This is consistent with the Terman study. The large majority of subjects had productive careers and lives for the follow-up.

You know, except for Luis Alvarez and William Shockley who were deemed too unintelligent to be included in Terman's study. Yet, both of them later went on to independently win Nobel Prizes.

> and William Shockley were deemed too unintelligent to be included in Terman's study

So I’m one of his few remaining descendants and.. funny story, though likely for the best, despite knowing his professional history and subsequent legacy of “Doc Shock” I didn’t even consider to ride the coattails of our family name.

It wasn’t until a decade into my career when I found myself in a founding engineer role of a small database proxy startup, and presented with the problem of “how do I get a room full of engineers to hush up and listen” (as a conference speaker), did the idea to leverage the family name as a pseudo appeal-to-authority dawn on me.

I’m happy that I took the self-made route, rather than leveraging the family name earlier in my career (and to more direct effect). Though the dramatic irony of knowing it was through my own incompetence, not through some greater moral code, that I didn’t lean more into nepotism as a career advantage will never cease to get make me laugh at my own little inside joke at the self-schadenfrende of it.

But back to your quote, I can confidently say the “genius” apple doesn’t fall far from the tree in regard to Shockmeister’s sub-genius status. My only hope is that I can continue to avoid whatever apple gave him the eugenics bug.

Based on my relationship with intelligence, it’s not been my sheer intelligence that’s been my greatest asset. It’s actually the inverse! I can easily reform my mental model at different levels of resolution. This means I can be both an engineer’s engineer when building, while also being able to communicate the same ideas to hundreds of people in a conference context and achieve great sales funnel conversations from that.

I attribute whatever this latent predisposition to recognize potential applications of technologies strategically early to whatever led my former to his discovery. As a result, I have a great track record of spending ‘innovation tokens’ wisely, to quote Choose Boring Technologies.

Concretely, the latest investment I made was in standardizing my current startup around Mise. Not because it’s a great DX, but because I believe the primitives mise provides are a key enabler for agentic development in a distributed org and team context. I _may_ be productizing a public version of our organization’s agent runtime, since I believe my choices in technologies, conventions, onboarding flow, and most importantly - positioning within the organization - provide a turnkey solution to the problem every mid-size-and-up tier CTO has with their board: having a defined AI strategy where token spend justifies due to run costs scaling with respect to engineering & product deliverables produced.

Happy to answer any questions, though to be blunt, considering that Willie B (a.k.a. William Bradford) passed before I had the opportunity to meet him, I don’t have much tribal knowledge of his life to share. Though, to the credit of my immediate family’s character, he was already estranged leading up to his infamous public television appearances.

I’ve been considering writing a biography on what my experience with the duality of living ‘up’ to his (positive) professional legacy while navigating recognition of the harm he caused has done to affect me, both the headwinds & tailwinds.

I am constantly amazed by the people I interact with on this site. We live in a large universe, but a small world.

So, how are you related to Mister Transistor?

> did the idea to leverage the family name as a pseudo appeal-to-authority dawn on me

Did it work? I have the opposite problem. It takes a room full of engineers to get me to stop talking. I've been told I am very charismatic (though Dyslexia hinders my writing severely). Though perhaps like Icarus, my strengths are my weaknesses. I am, let's say, not a very serious person. I like to have fun and I am goofy, hyperactive, immature, and obnoxious. It makes people love me, but makes me Hell to work with. ;)

Good for you for being a self-made man. I know very little about your ancestor, but he was likely self-made, so I imagine he would appreciate the same traits in you.

> I can confidently say the “genius” apple doesn’t fall far from the tree in regard to Shockmeister’s sub-genius status.

I am too asymptotically close to stupidly to understand what you are implying. I am confused because you use genius and sub-genius in the same sentence.

Also, the 'eugenics bug' doesn't work that. Shockley likely experienced something in his life that made him that way. I do not think it's some innate trait. I grew up 45 minutes away from where the KKK was founded. I have heard words out of people's mouths that would make Shockley sound like Mother Teresita. I did not acquire any of those wretched views.

> Based on my relationship with intelligence, it’s not been my sheer intelligence that’s been my greatest asset. It’s actually the inverse!

Say it louder for the people in that back. Real life is based on the game Dungeons & Dragons (except life is a much shitter, boring game). Everyone has various amounts of 'skill points' in their stats. Intelligence is one stat, and while necessary, it ain't enough on its own.

> spending ‘innovation tokens’ wisely, to quote Choose Boring Technologies. Concretely, the latest investment I made was in standardizing my current startup around Mise. Not because it’s a great DX, but because I believe the primitives mise provides are a key enabler for agentic development in a distributed org and team context

I am sorry, I have no idea what any of this means. I assume AI tokens? What is "Choose Boring Technology?" What is "Mise" and what does "DX" mean? In my world, DX means "diagnosis."

> he was already estranged leading up to his infamous public television appearances.

Why?

> while navigating recognition of the harm he caused has done to affect me

What harms? Is the harm not fulfilling his legacy or rather his eugenic views or something else? If so, may I offer some unsolicited advice? Well, you can't really respond in real-time, so I am just going to offer it anyway. I took me many years on this rock to understand that we are responsible for our own joy and suffering. The mind can easily poison itself via attachment. Or more aptly, as Zen Master Ts'ao-shan once said:

Student: Whenever there is any question, one's mind is confused. What is the matter?

Master Ts'ao-shan: Kill, kill!

In a similar vein, my grandfather was also a "genius." Definitely of no notoriety like your ancestor. However, he definitely held his own. He worked on the Manhattan Project (met Oppenheimer, Von Neumann, etc.). My grandfather also was an performed Opera at the NYC Metropolitan, was supposed to compete in the 1936 Olympics for weight lifting (pulled a hernia on his way to Germany, thus he couldn't compete), and helped program the computer system for the Apollo 13.

My cousin is the like the 4th or 5th highest rank in the U.S. Navy and a combat experienced Navy Seal. I am just some underpaid pawn wasting my life away building boring CRUD apps for my local government. To say I fell short of any legacy would be an understatement. However, I am not truly bothered by it.

"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair..."

I learned in my young adulthood to appreciate and enjoy whatever it is that you have, because no matter what it is, you’re going to lose it one day. You might lose it in death, or like von Neumann, you might lose it in life.

The Wheel of Time turns and everything is crushed beneath it.

What does real happiness look like to you?

Having no concerns and being healthy.

That is a complicated question. There is probably a dictionary definition, and a lot of personal opinions.

For me, I would count happiness as a meaningful reduction in anxiety and some ability to feel content. A full night's sleep that isn't interrupted by a couple hours at 2am of lying awake lamenting life choices, lack of achieving goals I had wanted when I was young, missed opportunities, etc. Worrying about the future, are the kids doing okay, are they happy, will they be successful, could I have done a better job raising them?

Objectively I have no justification for the strength of these worries. I am in a great place and I should be able to enjoy that. And yet. The demons have been chasing me since my earliest childhood memories. At best I have fought them to a draw.

>> My dad actually arranged a visit with a psychiatrist who did an official IQ test (wooo! I'm a genius! yay!)

One must love the irony that those tests are mainly use as a way to pat yourself on the back (you and your dad) more than any possible actionable item out of it.

Funny how most people that take an IQ test come out as "geniuses"

I agree, I am in fact an idiot. Thank you for reminding me.

> most people that take an IQ test come out as "geniuses"

This is by definition false.

When the test is designed, they use a wide variety of people.

But the only people I ever hear taking an IQ tests are people that already know they are smart. Why? Because it probably feels good. Because why else? Is there any actionable item out of that test?

They are usually taken when a child struggles in school. The actionable item is 1. IQ is low, they probably need tutoring or special education classes; 2. IQ is high, they are probably too bored and need harder classes or some other intervention; 3. IQ is normal, probably it's some other issue.

As an adult the actionable item may be to adjust your expectations of yourself. For example if I'm 90IQ and beating myself up about not being a 10x dev despite my efforts, or if I'm 150IQ and feel too unqualified for some intellectual endeavor, I could make adjustments after knowing the truth.

I took one as an adult and my impetus was that I am contrarian about a lot of things, i.e. there are a lot of things I believe that most people don't believe. I wanted to know if I was just a midwit being an idiot contrarian or if there's at least some reason to believe I might have a better idea about things than average people. In the end I scored very highly, so I can now feel more comfortable trusting my own judgement. If I had scored much lower, I would accept I'm probably wrong about a lot more things and stop having such strong opinions.

> The actionable item is 1. IQ is low, they probably need tutoring or special education classes; 2. IQ is high, they are probably too bored and need harder classes or some other intervention; 3. IQ is normal, probably it's some other issue.

And this is precisely why I took the test. The only 'official' IQ test I've taken in my life. Psychiatrist told my dad I didn't have enough grit to stick with things I found boring. Guilty as charged. Fortunately grit did eventually happen, about 5 years later.

Why did they need to do an IQ test though? Grit is a completely different dimension.

Answers the question: low IQ, or low grit?

OP said he was successful without ever studying. That directly shows higher IQ, low Grit. Not sure what extra information the IQ test added except the vanity and ego boost it gives someone.

I'd imagine the only people taking it are on either end of the curve - smart people who want a gold sticker, and not-smart people that need a sufficiently low IQ score to qualify for a government program.

yup exactly my observations as well. Either you are already smart and you know it and want to confirm to boost your ego (Because again? Nobody here was able to answer what are the action items out of this test). OP in this case is clearly very proud to be in that category.

Or you are so stupid someone else thinks its a good idea to have you tested to confirm you are challenged

The initial use was to ration advanced education (secondary or higher), so as not to lavish it on "morons" (at the time a technical term).

Similar in concept to the German Abitur, which originally tracked students into Gymnasium or vocational tracks. Today it comes at the end of a secondary education (high-school) programme, and is comparable to British A-levels.

<https://www.verywellmind.com/history-of-intelligence-testing...>

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abitur>

Those standardized tests seem to mix grit and intelligence and are a way better predictor of success and "intelligence" than those IQ tests.

I have met a couple people that were boasting to me they were in the top 0.01% intelligence wise (as proven by the IQ test! Geniuses!). None of them were particularly successful or looked particularly outliers on intelligence based on what they achieved.

My point was less what the tests measure and more how they were applied: rationing higher education resources.