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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.