alt Hacker NewsI wish he wasn’t such an ass. Had a never meet your heroes moment outside defcon a few years ago. Not a friendly person and went from big fan to disdain when I hear his name.
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Not everyone is pleasant to interact with, but that's not quite the same as whether or not they are a good person. The world's a better place with him around.
Perhaps disagreeableness is a necessary trait for these kinds of results. Unfortunately, that can is also an innate personality trait rather than something easily turned on/off.
Not to be rude, but what explicitly, made him an ass from your perspective?
Look at it from his standpoint. He has an untold amount of people vying for his attention, comments that hopefully are managed by a 3rd party/other folks, and who knows quantity of people contacting him with ideas for a story, video, or some such. I don't even know if he still even runs or manages his repair business at all at this point. When you combine all those things, you end up getting into a mindset of filtering out what matters to you and/or others very quickly and having little time for much else especially if people wax on and are not good at getting to the point.
I get that HN isn't Reddit in the sense that you don't see long form comments like this, but I've dealt with this a lot in the Information Security industry. I think that's what may separate people who get shit done from infosec rockstars and other folks who talk a big talk, but when you get to know them, they are deep down, jerks. I could share my own stories of Deviant Ollam, JohnnyXm4s or other individuals -- but how much of that is my own bias and frustration with what I did, or did not get when interacting with those people? It does not make them assholes just because I did not get the experience I expected.
"I wish he wasn’t such an ass."
What did he to you to give off that impression?
I've never met him just can't stand how bitterly angry he is / appears to be. He has the anger of someone who is recovering from a beating and plotting his revenge. I don't know if that's how he is normally, or a result of getting thrust into this right to repair. But I'm not going to spend my time watching a jaded, pissed off guy.
I think it's a trait with these types that makes them what they are to begin with. They don't just turn it on and off for the bad guys, they're like this all the time with everyone.
Never meet your heroes is just great advice, same as it ever was.