Description
Book SynopsisTable of ContentsIntroduction 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
