Why You Should Never Ignore A Nerd(youtube.com) "We Shared A Bedroom Brother!" |
Why You Should Never Ignore A Nerd(youtube.com) "We Shared A Bedroom Brother!" |
How about this idea: if such people would not be constantly derided and ignored they may be more socially successful, start spending more time with people with less potential and start lowering their own expectations as a consequence, trading their dreams for the cosiness of mere run-of-the-mill success.
But obviously, don't party every single night if you want to become a rocket scientist.
Do you think Microsoft would have come about if Bill Gates had got laid earlier?
(that's the excuse I use when discussing why I'm not an internet mogul right now, heh cough)
Yes. Basically I think this is a false comparison. First, there's nothing saying that Sergey Brin didn't have a pile of friends -- they were probably just not the guy who made this youtube video. If you're serious about your work then you will treat it as you do anything else you enjoy. You might as well ask if Michael Jordan would have become a great basketball player if he had a bunch of friends--he probably did.
How many people must have run into Sergey Brin, or Bill Gates or Steve Wozniak at some point when they were young, derided them as 'nerds', ignored them, and later realised that the person they looked down upon is now an incredibly successful and influential person? This is just a (whimsical) parable for that, and I don't think the veracity of this particular instant is particularly relevant.
Although I was never nerdy like my bespectacled, asthmatic buddy Marcus, I wasn't too far off, and certainly "geeky" would have been accurate. And of course I took my lumps as a result. In my case, and I'm willing to bet the same is true of many others, this helped engender a powerful motive to succeed.
So ironically, it may be that all of the people trying to put nerds down just end up motivating them to rise up. In which case, you might even be able to argue that without looking down on, ignoring, and even bullying nerds, we'd have less technological innovation today. ;)