have anecdotal data, but I've definitely met far more "can't-do" people in their 20s and early 30s than those with a "can-do" attitude. Many of the former end up dropping out of the field in some way or another, which should counteract the effect hypothesised in the article to some extent.

I'm also pretty sure lack of experience also stops you from thinking you could do anything, at least up to a certain level. I think it's combinatorics, really. If you've done N wildly different projects, you have O(N²) possibilities of combining the experiences of 2 of those to produce something novel and good. I have a hard time working with people who are too focused in their domain (e.g. nothing but web apps) because they can't think outside their box.

View on HN

So have I. In fact, most of the "can't do" folks in their 20's and 30's that I've had to deal with were failing to solve easy problems. My peers and I had encountered these in the past, we had solved them, and didn't care to waste time trying to come up with new solutions to them. The ones who failed were too arrogant to listen to the voice of experience, and as a result they failed miserably.

That said, I've also encountered peers who were too set in their ways to change, and continued to fail in almost exactly the same way over and over again, refusing to learn from their own experience.

It goes both ways, but age has had very little to do with it in either case. It's usually been arrogance instead.

I think it's mostly just lack of caring, not arrogance, at least in my experience. Sure, some people react badly when you try to coax them out of their comfort zone. Could be a cultural thing - Americans seem to be more confident overall, which could well manifest itself as arrogance in this situation.

I come across the issue occasionally as a contractor - where my work needs to be integrated with the help of employees who are totally out of their depth with it. In addition to making it all happen you get a second objective: not embarrassing them or otherwise pissing them off.

I think you're right, it does seem like a cultural thing. If you find something that's easy for you, you can choose to either stick with that one thing, or you can push your comfort zone and grow. Most americans these days are trained early on to stay in their comfort zone rather than growing, and it's getting ingrained into them.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com