Reading 10: Scratching the Itch

  Both Linus’s upbringing and the story of creating Linux are eccentric, but inspiring. I most definitely did not have a similar upbringing, as my parents certainly limited how much time my siblings and I would spend on technology. I think I spoke about it in a previous blog post, but the story of Bill Gates (I read about it in Outliers) seems to resemble Linus’s pretty closely. I have definitely heard a lot of (ignorant) people say that guys like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg were just “lucky” and struck gold with their innovations. But when you really dive into the background of guys like Gates, Zuckerberg, and in this case, Linus, you realize that there was nothing lucky about their creations. All were incredibly gifted programmers and, as Linus writes, he was a geek who spent all his time behind a computer. Similarly, I recall Bill Gates had a unique upbringing where he had the opportunity to use a pretty powerful computer at a private university before that was normal. In fact, I recall Maclolm Gladwell writing that Gates used to sneak out of his house every night just to go to the computer and spend hours programming. To me, that sounds exactly like the “true hackers” and their desire to get their hands on a computer. It sounds like Linus had a similar trajectory: spending a lot of time on the computer. So, when people say these guys were “lucky,” it bothers me. Because if anything, these guys had spent more time on a computer before they were 18 than some people spend in their entire lives. So if anyone could come up with something as robust as Linux, it is someone like Linus, who had an early and thorough exposure to programming from a young age.

    I think a lot of my blog posts have had a theme of “obsession,” and how the people who succeed in the tech industry - namely, the ones coming up with incredible innovations - are people who all have a love, but more accurately, an obsession with programming. Linus, shown through his extensive of documented rants, could definitely be characterized as obsessed. But in addition to that obsession, he had an itch. I think the combination of obsession and itch is what leads to genius. I have no idea how historically accurate The Social Network is, but if I recall correctly, I think the “itch” for Zuckerberg to create Facebook was to find a relationship (or as he so delicately put it, to “get laid”). When I reflect upon myself, unfortunately I would not say I am obsessed, nor do I have an itch to solve something. But as I said in (I think) my first blog post, I do not identify with the true hackers. The reason these guys are able to come up with such unique inventions is because they really do think and operate differently. Sitting in front of a computer for four years? No thanks, I like my Notre Dame football games.

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