Average Joe – Be the Silicon Valley Tech Genius

Shawn Livermore is a software architect and technology founder who has launched multiple tech startups and raised multiple rounds of VC.

Introduction xxi 1 Unpacking the Tech Genius Archetype 1 Solving Email 3 Paul Buchheit 7 The Great Man Theory 10 Odin 11 Quackery 13 Great Man Data 16 The Great Person Has Something More 17 Consumers 17 The Hero-Worshipping Media 18 Tech Professionals 20 The Venture Capital Community 21 Shoulders of Giants 23 The Tech Genius Myth 25 Claim #1: Genius is Required 25 Claim #2: Creation is Sudden and Inspired 26 Claim #3: Secrets Are Elusive 26 Claim #4: Growth is Magic 27 Claim #5: Their Thinking is Mysteriously Inverted 27 Claim #6: Their Mystique is Real 28 Dispelling the Myth: Why It Matters 28 2 The Myth of Genius 33 The Mozart Letter 33 Genius 34 Finding Genius 37 Wonder Kids 39 The Termites 39 Bill Gates 42 Michael Kearney 45 Psychometrics 47 Big-C and Little-c Creativity 48 Intelligence Worship 49 Purists, Linux, and Losers 51 Bram Cohen and BitTorrent 54 Narcissism of Minor Differences 55 Imposter Syndrome 56 Iteration 58 Winston Churchill's Iterative Process 58 Abraham Lincoln's Iterative Process 61 Something from Nothing 64 Mozart's Iterative Process 65 3 Creativity: Person vs. Process 69 Wright's Magic Dust 70 Creative Processes in Tech 71 Creative Processes for Software Developers 72 Creative Processes for UX/Product Designers 73 The Science of Creativity 78 Cognitive Science 79 The Origins of Creativity--Wallas's Four Steps 79 Thought Fluidity 82 The Nagging Pull 84 Subconscious Creative Work 85 The Default Mode Network 89 Resting-State Functional Connectivity 92 Mindless Work 94 The Slow Create Framework 98 Benefits of the SCF 100 Artifacts of SCF 103 Using the SCF 116 Frank Lloyd Wright's Slow Creation 119 Paul Buchheit's Slow Creation 120 Leonard Cohen's Slow Creation 121 4 The Dropbox Miracle 125 Growth Hacking 125 Drew Houston 127 Y-Combinator 130 Sean Ellis 133 Jamie Siminoff 135 The Siminoff Secret 137 Seamless Product Execution 139 5 The Coveted, Unreliable Flow State 143 Achieving Flow 144 Flow in the Wild 147 Flow for Musicians 148 Flow for Athletes 150 Flow for Comedians 151 Flow for Software Developers 153 Flow for Everyone 156 Flow is Not a Goal 157 Flow is Not Required 158 Flow Not Required for Success 158 Flow Not Required for Ideation and Creativity 159 6 Patterns, Details, and Secrets 163 PDS Cycles 163 Patterns 166 Details 169 The First 10,000 Pots 171 Secrets 174 The Siminoff Secret 176 The Village Mindset 178 Finding Truffles 183 7 Make Me Click 187 Conversion 188 The Marketing Playbook 188 Sticky 189 Flappy Bird 191 Behavioral Addiction 198 User Manipulation 203 The Slot Machine Newsfeed 205 Operant Conditioning 207 Conditioned for Distraction 212 Friction 214 Snapchat Streaks 215 Responsibility Invocation 220 Reciprocity 222 Cognitive Mechanisms 223 Manipulate Me, Please 229 8 Becoming Contrarian 231 Bitcoin 231 The Year of Bitcoin 235 Science > Trust 237 A Slow Crypto-Creation 239 Contrarians with a Cause 241 Appetite for Uncertainty 243 Bulldozer Mindset 244 Amazon's Bulldozer 245 The Contrarian Lens 248 The Curse of Knowledge 248 The Beginner's Mind 251 Contrarian Belief Mode 258 Indifference 263 Becoming Contrarian 267 9 The Science of Showmanship 269 Demosthenes's Delivery 269 Substance and Delivery 275 Elon Musk and Jack Ma 277 Emotional Intelligence 282 The Dark Side of EQ 287 A Scene from the Multiverse 292 Story Science 294 Vampire Economics 295 Conflict & Narrative Transport 297 Neural Entrainment 299 Nerds Telling Stories 300 Recruiting Left-Brainers 301 The Great Crossover 303 Business Storytelling 304 The Founding Myth 306 10 Mystique 315 Blackbeard's Smoke 315 The Holmes Hustle 318 The Muddy Waters Hustle 326 The Muddy Waters of Snapchat 326 The Muddy Waters of Uber 328 The Hungry Hustle 329 The Healthy Hustle: Authentic Uncertainty 332 Mystique's Special Quality 337 The Average Tech Entrepreneur 338 When Dreamer Meets Banker 339 The Sustainable Mystique Triad 346 Interesting Problems 347 Narrow Focus 350 Articulate Speech 353 Inflections 355 Fascination 358 11 Revisiting the Myth of the Tech Genius 361 Claim #1: Genius is Required 361 Claim #2: Creativity is Sudden and Inspired 364 Claim #3: Secrets Are Elusive 369 Claim #4: Growth is Magic 371 Claim #5: Their Thinking is Mysteriously Inverted 372 Claim #6: Their Mystique is Real 373 The Great Person with Something More 375 Why We Knock 377 References 379 Index 439