Average Joe

467 Pages·2020·8.54 MB·English

Average Joe

Average Joe

Be the Silicon
Valley Tech
Genius

Shawn Livermore

Average Joe

Published by
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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Copyright © 2021 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

ISBN: 978-1-119-61887-4
ISBN: 978-1-119-61905-5 (ebk)
ISBN: 978-1-119-61904-8 (ebk)

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To Colleen.

Thank you for your endless support and your perfect love. I could not

have done this without you. I love you.

About the Author
S

hawn Livermore is a tech startup founder, entrepreneur, and tech-
nology consultant for over 20 years. He’s written books on software
development and writes software in at least ten different programming
languages. After raising investment capital for his startups six times,
Shawn began to look beyond the code to see the bigger picture—
systems, patterns, and mental models that most deserve our attention.
Instead of hype and hustle, Shawn focuses on tangible, factual, and
replicable bits and bytes that most people wouldn’t see or pay attention
to. From small fragments, Shawn assembles larger stories, and helps
people think, speak, and create like a tech genius.

Acknowledgments
C

olleen, for putting up with my ideas that turn into projects, and
projects that turn into time investments. Thank you for staying up
with me each night and joining me on the journey. Thank you for your
faithful edits and your creative ideas. I appreciate your partnership and
your friendship. You’re the real MVP.
El, for your faithful encouragement and support. Our Snapstreak is
going strong at 194 days. Let’s keep it going.
Hope, for consistently interrupting each chapter with just the right
amount of oxytocin I needed.
Bill and Melinda Marks, for your continued support and kindness.
Troy Hoffman, for being a friend, and for calling me a tech genius
for 13 years and counting.
Thomas Cirtin, for keeping me on the rails.
Jim Minatel, for believing in my vision for this book.
Sean Ellis, for your valuable time and your incredible story.
Dr. Jesse Rissman, for the many long hours of investment into this
framework, and for our ever-entertaining that’s-not-how-the-brain-
works conversations.

Contributors

Jesse Rissman, PhD
Colleen Livermore
Shellie McCurdy
Dana Hallstrom
Trevor McNeil
Joseph Nguyen
Jeremy Lavin

Contents at a Glance

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxi

1 Unpacking the Tech Genius Archetype. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

2 The Myth of Genius. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

3. Creativity:.Person.vs .Process. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

4 The Dropbox Miracle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

5 The Coveted, Unreliable Flow State. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

6 Patterns, Details, and Secrets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163

7 Make Me Click. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

8 Becoming Contrarian. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231

9 The Science of Showmanship. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269

10 Mystique . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315

11 Revisiting the Myth of the Tech Genius . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361

References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439

Contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxi

1 Unpacking the Tech Genius Archetype. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Solving Email. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Paul Buchheit. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

The Great Man Theory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Odin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Quackery. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Great Man Data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

The Great Person Has Something More. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Consumers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

The Hero-Worshipping Media. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Tech Professionals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

The Venture Capital Community. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Shoulders of Giants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

The Tech Genius Myth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Claim #1: Genius Is Required. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Claim #2: Creation Is Sudden and Inspired. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Claim #3: Secrets Are Elusive. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Claim #4: Growth Is Magic. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Claim #5: Their Thinking Is Mysteriously Inverted. . . . . . . . . . 27

Claim #6: Their Mystique Is Real. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Dispelling the Myth: Why It Matters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

2 The Myth of Genius. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

The Mozart Letter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Genius. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Finding Genius . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Wonder Kids. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Contents
xvi

The Termites. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Bill Gates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Michael Kearney. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Psychometrics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Big-C and Little-c Creativity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

Intelligence Worship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

Purists, Linux, and Losers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Bram Cohen and BitTorrent. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Narcissism of Minor Differences. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Imposter Syndrome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Iteration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

Winston Churchill’s Iterative Process. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

Abraham Lincoln’s Iterative Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Something from Nothing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

Mozart’s Iterative Process. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

3. Creativity:.Person.vs .Process. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

Wright’s Magic Dust. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

Creative Processes in Tech . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

Creative Processes for Software Developers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Creative Processes for UX/Product Designers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

The Science of Creativity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

Cognitive Science. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

The Origins of Creativity—Wallas’s Four Steps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

Thought Fluidity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

The Nagging Pull. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

Subconscious Creative Work. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

The Default Mode Network. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Resting-State Functional Connectivity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

Mindless Work. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

The Slow Create Framework. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

Benefits of the SCF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

Artifacts of SCF. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

Using the SCF. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116