Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders? - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2013/08/why_do_so_many_incompetent_men.html <comment><USER3> I am not a conservative, but the first paragraph really turned me off to reading the remainder of this article by asserting that "conservatives and chauvinists" tend to endorse the notion that there is an under-representation of women in management because "they are not capable."

Speaking as a non-conservative, I find the implication that conservatives believe women to be incapable of management offensive. I believe conservatives would say that there is no single and simple answer to the question but that it has do with the differing career and life goals between men and women--the priorities and decisions that men and women use to guide their decision- making. This is how conservatives explain the wage gap, and the same logic would be applied to the management gender gap. As a non-conservative, dismissing their argument about the wage gap (which boils down to, "You're telling me I could pay $0.72 on the dollar for equal skill? Why in the world would I ever hire men?") out of hand is isolating yourself from a genuine criticism. I believe this introductory paragraph attempts to isolate its argument from genuine criticism by similarly dismissing viable counter- arguments as unworthy before it even begins.

I also find the article's juxtaposition of "conservative" alongside "chauvinists" a particularly underhanded and obvious attempt to imply that there is a great deal of overlap between these two groups.

If you actually believe conservatives think this way, you'll never actually convince them of anything because you're speaking at them as if they are children. You're not giving their point of view any legitimacy.

<comment><USER4> I am a woman, 45 years old, building websites for a living.

After 13 years, I still prefer to sit down and disappear into the screen and build things. I have natural leadership ability, I have a big personality when required, but I just don't feel motivated by money or rewards to take on the responsibility of leading a team.

I watch my colleagues get promoted, all male. And then I watch them try to balance wife, kids, and life. Without their wives, they tend to do poorly at life maintenance. They get fat, or pot-bellies at least, their hair falls out (probably just genetic but still) and after a few years the stress has broken them. The factors of leading means your reward depends on others whom you are unable to really control. So they spend time playing head games with people and taking work home that others can't or won't complete.

The handful of women I know in leadership positions also have a stigma attached. Their ego leads just like the males, but the women are considered "too aggressive" and get labeled as such.

So with minimal reward (I require double my income to ruin my life), management/leadership is just not an option for me, regardless of my abilities. I suppose living up to my capabilities should be reward enough, but it isn't.

Until I get a wife and/or make enough money to pay for the easy leisure and lack of worry I have now, I don't care about the prestige of leadership.

Chauvinistic or not, I truly believe if the reward were there, our society would have more women in leadership positions.

My personal life has a higher "fee" than men for living and breathing my job. Pay me that fee, I will make a go of it.

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure precisely how to interpret your comment. It sounds like your personal observations but does not offer a conclusion. (And we're so conditioned to assume people only share stories in order to make a point!)

When you say...

> _Chauvinistic or not, I truly believe if the reward were there, our society > would have more women in leadership positions._

Specifically, what is the reward you are describing and how does it differ from the reward available for men? Are you saying you believe the reward to incent women to management would need to be greater (putting aside the uncertainty about how to define "greater") than the rewards that sufficiently incent men?

<comment><USER4> Legitimate question. But it is a trap. I'm under a new user name here, but I used to post here years ago. Every answer I give will get me closer to hell- banning. :)

I will think about it. If I can find a way to present my position more clearly without social Hacker News repercussions, I will.

edit: funny, how I do the same in real life, with my career, etc. I withhold strong positions, and give watered down expressions, to survive. Kinda sad. Lack of real anonymity means I also have to moderate expressions. Any future employer finding me here will hold everything I say here against me.

<comment><USER3> I understand. I was merely curious, and I don't ask you to put yourself in a position where your professional or personal integrity is in jeopardy! If there is more to share anonymously elsewhere, just let me know. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > _In fact, most leaders — whether in politics or business — fail._

There's a sentiment here that leading a complex organization (or even a team of complex humans) would be _easy_ , if only all leaders were competent.

In my experience, there just aren't _that_ many people who stand out in high- stakes leadership roles. People at the top make mistakes. But I rarely look around at the people below and think, "man, if only _they_ were in charge." The people leading often represent the best options on hand.

Are aggressive, over-confident males overrepresented in leadership roles? Probably, but it's not a man vs. woman issue. It's an overconfident person vs. everybody else issue. It's as much a problem for non-overconfident men as it is for non-overconfident women.

<comment><USER6> _The people leading often represent the best options on hand._

Only if you first assume that there has to be a "leader"\--that a single person at the top has to "run things". In fact, it makes no sense at all for the allocation of huge amounts of resources to be dependent on a single person's decision--or the decision of an extremely small percentage of the people affected, for that matter. Do people just not understand the concept of a single point of failure?

<comment><USER7> Unfortunately, if the organization is succeeding, people see a single point of _success_ , not a single point of _failure_. And if the leader is actually a poor leader, people don't recognize that the organization is succeeding _in spite of_ of the leader. . .and probably because of some "heroes" further down in the organization.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Having worked at a couple of large companies where, unfortunately, incompetent managers were the norm, I'd wondered quite a bit as well how incompetent people get into positions of power.

I think one explanation is that the ability to rise within an organization (political skill) is orthogonal to the ability to be competent at your job role (technical skill). So you see a lot of VPs of engineering who have absolutely no clue how to build a product, and have never built anything of value, who rose through the ranks and got there because they know how to "work the system". Great VPs need to good at _two_ very different things: politics, and their actual job, and for this reason they are rare.

This is of course no different from the reason why politicians are generally so terrible at their job. (Why Todd Akin, of "Legitimate Rape" fame, is on the House Committee for Science, Space and Technology, for example.)

<comment><USER9> Akin is on the Science, Space and Technology committee because it is not a very good committee to be on. It doesn't oversee much funding, so it gets filled with hacks placed there by the House leadership. Any representative with ambition and talent is going to want to be on the good committees, such as Armed Services or Ways and Means, which have huge responsibilities and the attention of lobbyists.

<comment><USER8> Unfortunately Akin was on the House Budget and Armed Services committees as well (a subcommittee on the latter, but still). I just picked Science because it was the most ridiculous assignment of the three, but I would be very surprised if he was actually really good at the other two.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> There are many paths to leadership:

a) Suppose I want to startup a company because I like coding and spending 40hours in a cubicle sucks. Out of dumb luck my company strikes it big and the planets align for a little while so I can execute and in 3 years I'm the leader of a $250m/yr company. I was able to execute when opportunity presented itself, but I have no idea how to generate opportunity, or find it.

b) Same story as above, except this time it's me and four of my beer buddies, except I'm loud and domineering in business decisions and they're all introverts. One guy quits because he doesn't like how things went, the rest make me de facto leader and when corporate paperwork comes around I put myself as CEO. The others are quiet about which I spin into a kind of legitimacy. From there on out I try and bounce around CEO and President positions. I have no other qualifications than being domineering and subversive.

c) I worked my tootsie off and made it through a Harvard MBA program. Boom, I'm immediately picked up as a Jr. VP in a large and powerful, but old and crusty megacorp. I stick it out for 4 years while all my of senior leadership retires, next thing you know I'm a Senior Executive VP at Big&Crusty MegaCorp Inc. I can't seem to figure out how to navigate the politics to make it higher, so after 5 years at Big&Crusty MegaCorp I strike out. I find an executive recruiter who finds me some CEO positions to shoot for with some medium sized $50-100m/yr copmanies. I interview, and one of them has the right mix of board members to think that a young and energetic "shooting star" is just what they want to kick their revenue in the rear. Regardless of how the company does, I now have a resume that shows all kinds of good bullet points: Harvard MBA, upwardly mobile as a executive, CEO experience. I can now bounce around CEO and President positions for a while...spending a year or two at each place, strike enough good compensation deals to make me rich and eventually buy myself into a few choice board positions. Note I barely have any actual work experience at this point, I've only shown boundless ambition and a willingness to wait for senior people to retire so I can take their position. The only thing I know how to do after 15 years is navigate the upper echelons of the corporate hierarchy.

d) I start in the mailroom and work my way up through a mix of competency and and ambition. A few times my competency damns me and I end up stuck in my progression, but I follow a strict up or out policy. Over the years I notice that I've forgotten many of the skills I used to have in the lower levels, I have to locally optimize my brain I tell myself. I'm working 40-60hr weeks trying to be competent in my current job, I simply don't have time to remember what I did 5 years and 2 jobs ago -- but it bothers me that I'm now functionally incompetent for a job that I used to be among the best at. Eventually, I work my way into a Senior Exec VP at a growing company. I'm really good at the job I'm in, but I rapidly lose qualifications for jobs I used to be in. At the Senior Exec VP level I've simply forgotten what it's like to be in the trenches, I try to be sympathetic, but it's so hard to relate...just as hard for me to relate to the Senior Exec VP when _I_ was in the trenches. Am I a competent leader?

e) etc.

I'm specifically not addressing gender in these scenarios (as the article is discussing) because what I'm trying to say is that regardless of gender any of these scenarios might put somebody into position as an "incompetent" leader. The path to leadership (incompetent or otherwise) in my mind is distinct from the social and psychological issues related to gender arriving in those leadership positions. In scenario a and b), there is nothing in gender that prevents women from starting up their own companies. You see it all the time, there are tons of businesses started and run by intelligent and driven women. c & d might still be tougher, there's lots of entrenched power structures that still make it difficult for women to arrive into the top jobs. In d) the person _also_ had enough opportunity to _not_ be guided into a progressing, but dead-end career path.

Anecdotally, I think it's very hard for women to be accepted into leadership positions. If she's too tough she's marked as an "angry bitch" and will get rejected, if she's not perfectly competent in areas far outside of her job function, she'll be marked as "stupid" and get rejected, etc. etc. Cultivating authority, for a woman, requires a degree of careful presentation and balance that is very hard to do and most men don't have to deal with. I've worked for some very good women bosses and a women CEO and I admired their ability to find that balance and presentation style that gave them command without them appearing as an "angry bitch" or "stupid".

I've also worked with some women that couldn't find that balance, they weren't really doing anything a reasonably competent man wouldn't do, but were marked with gendered epithets and eventually driven from their job. Afterwards, I spoke to some of them personally, they felt unbelievably rejected and worthless -- one suffered from depression and dropped out of work for a year. Their job models didn't do anything different, but their models were all men -- so they couldn't figure out what happened and what got them rejected...but the truth is they were simply playing by different rules and weren't able to navigate the environment well enough to figure out what those rules were.

<comment><USER11> > Over the years I notice that I've forgotten many of the skills I used to > have in the lower levels

I manage a team of incredibly talented programmers and I have to work hard to keep up technically in order to make informed decisions when needed. Even with all this effort, I have no illusion I could be as competent a programmer as they are without _a lot_ of work.

edit: I was tempted for a moment to say "I lead" but they need less my leadership than my management. One leads from within and I write very little code these days. I offer some technical advice derived from my experience (mostly the "don't do that, because that will be hard to maintain" kind of advice). What I do, hopefully well, is shield them from external interference so they have a developer-friendly environment where they can better contribute with their skills. It's devilishly hard.

<comment><USER12> I apologize in advance for the digression.

>>What I do, hopefully well, is shield them from external interference so they have a developer-friendly environment where they can better contribute with their skills.

I'm not a programmer, but I work closely with them. I'm responsible for demonstrating and supporting the products they build, as well as finding new areas in which those products can be used.

What I noticed is that the teams that are the most shielded produce the highest quality _code_ , but - and this is a huge BUT - the product itself ends up being the most short-sighted and limited in terms of good user experience. The reason is that "shielding developers from external interference" inevitably equates to shielding them from a real understanding of how the end-users actually use it.

I don't mean that as a derogatory comment. But, as someone who is on the "business" side of things, when I work with products developed by shielded teams, often times I find myself wondering, "Holy shit... what the hell were they thinking??" The features and functions work, and they work well - <USER2> they are not terribly relevant to what the customer actually wanted.

<comment><USER11> You're right.

This shielding has to be limited in scope. Perhaps the most difficult part is distinguishing between what's good input that will improve the product and what's noise and teaching our product team how to do it by themselves.

That and dealing with power grabs ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> [http://www.icahnreport.com/report/2008/06/about- ceos.html](http://www.icahnreport.com/report/2008/06/about-ceos.html) Icahn on CEOs:

"The way CEOs become CEOs in America is a travesty. This is one of our major problems. I use the anti - Darwinian metaphor. The survival of the unfittest.

If you remember if you were in college the fraternity president was always there for you. When you had nothing to do or when you were a little depressed. Feeling down. You go to the club and the fraternity president would always be there. You wondered when he had time to study which he probably didn't do very much of in school. He was there to sympathize with you if your girlfriend didn't show up or didn't call you back and you obviously sort of liked the guy because the fraternity president was usually a likeable guy.

When the elections came up you would always vote for him. He had a couple qualities - the fraternity president. Politically, he was a survivor and he never made many waves. He did not promote controversy. Therefore when he went out into corporate America he was able to move up the ladder fairly quickly. Remember he survived, he didn't make waves, and he wasn't a threat. He kept moving up and up.

Eventually he becomes the assistant to the CEO. The CEO had the same qualities. He's a survivor. He'd never employ anyone underneath him who might be a threat. The boards like these guys… this type of CEO. The boards generally don't own any stock (another problem with our system). The boards don't really care to hold CEOs accountable. Remember it's a symbiotic relationship. These guys pay the boards very well – they give the boards perks. The boards don't care to hold them accountable because that might endanger the perks they love so much.

When the CEO retires the assistant becomes the CEO. And remember what I told you. He's a survivor. He would never have anyone underneath him as his assistant that's brighter than he is because that might constitute a threat. So therefore, with many exceptions, we have CEOs becoming dumber and dumber and dumber. We can all see where this is going. It would almost be funny if it wasn't such a threat to our ability to compete and to our economy in general."

<comment><USER14> _The survival of the unfittest._

A similar proposition is the Peter Principle [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Principle](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Principle)] which basically states that because it is often easier to promote less able staff out of the way, people are said to rise to the level of their incompetence. Seems to fit the data all too often.

<comment><USER12> Actually, the Gervais Principle explains it much better. [http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais- principle-o...](http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or- the-office-according-to-the-office/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The implication being typical women leaders aren't incompetent? By all accounts female bosses are just as incompetent as their male counterparts if not more-so. In polls, employees prefer having a male boss over a female one. This effect is particularly pronounced when the polls ask female workers.[1]

1.[https://www.google.com/search?q=women+prefer+male+bosses](https://www.google.com/search?q=women+prefer+male+bosses)

</comment><comment><USER16> IMHO, The first step towards getting competent people (of any gender) into positions of power would be to stop this blatant, generalizing sexism while doing the analysis. Imagine an article that said something like of "Why Do So Many Incompetent Women Become Fashion Designers?" That would be considered massively sexist.

So is this. Justifying it by saying "But it is meant to help women" doesn't help _anyone_ , really. Most men reading this will bridle, seeing yet another "incompetent men" article on the Internet, and sexism will grow yet more entrenched.

</comment><comment><USER17> I want to hijack this discussion to bring up a personal gripe I have about this all being called "leadership". It is a very PHB term.

With the exception of a few outlying examples, no job being discussed in this article is a leader. A leader has _followers_ , and he can convince them to follow him through his sheer force of will and inspirational ability. Examples of leaders: Barack Obama, Mahatma Gandhi, Charles Manson, Jaime Escalante, Joseph Smith, Napoleon, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Mao Zedong.

The people and job titles being discussed here are not leaders. They are managers. The difference is that people don't do what a manager says because he has inspired them to do so. People do what he says because they are paid to do so. That is, managers don't have followers. They have underlings.

Managers are of course needed. To work in groups effectively, a roughly fixed- arity hierarchy has many advantages, and in a hierarchy someone has to be a non-leaf node. The goal of a manager is to manage his underlings in such a way as to meet or optimize certain organizational goals. In general this is a very different set of skills than those found in the best leaders.

This isn't to say that certain leadership skills aren't helpful for management: obviously it's helpful if a manager can apply some powers of persuasion to his immediate underlings. But leadership skills are not necessary to management: there are plenty of reasonable managers with few or no apparent persuasive skills whatsoever (I'll be kind and not name names).

Persuasion is also not restricted to management: it's helpful in practically any job involving human relationships. This includes teachers, salespeople, hostage negotiators, lawyers, and magicians.

But few other career paths imagine themselves as "leaders". Teachers don't go to leadership seminars or buy ridiculous low-rigor books on leadership. This seems to be a cult special to the management community. Why do so many managers imagine themselves to be something they are not? I think it's for two reasons. First, they have power, and leaders have power, and so they have mistaken one for the other. Second, and more importantly, I think management is an awful and thankless life choice. Managers don't make anything or really contribute anything tangible to society. The Dilbert Principle is very valid here. And so managers try to imagine that their jobs ("leadership!") are more important than they really are, simply out of ego boosting.

I think that leadership is so valuable a skill, and so rare and powerful a force, that we should actively fight to prevent the management community from co-opting the term to describe the daily task of collating TPS reports.

<comment><USER18> HN: the only place on Earth where Elon Musk would appear on the same list as Napoleon and Mao Zedong.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I think this article is very dangerous. By and large, the reason why women don't become leaders is because _they don 't ask to_. 1) It's not a feasible social model for everyone sitting around being humble, expecting to become a leader "because they have the right personality profile for it". 2) to be effective, realistically leaders need to have a level of expertise to critically judge the project - leaving it to advisors to make the lion's share of those decisions can lead to serious derailment (which is why the MBA culture is seriously flawed).

"Lean in" may be a bit extreme, but we DO have a problem where for whatever reason women don't ASK to be leaders, and when they do they don't NEGOTIATE for more power or pay. For whatever sociocultural reason, we seem to be in the business of shielding women from the emotional risk of failure. This is deeply ingrained in our culture: although both are changing, on the centuries-old social dance floor men ask women for dances, men ask women for dates. The head of the institute where I work famously owns a Tesla Model S, and this high school intern is somewhat obsessive about the Teslas, and I told her, "go ask him for a ride around the block", and all I got were nine months of excuses not to.

To be sure, it takes a modicum of narcissism to ask for a position of leadership, just as it takes some narcissism to ask for a dance on the dance floor (I deserve to dance with this person) or ask for a date (I deserve to go on a date). Labelling narcissism in and of itself as a bad is dangerous, what is dangerous is excessive narcissism to the exclusion of humility and reason.

Anecdotally, I don't think it's hard for women to accepted as leaders. When I worked for one, it was not a problem, I seriously had a lot of respect for her. Ok. So maybe I did once think of her as "crazy" \- but it was only on the day when she hyperbolically threatened to kill the grad students if they used the wrong pipette, and they sort of deserved to hear it, their performance and lack of intellectual introspection was unacceptably low. However, I do work in academic science where positions of leadership are more often than normal (but I would not say a majority of the time) earned through directly relevant achievement. In the "normal" case, it might be easier to shrug off an incompetent or perceived incompetent leader. I do sometimes wonder, though, if whether or not I and others respected her, if she wasn't still self-conscious about it.

</comment><comment><USER20> This article would be considered sexist if the genders were reversed. In today's political correct discussion it's okay to glorify women and make negative blanket statements about men.

Negative stereotypes are supposedly okay if they're directed at men, but not women.

The real reason so few women become men is that a) women are less interested and b) there are more men at the both ends of the Bell Curve in all kinds of abilities.

<comment><USER21> Read this please: [http://www.newstatesman.com/2013/08/laurie-penny/men- sexism](http://www.newstatesman.com/2013/08/laurie-penny/men-sexism)

<comment><USER22> Then to see where that leads, read this: [http://www.reddit.com/r/relationships/comments/1kszxu/my_22f...](http://www.reddit.com/r/relationships/comments/1kszxu/my_22f_boyfriend_25m_got_called_a_pedophile_at/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Overconfidence bias is very real.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overconfidence_effect](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overconfidence_effect)

Try asking people to guess a bunch of #s with 90% confidence intervals and see how often they are wrong. (Examples: Population of the US, Circumference of the Earth...)

What does this mean for leadership?

The very thing we are looking for (confidence) undermines good decisions.

So how should less confidence people inspire? That's the tough question. Some of the best professors I've had (in terms of both research production and teaching quality) have been amongst the most humble. Corporate leaders - perhaps less so. Though when you do follow a leader with humility, the strength that they project comes from a deeper place.

</comment><comment><USER24> "It is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it... anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job." \- Douglas Adams

</comment><comment><USER25> I would like to offer a counter point. In military officer training (I haven't done it, but I have friends who have), you are taught that the wrong decision NOW is better than the right decision LATER. The reason for this is because hesitation leads to people dying.

Now think about evolutionary timescales, a leader was primarily needed for dangerous situations such as hunting dangerous prey and warfare. The same logic applies; hesitation results in death. Blind confidence is a necessary trait to make such quick decisions, to not hesitate, and to not second guess yourself. This may be why we are wired to prefer the "confident" over the "competent."

Now, obviously, this is less appropriate in corporate leaders where the stakes are not so immediately life and death, where there is time to research and to examine alternatives. But, we are creatures of our evolution, so it is perhaps not so surprising that is the sort of person we prefer to be our leaders. I think it is important to recognize and remain aware of our biases because that is the only way we have of fighting against them when appropriate.

</comment><comment><USER26> A more useful article would be to drop the gender and ask Why Do So Many Incompetent People Become Leaders?

<comment><USER27> I kind of agree. I completely agree that confidence/arrogance is a male- associated trait and so we see more male incompetent managers, but it isn't a "woman" problem that they are incompetent and bad, it's an everbody-but-the- arrogant-ones problem. I'm not convinced you can solve it "for woman"; solve it in general and the gender problem will resolve itself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Cheer up! There are plenty of confident, incompetent women too, and they're starting to get their chances. One relative works for one, another did.

</comment><comment><USER29> _Women Don 't Ask_ by Linda Babcock is well worth reading if you're interested in this sort of thing. One particularly striking result was that MBA graduates differences in pay between men and women was around $4,000 in favour of men - which, IIRC, she claimed could be accounted for by the fact that 57% of men chose to negotiate as compared to 7% of women. Those who negotiated, regardless of gender, tended to receive around $4,000 more than those who did not.

I think it very plausible that a lot of this sort of thing comes down to wanting to be fair, not wanting to be pushy - that sort of thing. Which generally works well with other women, but not necessarily so well if your boss is a man and prefers to communicate in a different style. Especially when your access to that style is limited by there being few gender-relevant role models; a man's aggressive he's a go-getter, a woman's aggressive she's an irrational bitch.

</comment><comment><USER30> The first thought I had was "because of Harvard Business School." Irony.

</comment><comment><USER31> Easy question to answer -- narcissism. Fortunately, the article addresses this issue.

</comment><comment><USER32> In my experience, the types of people who generally become leaders are those who seek out to be leaders. And those are types tend to have overly optimistic views of themselves (and some desire to control others).

<comment><USER33> Or they just want more money than everybody else (ie it's not good enough to earn 200k when everyone else is earning 200k as well..) and they will stop at nothing to get another rung up on that latter...

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> also because people, not just men, who become leaders are psychopaths, so any damage they do is just a fun bonus, not something they'll sweat, a nice addition to the money, sex and power they get. And yes, sex too - power turns women on and powerful women turn men on too. e.g. I don't really consider JFK a rapist - he just never had to ask... any of his hundreds of conquests.

Homer Simpson : ...before the weight of the world broke my spirit.

Seems to have happened to me too. If it were possible to disable my conscience I would probably opt for it. Where's Dick Fuld now, eh?? Employed.

<comment><USER35> But are you seriously referring to sexual intercourse that men initiate as "conquests" or was that non-serious?

<comment><USER34> What's wrong with that word. Women I know use it all the time. They don't mind being the subject of a transitive verb instead of the actor. One conquers them because they have huge ... tracts of land.

<comment><USER35> Thanks, you answered my question

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> There are two questions here. One is why are the men who become leaders incompetent. I think it has nailed that one. The other is why men become leaders and women don't. I think it found one contributing factor, but not a cause.

Read [http://consultingadultblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/ceo- archetyp...](http://consultingadultblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/ceo- archetypes-7-joan-of-arc.html) for insight into other factors that contribute to men having a significant advantage in the hierarchy over men.

</comment><comment><USER37> I've met A LOT of incompetent leaders. So, I asked myself this question a million times. And I think I have found a logic answer...

The secret here is "incompetent". Being incompetent means these people have a hard time holding on to a job. Because they get no raise, no promotion and no special treatment. Heck, they don't even feel part of the team. Cause they're just the guy who does an OK job. Naturally, these people are often out of a job. And since every job quickly gets complicated for them, they tend to start their own little startup.

Contrast that to competent people. Chances are, they'll get hired to do something they love and be offered a comfortable salary. Therefore mitigating (in most cases) the need to create a startup.

Now the fun part, here are some examples of incompetent leaders I've known: \- A web agency owner, who was the initial web developer for years, but writes HORRIBLE, INCREDIBLY VULNERABLE code. \- A head sales representative who can't write properly in his maternal language. \- A web agency owned and run by someone who doesn't know anything about technology. He calls jQuery "iPhone compatible technology". \- The best, a boss who couldn't even speak in front of his mere dozen employees. I wonder how he negotiates his contracts.

</comment><comment><USER38> While the author makes a good case that 'confidence' and 'ability to impress' are key drivers of the tendancy to promote incompetent individuals to leadership roles, another dynamic may be that some leaders who fear exposure of their own incompetence tend to surround themselves with 'yes' men/women who themselves aren't particularly competent or skilled in anything other than making the master feel superior.

In such a situation, when the incompetent leader exits, all those who are next in line are these incompetent 'yes' people, increasing their chances of being considered for and granted promotion.

This dynamic exists in some institutions in contrast to the 'surround yourself with people smarter/better/more competent than you' philosophy of leadership. Jim Collins talked about these approaches in Good To Great, comparing Bank of America's 'weak general' promotion culture with Wells Fargo's approach of getting the most talented people into the highest organizational positions possible. You could argue selection bias, but it's interesting to compare the financial performance of the two banks over the last 10 years or so.

</comment><comment><USER39> Leadership requires people to have confidence in your abilities and be willing to follow you. And the semi-sexist bullshit the article has about scientific evidence that women have "more effective leadership strategies" is moot if, as the article contends, they do not appear confident.

Even if the article is correct, it's fundamentally conflating leadership with management and the two are not the same.

</comment><comment><USER40> The Peter Principle

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Principle](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Principle)

</comment><comment><USER41> Because human social competence does not fit as something evolution and natural selection can deal with.

We still don't live in a world where society comes first, which is something which is more happening in Asia.

I don't think the quote "evil prevails where good men fail to act" is always true, but there is no formula for success, there is only domination. You don't become a leader because you know how to make the world a better place, you become a leader because people trust you how to lead, and leading is about making choices and decisions.

Leaders did not invent technologies, but they were important into making them viable in business terms, which is as much important.

But nobody should forget true inventors are not as much valued as good leaders. A good leaders will be a leader who has a minimal technological knowledge, but also understand its compromise.

For example, Tesla would not be viable without introducing the high end tesla roadster, which is a classical business model inventors will have a hard time dealing with.

</comment><comment><USER42> I've worked in many organizations. The managed are always of the universal opinion that the leaders are incompetent. "How can he be so stupid?" is commonly heard.

When those become leaders in turn, they make just as bad if not worse managers. I remember one canonical example who, in a voice dripping with contempt, told me how I was an unbelievable screwup in how I ran my business. Some years later, she left the corporate life and invested her life savings in her own startup, and lost everything.

Being a good leader is a much, much harder job than it looks like. (No, I'm not going to pretend I'm very good at it, either.)

I suppose it's like democracy - it's the worst possible system, except for all the others.

</comment><comment><USER43> "In my view, the main reason for the uneven management sex ratio is our inability to discern between confidence and competence. That is, because we (people in general) commonly misinterpret displays of confidence as a sign of competence, we are fooled into believing that men are better leaders than women."

While this view may hold true for the majority, I think the complete opposite is true. The people I have learned the most from, and who are the most competent (some of them in CEO positions, most in leadership), take the exact opposite approach. Always willing to admit fault, and imperfections, and always "looking for a better way to do X".

</comment><comment><USER44> I'm not really competent but not really confident either, I guess I'm screwed...

</comment><comment><USER45> I clicked on the link, expecting a discussion on why do so many _incompetent_ men become leaders, only to find a discussion on why do so many incompetent _men_ become leaders.

I was disappointed.

</comment><comment><USER46> Was interested, but I stopped reading at "Freud argued."

</comment><comment><USER47> Law of averages, there are lots of incompetent people. Our social structures (and humans themselves) are atrocious selectors for competence.

We also notice/remember/celebrate (and attribute to competence rather than happenstance) the people at right place, right time and people at wrong place, wrong time. While ignoring the vast numbers of actually mildly competent and mildly incompetent people in the middle of the bell curve.

</comment><comment><USER48> Two separate questions conflated together:

1) Why aren't there more women in positions of authority? 2) Why are the majority of people in authority incompetent?

The answer to the second is probably that people get promoted exactly one level above their ability. The answer to the former is the real problem, and I suspect that if you solve that you'd still have a world run by a bunch of idiots, it's just that 50% of them would be female.

<comment><USER22> They're not being conflated, the claim is that they share a common cause (men are good at faking competence).

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> It's simple. They are rotten to the core and showed there was no limit to how low they'd go to rise to the top. They also kissed a lot of ass, and played on the stupidity of those around them.

Remember to do your part to stem the tide of this phenomenon by not hiring or promoting these idiots. Not just the people you dislike, but people who are genuinely like this. If you stop promoting them, then they'll go away.

The power is yours.

</comment><comment><USER50> It's 1950. You want to go to the moon. Find ten competent aerospace experts and line them up. Ask them what the moon is made of.

Nine of them answer ditheringly: "I'm not sure," or "we don't really know yet," etc.

The tenth confidently steps up, displays "alpha male" body language, and says: "it's made of green cheese."

That person is now in charge of the space program.

The entire world works that way.

<comment><USER51> But the alphas did get us to the moon, right?

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Leadership carries importance for organizational goals as mentioned in this thread. Those who lead can inspire and aspire others to follow an idea or cause. It has been through my experience of empowering through knowledge that I have lead many peers to acheive great things on their own. Anyone can lead by being inspirational to others. My proposal to this thread: What work inspires you?

</comment><comment><USER53> I enjoy that this hit Hacker News the same time Microsoft announces Steve Ballmer's retirement, and I wonder if it is not a coincidence.

</comment><comment><USER54> This sounds exactly like the main point of many Dilbert comics and books (a dozen or so of which I own). Scott Adams explains it as nature's way of moving incompetent people out of the way of the competent people. Having an incompetent person on your team is most likely way more obstructive than having an incompetent manager.

<comment><USER55> I'm not sure that's the point of Dilbert, although it is a recurring joke. PHB causes way more misery and obstruction than Wally. Your manager can steer your whole team/organization onto the rocks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> To me the problem is within the system. If there were a VP promoting a manager to hiring one, they'd make sure that the manager didn't outshine them. I've seen this at play many times. Incompetent people like to hire & promote other incompetent people so they don't look bad in contrast.

</comment><comment><USER57> The Press should also take some of the blame. I would wager narcissists make far more outrageous claims about their ability and their companies ability. This gives these leaders the "rock star" status thus propagating all that is wrong with leadership as described in the post.

</comment><comment><USER58> Because intelligence is detrimental to survival: [http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16297-intelligent- sold...](http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16297-intelligent-soldiers- most-likely-to-die-in-battle.html)

</comment><comment><USER59> The thesis here is that some men who are confident but not competent become leaders. But, while there are incompetent people who are confident, isn't confidence always a requirement for good leadership?

</comment><comment><USER60> this isn't complicated. people who hunger for power push for leadership - stupid people don't understand how involved that is and so will go for it before they are ready. to top it off we have a culture of upwards failing and poor interviews.

it is so 'un-pc' to criticise or fire anyone that after being pushed out for screwing everything up you get a nice mark on your CV saying you had a job as X even though you effectively failed as hard as possible.

it is so easy to blag an interview by ticking the standard boxes as well...

</comment><comment><USER21> This would have been a decent article if Freud wasn't sourced.

</comment><comment><USER61> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning_Kruger](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning_Kruger)

</comment><comment><USER62> The Peter Principle?

</comment><comment><USER63> Because they kiss the right asses! I've seen this in large organizations. In small companies, or companies started with friends, the leaders are usually the most "well rounded" person in the room. A small business needs a person who can get the most out of everyone, in an innate way. They are usually the first born, and male.</comment>


There's no replacement for the thrill of browsing in a bookstore - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/theres-no-replacement-for-the-thrill-of-browsing-in-a-bookstore/2020/06/25/20855c1a-abf1-11ea-a9d9-a81c1a491c52_story.html <comment><USER2> As much as I hate to say this, but I hardly use physical bookstores anymore. Most of them are just as commercial as their online counterparts but with limited space. And the limited space they have they mostly spend on stacks of the same shitty best-sellers with glowing reviews. The books I come for are hardly ever at hand, so I will have to order them, which is what I would do in an online bookstore anyway. Moreover, I am switching to ebooks more and more. Less to drag around when I move house.

I will make a big exception for second-hand bookstores though. The character of a second-hand shop is very hard to replicate online, as is the opportunity for serendipity. Every online shop has a search function that beats the life out of chance finds. In a second-hand shop you may happen upon a book that has been sitting on a shelf for years (maybe even misplaced) waiting just for you. I cannot resist that siren call.

I visited the US last year. In a charming little second-hand bookstore (including a grumpy owner) in Flagstaff I chanced upon the collected works of Carol Shields. I had never heard of her but she may well turn out to be a literary love for life. Thank you, grumpy owner.

<comment><USER3> Best grumpy-used-book-store-owner experience ever: A friend and I went into an exceedingly cramped used book store in SF years ago, each looking for a particular title. Books were on shelves and also stacked in piles scattered along the two narrow aisles. There were a few labeled "sections", but within a section, everything was random. There was one other customer, my friend, and me, all tripping over one-another, looking for our books.

Owner, from the front register, in a rather annoyed voice: "You know, you should call ahead, so I can tell you if we have your title, and have it ready for you when you come. We don't have room for customers to be rummaging around." So, we accepted defeat, and as we went to leave, the store phone rang, and the owner picked up. After a beat, and as I was stepping out the door, I heard the owner grumpily responding to the caller: "How should I know? I can't keep track of all the books here; you have to come in and look for it yourself..."

<comment><USER4> Similar story, different outcome: long ago I went into a used bookstore housed in an old firestation (now a theatre). It had many books shelved on its first floor, but the second floor was an acre of heaps.

Its owner was a grey-haired and bearded, gruffish old-school book dealer. I was looking for an obscure French novel which was (I did not know) unlikely to be found anywhere, then or now.

After quickly trying my luck and utterly failing, I asked about it by author and title. Melvin looked down, shuffled a bit, then said he'd have a look. Upstairs around the firepole he trudged. Five minutes of bumping, ten minutes of shuffling, and down the stairs he came holding it. "It's a little dusty," he offered.

I'd pay a sizeable sum to be able to relive that moment.

<comment><USER5> I had the same experience about 30 years ago. A very old man (more than 80) had a used book store with 5 meters high shelves and stacks and piles and heaps everywhere. I came in and asked "do you have the works of Antiphon, by any chance? The bilingual version?" "He think for a moment, "ah, do you mean the 1923 translation? I must have it somewhere up there..." And he went up a ladder, rummaged on some shelves, and came back with the old, uncut book, in the battered original edition.

I've bought many, many books there for a while, particularly the rare (and expensive when new) "Guillaume Budé" books in their original, paper-cover, uncut editions ([https://www.lesbelleslettres.com/les- budes](https://www.lesbelleslettres.com/les-budes)). Some very sad day, the guy died and the magic store closed forever.

<comment><USER6> My favourite dusty bookstore story is the "$15 shipping" on this.

[https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=3019027757...](https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=30190277578)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I suggest checking out your public library. Browsing books and then also being able to take them home for free is even more of a thrill imo.

<comment><USER8> I love libraries but they don't usually have the latest books. I get my book recommendations from Tyler Cowen's blog and most of the books featured there take a while to show up in library collections or if ever at all. (I know I can put in requests, but they take weeks and I'd have lost interest by that time)

I get more of a thrill from bookstore displays because they give me a sense of the current literary zeitgeist, especially if the owner is a reader and has curated the display carefully. Bookstores have more of an incentive to push new stuff.

<comment><USER9> Only tangentially related, but my favorite place to browse during undergrad was the sorting shelves at the university library (which were publicly accessible, though not advertised). When books were returned they were sorted there before being sent out to be reshelved across the library[1], so it was a daily snapshot of what books the university community thought were worth reading. I picked up a number of books there that I never would have seen otherwise.

Unfortunately when I went to graduate school the sorting shelves were hidden behind the circulation desk.

[1] Unless there was a hold on the book, in which case it would be kept at the circulation desk--so the most popular books never made it to the sorting shelves.

<comment><USER10> I've done the same.

And _unsorted_ returns have a "customers who liked this also liked" aspect.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If you're lucky enough, like me, to live in a university town, don't miss out on the faculty library of whatever subject area of your interest (science, art, philosophy, you name it).

I'm currently neck-deep in a subject, and was searching for an expensive (80€) reference book online, and serendipitously I came across a search result pointing to my local university.

I immediately biked to the university (15-minute ride), paid a piddling amount of 15€ (or 25€, I forget) as the membership fee for the faculty library, and loaned that book and a couple of others. Pretty neat.

Since then, I discovered, 95% of _all_ the serious scholarly works that I want to refer to are available at the university faculty library.

By _Jove_ do I struggle to express how delighted I am to have stumbled across that online search result (here Google gets my gratitude!), which led to many fruitful (non-null) pointers. I already spend substantial money on physical books, so this discovery of faculty library has been an outstanding find.

<comment><USER12> I've tried this, but sadly the books I want are fairly specialized; my alma mater had them, but the university library in my current town doesn't (their search is also horrible, often redirecting to journals before books), and ILL costs $25 per book, sadly. I wish I still lived up there, as they have _free_ check out for local alumni.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is an issue facing much of online media content (imo). Take for example music. I use youtube to find music, where-as I used to regularly spend money at record stores. At this point youtube represents a far more varied buffet for me to pick from.

HOWEVER, since selections and recommendations are algorithmically generated, and clearly drive towards sponsored artists (and sometimes what appear to be algorithmic black holes: looking at you Tycho), the variety of the recommendations I get tends to get be pretty damn stale. It takes substantial effort on my part to introduce variety into the system and when allowed to run on its own, it always seems to regress towards a very static set of recommendations.

I think the analog variant of this, a record store resolves this by at least forcing you to walk past a bunch of music you might not have other wise listened to. Same thing is true with the book store. You might not be into the classics, but you'll walk past them everytime to get to sci-fi. Eventually you might be like, eh, sure, lets try out some Dostoevsky.

I think a possible resolution to this is to stop treating recommendation algorithms as a purely a product recommendation system or as some black box secret sauce. Give people the ability to work with and manually adjust the algorithms that are built to offer them products/ make recommendations. Allow users to work in partnership with the algorithms to get a more varied (or less varied) range of recommendations.

<comment><USER14> Use search rather than recommendations.

CSS extensions (Stylus) and uBlock origin's element blocker can remove YT's recommendations entirely. That (along with. nuking comments) is a tremendous UX boost.

<comment><USER15> Search has a discovery problem, though—you have to know what you're looking for. Even if you know, it's increasingly difficult to locate it via keyword search. And isn't Google/YouTube search a type of recommendation engine anyways (i.e. results are conditional on your browsing history and other factors)?

<comment><USER14> True, though it varies somewhat by dommain. For, say, informational or academic topics, search is at least fair. When researching a specific author or authority, better. For music, not quite so much.

I don't have a YT account, have used it under Incognito for years (keeping session histories minimal and fresh, and as of a few months ago, block all cookies entirely.

This kills some search relevance, but is exceptionally good at avoiding _that corner_ of youtube --- the zone of ever more finely curated crap.

YT's lack of channel-blocking (never, ever, on any circumstances show results from $CHANNEL in search or recommendations, or of creating short-term playlists based on search results, are increasingly crippling. On the latter, mps-youtube has excellent search and list-curation features I use heavily.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> For decades browsing the bookstores on Saturday mornings was a bi-weekly treat for me. These days, 95% of my books are bought online and for the Kindle.

Tech and science books aimed at the scientific literate but non-specialist have all but disappeared. The physical quality of fiction books in terms of print quality and binding are just garbage compared to 25 years ago.

It is a bit sad for a book lover. Our home is still filled with multiple thousands of books, probably also several hundreds still unread as new books were bought at a higher frequency than they could be read, so moving down the strata of an ever accumulating 'to read' sediment.

With the instant availability and fulfillment of online eBook purchases, that vice has disappeared together with it's joy.

<comment><USER17> Do you have any existing books you would recommend from your "tech and science books aimed at the scientific literate but non-specialist" category?

<comment><USER16> So many. One I remember very fondly is "The beak of the Finch". [https://www.amazon.com/Beak-Finch-Story-Evolution- Time/dp/06...](https://www.amazon.com/Beak-Finch-Story-Evolution- Time/dp/067973337X/)

<comment><USER18> Years ago I bought this by mistake thinking it was a murder mystery. 50 pages in and I was really confused... good writing but no sign of a mystery. Reread the back cover more carefully and the penny dropped.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I was highly amused to discover recently that Pegasus Book Exchange here in Seattle had gone to the trouble of photographing all their shelves, so you can "browse" remotely. You still can't smell the books, but this might be the closest you can get.

[http://www.pegasusbookexchange.com/p/browse- shelves.html](http://www.pegasusbookexchange.com/p/browse-shelves.html)

<comment><USER20> This is cool, and a little bit bizarre. I feel like it would be a fun experience to be able to view these photos in Three.js

<comment><USER21> I expected an old-fashioned "click part of the image and go to a different link" where I could click on a book's spine and get linked to a page with more details about it. Of course, this is a lot more work so I can see why they didn't do this. But this was one of my favorite elements of '90s websites. You have some big (for the time) image up top and you, say, click on one of the characters in it to get to the guestbook.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Similarly, grocery shopping isn't quite the same doing it through an app. Thrill vs. getting new ideas by seeing what fruits and veggies that look good and fresh, etc...

<comment><USER23> Another point of view: through the app I buy less not needed stuff because they are around the tills. Stop and resume the process anytime, also I don't need to fight with my daughter over the 3rd bar of chocolate :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> In my teens and early 20's, second-hand bookstores were a reliable go-to in the dating bag of tricks for me. The smell, the cramped quarters, the discussion - it was easier to give an air of sophistication and worldliness to impress your date. It always opened up the other person to confess their likes and dislikes, giving new ideas for future dates. Ah, fond memories from another time.

</comment><comment><USER25> Same reason a lot of miss Blockbuster nights from our youth. Now rather than 50000 channels of nothing, we scan through endless streaming options. My only reprieve is that Netflix still offers their DVD service.

<comment><USER26> > My only reprieve is that Netflix still offers their DVD service.

Wait, seriously?

<comment><USER27> Seriously! They tried spinning it off years ago, remember "Qwikster"?

Anyway, it's no where as good as is used to be. After the rise of streaming they shut down many fulfillment centers and quit mailing out on Saturdays. My quick 3 day turn around turned into 5-7 days. Eventually I canceled the service once I figured out that Redbox could in fill in my new release rental needs for less money (with coupons anyway).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Can't find the original Tweet to credit it, but a great bookstore joke: "I've got the idea for the perfect escape room. You're in a bookstore. You have 60 minutes to escape while spending less than $50. Good luck!"

<comment><USER28> Everything in them was way overpriced last time I checked ~7yrs ago, probably due to low sales volume. I'm sure it's even worse now. No way I'm buying a lump of dead trees for $30 when it's $7 for the ebook unless it's something I'm really into having a collector's item for or something.

Maybe if browsing experiences are valuable, we can eventually start making websites have showrooms in VR. Too bad there's no smell-o-vision for the paper smell.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> One of my first pick-ups as an adult in a bookstore was Gödel, Escher, Bach. People thought I was crazy for grabbing it. One of my friends was fascinated by it and I ended up giving it away. Hopefully he did good things with it!

<comment><USER30> gexia says> _" One of my first pick-ups as an adult in a bookstore was Gödel, Escher, Bach... I ended up giving it away."_<

You did the right thing, provided you didn't throw away part of your life reading that sludgepot of a book.

After reading GEB, I used it as a doorstop in a utility room. Probably still there, lying in wait for some fool to pick it up and get sucked into Hofstadter's voluminous prose. I would have burned it but burning GEB would take too long to be worthwhile. When I think of burning it I think of one of the old wood (and paper) -powered Volkswagens that the Germans used domestically during WWII:

[https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2010/01/wood-gas- cars.html](https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2010/01/wood-gas-cars.html)

search for "Mass-produced woodmobiles"

GEB might provide enough paper to drive out of Germany. Had the Germans made a "bullshit-powered" automobile they could have launched themselves into orbit with a single copy of GEB.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I am certain that, in a good bookstore, and had I the finances and shelf space, I could spend $10K in a short afternoon. Less certain is whether I'd ever actually read them all but I'd darn well aspire to read them.

<comment><USER32> Likewise. I'm highly guilty of tsundoku,[1] but I can just never find the time to read everything I want :(

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsundoku](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsundoku)

<comment><USER31> Oh! Thank you for that term, tsundoku. It's perfect.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I found what I can confidently say is my favorite non-fiction book I've read in a while from randomly walking into a book store. I was meandering through the history section and found a book that went in great detail about Lawrence of Arabia titled (Lawrence in Arabia).

Looking forward to the day that can happen again.

</comment><comment><USER34> I would say this is true of most retail experiences. It's easy enough to shop for exactly the things that you know you want. It's much harder to do discovery, to find alternatives or to creatively solve problems without 1) seeing options spread in front of you in the way you only get in a physical environment 2) having staff around you can ask. I'm thinking specifically in a hardware store like scenario. I know I have such and such a problem in my house but I'm not a contractor, but I am handy. Having someone right there that I can describe my problem too and how I'm thinking of solving it and having someone with some experience say "oh what you need is xyz, isle 4" is invaluable. You don't get that on amazon.

</comment><comment><USER35> If you're concerned about the environment, browse at your local library. The energy cost in printing and shipping books is shocking: [https://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-09/amazons- kindl...](https://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-09/amazons- kindlephysical-book-bundle-great-impressing-guests-not-so-good-environment/)

</comment><comment><USER36> There's a Barnes & Noble in my town that's still open and does pretty good business considering it's the only one for hundreds of miles, and yeah, it's fun to browse through.

I buy almost nothing from there, though, except for the occasional gift. It's hard to come up with a good excuse to buy physical books for everyday reading when e-ink exists for reasonable prices with none of the storage concerns.

</comment><comment><USER37> That's certainly true but how often do you really go to the bookstore in search of this thrill?

The keyword here is "browsing". That's better done at a physical bookstore than online.

But it's much more _efficient_ to buy books online. I often went to a bookstore looking for some kind of book I couldn't find there but could have ordered immediately online.

I like doing both, at different times though.

</comment><comment><USER38> Lol one things I liked to do is whenever I see secondhand bookstore/stalls... is browse for "The Ninja - Eric van Lustbader" one of my favourite books as a teenager... I usually find at least one of the books in this series. It reminds me that everything is still in place and ticking along as planned in this crazy world. It's just so consistently there !

</comment><comment><USER39> Personally, I love reading books, but I find browsing in a bookstore to be a bad way of finding books to read. Most of the information you get about books is their promotional marketing copy, and looking at the cover. Maybe you get a small amount of information that was written by a bookstore employee, for a small subset of the books at the store. That just isn't very high-quality information about the books. It isn't a great way to absorb information about books.

Far better is reading things online that are written about books. Find someone you respect who recommended a list of books, or find a list of award-winning books. Go through that list, and read some other reviews of them. This is more intellectually engaging and interesting than walking through a physical bookstore.

Plus, when you find a book you're excited by, you can get it for your Kindle and start reading it immediately, rather than waiting until later. This means you can get a book that's a perfect fit for your mood when you're reading it.

<comment><USER40> I disagree. Bookstores have people who curate the displays, which helps with discovery. If you go to a reputable bookstore (not a big box like Barnes and Noble), then you'll probably discover something great. And regarding the "cover doesn't tell you everything" point...that's a valid concern, though you can always ask the booksellers about a book and a lot of times they'll know about it better than a google search or blog.

<comment><USER41> _Bookstores have people who curate the displays, which helps with discovery. If you go to a reputable bookstore (not a big box like Barnes and Noble),_

Curious why you're excluding Barnes & Noble? In my experience, the B&N store by me is largely staffed by people who are readers and writers themselves; and they do curate displays and write recommendations, offer verbal recommendations, etc. Maybe other stores are different, but given the B&N near me, I find it to be equal to any of the local independent bookstores in that regard. And with the bonus of a much larger (though sadly shrinking) inventory, and an attached cafe.

<comment><USER40> i'm admittedly a bookstore snob

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> After having consumed many ebooks, there is one unfortunate side-effect.

My memory/feel for a book seems to be partly tied to what I hold/the cover/the font. I love ebooks, but once I've finished one, I just don't have the same fondness/recollection of it afterwards anymore. This might be a very individual thing though.

</comment><comment><USER43> I can spend hours in a used bookstore. I keep many of the books I am interested in on a list and I eventually find them on the shelves of a used book store. I usually come out with unexpected items as well. It is always a joy.

If you are ever in San Jose, CA please stop by and support the Recycle Bookstore. Great staff, a large collection and a couple cool cats.

</comment><comment><USER44> If you ever find yourself in Detroit, Michigan, United States check out John K. King Bookstore, it is a giant warehouse of books

</comment><comment><USER45> I recently read "How to Read a Book", the grand encouraging of pencil marking and personalizing books (especially expositions), and have come out on the other side wondering how giving books to friends will ever work moving forward. I just have to fork down more money to the publishers to share great thoughts and gift them.

<comment><USER12> I dunno. To me there seems something personal about sending forward a book with your own notes in it. Especially if you encourage the other person to comment on the notes, and then return it. Could be really neat to see their thoughts and how it changed, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Being able pick a book up and flick through the pages is so much better than buying online. However the price difference really isn't worth it.

In the USA I really resent the people who fill B&N, reading books for 15+ minutes before returning them to shelves. WTF. Makes me feel like I'm paying for them.

</comment><comment><USER47> I love bookshops but I don't know if enough people do for them to be sustained.

One thing is for sure: working tech people don't buy technical books in stores. The main bookshop in Dublin stocked a host of technical books for years. It was an odd mix, but they tried to curate it in a reasonable way. They would have things like K&R and odd volumes of TAOCP and Eloquent Javascript - as well iPhone 6 for dummies...

But they gave it up a year ago and now only stock things absolutely required for technical coursework in the University.

I'd love if there was a really well stocked, well curated technical bookshop in Dublin. I thought a shop like that with working terminals and a "learning" vibe would be lovely. But given what I've seen I don't think there's enough of a market.

<comment> 52-6F-62 Several bookstores have been sustaining themselves in Toronto for some time now. We've lost some old favourites over time like World's Biggest Bookstore [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World%27s_Biggest_Bookstore](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World%27s_Biggest_Bookstore)]

But there are several great ones that remain. Some offer online book shopping now, others require physical presence.

Some of my favourites, and as far as I know they're still doing well enough:

* BMV [[http://www.bmvbooks.com](http://www.bmvbooks.com)]

* Zoinks! [[https://zoinks.ca](https://zoinks.ca)]

* Ayerego Books [[https://www.ayeregobooks.com](https://www.ayeregobooks.com)]

* ABC Bookstore [[https://www.blogto.com/bookstores/abc-book-store-toronto/](https://www.blogto.com/bookstores/abc-book-store-toronto/)]

* Seekers Books [[https://email@example.com,...](https://email@example.com,-79.405178,16.63z/data=!4m8!1m2!2m1!1sbookstore+yorkville+toronto!3m4!1s0x0:0xb560adce0ba3b352!8m2!3d43.6655967!4d-79.4084153)]

* Ben McNally Books [[https://benmcnallybooks.com](https://benmcnallybooks.com)]

* University of Toronto Bookstore [[https://uoftbookstore.com](https://uoftbookstore.com)] — Of course, we're lucky to have this one downtown. They have a large technical collection as well as pretty well any academic subject taught at U of T.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> This is true of other brick and mortar stores too. Theres a pleasure in browsing without any intent to buy but with the surprise of finding something unexpected. I hope we'll see a comeback to regualar stores. Plus all the shipping is a terrible waste, albeit very convenient

</comment><comment><USER49> Meh, last time I was in a bookstore I found that the floor was being dominated by:

\- school materials (pens, paper, rulers, glue etc. etc.)

\- trash tier romance "novels"

\- (auto-)biographies of all kinds of wastes of flesh (politicians, "comedians")

\- the latest in teenager literature (Harry Potter, Twilight etc.)

But IMHO the straw that really broke the camels back was that the "Technik" (technical) section was reduced to one shelf about 0.5m wide x 2m tall filled with nothing but book(let)s on "how to learn touch-typing" and "how to teach my grandparents to use the computer". That section had just a few years prior been a whole corner of that store filled with all kinds of learning materials on programming, computer science, electrical engineering and the like.

What a collossal decline...

</comment><comment><USER50> For about a decade, I used to live very close to a Barnes and Noble, and almost as close to a Half-Price Books used book store. I'd go to each about once a week and browse around. Bought loads of books from Half-Price books (probably more than 1000 over 10 years), and a handful from Barnes and Noble. Definitely found lots of books I never would have found on Amazon. OTOH, there are lots of books I've bought from Amazon that I couldn't find in either of those bookstore either, but those tend to be specialized. I never browse Amazon for books, I wouldn't even know how to do that in any way that wasn't just a pain in the ass.

</comment><comment><USER51> Maybe check out [https://littlefreelibrary.org/](https://littlefreelibrary.org/) we grab books on walks and leave any books we enjoy but no longer want.

</comment><comment><USER52> especially a used bookstore.

<comment> dawg- Yes, preferably one overflowing with books stacked on every possible flat surface, just the right amount of disorganization that people can find something cool that they never would have even looked for.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> It seems like a lot of people in this thread might be interested in a place like Bunkitsu:

[https://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2019/03/30/books/enter-...](https://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2019/03/30/books/enter- bunkitsu-like-gallery-bookstore/)

It's a bookstore in Tokyo that actually charges an admission fee, but it looks like a great place to spend a whole day around books.

</comment><comment><USER54> I recently learned of [https://bookshop.org/](https://bookshop.org/), which is a website that pays out part of their earnings to local bookstores. As someone who loves local shopping and wants to see us move away from an economy ruled by a few mega tech corps, this seems like a happy medium that retains the convenience of online shopping while retaining local, independent stores.

</comment><comment><USER55> I make a point of shopping at our local bookstores, even though they are not always the convenient option, just to help keep them around.

I do wish bookstores focused more on their discovery and curation. For example, I'd probably buy a lot more books if they had a "if you liked this <popular book>, you might also like <less popular book1>, ..."

I even suggested this to our local bookstore but got a confused, blank stare :-(

<comment><USER56> One thing my local bookstore does that I enjoy is the "Blind Date". They wrap a book in craft paper and write a short description on it.

They're usually slightly less popular, but still good books.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> I have been using electronic books much less lately. I have come to the conclusion that it is nice to read a real book that when you are done with you can give to a friend to read.

Or sell the books you are done with.

It is also a shame that the e-book industry seemed to try their hardest to make getting an e-book from the library on your reader nearly impossible or outright super confusing.

<comment><USER58> I use a Rakuten Kobo and - luckily - my local library's books are accessible via a service called OverDrive.

It's the predatory practices of the publishing industry that stop us from giving our ebooks to a friend to read: DRM stops us from sharing what we have purchased, and in many jurisdictions it is illegal to circumvent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> Hate to say it, but I've been using Amazon for 2 decades simply because I buy a lot of specialized books - the kind that aren't in most physical stores, or French language books (the selection here is very small). I do enjoy bookstores but most simply cater to the masses and it's probably a tough business for them to be in as well.

<comment><USER60> The bookshops I know (in Germany) have an excellent ordering service, especially the academic bookshops in my university town.

I used to order everything via Amazon, but eventually I figured I wanted to support one of our lovely little local bookshops, so I buy all my books there now. They rarely have the books I want, so I still have to order (via them), but it's almost as fast as Amazon, if not always quite as cheap. But I love the old ladies that run it, and simply dropping in for a chat with them is worth the extra cost and effort :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> I can't handle most new book stores, places like chapters and stuff, but I love browsing through used book stores. You never know what you're going to find. I've found some pretty cool old books tucked away in random places. First editions or other rare things or just books you'd never find anywhere else, even online.

<comment><USER62> Yeah, used book stores can be fantastic. You find things you've never heard of, and didn't know you wanted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> There are really nice public libraries in Norway, so no need for the bookstores, they are also interconected so you can ask for any book that any other library has and it cones in a few days, and if they do not have it they are usually happy to buy as per one suggestion. No used book stores like in latin America though!

</comment><comment><USER64> I thoroughly enjoy going to Indigo to browse their somewhat dated Software Dev. Books. I always find something that could be interesting in there. And I have to say that buying a book physically makes me commit to that purchase waaaaay more thank any ebook.

</comment><comment><USER65> Support your local store by shopping there and they will be around tomorrow. Even if you get a little less for your money you get a greater experience than buying everything online. Plus you support local jobs and communities.

</comment><comment> noir-york How can you love reading and not appreciate a well curated bookshelf whether at someone's home, or a bookshop?!

The sheer joy of browsing Hatchards... last time I visited I found a first English edition of Proust and I just had to have it.

</comment><comment><USER66> There's something about the physical manifestation of a catalogue that's very enticing.

I would say browsing a magazine rack, a book store, a VHS store, a clothes rack are all much more engaging than online. Could VR help here?

</comment><comment><USER67> Introducing all prices only in computer scanners removed deliberately all the fun in my opinion. Seems carefully designed with the main purpose in mind to discourage customers to buy. It is stupid by design

</comment><comment><USER68> I used to love browsing book stores. But over the years, the subjects that I was interested in got less and less shelf space, and today it's just not worth even going.

</comment><comment><USER69> Printing books in bulk may not survive the epidemic. When I order "paperback books" from Amazon now, I usually get something from the print-on-demand system.

<comment><USER60> "Printing books in bulk" has survived quite a few epidemics in the past 500 years... Why do you think this one is different?

<comment><USER69> There are better alternatives. And far fewer bookstores willing to stock inventory.

Amazon really wants you to buy a download for Kindle, which costs them little, rather than ship a physical book, which they have to buy and warehouse.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> Find a big thrift store near a big university. Slightly old and decades old textbooks for $3.50 . Plus _interesting_ books.

</comment><comment><USER71> I would like to browse a bookstore made only of books that you could not find online , or anywhere else really.

<comment><USER72> Or anywhere else? This is starting to sound like Borges.

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry is a novel that bookshop lovers might enjoy.

</comment><comment><USER74> Nostalgia run amok. This is why the world advances when people die.

</comment><comment><USER75> Its true. I love browsing through the bookstore or libraries. No online experience can replace that. The potential for discovering something new to read and learn is the main contributor for this thrill. I like randomly picking a book from some section that I never been to and read it for a while to get a gist. I may or may not end up buying but that small gist brings me immense pleasure

Note:I'm not able to read the article because of paywall

</comment><comment><USER76> I usually browse bookstores, take pictures of books that look interesting then download them in pirated form.

</comment><comment><USER77> Half Price Books FTW

<comment><USER78> Or McKay's Used Books in the east.

Not as good as the Half Price Books on North Lamar in Austin, but nothing much is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER79> I can't read this due to the subscription paywall, but a couple of thoughts on the topic:

I feel like nobody has really tried to emulate a bookstore. Instead, everyone online focuses so hard on selling, largely by "you like X, so you'll like "X', X'', and X'''".

Even only browsing by genres only ever shows the popular books, and some of those popular books show up in whichever genres they can shoehorn them into, leading to bland and repetitive experiences.

I guess that ultimately here's a thrill not because bookstores are somehow not special, but because it's easy to get past the 'Bestseller' advertising and into, pardon the pun, novel territory.

<comment><USER80> BetterWorldBooks.com is the closest to feeling like a bookstore in website form. But overall I agree, I love the idea of trying to capture the sense of serendipity and staff recommendations. It's tricky, since you can't "wander around" a website.

Books are the most human thing we have: they're literally paper bricks that contain peoples' thoughts. It feels like we're missing something to present them online in the same way we sell socks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER81> Good bookstores are so rare, Powell's is about the only one worth visiting. Chain bookstores sell so much pulp, garbage, remaindered coffee table books about cats, etc.

</comment><comment><USER82> There's no replacement for the thrill of driving a manual gear, but in US it's almost impossible to find one.

So I guess it depends.</comment>


How we compiled 400,000 iPhone apps for the Hour of Code - <AUTHOR> https://www.makegameswith.us/gamernews/330/how-we-compiled-400000-iphone-apps-for-the-hour-o

<comment><USER2> Realizing you had more options at your disposal because you were not submitting to the App Store was a cool hack.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! To make it a little more clear just how much the hack helped: wait times went from around a minute (often many minutes) to ~5 seconds.</comment></comment>


Conway's Game of Life implemented in Brainfuck - <AUTHOR> http://www.linusakesson.net/programming/brainfuck/

<comment><USER2> Even more impressive is that, according to the comments, he actually wrote it from scratch (as opposed to generating it using some higher-level language). No comment on what that seems to imply regarding his brain. :)

<comment><USER3> Also see his mandelbrot set/towers of hanoi using vim macros (not vim scripts, but macros): <http://www.linusakesson.net/programming/vim/index.php>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is cool, but I won't truly be happy until someone's implemented Conway's Game of Life in Conway's Game of Life.

<comment><USER5> Here is an example of a GoL unit cell - "a pattern with two states, which is determined by its previous state and the previous state of its neighbors, using exactly the rules used to compute it; that is, it simulates its own universe": [http://www.radicaleye.com/lifepage/patterns/unitcell/ucdesc....](http://www.radicaleye.com/lifepage/patterns/unitcell/ucdesc.html)

Basically a pattern in GoL that mimics the behaviour of a single cell. A regular grid of these would therefore implement Conway's Game of Life in Conway's Game of Life (and of course you could do this recursively to any level you choose - at an exponential decrease in speed of course)

<comment><USER4> Huh, that approach would never have occurred to me. Very elegant.</comment></comment></comment>


Reform Revolution, a Pinterest clone? - <AUTHOR> http://scriptogr.am/suprb/post/reform-revolution-a-pinterest-clone <comment><USER2> Shoddy "journalism" on Sarah's part. Sad that even when called on it she still didn't have the intellectual curiosity to figure out from wayback exactly when the design iterations happened.

<comment><USER3> Unfortunately, there's little incentive to do so. In fact, Mashable is likely better off if this generates a mini-controversy bringing more people to their site and generating more ad impressions. If, at some point, it were to become a problem, just slap an update on the post, and cash the check from the traffic.

<comment><USER4> Hmm, but if Mashable is immune to this its only because they can disavow the actions of their journalists.

Sarah sadly has likely just made Hackernews readers, and the next couple batches of YC companies wary of ever cooperating with her in the future.

For a journalist, a taint to your personal integrity can be a career killer.

<comment><USER5> From what I've seen, YC startups have never favored Mashable for launching – the exclusive is usually given to TechCrunch

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> When I saw pinterest first time, I said to me, "Why they call this revolutionary? reform revolution and dropular already did this layout. wtf is going on. this is rip-off"

I saw it only early 2011, Because they got some venture capital. That says a lot.

<comment><USER7> I started using Pinterest recently, and I think it's an interesting medium - with some extremely boring users, mind. It's a different way of sharing and storing your data, and I think its biggest problem is the lack of interesting profiles/pinboards to follow.

I've started using it to store my "bookmarks" for different products that would otherwise have been stored as text-based bookmark links that break, when the URL changes, or the site is taken down - as was the case with a lot of my bookmarks I transferred to Pinterest. It also makes them an order of magnitude faster to browse.

I don't know if the popular content is anything to judge it by, but all of it is basically _awful_ : cookies, cats, dogs, inspirational weightloss quotes, hot dudes, etc., etc. That doesn't mean that it can't be used for something else. If I were a fashion brand, I wouldn't hesitate to display my collections on the website with links to the products, if available. It looks startlingly similar to the shops at <http://goodsie.com>, and it could be used as a social version of such.

Right now, Pinterest is in dire need of big names and brands to promote their content for it to be remotely interesting, but, like Twitter in its earlier days, I don't think it's very useful to criticize it for the inanity most people post to it, but how it differs as a digital medium. Twitter messages already existed before Twitter as "status updates" in IM messages, and image- only posts already exists as, say, Tumblr posts, but with the complete focus on images (and videos), the browsing experience is vastly difference.

One problem with Pinterest is also that there isn't a big incentive to use it as a fashion blogger, because it's extremely difficult to monetize compared to a regular blog that can be advertised on in a number of ways. Why should a fashion, style, and trendspotter blog migrate to Pinterest? Maybe they can, I don't know, but it seems unappealing right now. In a blog, it's much easier to lock in fans, because the content is not so easily shared. The same can't be said for Pinterest where it only takes a repin to wrest away control of your pin.

If I were Pinterest, I would take some time to:

        1. Think about the ways in which Pinterest can be used
        that are completely new and not just repetitions of
        what we see at Tumblr and imgur.

        2. Attract high-profile celebrities and brands.

        3. See if it can be used to disrupt the photo-hosting
        industry, particularly to be used with sharing on
        Twitter. These pictures are usually really difficult to
        browse, and Pinterest takes care of that.

The perception of Pinterest as a soccer mom demographic is really hurting the adoption of the website, and the sooner Pinterest addresses this, the better, because it's basically a taboo for men to sign up at the site at this point. (I'm a guy, FWIW.)

Right now, people, myself a few days ago included, regarded the service as Tumblr photo-sharing in one site, but I don't think it's a good idea to look at sites like these as spin-offs from existing types of content creation. Tumblr is not just a Wordpress spin-off, and Twitter is not just an SMS/IM spin-off, and the sooner we look into the ramifications of Pinterest and its popularity the better.

<comment><USER8> There are a lot of high profile celebrities and brands on Pinterest. You might not be familiar with them if you aren't interested in high profile celebrities and brands to begin with.

<comment><USER9> So I have to ask, as someone that hasn't used pinterest, have any suggestions? I'm a guy but whatever, I just want to see some of the interesting stuff that drives certain people to it.

<comment><USER7> There really aren't any interesting superbrands nor celebrities there - especially for guys - but I found a great Pinterest profile that tries to track all the major brands and celebrities present on the site: <http://pinterest.com/pinterestpower/>.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Andreas. I posted a response to your post on my blog. <http://aentan.com/design/pinterest-rip-off/>

I was in fact one of the early adopters of the fluid grid layout after being deeply inspired by Grid-a-licious. I got really upset when I saw you being accused by Mashable.

<comment><USER11> Cheers man! Much appreciated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Pinterest layout is certainly not something that was just invented. Not sure why it's being attributed to them so much. Only because they are the most prominent example of it. I wrote a piece on raising money for web projects through crowdfunding in order to compete with the big guys and to validate ideas: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3687835>

</comment><comment><USER13> "I want all of you to enjoy really shitty journalism and research at one of the most respected tech news blogs around, Mashable."

I have to hand it to Andreas Pihlström for being so civil, but I absolutely disagree with his assessment of Mashable being a respected tech news blog. Mashable might have a decent well researched and insightful article once every blue moon and the rest of the time it is pure dribble of liquid feces.

</comment><comment><USER14> I find that while people put a lot of emphasis on making an "original" product, a lot of the more successful products tend to be clones. After all, if you come up with something completely original you need to do a lot of explaining to get people to understand it; Whereas if it's based on something they already know, it's much easier for them to comprehend.

<comment><USER15> There are a few metrics Pinterest has that others similar don't have.

In no particular order,

i) The name is a genius combination of the primary action, and the primary purpose behind it + it's highly brandable / memorable

ii) The facade of exclusive club via requiring an Invite / being able to Request an Invite

iii) They're scraping the web's content, and putting on their own site, thereby reducing / eliminating traffic leaks; I'm undecided if I think it's fair, something doesn't feel right about it - because where some may benefit from their content being copied (you could argue copied->stolen, and probably show damages), many more I believe will not benefit and those are merely feeding the Pinterest ecosystem.

... a few more that I understand but keeping to myself. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> That is just another wordpress blog, using jquery masonry : <http://masonry.desandro.com/> .. played with it long time ago, here is my version of the clone : <http://wallizzle.com>

</comment><comment><USER17> pathetic. reckless journalism threatening the livelihood of independent developers. she should atleast have the balls to redact the statement.

</comment><comment><USER18> It's embarrassing what passes for journalism these days.

Worse, this is slander on Sarah's part. The notion that he's a rip-off artist has a distinctly negative impact on his name and good standing as a developer.

Particularly when it's the exact opposite case. Pinterest is more of a clone than Reform.

<comment><USER19> Is anyone here under the impression that Mashable is journalism? It's a muckraking tech fire hose on par with many tumblogs. Yeah, they have a bigger staff, but I don't think I've ever seen anything come out of Mashable that wasn't editorial or commentary.

</comment></comment><comment> no-espam Interesting, I just did a grid layout in Twitter's Bootstrap framework and thumbnails look exactly like that. Looks like Bootstrap thumbnails is a Reform Revolution clone :) Oh wait, this reminds me of Polaroids ...</comment>