True “hackers” don’t give a fuck about startups. Hackers are interested in how things work and how they can be exploited to do things or grant access to forbidden data. Real hackers back in the late 90s early 00s casually did things that would make a lot of today’s “hackers” blanche in the face and wet themselves at the thought of computer crime, or at least grope around for a downvote button. It was a thrilling era for freaks and geeks. Ever found yourself scrolling down a stolen CSV full of credit card numbers and full billing info? It’s like snorting a line of coke. As a teen I once stole $22k, spent several years looking over my shoulder expecting to be shot or cuffed.
At some point the term “hacker” was co-opted to mean anyone writing code. These Silicon Valley tech entrepreneurs aren’t really “hackers”: they’re businessmen with some software engineering skills. But that doesn’t sound nearly as edgy or cool as calling yourself a hacker.
When I came across Hacker News (recently) I was a bit confused why it appeared to be about startups and not about actual (security) hacking. Then I discovered "hacker" had in essence become a general term for "coder" in the startup community. This usage still doesn't sit well with me, for the reason you point out: it's not about doing something really cool and unexpected any more. When I see people advertising for "Ruby hackers", etc. I just feel like it's almost a parody (except it's not, people are calling themselves that mostly in seriousness). Oh well, I guess language left me behind.
I think it still holds the same connotation (that's in the rare cases where hacker isn't already taken to mean someone who breaks into computers). Which is why I cringed when startup news changed to hacker news.
But 'everyone' wants to be a hacker these days too. Read the top left corner of this website. We fought for a decade to redefine the word in the eyes of the public, and yet its quickly become defined as most any person interested in startup culture.
>By the way, startups are for people who are interested in business. If you are interested in business, YOU ARE NOT A HACKER. Hackers are interested in technology for the technology's sake. They don't do UI, they don't do A/B testing. Please stop.
"Once a vague item of obscure student jargon, the word “hacker” has become a linguis-tic billiard ball, subject to political spin and ethical nuances. Perhaps this is why so
many hackers and journalists enjoy using it. Where that ball bounces next, however, is anybody's guess."
- Free as in Freedom, Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software
I find this particular usage especially amusing considering that the words "hacker" and "business" were about as diametrically opposed as words could be. (In the same way that "punk" and "policeman" don't go together.) And yet now it seems that many businesses are being overrun by people who like to rip things apart just to see how they work.
Theres a delicious irony in a world where the people who rejected the likes of IBM as disgusting went on to create businesses that do things like track you across the web for ad money, or lock you into an environment of rampant ADHD web posts with side offerings of 'social games' that exist solely to convince you to waste your time playing them.
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.
I remember words like "hacker" and "1337" being used to refer to people who did reverse engineering, participated in the demoscene or just defaced websites for fun. My, how the tables have turned.
The word hacker is so abused for marketing purposes it now means entry level programmer of whatever trendy fad of the times. (e.g. node.js hacker, rails ninja, mongodb god)
* Originally (70s-80s) hackers were programmers/technicians who could
modify programs or machines to perform tasks beyond their original
intended use (for good or bad).
* Afterwards (90s), journalists hyped the word to mean security
hackers, people expert on security issues of software (itself a
subset of original hackers).
* And then further journalist confusion, changing it to refer to
people cracking into systems
* In the last few years it became a glorified buzzword losing any
useful meaning.
A lot of insecure people who need cool names use it to describe themselves. There's no substance and no way to verify their claims. This is like ghetto cars with neon lights and flaps.
You know, others might have a pet peeve for exactly the opposite reason. A lot of what people call hacking now-a-days is building things with tools that were meant to do exactly what a developer is doing with them. This use of the term hacker seems to stand in opposition of what everyone else in the world considers the term to mean: newspapers, the majority of people outside the startup industry, and the actual hackers that overcome technical barriers that have been specifically placed in their way.
Anywayyyyy, anyone know what this kid's handle was? Just curious.
But then you have startups recruiting "rockstar hackers", sites that teach you how to become a "hacker" by leraning the newest hip JS framework of this week, and of course, the abominations like the term "growth hacking".
Spirit of hacking, as per pg's definition or the hacker culture, is still strong on HN, but the word hacker itself seems to devaluate quickly. Just like every other term that becomes fashionable, I guess.
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