Steve Yegge has an excellent blog post on "graceful overachievers." Steve makes a good point, but what makes his posting truly excellent is that he ripostes Joel Spolsky's old chestnut, "Smart, and Gets Things Done."
http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/06/done-and-gets-things...
I agree that his basic point is correct. If you spend time in any subculture that has some sort of skill stratification, you will notice that most of the people at the top lack an ego. It's typically the people that are trying to reach the top step that do.
Re:ESR: Ego is for little people
by dan_the_welder on Tuesday November 10, 2009 @10:51AM
(#933240)
Yeah sure when you are on top but then there is the fall from grace. As you become less relevant or get superseded. That's when the ego comes out, tantrums, destructive behavior, etc.
I'm not sure that esr reached "the top". Perhaps on the speaking gig tour, and yes he's written a couple books.
But he's never achieved what he so likes to claim.
He claims to be a "core linux developer", yet he has no code in the kernel, and CML2 was flatly rejected.
He used to claim that he contributed to GNU starting in 1982, but when I showed that was impossible, he corrected to "mid-80s" (its 1987.)
I think he feels he was on the way up, met his limitations, and has since been scrambling in an attempt to maintain the position he held in 1999.
On the other hand, this writing doesn't feel like the work of a graceful overachiever. It feels like a rationalization of the man's own loneliness. The graceful overachievers I know are warm people, who see the good in the people they're dealing with, warts and all, and who respect that good.