Decentralization

jamesgregory writes "'Geeks make new stuff primarily because it's fun, because it's useful, and because they can. Suits make new stuff primarily because they hope to earn a profit. Yes, that is an oversimplification, and there's overlap between the two types -- there are plenty of profit-seeking geeks and geeky business folks. Still, the distinction is real.'"

Comments

This is a summary?

[Amata]

Is it just me or did the "summary" give no idea whatsoever of what the article is actually about?

Listen up, this is the last time I'll say this

[SteweyGriffin]

Geeks make new stuff primarily because it's fun, because it's useful, and because they can. Suits make new stuff primarily because they hope to earn a profit.

You know what? That's a load of crap, and you know it. I don't even care that you tried to cover your blatant generalization up in the next sentence of the write-up. If someone tells a racist joke, are they not a racist regardless of if they were "just joking"?

I'm sick of these "it's either this way, or that way" people. The computing field is full of a ton of smart people who have more than one ability. I can code with the best of 'em but still am confident that, if necessary and so desired, I could run a group of a dozen or two programmers, system administrators, etc.

The reason I get so upset sometimes is that people pigeonhole themselves into a specific career (major in computer engineering OR major in management OR major in English, etc.) before thinking "Hey, ya know, maybe I'm gifted enough to do both coding and project management and testing, and hey, maybe even a few interviews."

I love to see other fellow men and women reach their highest potential, but that can't happen when you segregate folks into one specific area.

Re:Listen up, this is the last time I'll say this

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree. Programmers with altruistic movies are truly rare. Virtually all of them program because it's fun to them - they get the same feelings of sucess and power that an athlete does when they sucede at reaching a target. They're able to find programming fun usually because they possess a neurological makeup which makes other things less stimulating than they are for a normal person.
How many programmers dedicate their programming time to caring intentions such as making software to help people? They do exist, but I think the generalisation that programmers do programming for fun is more or less true. Or else there'd be far more sites like arachnoid.com on the internet.

Re:Listen up, this is the last time I'll say this

[quantaman]

Oh come on, this is a major overreaction.
I'm sick of these "it's either this way, or that way" people.
Well the poster wasn't one of those people, perhaps I should include the next sentence which you mentioned and yet completely ignored.
Yes, that is an oversimplification, and there's overlap between the two types -- there are plenty of profit-seeking geeks and geeky business folks. Still, the distinction is real.'"

And he's right, can you honestly tell me there isn't a bit of truth to that statement. The fact is that he made a statement that in general that held true. Of course it isn't this way or that way. He wasn't thinking that when he wrote it I didn't think that when I read it and I'm sure that you were perceptive enough to realize it. This has nothing to do with any form of discrimination. It really irritates me when people make that mistake. The truth is that some groups are more prone to crime and to be less productive. Why? It has nothing to do with culture or ethnic backgrough. It's simply the fact that they have been placed in socio-economic circumstances that make it very hard to succeed. Too often because of political correctness people ignore these problems and nothing gets done. Meanwhile people who hold discriminatory views continue to hold them because they don't know better since no one who knows better is willing to discuss the situation. Of course I don't know if you fall into any of these categories but I will mention a couple things in closing. One if you don't make generalizations it's very difficult to have any sort of higher level conversations and two, if you are criticising the generalizations the poster made I will point out that you made more generalizations about him than he did about "suits" and "geeks".

Re:Listen up, this is the last time I'll say this

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe alot of us WANT to be pigeonholed, I don't want to end up in management, I don't want to become a lawer, I want to code / program /develop and that's it.

Who are you to say that to "reach [my] highest potential", I must also do 3 other things. If you want to, go ahead, but to do so and say you "can code with the best of 'em" just tells me you probably think you're the best at everything you do.

If you want to tell a joke about an american, a newfy and a european, I won't call you a racist. If you want them to sit respectively in different sections of the bus, I will.

Re:Listen up, this is the last time I'll say this

[drob]

I'm sick of these "it's either this way, or that way" people. The computing field is full of a ton of smart people who have more than one ability. I can code with the best of 'em but still am confident that, if necessary and so desired, I could run a group of a dozen or two programmers, system administrators, etc.

Hey you're young, smart and multi-talented right and you can do anything right? Perhaps, but you are in a distinct minority. VERY few people will actually be happy writing code OR managing coders. I've worked with a LARGE number of people over 18 years in this business and I've met virtually no one who is both a good engineer and a good manager. The personalities that do well in these two different roles are VERY different (for one, engineers tend to be introverted and managers extroverted).

I'm with the original post - it is a fairly accurate generalization. There are those who make and there are those who shuffle papers, go to meetings and play politics. Believe it.

What's the difference?

[PhysicsGenius]

Geeks make new stuff primarily because it's fun, because it's useful, and because they can. Suits make new stuff primarily because they hope to earn a profit.

As if that was somehow a lesser goal. They are isomorphic, in that they both consist of informational efficiency gains. Here's what I mean.

Geeks see a need for a device/program. They function as a evolutionary force to fill an "ecological" niche. The niche is the need, the device is the thing that exploits the niche. "Suits" do the same thing. They see a financial or economic inefficiency and they create a "device" (a financial instrument or business, say) to exploit it. They are money hackers. Profit is just another way of saying efficiency which everyone here knows is related to elegance.

Sure, suits don't care about the elegance of YOUR crap--but you don't care about yours, so why should they. And they are rightly in charge, since their feet are on the ground. Now if only those damn liberals in Congress would understand that people like Ken Lay should be praised for increasing efficiency instead of castigated.

Re:What's the difference?

[Bendebecker]

Geeks see a need for a device/program

Not always true, the orginal personal computers could do basically nothing and, as many pointed out at the time, no one really needed one. Many of the orginal programmers and engineers built them anyway though, not because they needed them but because they thought they would be fun to play around with. They had no interest in 'exploiting' the technology, they just wanted to have fun with it.

Sure, suits don't care about the elegance of YOUR crap--but you don't care about yours, so why should they

I do care about the elegance of my programs. If my programs were inefficent (or just plain crap) I would be ashamed to say I wrote them. I take pride in what I write as every programmer should. Our programs are a reflection of our abilities. We care about the quality of what we produce, suits should care about the quality of what they are trying to sell. If your selling crap, then maybe you should reflect on the ethics of what your doing.

You also seem to be trying to rationalize your drive to make money(aka greed) by fooling yourself into believing that everyone else is only interested in the same thing. Making a good program that ppl can use is not the same as designing a means to exploits others' needs (which is what you seem to be doing.)
We program becuase it is fun. We create things to help people, not exploit them. You sell our programs becuase you seem to just want to make more money. You exploit others needs for your own personal gain. If people don't need something, you try to trick them into thinking they do. You help no one but yourself. That's the difference.

The truth

[EggplantMan]

Yes, it's true that most geeks like yourself like to explore and tinker, and that's suitable when you're a small child or when you're in an academic environment.

When it comes to putting bread on the table - something that geeks are intrinsicly poor at - I'd rather be a suit. What the geek culture fails to recognise is that there is a time and a place for this sort of thing, and this behavior is useless in the work environment. That's why the entire dot-com bubble burst, remember?

Re:The truth

[ryochiji]

> When it comes to putting bread on the table [...] I'd rather be a suit.

Maybe I shouldn't be speaking since I'm a college student and only have myself to feed, but I sure hope I don't ever say "I'd rather be a suit." Maybe it sounds immature and naive when I say this, but to me, it sounds an aweful lot like admitting defeat and submitting to the norm.

Personally, I'd like to give my software away for free and still put bread on the table. I don't know if it's possible, but I like to think it is. And I'll be damned if I don't at least try.

Re:The truth

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally, I'd like to give my software away for free and still put bread on the table. I don't know if it's possible, but I like to think it is. And I'll be damned if I don't at least try.

Sounds like you understand capitalism more than most suits. Keep trying my man, it just might be possible. It'll be much harder than going the easy route though.

Oh yeah, and don't forget, "putting food on the table" usually means "putting a new computer on the desk each year, paying cable and cell phone bills, buying lots of DVDs and CDs and gadgets, and eating out every week". If you try and trim that down a little your goal will be easier and you just might be a better person because of it.

Re:The truth

[NineNine]

Maybe it sounds immature and naive when I say this, but to me, it sounds an aweful lot like admitting defeat and submitting to the norm.

Actually, it does.

Personally, I'd like to give my software away for free and still put bread on the table.

I run a store. I'd like to give away my products *and* pay my mortgage. It ain't gonna happen. Not on this planet.

- A suit

Re:The truth

[ryochiji]

>I run a store. I'd like to give away my products *and* pay my mortgage. It ain't gonna happen.

Oh, it happens (on this planet too). Phone companies give away cell phones and cell service. Gilette gives away disposable razors and sells replacement blades. Radio stations give away music and sell air time for commercials. It's actually a well known business model. The tough part, at least for me, is to apply the same for my software.

Re:The truth

[Bendebecker]

So your trying to blame the .com burst on geek culture? lol! What about all those suits who just poured money into the most useless e-commerce crap, not really caring about the business, only about a quick profit and then taking the money and running. The .com burst didn't happen because people suddenly realized that jsut toying around and tinkering was not very profitable. The .com burst happened because people poured money into dumb shit solely for the purposes of making money fast which caused teh market to become overvalued. People suddenly realized, "Hey, maybe amazon.com stock isn't worth $200 bucks a share" and that is when the crash began.

Re:The truth

[Doomdark]

No. Dot-com burst wasn't due to geeks, it was... guess who? The suits. They thought there were lots of golden "business opportunities" out there. This is obvious and I feel silly even pointing that out, but geeks would have been happy just putting up a simple web site and be done (or more likely, keep on tinkering). But suits not; they needed to get 100+ employee sweat shop creating web site that gives stuff out for free, and then selling these brilliant ideas to other suits and unfortunate investors.

And you say geeks are intrinsically bad at earning living, but suits not? And then point at dotcom bubble as an example. Oh boy.

Of course it's worth pointing out that it was epidemic of "green suits", not seasoned pointy-haired ones, that kept trainwreck going... at least initially; towards the end even normally level-headed people joined the party. And then it all imploded.

Re:The truth

[Anonymous Coward]

You can give away products and still put food on the table - you just need to sell services.

You can give away services and still put food on the table - you just need to sell products.

Unless you can farm, fabricate and generate electricity, you're not going to lead a very fufilling life without doing something for money.

Geeks v. Suits

[MacAndrew]

Hmm, am I going too far afield here if I imagine we're supposed to pick good guys and bad guys here?

The geeks here sounds like creative types who still live with their parents and maybe have a nice car; the suits genderless soulless drones with 401(k)'s and more likely have a nice car.

If anything this article illustrates the uselessness of stereotypes. As soon as the writer concedes the existence of hybird strains, the binary distinction loses value. Better to talk about these different qualities and identify people who have interesting mixes. Someone else here mentions race; I wouldn't be so melodramatic, but yes it's analogous. Geek and suit are superimposed social abstractions that, as individuals, we should reject.

Now I feel like I'm working a little hard to make something interesting of a humdrum article that reads like something written on a deadline and a hangover. How come they never take my submissions? ;-)

Re:Geeks v. Suits

[rnd()]

Anyone who uses the word suits to describe people whose responsibilities are focused on the bottom line is way out of touch. Both stragegy/managerial and technical positions require intelligence, problem solving, and creativity. Anyone who thinks otherwise should try to run a company by him/herself.

Re:Geeks v. Suits

[dpt]

Both stragegy/managerial and technical positions require intelligence, problem solving, and creativity

As soon as someone displays these three qualities, they cease being a "suit" in my opinion. It's just that there are so many climbers who don't actually produce *anything*, have *never* done anything, have no skills at all, and in fact continually make utterly stupid decisions that cause costly damage. The good thing about a recession, of course, is that the middle managers are weeded out pretty rapidly.

Anyone who thinks otherwise should try to run a company by him/herself

See, there's your problem right there. Most managerial positions *aren't* running the company! What exactly they are doing, no-one seems to know. I try to only work in organizations with relatively "flat" structures, and where everyone works to produce things that can be seen and have actual value, not "synergy", or "pro-active visions for win/win scenarios", or corporate theme songs, or dolls of the CEO, or whatever else they spoon feed people in MBA "school".

Good distinction...

[shylock0]

This is an interesting hypothesis, and in some ways it's probably correct. Consider this:

"Suits" -- i.e., Microsoft, Sun, Apple -- create operating systems and software which appeal to wide swaths of people. They have to; they have something to sell and money to make.

"Geeks" -- i.e., most of the GPL community -- write software for the purpose of writing software. The end result is pure art in a way.

A good analogy would be the world of photography. Professional photographers take pictures for magazines and newspapers, or at weddings, etc. They need to be product-driven, they have something to sell, and it shows in their work.

Artistic photographers, on the other hand, are driven by purity. They strive for an artistic goal, which is very different from the commerical one.

The same thing could go for music -- say the wide world of "artistic music" and artists (okay, okay, that's a sensitive one here on /.) and studio bands.

Questions and comments welcome. Flames ignored. Post resonsibly

Re:Good distinction...

[Tsuzuki]

You can always have elements of both in each of those analogies, but you'd only know that if you'd experienced it. ;) By your analogies, all true geeks, photographers and musicians are gainfully unemployed. (Well, that's how I'm interpreting it anyway.)

There are plenty of "true artists" working in commercial realms out there. You tend to end up bringing your methodologies to your workplace, and learning things from the workplace to use in your pursuit of "pure art" in your spare time.

If you're rich or live with your parents/on welfare you can stick to "pure art" alone, but some people feel better working, paying taxes and eating something other than instant noodles...

Why do geeks do stuff?

[dagg]

Geeks make new stuff primarily because it's fun, because it's useful, and because others cannot. That's why most geeks become geeks. The best geeks are those who can do what nobody else can.

I agree

[Anonymous Coward]

A libertarian like Nader would have given Enron just a slap on the wrist for lying and let them go about their business. Damn, I wish he and Celia Ward had won in 2000.

Re:well

[Coke in a Can]

Myself, I'm reading it because it's sunday night and I have nothing else to do. Everything is slow today.

Lol, at least the "damn liberals" aren't racist.

[BoomerSooner]

BTW notice the "damn liberals" dont have the majority in either the house or senate and the "racists" have the presidency as well.

I guess there will be no excuses (terrorism, or terraism/tourism as the president would say) when everything is still shitty in 2 years. Oh well, I guess they cut my taxes.

No one wants anything from the govt (society) until they are in need (ie medical healthcare), then every pathetic "racist" that lost their ass in the great stock market crash of 2000-2002 comes whining that they cannot afford to pay for health care. Fuck'em is what I say.

Since when did the "religious/racist" party give a shit about being hypocrites. Going to church every sunday and talking about how good you are and how you help so much (by giving to your "church/cult") for another activity center. When the fucking public school across the street doesn't have textbooks newer than 1983 and the building is falling apart. I fucking hate "conservatives/cocksuckers"

Notice my state of utterly moronic people. We voted all conservatives on the national level but all liberal on the local level. How the fuck does that happen? Welcome to DipShit USA. If I hear one more person say "I voted for him based on his character and I liked him better." I'm going to puke. All that means is "His commercial was more appealing than the other guy." Unbelievable.

Can't wait for my Flamebait.... so mod away assholes.

eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the deal here, can't people just make something for the sake of making it and solving problems without having to go sniffing for a business model and a killer app and all that other bullshit?

wtf?

sometimes things just happen because somebody thinks of it. that's all. somebody ELSE can think of a way to make money off of it, but that's not directly relevant to the inventing itself.

It's just a technological democratization. was anybody looking for business models when the constitution was drafted?

maybe there is no business model.

Geeks and Suits have a lot of in common

[$0.02]

Geeks's model

1. Make cool thing
2. ???
3. Profit

Suit's model

1. ???
2. Market, Advertise, Sell
3. Profit

Yeah, they have a lot of in common. It's step 3.

Which is all well and good, for *you*

[kfg]

The downside is that you have to abrogate your ability to take care of yourself to another party. That *is* what you are doing when you take a specialized job ( payed or volunteer) whether you look at it that way or not. Someone has to provide you with money to buy food/shelter/clothing or provide you with the food/clothing/shelter itself if *all* you do is code.

The American "job system" is really just a form of fuedalism in disguise. YOU do not provide for yourself and your family, your "Lord" does, although he wraps it in a pretty package to artfully disguise the true relationship.

This is no particular surprise. The system evoloved directly out of the British Fuedal system which merely replaced the agricultural Lord with a mine manager. The "workers" were, and are, serfs in everything but name anyway. The only added "freedom" is the right to change allegience to another "Lord," or starve.

Or make one's own way.

There are coders who are perfectly comfortable at the workstation AND in the board room. I can think of a particular example off the top of my head who is world famous for being a coder *and* a positively *rapacious* businessman. You may have heard of him. His name is Bill something or other.

And if you work for him you are *his,* and *he* makes the money in your paycheck.

There are even a few odd coders here and there who are good enough at business that they've managed to put a good many dollars in their pocket producing "free" code. The two are *not* incompatible.

Me, I think specialization is for insects, but that's me. Your milage may vary.

You may, as far as *I* am concerned, manage to find a living in any lawful ( and perhaps even a few select *unlawful*) means available to you that works for you.

This does not invalidate the point of the parent poster that the differentiation between "coders" and "businessmen" is bullshit. This is true even when the differentiation is between the production of "free" vs. propriatary software.

*People* ( as opposed to *you*) are more diverse than that.

KFG

Re:Which is all well and good, for *you*

[gilroy]

Blockquoth the poster:

Me, I think specialization is for insects, but that's me. Your milage may vary.

Wow. I'm impressed that you have time to code at all -- much less post to slashdot -- what with all the farming and milling and weaving and such that you must be doing.

Oh, wait. You mean you buy food from a market and clothes from a store, rather than growing or making your own? Gasp! It sounds like you've specialized a tad ... you've given up direct exercise of some skills and now "depend" on someone else to provide some of your needs. In return, one imagines, you've become more efficient at the skills you do directly exercise, and so has the other. And so the system operates at a higher level than would be otherwise.

The usual and current rant against "specialization" is just as much a load of crap now as it was when Thoreau screeched "Simplify, simplify, simplify" while using a printing press (a pretty complicated piece of machinery).

Re:Not suprising

[MeanMF]

My previous company was ready to spend 1.5 million on PeopleSoft, 500k for Microsoft technologies needed to run it, and hire three programmers and admins to keep it all going for the next 3 years. I saved them about 500k by showing them how I could replace the PeopleSoft "solutions" to run on Linux terminals and simple PHP/mySQL clients that could be used from a web browser

This has absolutely nothing to do with open source vs. commercial software. It is the age-old buy vs. build debate. You could just as easily built the same system with Active Server Pages/SQL Server or JSP/Oracle instead of PHP and mySQL and still saved your company a boatload of money.

There are a lot of cases where building your own software is less expensive in the short run than buying a commercial package. The real test will be over the next 5 or 10 years when the total cost of your solution becomes apparent. What happens when somebody comes out with something better and PHP becomes a "legacy" system? Will a 1st year student still be able to fix your code? What happens if mySQL isn't widely supported any more? Will you still be able to outsource development? Sure the same thing might happen to Microsoft's technology and Peoplesoft's applications, but I think the odds are a little more in their favor.

The Peoplesoft people may hate you now, but there's also the risk that your bosses will hate you down the road for locking them into supporting custom software when a widely-used commercial solution was available.

Two kinds of business

[Anonymous Coward]

There are two kinds of businesses: 1) means to an end; 2) end in itself.

You can make goods, or provide services, because you can make money doing it. Or you can do it because it's what you like to do, and making money doing it is just the best way to pay the bills while you keep doing it.

Whatever the business is, computers, sailboats, farming, medicine -- if you're doing it because you love it, then you're a geek; if you're doing it to make money, you're a suit.

Clearly the two (geeks & suits) can exist in a symbiotic relationship. The suit can use the geek's love of building widgets to make money; the geek can use the suit's ability to manage finances in order to keep his operation funded.

Public corporations are primarily suit-driven. Sole proprietorships and family businesses are probably mostly geek-driven.

Crisis... in decent articles maybe

[Offwhite98]

This somehow related weblogs, web services and decentralization together. It does not make any sense. And saying Web Services has no business model or that is just a silly idea just lacks any amount of research to justify an article which bashes it.

In an economic slowdown would you expect innovation to also be stifled? That would be the best time to innovate since a truly good idea would be successful when others would die as they should. The whole dotcom era let every silly idea live for a while, with venture capital, and now the good ideas from the dotcom era are being sorted out to the top (XML, Java) and the 2nd generation will be the result.

From what I see it is a good thing. Head over to Apache.org and you will see lots of very useful projects which leverage lots of good ideas. This article is just crap.

the distinction is NOT real...

[TheMonkeyDepartment]

as a geeky business owner, I hate to tell you that the distinction is NOT real, it is an artificial border that you have decided to draw. It is more than an "oversimplification", it is a total fabrication.

There are many hardcore geeks who are also trying to make a profit -- so many that it creates an infinitely blurred line. You are trying to invent a definition of "geeks" and "suits." In real life there are billions of different people, all with infinitely differing shades of motives and values. I hope you get some more experience with real life very soon.

But Profit == Useful (to someone)

[plgs]

Hang on a minute. The article distinguishes (and criticises) the "turning a profit" motive from the "being useful" motive. But the only reason something turns a profit is because it's useful enough to someone for them to decide to pay for it. That's the whole market economy driver, and (I'm sorry) but it's responsible for the vast majority of your present quality of life.

Speaking about making things because it's fun...

[mattis_f]

This reminds me of the Japanese art of Chindogu. This is the art of making inventions because it can be done and because it is fun, and has nothing to do with usefulness. In fact, to be a true Chindogu ("weird tool") it's not allowed to be useful!

In general, a good chindogu solves a real problem but creates a new one at the same time.

Like one of my favorites: The solar powered flashlight.