Pioneers vs. Process People
Very interesting piece. Same experience here (jump in, build knowledge assets, build team). Last part different, be CTO&#x27;s worst fear, have you team scrambled, projects refused, go somewhere else taking on a bigger and harder challenge. Funny part is they lost 2 years, hired obedient lead, then went on building exactly what I presented them. They even went to the press claiming this stuff was their own idea. How would you feel ?<p>Yes, we hate meetings. We understand each other fast, work together at stellar speed, clash often. Sometimes, we code without tests. Bad practice ? Break my code.<p>Pionners and process people are at odds most of the time. Let&#x27;s push this idea further.<p>Pionners are <i>always</i> despised by the tenants of current state of affairs. Bourdieu explained this very well regarding art. Why ? Process people have the power and spent most of their lives perfecting their current knowledge and craft. Inventing something disruptive will disrupt their power. Galileo, one example amongst a lot.<p>Even the most advanced people at their time have had theirs quirks around this fact. Maxwell predicted that his models had solved physics and that the few problems remaining (like Black-body radiation) were minor problems, where it led to relativity and a new revolution in physics.<p>Process people are made of habits that work well, ensuring intellectual comfort and easiness, which is very reassuring. We make you itch and scratch, because we live in never-ending uncertainty and know that theories are ephemeral in the grand scheme of things.<p>Some dogmas of biology have collapsed in recent time. One of the most funny was &quot;brain cells don&#x27;t divide after end of adult growth&quot;...<p>This line of reasoning also invalidates a whole part of human theories about things. Fukuoka explained it very clearly: we draw pseudo-conclusions, only valid in a closed-system which in itself is a pale representation of reality. We try to reduce complexity to make it manageable by our current brain power. Those conclusions are wrong, when complexity is taken into account. Economics is based on wrong assumptions, but it works most of the time.<p>Knowing this leads to respect and not mess with fundamental building blocks we don&#x27;t understand (gene editing is such a monstruosity).<p>Tell me about discomfort.<p>Pionners are risk-taking, and don&#x27;t bother about controversies, they create those. They are despised and critisized by process people because they disrupt and destroy, as they create new paradigms. Destruction créatrice. They overthrow intellectual kings.<p>Speaking of experience, being a pionner is <i>very</i> difficult as everyone is against you and you got to prove to everyone that what you&#x27;re doing is better and possible.<p>Let&#x27;s digress about personal examples in order to settle those assumptions into reality.<p>When I was a kid I could solve the problems that math teacher gave using different methods. Most teachers would not even look at the method but rather blame it. They didn&#x27;t want to make the intellectual effort to understand the stuff.<p>When I did my PhD I destroyed theories of some peers using experiments. Well, let me tell you, my academic career didn&#x27;t last long.<p>When I worked in aerospace, during the day my boss yelled at me &quot;shitty stuff&quot;, while copying my code in another codebase at night.<p>How can pionners bring value to this world ? It&#x27;s as hard as producing metallic hydrogen. How to convince an investor when you always look at things from another POV. When the problem you&#x27;re tackling is far from solved. Risk seems too high.<p>Let&#x27;s rather focus on solving big corp problems and get easy money.<p>Funny thing is : we have an ability to connect to each other. A gang of weirdos trying to attack the doxa.<p>So, the problem is : can there be a collaboration between those two kind of people ? Here is a very fun example. Rust. This language brings to a large audience some very powerful concepts like ownership, truly a pioneering work. What do people do with that language ? Rewrite the same tools.<p>Problem with pionners is we cannot stand repetitive work. So after the thrill of finding a new solution is gone, we tackle some other problem. That&#x27;s were we can build together as innovating is far from enough, and there is a lot of work left for process people, as told by aforementioned piece.<p>That&#x27;s why I only work in small startups. Because once the group is too large, we are naturally surrounded by process people. Pionners are a small fraction of people. Once critical mass is reached, burden to leap forward is simply <i>too high</i>.<p>Don&#x27;t get me wrong. Too many pioneers together is a bad mix too. Pionners have strong opinions and this may lead to frequent clash and incompatibilities. Process people all have the same processes, so there is less to argue about.<p>Following that line of reasoning, large organisations are just unable to produce breakthroughs. When processes take over, you&#x27;re doomed.<p>So much respect for Elon Musk who has built crazy ventures that manages to break paradigms. That&#x27;s a crazy achievement. Same holds for Steve Jobs, who could torture an org to squeeze new ideas.<p>But what&#x27;s important ? Intellectual thrill or steady business ? Choose your horse !