Comment by chadash | Hacker News Reader

Comment by chadash | Hacker News Reader

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This seems like wishful thinking. Why assume that academic intelligence makes you less creative? Do you think that people who graduate with high grades out of Harvard/MIT/Stanford are less creative than people who graduate from second-tier universities because they are too bookish?

I think the reality is probably that it's hard for any large company to be truly innovative. Once you get to a certain size, red tape and size make you slower. You also have an existing golden goose that you don't want to kill (for these companies, ad revenue), so you are more constrained. Furthermore, you only care to take risks that have massive payoffs... new ideas at Google need to be $1b+ to make a dent and $50m ideas don't really matter much anymore. In any case, are there any large companies that don't do leetcode that you would consider innovative? I'd argue maybe Amazon (1 day delivery) and Apple (M1 and M2 chips), but not so much in their software divisions where the leetcode happens.

> Why assume that academic intelligence makes you less creative?

Perhaps it’s not the academic intelligence that makes you uncreative, but the lack of willingness to play those games means that anyone who does endure the process is bound to be both intelligent and uncreative.

The most intelligent and creative people I know are beyond uninterested in big tech (one even went as far as foregoing millions of dollars after their company got acquired by a FAANG because they couldn’t motivate themselves to turn up after their induction and quit). They have plenty of career and lifestyle options, and most of them are way less driven by money than the average.

You won’t find any of them at Meta.

I don’t think this is just about the environment you find once you get there. I suspect these companies are unwittingly selecting for dullness and failure to innovate from the very start of the process.

I recommend a book called "inside the tornado", which deals with innovation at larger companies.

https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/Inside-the-Tornado...

His previous book "Crossing the Chasm" was also good, but that dealt with startups trying to find market fit.

I posted this elsewhere, creativity with regards to creating and intuiting what will be a good product is completely different than creating a beautiful algorithm. Math professors arent known for their sense of style. And I agree, size hampers it, but here we have Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple all creating new products that people like. And who you hire as engineers permeates through the culture.

I think OP, and others like myself, are questioning something else. It's not that being creative is different from being "bookish," it's that the two are not mutually exclusive.

> here we have Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple all creating new products that people like

And you think that those companies don't test proficiency of working with algorithms when hiring? What?

Two of them (arguably all three) make operating systems. That's just one of many parts of what they do where proficiency in algorithms and data structures is a strong prerequisite.

Im not saying they dont test, but not anywhere near to the same degree. You absolutely need to be able to solve some of these problems, but FB takes it to another level. Its almost not even comparable in terms of the rigor.

This does not make sense just in the light that every division, every team probably, tests differently according to their needs. I have a suspicion that you are trying to extrapolate some small anecdotical experiences to whole massive companies.

> This seems like wishful thinking. Why assume that academic intelligence makes you less creative?

Unfortunately - it's common on HN - I've seen all sorts of hobby-horses tied to creativity. Everything from the economic system (capitalism vs "socialism"[1]), to "freedom", wealth and race (or something close to it as one can make on HN without being flagged - which is close indeed).

In all these scenarios, the commenter's favored group are creative and predestined for success because of their affinity, and the others should fail and therefore will fail and the author will resort to all forms of justifications, despite not having any evidence (or while ignoring the existence of contrary evidence)

1. Once, I couldn't get an answer why DJI was kicking all American drone companies asses (back,when they existed in comparable form), despite all the alleged inherent creativity from living in a country overflowing with freedom.

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