It's cute but are there any actual nerds left in big tech leadership? Of the magnificent seven we basically only have Jensen Huang left as a technical leader and maybe you can count Zuckerberg.
Google has some tendencies - Sundar Pichai was a materials engineer, Brin is back working there who considers himself a computer scientist. Maybe Hassabis - depends how you define it I guess.
Hassabis is absolutely a nerd. Joint honours physics and maths from Oxbridge and a PhD in neuroscience (and a Nobel prize in none of these fields).
His driving interest was always games (master standard in chess at 13, five-time winner of the all-round world board games championship, video game programmer in his teens then his own studio in his 20s).
I thought it was super cool when a few years ago I found out that Eric Schmidt was the author of Lex! I struggled mightily with lex and yacc in college, but that was a me thing, I think.
When I watch Ex-machina the degree to which I loathed Oscar Isaac's character surprised me. While much of it was because the character was objectively loathsome, part of it was because I felt the type of person he represented was infecting the tech world.
The thing that seemed really inconguous to me was that he actually made the amazing tech. I don't think I have ever encountered a personality like that who actually made things. Certainly I've seen them talking about how great the thing they made is, but invariably, to them, I made means 'my employees made'
Which is not to say that there aren't toxic people who do actually make things. They exist, but it presents somewhat differently to the 'Tech bro' archetype.
One of the reasons I enjoy coming into HN. Is to read comments stating that the guy that created Facebook, alone in his dorm room, could “maybe“ be counted as a tech lead.
It shouldn't matter whether the leaders are actual technical nerds. They are highly focused and motivated individuals who are harnessing tech for the stated purpose. Maybe this is by design and a coordinated movement - or maybe it is the inevitable consequence of uncontrolled and unregulated capitalism.
If profit maximisation is the ultimate goal every smart individual chases, the current trajectory seems inevitable?
Yeah, as I recall Carmack came out against some of the anti-trust actions of Lina Kahn, soecifically blocking certain type of acquisitions and mergers by big tech companies.
Though I'm curious what the take of "founders first" type of VCs like YC on the Figma IPO is, after the acquisition by Adobe was blocked. Whatever the stock price of Figma is now, would they specifically argue that of the two outcomes the Figma IPO was worse for the founders? To be clear, if that acquisition wasn't blocked the IPO wouldn't have happened.
Elon Musk must be one. Seems enough techy to me: Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink - software being used for the hardware in innovative ways.
Edit: Oh, wow, mentioning this guy is surely controversial, sorry. However discussing whether he is a nerd, understands engineering on very deep level/gets his hands dirty OR he only manages people - there must be some psychological aspect related, a form of disagreement to discredit or have a hard time believing it can actually be true.
Maybe he used to be one, who knows. But I doubt he read a book or seen a movie in the past few decades. He got roasted by Joyce Carol Oates on X recently for being an oaf and he immediately started replying to tweets about acclaimed movies. And nothing insightful that proved he had seen them, just 'this is a great movie' or some other stupid oneliner. It would be hilarious if it wasnt so sad that the richest man on earth is such a pathetic little man.
The list is missing my #1 quote from Jim Keller (an epic engineer type) although unfortunately quote is in middle of a long YouTube vid. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33662764
Aside: I don't understand why they even mention what journalists think - only engineers opinions matter when judging engineering ability.
I think Elon Musk just wants to be Tony Stark and cultivates the appropriate image for that.
And possibly a genuine obsession with (rightwing-ish) meme/youth culture, which I think got him a lot of his initial followers on twitter/reddit/4chan/etc.
Spoiler: He is not. But he is very good at faking it.
Anytime he tries to give a serious opinion on anything related to computers: It is laughably bad and out of touch (SQL, compilers, languages, performance, etc... ).
He definitively has a scientific background but definitively not "Tech" as far as computer are concerned.
At the time your choices for dynamic server web apps were php or perl. The LAMP stack (Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP or Perl) was very popular back then (early to mid 00s)
disgruntledphd2|3 months ago
I think that you definitely need to count him. He's always been a massive nerd, his attempts to bulk up and become a MMA competitor notwithstanding.
lagniappe|3 months ago
a lot of us nerds value physical strength, it's 2025, we're not mouthbreathers anymore.
unknown|3 months ago
[deleted]
tim333|3 months ago
ycombigrator|3 months ago
His driving interest was always games (master standard in chess at 13, five-time winner of the all-round world board games championship, video game programmer in his teens then his own studio in his 20s).
He's the end game boss of nerdland.
myvoiceismypass|3 months ago
Lerc|3 months ago
The thing that seemed really inconguous to me was that he actually made the amazing tech. I don't think I have ever encountered a personality like that who actually made things. Certainly I've seen them talking about how great the thing they made is, but invariably, to them, I made means 'my employees made'
Which is not to say that there aren't toxic people who do actually make things. They exist, but it presents somewhat differently to the 'Tech bro' archetype.
wtcactus|3 months ago
sam-cop-vimes|3 months ago
If profit maximisation is the ultimate goal every smart individual chases, the current trajectory seems inevitable?
pjc50|3 months ago
Wozniak is still alive and seemingly not in the rightwing set, although also too retired to count as "leadership".
sillyfluke|3 months ago
Though I'm curious what the take of "founders first" type of VCs like YC on the Figma IPO is, after the acquisition by Adobe was blocked. Whatever the stock price of Figma is now, would they specifically argue that of the two outcomes the Figma IPO was worse for the founders? To be clear, if that acquisition wasn't blocked the IPO wouldn't have happened.
unknown|3 months ago
[deleted]
jve|3 months ago
Edit: Oh, wow, mentioning this guy is surely controversial, sorry. However discussing whether he is a nerd, understands engineering on very deep level/gets his hands dirty OR he only manages people - there must be some psychological aspect related, a form of disagreement to discredit or have a hard time believing it can actually be true.
Here is a list of credible persons commenting on Musk whether he understands engineering or not. With all the sources: https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/k1e0ta/eviden...
FranzFerdiNaN|3 months ago
robocat|3 months ago
Aside: I don't understand why they even mention what journalists think - only engineers opinions matter when judging engineering ability.
xg15|3 months ago
And possibly a genuine obsession with (rightwing-ish) meme/youth culture, which I think got him a lot of his initial followers on twitter/reddit/4chan/etc.
unknown|3 months ago
[deleted]
adev_|3 months ago
Spoiler: He is not. But he is very good at faking it.
Anytime he tries to give a serious opinion on anything related to computers: It is laughably bad and out of touch (SQL, compilers, languages, performance, etc... ).
He definitively has a scientific background but definitively not "Tech" as far as computer are concerned.
happymellon|3 months ago
Just a savvy investor, and as far as I understand, hasn't really worked on any of it. His contributions were rants until he just took ketamine.
His work was making a yelp clone.
alecco|3 months ago
myvoiceismypass|3 months ago
lagniappe|3 months ago
nmfisher|3 months ago