Yikes this is a bad article. The author makes no connection to how the attributes he describes are more commonly found in athletes. What makes them generalists? Why are they adaptive? Why are they 'makers'?<p>And even worse I think he missed a good opportunity to talk about what kind of attributes an athlete may bring to the table in general, or specifically at a startup. Attributes I have noticed<i>:<p>-An ability to take criticism. Usually coaches don't hold back telling you what you're doing wrong and how to fix it. I've had a lacrosse coach go through every player on a team and publicly tell them what they do poorly. I'm not saying that is the best coaching style, but it gets you used to handling criticism and responding to it.
-An ability to face failure. At one point or another everyone fails at sports. Usually it happens a lot. Being able to respond and grow from those failures can be really important, especially at a startup.
-Competitiveness. Obviously by competing a lot athlete will have a desire to win. In addition, I've found they have a "do anything to win" attitude that can be great at a startup when you need people to fill in rolls that may not be glamorous or cool but are integral to success<p></i>these attribues aren't only found in athletes, but I have found them more often with athletes more than the general populous
I can't tell if this is literally talking about people who compete in physical activities or not. I feel like you could replace every instance of the word "athlete" with "ninja" or some other term and it would make just as much sense. Am I missing something?
This metaphor will probably fly over most people's head.<p>It makes perfect sense to me if you can imagine the progression of a beginner entering any sport<p>When you try to become more athletic do you shoot more free throws or run more passing routes ? Neither. Your goal is to build a strong foundation in strength, speed, agility, and power up to an elite level and then specialize once you've decided what sport or position you want to play to tailor your training appropriately.
WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS.<p>I don't understand why so far (6 comments) people are commenting seriously on this essay.<p>This essay looks like a somewhat mechanical prank to me, as if someone decided to:<p>1. Assemble generic hacker news style article about why hackers are good. For example, "Hackers are always making things, they can't help themselves". [RE-EDIT: This is an actual quote from the essay, except that the word "athletes" was used instead of "hackers".]<p>2. Make it stupid by substituting "athlete" for "hacker". Maybe they thought this would be an obvious absurdity because they think hackers are "nerds", and that "nerds" and "jocks" are obvious opposites?<p>3. Make it slightly less obvious by dressing it up with a little extra athlete-related stuff, like the cartoons about athletes.<p>I would also like to suggest that "Jason Freedman" is an obvious parody substitution for "Jason Fried." Also, "42floors" <--> "37 signals" [EDIT: My God, it turns out these are supposedly a real person and his real company. Coincidence, or convenient choice to surf on the influence of similarity?]<p>My take: do you spend too much time reading "Hacker News", so hurriedly that your credulity muscles get too much exercise?
Read closely and you'll spot this...<p>"Metaphorically speaking, that is. I don’t mean athletes as in people who play sports. Athletes, as in people that can play any position within your startup. It means someone is first and foremost a generalist. "