Comment by Terr_ | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Terr_ | Hacker News Reader

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I definitely agree that there's something in the piece that evokes a gut-feeling I've gotten from being around certain troubled people in real life.

However, I think "narcissist" is probably closer than "sociopath".

While there's a lot of overlap, a narcissist sees people as an audience rather than prey. They are more preoccupied with manipulating people into validating him (or her) as a smart, successful, powerful, rich, etc. individual.

That's really what this blogpost always keeps returning to, IMO. Even the "downer" points are flavored with "but some people believed I had potential" and "the other people were still too blind to notice my potential".

I think the shark-jumping moment is when he sent an impromptu autobiography to a prospective employer... and did it again as an audiobook "in case they didn't have time to read"! While he admits that it was a tactical mistake, he never addresses why it ever seemed like a good idea, and his next sentence basically says "I would have been an amazing employee but their hiring system is broken."

> While he admits that it was a tactical mistake, he never addresses why it ever seemed like a good idea, and his next sentence basically says "I would have been an amazing employee but their hiring system is broken."

It's because he sees the corporate world as a game to be beaten, exploited, and hacked for profit, the same as he did with MMORPGs.

There's truth about the hiring system being inefficient, and there are clever folks who find ways around it to gain entrance to a world that might be otherwise inaccessible. However, it makes me uneasy when those things are done with a narcissistic edge, i.e. to fulfill a grandiose sense of your worth and value.

See: "Until I prove otherwise, consider me a 'nobody' trying to accomplish great things."

"No way, I'm like a thousand times better at being humble than that guy." /s

It probably does seem more narcissistic because I wrote it recently after having gained back some faith in my competence. When you're at the bottom though, and you feel completely worthless, there is little narcissism left.

I didn't express myself well when I said, "I truly would've been a great employee at Google[x]." What I should have said was something more like, "Even if I weren't great at first, I'd do whatever I could to improve because that was a profession I passionately wanted to try."

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