Albert Einstein didn't understand the concept of hero worship until be befriended Charlie Chaplin. When they were together at the premiere of City Lights, a crowd rushed their car to get a better look.
A confused Einstein asked, "What does it all mean?"
Those essays (especially the ones written after Viaweb and before YC) can be inspiring if you're stuck in a cube at Big Company, Inc. and neither your managers nor your fellow programmers are interested in doing anything else with their lives.
That doesn't mean everything Graham writes about is as compelling (the essay on philosophy is an example), though, and you're right to point out that it can go too far.
I've been lucky enough to get to know Paul a little. He invited me to take part in the first MIT Spam Conference in 2003 and I've seen him on and off since then. I don't think hero worship is appropriate, but I think Paul should be celebrated for a few things: sunny personality, good writing, openness, curiosity. There are a lot of people in the computer industry with difficult personalities, who can't communicate in writing, who are fixated on a particular technology. Paul isn't like that. Those things make him worth looking up to.
Those essays (especially the ones written after Viaweb and before YC) can be inspiring if you're stuck in a cube at Big Company, Inc. and neither your managers nor your fellow programmers are interested in doing anything else with their lives.
My thoughts exactly. I first encountered PG's essays at a time when I really needed his brand of encouragement. They persuaded me that I wasn't 100% crazy to think I could start a company. Still haven't switched to Lisp though. =)
> They want a hero -- somebody more than a mentor.
This is the problem. Grow up and understand that nobody -- not Paul Graham, not DHH, not your guru-like boss that rebuilt an AIX filesystem with 'ed' -- nobody is perfect. And realize that no one can make your decisions but you.
Then there is no problem. Decide -- don't follow -- and you're fine. Slavishly hanging on every word of another, imperfect human being will always get you in trouble, and it's no quality that any would-be leader should embody.
If you want to follow someone else, go back to your cubicle!
In certain societies and cultures, it's common to have a "master", "guru", or mentor to help out a young apprentice. It's actually an expected way of life. We don't seem to have that in the US, or at least, it's not taught as a necessity growing up. Paul, among others, fill this void to young, energetic, tech inclined students. You can call it hero worship, or simply some form of mentorship/apprenticeship. If anything, the celebrity around PG signals a deep desire for good, honest mentors.
> If anything, the celebrity around PG signals a deep desire for good, honest mentors.
I agree with the second part of this point; in regard to the particular subject, hopefulness that said subject will finance one's startup is an integral part of it.
Well, it's true that sometimes projects fail because people uncritically follow the advice of respected authorities.
On the other hand, sometimes projects fail because nobody respects authority. Every single decision, from the compiler to the database vendor to the lunch menu, is challenged by the free-thinkers on the team and then debated to death. Eighteen months go by, and the software doesn't ship.
Sometimes projects fail because everyone loses the plot. Determined to avoid being trapped by the constraints of a standard methodology, but unable to find the time or the talent to develop, document, and teach a methodology of their own, the leaders fall back on the classic IT solution: handwaving. There are no established authorities or written specs, and processes like QA or release engineering evolve from week to week and are passed on by word of mouth. Eventually, the one person who knew how everything worked accepts another job, everything falls apart, and the software doesn't ship.
Sometimes projects fail because the people on the team are demoralized. Without a successful company to model themselves on, they fear that they've gone down a dead end. Without a community or a written argument to back them up, they are hesitant about proposing their new ideas, all of which sound stupid. ("Yes, we should write tests for code that hasn't been written yet.""Yes, we should ship version 0.5 even without those 'critical' features, to start getting feedback.") The employees sit around in their cubes, playing Tetris and looking forward to happy hour, and the software doesn't ship.
And, of course, sometimes projects fail because the team was badly put together in the first place. Anxious to avoid hiring "hero worshipers" who "do not think for themselves", the boss doesn't ask the interviewees what they think of Paul Graham, or the Joel test, or XP, or Martin Fowler, or Bruce Tate, or DHH, or Seth Godin. Five weeks later, the "team" consists of a Java developer who secretly prefers Rails, admires 37signals, and wants to work as the back-end guy at a YC-style startup; an Oracle-certified .NET developer who wants to be a VP at a $100-million IT consulting firm; a designer who knows a little PHP and wants to work part-time; and a marketing person who used to work for Procter and Gamble. These folks can't agree on anything, and the software doesn't ship.
So, on balance, I think that so-called "hero worship" is pretty useful, and the IT industry needs more and better heroes. (Though I prefer the term "leaders".)
Hate to take some of the depth out of his well written article but it could be that people of varying experience and confidence find it easy and reassuring to lean on a well known mentor or hero as a way to prevent absolute failure in the eyes of others and maybe themselves.
A confused Einstein asked, "What does it all mean?"
Chaplin replied, "Nothing. Absolutely nothing."