> I don't know how many people on HN have served and heard of Rickover? But I'm pretty sure most people on HN could not function in a Rickover style management context. It gets things done, but it's not terribly polite about going about getting them done.

Ex-Navy nuke here; I had to interview with the KOG [*] to get into The Program.

My guess is that most people on HN would do fine in a Rickover-style program — albeit likely after some culture shock. After 50 years I can still recite my own interview with the man pretty much verbatim. I served only five years on active duty; I've forgotten most of what I knew about the specific subject of nuclear engineering. But the no-bullshit, face-the-facts general management style that Rickover created and propagated in the nuclear Navy was likely the single biggest professional influence of my life. To this day I regularly quote Rickover to my law students: You get what you INspect, not what you EXpect.

And in the fleet, most of us nukes were regular people, not nearly as abrasive or peremptory as he could be.

[*] KOG = Kindly Old Gentleman: Of those four things, Rickover was at most two.