Team Geek

According to the book, the key ingredients for a good geek
team culture include humility, respect, and trust, or HRT.
After 20 years in the profession, I think this is a great
summary. The book is very practical and, as a programmer, I
could relate to its many points.

I think the book can be improved by addressing more the fear
factor. In my mind, fear is the one thing that causes most
of the problems described in the book for both programmers
and managers. It's hard to dodge that bullet, especially
when one is young and unestablished. How could one overcome
it? Personal perspectives, especially from those
non-geniuses, would be very helpful.

Indeed, toward the end of the book, the authors addressed
fear indirectly by saying

        One of the great things about being an engineer in
        this day and age is that good engineers are in high
        demand, and that gives you the ability to control
        your own future. Once you realize you have this
        control, it’s incredibly liberating...

and by quoting from the blog article "Do the right thing,
wait to get fired" from longtime Google engineer Chade-Meng Tan.

These got me thinking. What if when engineering cools down,
e.g., when eventually the harm from innovating for
convenience and comfort gets to the tipping point? As for
Tan's example, to get to the position(or 勢 as a Chinese
would say) to be enlightened enough and able to say things
like that, one has to start somewhere and go through
something. As the result of the agriculture revolution,
humans start to wean kids earlier (for child labor) than
their hunter-gatherer ancestors. Can they apply the same
principle to wean young people emotionally and spiritually
to get them adapt to the geek team culture? Would natural
selection eventually favor this culture?