I found that if I don't understand something that well, I can write some blog post, and people find it hard to understand, and they say, "this guy is good. He knows many complicated concepts."
But if I invest extra time to understand it really well, and write it and explain it even a 15 year old can understand, then some people come and read it, and conclude "it is so simple. This guy is just basic. There is nothing really that great." And they lose respect for you.
But I think it is just one of the IIJTWII: It is just the way it is.
Let me add the background to this story: I was interviewing with a company, and the VP Engineering wanted to hire me even as a director of front end. And we were talking, and the VP had me talk to the CEO and COO. Along this time, I was writing something, and I can make it complicated, but I made it so simple that even a 15 year old can understand it. Possibly the CEO and the COO searched on the Internet and saw those newest posts, they actually later on retracted and wanted to only hire me as a consultant or contractor to try for 3 months first, instead of being the director of front end. These events all happened about the same time, so I think it could be due to the CEO and COO seeing something so simple, they lost the respect for it. It may be like, when people cannot understand relativity or quantum mechanics, they have a lot of respect for it, but let's say somebody is so good in them and can explain them so that they can be understood as easily as Newtonian physics, then people would lose respect for it.
Top comments (10)
Depends on the topic right?
I'm not sure where the idea of making something complex, simple makes people lose respect for you comes from. Its possible the assumptions don't actually match the reality if what you talk about isn't actually that complex, but you deem it so.
I honestly see no value for information that takes something simple and makes it complex. It's less informative, helps less people, and wastes everyone's time. It might make you seem smarter, but the best teachers are the ones that take the most complex topics and make them simple.
That's true. I also thought about, if people struggle with some idea but them finally see your post of explaining it so simple, then they may find you are awesome, to make it so simple to understand.
The catch is if somebody understand it just a little bit (such as the CEO or program manager), and then they see something complicated and think it is worthy, vs if it is something so easy to understand, they think it is too simple basic.
I'm not sure why the "catch" is if a CEO or program manager finds something easy to understand. I would hope neither of these people believe they fully understand a complex topic after learning just a little bit, as that makes them sound very gullible.
This entire conversation reminds of the Dunning-Kruger effect
interesting... back in the high school period when I was in Asia learning Physics and Calculus, I think both the textbooks and teachers wanted to make them so difficult to understand so that there is a lot of respect... after learning them a lot more in a university, I found that they are actually so simple to understand, and can be explained so that even a 10 year old can understand them. I got straight A's in all engineering physics and calculus classes, and I was able to run into one math and one physics teacher that understood calculus and physics so well that they open my eyes for both these subjects... it is true that I have a lot of respect for these two teachers... but only because I had a really hard time in high school understanding these topics...
For the Dunning-Kruger effect, it remains me of, when I graduated and worked in the industry 2, 3 years long long time ago, sometimes I would see some 18 year old who think they know everything about the world... probably they get disillusioned when they went into sophomore and junior years in a university... and if they could, break out of them after they graduate... it is the more we learn, the more we found out it is a lot more that we don't understand (yet).
Is there a purpose to this post? It all seems very asinine. It is not better to make things needlessly complicated for respect.
pls see update to original post
Fact: If people comes directly to your post understand the concept and you explained it correctly, they will find it basic.
If they come to your post while struggling with 10 posts in the past, then you're lucky 😂
Then you'll get followed.
Albeit you get praised, you don't get followed (yet).
that's true... they have to first struggle with it first...
Maybe you should try to give a shit about people who say "this guy is just basic". There is little less which makes a good developer than breaking down complicating things in a way that everyone can understand them.
Those people are probably not the ones you want to follow or work with.