So what mistakes did they make in their philanthropy? They say they started out too tech-focused. Now some of the measures they promote are distinctly low-tech — like breast-feeding, which could save the lives of more than 800,000 children worldwide each year.
..I gather from hints that follow that Melinda has been more enthusiastic about gender issues and family planning, while Bill worried that metrics in the area are squishy. Conversely, Bill is fervent about science research and polio, while Melinda pushes him to consider how well those investments will translate into real-life gains.
Girard in Silicon Valley
According to Aristotle, tragedy functioned so as to reduce common peoples’ anger toward successful people. The lesson in all tragedy is that even the greatest people have tragic flaws. Everybody falls. It was thus cathartic for ordinary people to see terrible things happen to extraordinary people, if only on stage. Tragedies were political tools that transformed envy and anger into pity. Commoners would retreat contentedly to their small houses instead of plotting against the upper class.
.. The dual founder thing is worth mentioning. Co-founders seem to get in a lot less trouble than more unbalanced single founders. Think Hewlett and Packard, Moore and Noyce, and Page and Brin. There are all sorts of theoretical benefits to having multiple founders such as more brainstorming power, collaboration, etc. But the really decisive difference between one founder and more is that with multiple founders, it’s much harder to isolate a scapegoat. Is it Larry Page? Or is it Sergey Brin? It is very hard for a mob-like board to unite against multiple people—and remember, the scapegoat must be singular. The more singular and isolated the founder, the more dangerous the scapegoating phenomenon.
.. It probably wasn’t just building great products or being a good insider that saved Steve Jobs. His being terminally ill part was probably a very important variable. There is much less power in scapegoating someone who’s power—indeed, whose life—is waning anyways.
Geeks and suits
- Geeks are the doers, the creators, the ones often relegated to the basement, desk stereotypically strewn with Doritos crumbs and Mountain Dew cans. To them, the status quo is nails screeching down the world’s largest chalkboard. They may be coders, designers, or UX experts, but at their core, they’re hackers. They’re excited about the next big thing, and have the means to make it happen, at least technically.
- Suits are the sayers, the thought leaders, the ones in the corner office, desk stereotypically strewn with business cards and printed Power Point decks. To them, the future is an opportunity to improve on key performance metrics. They may be CxOs, program managers, or policymakers, but at their core, they’re not technical (at least not any more). They’re excited about the next big thing, and may have the means to make it happen, at least in terms of capital, both political and financial.
The odd thing is that, despite being in an industry predicated almost exclusively on the need to communicate, geeks and suits rarely talk to each other.
Government IT: The difference between 18F and USDS
18F’s secret sauce is that it is insistently dogmatic about collaborating in the open, and after expending a great deal of organizational energy painting a picture of a citizen-centric future and doing their best to inspire agency stakeholders that the way 18F approaches technology is vastly superior to the status quo, they will simply refuse to work with an agency unless the agency agrees to adopt 18F’s culture and workflow, at least for the project at hand.
For 18F, the goal isn’t simply to deliver the piece of software that they were asked to create, but to leave the partner agency with a better sense of and appreciation for what modern software development looks like outside the Beltway.
.. Whereas a win for 18F might be for a partner agency to grace the front cover of the Washington Post, for USDS, the goal is the exact opposite: to prevent a short list of technology-backed policy initiatives from making the news, at least not from a technology standpoint.