HN Explorer

Ask HN: What is a smart guy?

1 points by shakeel_mohamed ↗ HN
I'm occasionally told I'm a smart guy by people 20+ years older than me (I'm a college student), and on the rare occasion by a peer. I've told other people something like, "You're a smart guy, you'll figure it out."

I'd like to know what you think makes a smart guy. Is it a personality, type of thinking, IQ, achievements or something else?

Thanks!

8 comments

[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 26.8 ms ] thread
stephengillie
"Smart" is in the eye of the beholder. It's subjective, and how it's used tells you about the person telling you this.

This means a lot of people consider you to hold above-average processing and retention abilities, such that you'll be able to solve the majority of problems you encounter in life. And you're probably friendly to most people.

You're probably more quantitative than those who tell this to you, so they likely are less sure about which metric they're identifying than you are.

shakeel_mohamed
Ah, a bit of a paradigm nested in that last sentence. Thanks
frozenport
Its what I say when I want somebody to do what they were supposed to do. For example, if I think an employee is bugging me too much or is not thinking hard enough I tell them that they are a 'smart' person and that they can figure it out (alone).
shakeel_mohamed
My manager at my internship over the summer used it on me once in a while, when I was in way over my head. Prior to the summer I was mostly a web developer, and I was throw into debugging legacy application from the 1980's written in C.

In this situation, it's either a miscommunication or a poor management technique. What do you think?

frozenport
If you came through then its good management. If you didn't come through, but you didn't waste the companies time as much as the alternative, then it was also good management. If it encouraged you to bite off more then you could chew, and you failed then it was bad.

The people I supervise aren't programmers (graphic design artists) and they sometimes need to be reminded to act like professionals and solve their own problems. I sometimes feel that most of my job is tricking them into doing their work. To this end giving them self-confidence is an effective technique.

shakeel_mohamed
Fair point, I think all employees need some kind of motivation to get their work done.

>If it encouraged you to bite off more then you could chew, and you failed then it was bad.

The management wasn't consistently in touch with me, no clear direction on the project, etc. Quite frankly, I ended up sitting at my desk for weeks at a time doing absolutely nothing because I was so in over my head.

I appreciate you taking the time to respond, thank you :)

donebizkit
"Smart" is an equation of memory, logical reasoning, comprehension, speech and street smart (hustle). I never met a person who's good at all five. Usually people are mediocre at all of them or excel in couple and lack in the others.
shakeel_mohamed
Interesting point. I think I'm above average in a couple but below average in others.

Thanks!