Are we raising our pedestals too high?
A couple of days ago, Paul Graham posted a short piece on his Infogami blog where he touches on a startup company’s fears of being copied by the big boys. His advice was nothing new and the wisdom of his words nothing special. We’ve heard it all before. Twenty four hours later it was in pole position on the Reddit hot list.
Paul Graham is the guru of gurus for software startups. Legions worship at his feet and his every word is pounced upon as if it were an extract from a newly discovered gospel. I’ve got a copy of his book on my own shelf and a link to his essays in my Links list, so I’m in no position to claim any sort of special immunity.
Joel Spolsky plays Laurel to Graham’s Hardy. Open a new Bloglines account and he’s right there waiting for you, pre selected as a blog of great note that you simply must follow. Spolsky has built a reputation as a master of user interface design, having churned out a couple of books on the subject and added his name as ‘editor‘ to a couple more.
These are smart men. They have interesting things to say and their opinions are often worth listening to. But do we have to worship them? Spolsky’s software company released a web-authoring tool called CityDesk that would struggle to meet many of his own design guidelines. Paul Graham’s short little note on Infogami was probably thrown together during a fifteen minute coffee break - as many blog posts are.
Are we easy supplicants, too quick to worship?
We put people on pedestals, call them Yoda, and kneel at their feet. We turn them into gods they never claimed to be. There’s nothing wrong with calling people experts and authorities, but that doesn’t mean that every time they open their mouths we should drop to our knees. What they say is more important than the fact that they’ve said something, so if what they say is not overly interesting, or has been said before - why talk about it? why bookmark it?
As I write, the number one spot on Reddit is held by a piece titled “Paul Graham ate Breakfast.” It’s refreshing to see that we can still recognise our own absurdities.