Follow the Hackers

content/2024/follow-the-hackers/index.md

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+title="Follow the Hackers"
+date=2024-08-17
+draft=false
+[taxonomies]
+tags=["culture"]
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+
+{% info() %}
+
+If you're one of those people who love reading meticulously researched, data-driven analyses of technology adoption trends with carefully balanced viewpoints and zero personal bias... well, you might want to check out an actual research paper, because this blog post has none of that.
+
+What you will find here is a bunch of personal musings, cheerfully cherry-picked examples, and the kind of sweeping generalizations that would make an economist weep.
+
+But hey, if you're in the mood for some subjective ramblings about future tech trends, and you're willing to take them with a grain of salt, then strap in! Just remember to put on your critical thinking cap before.
+
+{% end %}
+
+A good way to predict which technologies will be important in the future is to see what hackers are passionate about today.
+I'm using the term "hackers" broadly here to describe smart people who are deeply passionate about technology and know how to bend it to their will. 
+
+These folks are a small subset of the population, but they have some traits that make them excellent predictors of the future:
+
+- They care deeply about their field, such as programming
+- They're passionate about the things they believe in
+- They'd use something even if no one else cared about it
+- They work at the cutting edge, so they need the best tools to do their job
+- They have strong opinions about what's good and what's bad, and can back up their views with facts
+- They don't care about investors, quarterly earnings reports, or politics. They purely focus on the technology's value.
+
+## Catalysts For Success And Red Flags
+
+Of course, not every hyped technology makes it big. Remember NFTs or Web3?
+
+One key difference is that hackers weren't truly passionate about these technologies – non-tech people were. 
+Another red flag is when the technology's benefits are hard to explain.
+If hardcore tech people can't explain the benefits to you, that's a bad sign.
+Instead, there might be other motivations at play!
+
+Usually, it's people trying to make money from technology.
+They call themselves Investors, "Serial-Entrepreneurs", or "Thought leaders".
+You can spot them by their LinkedIn profiles, which get updated with the latest keywords every 6 months.
+There are a few legit ones, but most are opportunists who couldn't explain the technology if their life depended on it.
+All they care about is profit.
+
+The hackers? They don't care what you think about them.
+They've got nothing to sell you.
+They're too busy building cool stuff!
+
+Another factor hackers care about is "who owns the platform"?
+If it's companies, they always have an agenda.
+Invest a ton of time and effort, and they might just lock you out and profit from your work.
+Hackers don't like that.
+
+Therefore, all the winning ideas I mentioned are open source.
+If a technology isn't, that's a major red flag when evaluating its future potential.
+It's not even optional anymore – it's pretty much mandatory.
+
+But there's another reason why open source is a catalyst for success:
+Initially, open source projects start as minimally functional versions without user-friendly documentation.
+They might be tough to set up, but the core idea is there.
+If people stick with it despite the lack of hand-holding, you know it's solving a real problem
+and that's a sign of a winning idea.
+
+## You Still Need Patience 
+
+You probably know I'm all in on Rust.
+After all, I make my living as a Rust consultant.
+It took Rust over a decade of development to gain any real traction in the industry.
+It's been a slow but steady climb.
+
+It can take a while for the general public to catch up with a trend before a technology is ready for prime time.
+Sometimes it's a decade or more, especially for core technology like new programming languages or databases.
+That's just the time it takes for technology to mature.
+
+That's why I usually advise founders to stay a bit behind the cutting edge when adopting new tech.
+The industry needs time to catch up, and big companies need specialized tools to integrate new tech into their development process.
+But it's a calculated risk because the writing is on the wall.
+
+## What Can You Learn From This?
+
+Hackers are already living in the future.
+You can use that to your advantage.
+Ask 10 tech enthusiasts what new things they're excited about, and you'll get a good idea of what's going to be important in a few years.
+
+Unfortunately, business people don't talk to hackers regularly. That's a missed opportunity, because these folks love nothing more than talking about their passions.
+
+If you're selling to developers ([and you probably shouldn't](/2024/selling-to-developers/)),
+the key is to really listen to what they're saying and then following their lead.