Interesting. My list would've gone: Larry Page, Steve Wozniak, Robert Tappan Morris, Paul Buchheit, Drew Houston, Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian, the Heroku guys, and a bunch of early Google guys that are so private that I won't embarrass them by putting their names on the Internet.

All of those are the consummate Quiet Professionals, and things haven't worked out too badly for them. They certainly aren't stuck in middle-management.

I find it interesting that our lists are almost completely disjoint, though, and in many cases I've picked one half of a partnership and you picked the other half. I wonder if people have an innate preference for one strategy or the other based on their personality type, and then they just choose to optimize for whatever they know they'll be good at.

" I wonder if people have an innate preference for one strategy or the other based on their personality type"

Probably. But what I have learned is that you cannot optimize only for the one side except you are extremely good at that side and extremely hopeless on the other side.

There was a time when I thought I am 'smart and shy', so I should clearly optimize on being a 'quiet professional'. But later I've met really-really smart and hardworking people, without a doubt smarter and more knowledgeable than me. Kind of best in 100000s. They became mostly researchers, and they are not 'recognized' enough (with money at least) compared to how smart and professional they are. I think 'be a quiet professional' is a good advice for being a researcher for example at Microsoft Research, but if you want to make a lot of money it is not the best advice.

Umm...

Larry Page - the same Larry Page that set out on world domination and who frustrated VS's for years before accepting an CEO on his own terms?

Steve Wozniak - the guy who couldn't keep his trap shut if his life depended on it to prevent drowning?

Others I do not know - but I guess that these guys are anything but quiet professionals (good soldier archetype) waiting to be noticed and given their proper place.

Quiet profesional != doormat.

The point of the article - and I think that most of the readers here are missing this - is one of focus. A quiet professional focuses on the work. A loudmouth focuses on how the work will make him look. Several of the people on MediaSquirrel's list are consummate loudmouths, eg. every venture Jason Calacanis is involved with seems to be more about Jason Calacanis than the product he's selling, and every book Tim Ferris sells is selling Tim Ferris as much as the book.

Larry is the opposite - virtually everything he does is about Google, Google is not about him. He's very media-shy and tends to be distrustful of the press. He believes that the way to get people to sit up and take notice is to simply do useful things better than everybody else does it. Execution, not hype. This is the reason why I can't talk about what I do - Google has a very strong culture about not announcing products until there is actually something that people can play with, and that comes straight from Larry.

You can also have a bit of a rebellious streak and still be a quiet professional. Steve Wozniak and Paul Buchheit are two good examples. The key point is that they rebelled by building stuff, not by talking about stuff.

I agree with everything you say.

The thing is, that people mentioned are nothing like people the OP writes about. I have been an athlete for awhile and so I know what he is talking about. He is not talking about people like Larry or Steve. He is literally talking that if you want to be successful you should do what your told and mind you own business. Like top athletes and soldiers do.

That is such a pile of stink-dung. I know quite some quiet professionals - form various fields, but lets stay at sports - which I know the best intimately. I believe that OP is looking at world through romantic lenses and fails to see what is really going on. I for one hope that my kids will never want to be professional athletes. Author in his romanticism sees how these people get the work done and how everybody looks up to them - while there in the spotlight. The truth is that pro athletes and soldiers are victims. They are living in a dark - being led by people around them (trainers, managers, commanders, team managers,...) and constantly told that they should just do what they're told and all will be fine. They are given illicit performance enhancing drugs and told to shut up, they are driven to inhuman lengths in their training and work to the point of losing sanity and/or health. Guess what happens when the lights off? The machinery finds new victims - while these quiet professionals are left to fend for themselves.

Thats the truth I have seen on my own eyes. For every successful pro athlete there are 10 leeches profiting of him, just waiting to discard him at the right moment. It's the same in the entertainment industry and everywhere they tell you: "Just do what we tell you, and we will take care of you. This is too complex for you to understand just obey and all will turn out just great. You should focus on what you do best and we will focus on what we do best."

The thing is that these types are the best at taking advantage of others and conformism is great strategy - for everyone but you.

Being overly obsessed with secrecy is bad, though.

re: "innate preference"

Totally! You play the game based on the cards you are dealt. If you're the Google guys, you're so awesome that your product does the talking for you. But that's not me and most companies are not like that. Where I think I add the most value is in my ability to make noise and get us noticed.

In fact, I def know we wouldn't have anywhere near the customers we do have today if I hadn't made so much noise on my blog (http://metamorphblog.com) and been able to turn that into being "interesting" enough for journalists to pay attention and form relationships with me, so that now when time comes to announce something all it takes for me is firing off a couple gChat msgs or DMs or Skype msgs. That PR has been our #1 source of leads to date.

Yeah, i mean, I am the hustler in the hacker + hustler + respectable one triumvirate: http://speakertext.com/about

But you make a good point: Not all businesses need lots of promotion to work; but most do, i think.