Not sure if the Woz/Jobs intro is exactly apt; hindsight tells us that while Woz may have been disenchanted (and that as a true uber ultimate hacker, he probably stumbled upon this decades earlier and significantly harder than most hackers), it probably did have a bit more to do with the crazy personalities going on there – Jobs' insanely focused and hurtful drive and Woz's desire to not be involved with the business of Apple.
Rather, I think the article hits the nail on the head in its conclusion:
"There will always be hackers. We may soon see genetic hackers, organic computing hackers . . . who knows? They’re the ones on the fringes who push things a little further and faster. But their role in personal computing has been forever changed. Now that its big business, they may be happy at that."
Their role changed because computing changed the world and indeed became even bigger business. Simulatneously, the "creative force" left the room, replaced with big business and other processes that are entirely disinteresting for a true hacker.
Now clearly the hacker spirit will endure as long as there are ways to push things that little bit further/faster. Often times, those improvements are valuable contributions to be spread, and the hacker spirit meets (in some way) with the entrepreneurial spirit. This is beneficial and has led to some of the world's greatest success stories.
But the hacker spirit and the entrepreneurial spirit do have differences; different goals, priorities and countless other subtleties of art that the non-hacker might miss. Often times, as businesses grow, that's exactly what take place.
I definitely can't claim to have the answer, and no one's probably that much closer to the solution than when the article was written. But it's best to keep an eye out for the problem and steer clear of it at all possible.
In the meantime, I wish that those in the startup community would avoid trivializing the term "hack" left and right, omitting the creative force in the process. Analyzing customer traction and marketing data isn't hacking. Writing a few lines of code for your run of the mill social networking or daily deals startup one afternoon isn't hacking. This isn't to say that those things aren't important. Quite the contrary; teams and structure and 85% of startup events? Beneficial, but not hacking.
This isn't about making hacking elitist or limited to any technical context; rather, it's about flashes of brilliance and the gem that emerges. Just like it was in 1986. Just like it's always been and always will be.
Not sure if the Woz/Jobs intro is exactly apt; hindsight tells us that while Woz may have been disenchanted (and that as a true uber ultimate hacker, he probably stumbled upon this decades earlier and significantly harder than most hackers), it probably did have a bit more to do with the crazy personalities going on there – Jobs' insanely focused and hurtful drive and Woz's desire to not be involved with the business of Apple.
Rather, I think the article hits the nail on the head in its conclusion:
"There will always be hackers. We may soon see genetic hackers, organic computing hackers . . . who knows? They’re the ones on the fringes who push things a little further and faster. But their role in personal computing has been forever changed. Now that its big business, they may be happy at that."
Their role changed because computing changed the world and indeed became even bigger business. Simulatneously, the "creative force" left the room, replaced with big business and other processes that are entirely disinteresting for a true hacker.
Now clearly the hacker spirit will endure as long as there are ways to push things that little bit further/faster. Often times, those improvements are valuable contributions to be spread, and the hacker spirit meets (in some way) with the entrepreneurial spirit. This is beneficial and has led to some of the world's greatest success stories.
But the hacker spirit and the entrepreneurial spirit do have differences; different goals, priorities and countless other subtleties of art that the non-hacker might miss. Often times, as businesses grow, that's exactly what take place.
I definitely can't claim to have the answer, and no one's probably that much closer to the solution than when the article was written. But it's best to keep an eye out for the problem and steer clear of it at all possible.
In the meantime, I wish that those in the startup community would avoid trivializing the term "hack" left and right, omitting the creative force in the process. Analyzing customer traction and marketing data isn't hacking. Writing a few lines of code for your run of the mill social networking or daily deals startup one afternoon isn't hacking. This isn't to say that those things aren't important. Quite the contrary; teams and structure and 85% of startup events? Beneficial, but not hacking.
This isn't about making hacking elitist or limited to any technical context; rather, it's about flashes of brilliance and the gem that emerges. Just like it was in 1986. Just like it's always been and always will be.