The Reign of Introverts Is Here

&gt; High-paying careers favor those with the stomach for deep, solitary work.<p>Where can I get some of this high-paid, deep, solitary work? These days software engineering is ultra-collaborative, and I doubt anybody would say that doctors&#x2F;nurses, managers, finance people, or lawyers are doing deep, solitary work.

The reign of the introverts is definitely not here nor will it ever be.<p>I&#x27;m increasingly of the opinion that most people in this industry think they&#x27;re introverts, when actually they&#x27;re just a victim of extremely poor working environments, i.e. open plan offices.<p>No other industry I can think of has such a disparity between what an employee needs for the best productivity versus what they&#x27;re given by their employer, i.e. solitude to concentrate.<p>The longer I&#x27;ve spent away from an open plan office, the more sociable I&#x27;ve become, especially over the last 15 months.<p>Similarly as you rise &#x27;up the ladder&#x27;, you have to communicate more, you cannot be an introvert.

I don&#x27;t see remote work necessarily helping introverts since communication and online social connection is even more important when it doesn&#x27;t happen by simply being in the same physical space. There is also even less social context to draw upon which is a problem for people who struggle in understanding social nuance. Introverts can very easily not make the extra effort to stay connected with co-workers which will put them at a disadvantage in terms of promotions and so on.<p>I can see it helping those who have things like social anxiety with in person communication but that&#x27;s very different from being an introvert.

&gt; Expect the balance of wealth and power to shift accordingly<p>Haha, no, absolutely not. Power and wealth will still be accumulated primarily through persuading and influencing others. Good luck accumulating significant capital without that!

I&#x27;ve always felt that the introvert&#x2F;extrovert dichotomy is such an oversimplification that it fails to be useful as a form of categorization. The degree to which someone is outgoing vs reserved is highly context dependent: maybe an individual is extraverted in their personal life but more restrained in a professional environment. Measuring these things is also so subjective that much of this is just a wash. Pieces of business-pop psychology like this one seem mostly designed to tell their audience wants to hear with just enough of an edge to provoke engagement.

Good idea and poorly written.<p>This low-brow content should really be posted on Reddit and not HN: 1. Definition of Introvert is wrong: introvert can be gregarious, loud, and fun at parties. Introvert vs extrovert is more determined by where you get your energy from. 2. Mostly copies idea from this article [1]<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;marker.medium.com&#x2F;context-sensitivity-and-the-introvert-experience-a73002d3ca84" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;marker.medium.com&#x2F;context-sensitivity-and-the-introv...</a>

While there is definitely a real notable shift to be described here, I wouldn&#x27;t want to go as far as saying that being an introvert is a true advantage over being an extrovert now (similarly, I wouldn&#x27;t describe people like Bezos and Zuckerberg as &#x27;quiet&#x27; - they are definitely spending their days communicating with a lot more people than I do, rather than programming alone in their bedrooms. Sure they&#x27;re not taking interviews from journalists all day, but why would they?).<p>I make this comment because the largest mistake I made in my adolescence was continually being too quiet, which later on I realized made just about any goal I had harder on myself, whether it was basic networking, meeting potential co-founders, customers, partners, or whatever it may be. It took me many years to realize how to be extroverted in a much more effective way, and even longer to become comfortable with things like cold-emailing people to ask for things.<p>The skills and mindset of an introvert may be more valuable now, but knowing when you should put on your extrovert hat is still one of the highest ROI skills that one can learn (and also can be pretty difficult for many introverted mindsets to become comfortable with).

Companies cannot grow and be successful without a wide variety of roles. And different roles tend to attract different personality types. The personality type for sales and the personality type for accounting are likely to have much less overlap than the personality types for media relations and human resources. It&#x27;s not hard to imagine the archetype for each of those roles, and they are typically distinct personalities.<p>The gamut of personality types includes both introverts and extroverts. And not only are those not the only two, even among introverts and extroverts, there are degrees of introversion and extroversion.<p>Companies need all types to be optimally successful. Conflating personality types with goodness and badness is simply creating conflict. Don&#x27;t fall for it.

&gt; Some of the most successful introverts — Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffet<p>But, who says they are?<p>I don&#x27;t think Gates, Bezos or Zuck fit the &quot;introvert&quot; profile. Of course they are technical, but not necessarily introverted.

Introvert vs. Extrovert isn&#x27;t really backed by anything.<p>Perhaps an equally meaningful title would be &quot;the reign of gemini is here&quot; and we could all enjoy that cosmopolitan article together :&#x27;)

I think the article is referring to the way introverts vs. extroverts think.<p>The work is always going to be collaborative, that is a given and the purpose of teams, but the shift right now is that as data and tech becomes more prevalent, the old times when extroverts governed by mere non-technical skills is going to wane in importance, because everything could be automated and quantified, leading to less room for human BS to climb the corporate ladder.<p>As the article mentions which I totally agree, communication becomes more important as you move up the ladder. But here is the key: it is easier for a technical person to learn soft skills than for a nontechnical person to do the reverse.<p>That is why the combination of engineering + MBA is so dangerous. It is because introverts are not given&#x2F;interested in the chance to rule, that we don&#x27;t see it often. But for a future where tech is going to dominate almost every industry, a firm&#x27;s survival is going to depend on introverts.<p>For those interested, I recommend reading the book &quot;Quiet&quot; by Susan Cain, it explains this pretty well.

&gt;Quiet nerds are now revered as the next generation of powerful and wealthy. Why? Because they, most likely, will be.<p>lol what? More stereotypes?

I think the author is making a lot of assumptions here. I&#x27;ll break them down.<p>&gt; High-paying careers favor those with the stomach for deep, solitary work.<p>I assume he means programming. Just because you work in a solitary environment doesn&#x27;t mean you&#x27;re an introvert. It really more requires the ability to focus more than anything in my experience. I&#x27;ve known a bunch of great programmers who were also extroverts.<p>&gt; In-person schmoozing has taken a backseat to an online workday where the ability to self-motivate matters most.<p>I don&#x27;t think this has changed because promotion is based largely on human bias more than anything. Making an impression on someone is still as important as it ever was, we just do it using a different medium. (zoom, teams, slack, email).<p>&gt; Crafting a witty one-liner on apps determines your dating success — not the ability to pick someone up at a bar.<p>It might get you a date, but your personality gets you the second date.

Unfortunately, the balance of power will inherently never tip to introverts for the simple reason that introverts generally do not want power over other people. We want power over our own situations. We want to be left alone. That social power over others is then claimed by those who desire it.

If the reign of introverts is here, then the introverts should hold enough power to get technology and&#x2F;or laws that will actually stop spam phone calls and texts. Those things are brutal to introverts. The deeper you are in thought, the more damaging they are.

One of the changes due to WFH that I&#x27;m happiest about is how all meetings are now online, which makes my inability* to find the right time to take a turn speaking in a conversation less of a problem (since it&#x27;s possible to &quot;raise a hand&quot; in most online meeting apps, or just drop a message in chat.) Better still, most meetings can be converted to emails, so this situation doesn&#x27;t arise in the first place. I don&#x27;t think most people realise how much anxiety this kind of stuff causes &quot;introverts&quot;.<p>* Also shared by most people with ADHD.

Extroverts are mentally ill usually suffering from ADHD. This propaganda that extroverts are somehow normal and to aspire to...is just that, propaganda from the noisy, mentally ill extrovert.

I have a few counterpoints to those made in the article:<p>- As much as current developments have made for more accommodating work&#x2F;social environments for introverts, I wouldn&#x27;t go as far as to say that &quot;introverts have the upper hand&quot;. If anything, I would say the shift towards increasingly digital modes of interaction tends to reward those with a flair for self-advocacy even more -- just think about who tends to dominate discourse in online forums&#x2F;social media&#x2F;conference calls. I personally rely heavily on non-verbal cues to express myself&#x2F;gauge others in social settings but there isn&#x27;t really a channel for that type of expression in digital environments. That in turn leads to me feeling like I need to be more verbally engaged despite that not being my natural inclination, which then feeds back into a spiral of mental exhaustion -&gt; degraded conversation and thinking -&gt; more exhaustion.<p>- The characterization of extroverts as shmoozers and social climbers and introverts as doing &quot;actual work&quot; is rather unfair -- in the past, I&#x27;ve worked with both &quot;introverts&quot; who recognized they could skate by just doing the bare minimum to say they did something in standup and staying out of the way of everyone else and &quot;extroverts&quot; who would actively drop by to check if I needed help with anything. Moreover, in roles like that of a technical lead or solutions architect, being able to clearly articulate and discuss designs is a far more important skill than being a code-cranking steam engine which by the definitions of the article are &quot;extroverted&quot; qualities. When it comes to implementation I&#x27;d agree that heads-down, interruption-free environments are the most conducive, but the further I progress as a software engineer the more I&#x27;ve come to realize that implementation is only the tip of the iceberg.<p>I think introverts as characterized in the article do have it as good as ever as employees, but that is still far from a &quot;reign of introverts&quot;. With the growing trends of creator economies and self-employment, self-advocacy is only going to become an even more crucial skill set and mentality to develop -- I can anecdotally attest that the notion that dedication to your craft alone is enough to carry you is a fallacy, and I think those most prone to burnout&#x2F;depression in creative and self-employed endeavors are those who don&#x27;t anticipate the level of self-advocacy needed to break through.

One thing I have noticed when WFH is that random calls are more disruptive than someone calling to your desk. When someone calls to your desk you&#x27;re already in that environment. When someone calls you when WFH they&#x27;re entering your environment - if that makes sense.<p>I also notice that status update meetings seem to be more common.

I wonder how much other traits and attributes that previously had high benefit have fallen off due to the increased amount of remote work.<p>For example, there is some correlation with being tall and being successful. Probably similar for attractiveness things that don&#x27;t show up in a video of just your face.

It is not so much about intorversion vs. extorverson but rather IQ. Similar the 2008 financial crisis, the biggest losers of the Covid crisis and its recovery are the untalented, whose jobs are pay little and are replaceable and interchangeable like cogs. And the biggest winners, similar again to the post-2008 recovery, are the talented, whose wages exceed inflation and whose contributions are valued and are harder to replace.<p>Yet I have heard about plenty of people in major tech cmpanies like google and apple feeling like they are in a rut despite the good pay. So if you measure satisfaction by just money you miss out on other factors. It&#x27;s not like a tech job guantees a path to deep and fulfilling work.

Both sets of &quot;verts&quot; have historically had their realms, strongholds and fiefdoms. What may have changed is where the profits are now increasingly flowing from...

As an introvert myself, I found the book “Quiet” by Susan Cain to be an excellent read on the differences, strengths, and weaknesses of introverts vs extroverts.

I want to like this because I’m an introvert and a wfh advocate, but it doesn’t make a very good case. Gates and Musk aren’t successful because they are introverts, they’re are successful because they are sociopaths from rich families.

Sign in… no.

I&#x27;d be more receptive to the discussion if they didn&#x27;t seem to be so &quot;rub it in your face&quot; about it.<p>I have gotten the feeling that introverts (especially those who write about it on blogs) have a chip on their shoulder about silly things like &quot;needing to communicate clearly&quot; or &quot;having to interact with other human beings&quot;.<p>If you want to be successful, you need to know how to communicate clearly, and you need to be diplomatic and know how to affect the outcome you&#x27;re looking to. &quot;How to win friends and influence people&quot; is still a good book to read on the subject. And what the hell is that &quot;dating app&quot; section, as if &quot;witty one liners on an app&quot; is somehow a contrast, or even a good thing, compared to meeting people at a bar or social event? The whole article is whack.<p>As someone who has historically been an extrovert but has become more introverted in the past two years, I feel like I have gotten a handicap - I feel I have lost skills that I need to regain.<p>I also think the WFH revolution (and the glee with which it is embraced) is a pendulum on the far end of positive, which I think will swing back a bit when people realize all the dreams of WFH don&#x27;t materialize. Many people <i>won&#x27;t</i> become nomadic. Many people <i>won&#x27;t</i> move to that low-cost midwest city, save hundreds of thousands and FIRE at 45. All the things people are taking for granted now, like having an existing network of work contacts from the pre-covid days) will evaporate, and they&#x27;ll be left trying to replicate what they took for granted, from home.