I definitely appreciate the spirit of the “hacker mindset,” and I like the idea of experimenting with unconventional approaches to problem solving. That said, I think this post tries a bit too hard to make that case, and leans on examples that don’t really hold up under closer scrutiny.
The Robert Rodriguez anecdote is great, but it’s worth remembering that he went on to make multiple big budget Hollywood films using fairly conventional methods. In other words, the takeaway isn’t that he discovered a more efficient or scalable way to make movies, but that he was forced into a bare bones approach because he lacked resources at the time. That’s impressive, but it’s not quite the same thing.
The video game example feels even weaker. Speedrunners seem to rely on glitches to finish games as quickly as possible, which is essentially bypassing the intended system rather than working creatively within it. That’s closer to finding a loophole than developing a better method. It would be like Robery Rodriguez trying to win an Oscar by hacking the voting platform instead of making a great film.
A stronger example might be something like the rolling technique in Tetris, where players hold the controller upside down to dramatically increase speed, while still playing within the rules of the game. That kind of innovation feels much more aligned with the idea of a true “hacker mindset.”
I think with regards to the speedrunner example is that they are breaking established but unenforced rules. A hacker does the same thing with social rules for example.
This is a good point. It makes me think of tech startups too. They often pride themselves on being lean, efficient, nimble, and lacking bureaucracy. Yet every successful tech startup has eventually become a corporate behemoth. Google, for instance, employed just a few thousand people when it IPOed, and now employees almost 200k.
Thank you for adding this perspective to the conversation! You've made excellent points. I think it's important to remember the question: what are you ultimately trying to achieve? Speedrunners are interested in finishing the game not as "presented" but as "designed." I think Henrik is pointing to this specifically—that beneath a finished/established form is its true architecture, from which outcomes can, but rarely ever do, vary greatly. I think Having a Hacker mindset, whether by choice or circumstance, can lead you to realize what you actually want is to make big budget films and follow a conventional movie-making track. Because your problem: I want to make movies, is better solved that way. And that's perfectly okay, as long as I'm not required to watch them. lol
I'm still thinking about this. a lot seems to have to do with unlearning as a practical skill.
that requires metacognition (not hard to teach imo), and epistemological reflection, a frame around experimentation and courage.
This seems like a lot, but it's more like a pattern of questions.
1-what do I want
2- how will I get it
3- where did I learn I should get it like that? (this is an important step, that if skipped makes 4 much harder). why was that compelling?
4- is there another way? what stupid ways did ppl in 3 find wrong?
5-wait!what if that way could work?
I think this pattern of thought might be the core. but Im still figuring this out myself, for myself. turning into a method is different from applying it in specific cases
I play Zelda and see villages and hens; I look at the 2004 government space launch market and I see a market so entrenched that entry is obviously impossible. It's an example of hacker mindset that Musk looked at that, saw opportunity, and somehow gained those government contracts.
I saw the false walls for the first time when I had my first full-time job at Meta. I spent a year working as hard as possible for a promotion that I was promised and then told “we don’t promote anyone in the first year.” I then figured out the actual way to get promoted- who needed to be in my evaluation- and spent 6 months sucking up to her instead of doing any work, and got her to sit in it. I got a 40% raise. Once I saw that, I couldn’t work there anymore. I had speedrun the game.
People ask me why I didn’t stay longer and get another promo and another promo, but I lost interest and faith in the system. Something I wonder about the hacker mindset: do all the people speedrunning games just keep speedrunning them? Or do they design ones that can’t be? Or do they feel “done” with video games as a genre and do something completely else?
Thanks for sharing. I think it depends on the reason one might want to stay. If the only purpose is the next promotion, then it feels demoralizing and jumping through weird hoops - I don't even want to play this game. But if the promotion is more instrumental - I want to influence this product or technology or use it as a stepping stone for some other purpose that matters to me - that could change the calculus.
I'm a long time reader. I thought this was a good opportunity to answer to your 'very long and complex search query to find fascinating people and make them route interesting stuff to your inbox'.
Great refresher course for seeing past the noise. There are entire hacker nations - they usually become that because of constraints, restrictions and friction. I’m Polish , spent some time in film school & I’ve seen what is possible.
I really appreciate the example of the filmmaker. I stumble with the speedrunning metaphor, though, because it confuses the goals. Speedrunning a game is fun and impressive if you want to experience it that way. But it misses the entire joy and art of the game itself. I’m sure you know this, but it’s an off note for me because it seems like a different case than with the movie where the goals are the same in Hollywood-style vs hacker-style. Perhaps along with the ethics note, there’s a key aspect of defining your goals *first,* separate from the way the system defines them for you. I think you’ve written about that elsewhere, right?
Another way to describe the hacker mindset is the ability to see things differently, to describe problems differently.
I'm a software engineer and I feel like 99% of success is based on framing the problem correctly. If you can notice the right things, and if you can notice the right relationships between them, the solution suggests itself.
I think this easily transfers outside of software, like your Rodriguez example, because it's really asking "what am I really looking at? what is really there?"
I’ve heard the term “hacker mindset” before but assumed I knew nothing about it before reading this essay. Halfway through I realised I know all about it - it runs in my family, and those who practiced it (my own father, in particular) were always called “chancers”. Looking at this as a mindset rather than a fixed trait some people are born with, as this essay does, is a fascinating perspective.
Major analogies with the so-called Hard Problem of Consciousness.
Some philosophers are playing the game and thinking they need to account for real hens, real walls, real villages. The underlying reality only loosely maps to that naive interpretation.
I definitely appreciate the spirit of the “hacker mindset,” and I like the idea of experimenting with unconventional approaches to problem solving. That said, I think this post tries a bit too hard to make that case, and leans on examples that don’t really hold up under closer scrutiny.
The Robert Rodriguez anecdote is great, but it’s worth remembering that he went on to make multiple big budget Hollywood films using fairly conventional methods. In other words, the takeaway isn’t that he discovered a more efficient or scalable way to make movies, but that he was forced into a bare bones approach because he lacked resources at the time. That’s impressive, but it’s not quite the same thing.
The video game example feels even weaker. Speedrunners seem to rely on glitches to finish games as quickly as possible, which is essentially bypassing the intended system rather than working creatively within it. That’s closer to finding a loophole than developing a better method. It would be like Robery Rodriguez trying to win an Oscar by hacking the voting platform instead of making a great film.
A stronger example might be something like the rolling technique in Tetris, where players hold the controller upside down to dramatically increase speed, while still playing within the rules of the game. That kind of innovation feels much more aligned with the idea of a true “hacker mindset.”
I think with regards to the speedrunner example is that they are breaking established but unenforced rules. A hacker does the same thing with social rules for example.
This is a good point. It makes me think of tech startups too. They often pride themselves on being lean, efficient, nimble, and lacking bureaucracy. Yet every successful tech startup has eventually become a corporate behemoth. Google, for instance, employed just a few thousand people when it IPOed, and now employees almost 200k.
Thank you for adding this perspective to the conversation! You've made excellent points. I think it's important to remember the question: what are you ultimately trying to achieve? Speedrunners are interested in finishing the game not as "presented" but as "designed." I think Henrik is pointing to this specifically—that beneath a finished/established form is its true architecture, from which outcomes can, but rarely ever do, vary greatly. I think Having a Hacker mindset, whether by choice or circumstance, can lead you to realize what you actually want is to make big budget films and follow a conventional movie-making track. Because your problem: I want to make movies, is better solved that way. And that's perfectly okay, as long as I'm not required to watch them. lol
I was thinking how to teach this. it's not easy. what's the pedagogy. I have some first thoughts.
but I realized, I can't teach this if I don't have it. then I realized I do!
I have the hackers mindset in education (home schooler). and it's a scale, so there a set of patterns of thought.
thank you for waking me up to a very useful frame. I've read about it before, but smth in your writing sparked me
How would you teach it?
I'm still thinking about this. a lot seems to have to do with unlearning as a practical skill.
that requires metacognition (not hard to teach imo), and epistemological reflection, a frame around experimentation and courage.
This seems like a lot, but it's more like a pattern of questions.
1-what do I want
2- how will I get it
3- where did I learn I should get it like that? (this is an important step, that if skipped makes 4 much harder). why was that compelling?
4- is there another way? what stupid ways did ppl in 3 find wrong?
5-wait!what if that way could work?
I think this pattern of thought might be the core. but Im still figuring this out myself, for myself. turning into a method is different from applying it in specific cases
And of course the entire success story of SpaceX is precisely due to this hacker mindset. Great piece, as always.
I play Zelda and see villages and hens; I look at the 2004 government space launch market and I see a market so entrenched that entry is obviously impossible. It's an example of hacker mindset that Musk looked at that, saw opportunity, and somehow gained those government contracts.
Attracting those contracts was part of the hackery. Building cheap rockets, suggesting a payment-after-launch model. Hackery.
I saw the false walls for the first time when I had my first full-time job at Meta. I spent a year working as hard as possible for a promotion that I was promised and then told “we don’t promote anyone in the first year.” I then figured out the actual way to get promoted- who needed to be in my evaluation- and spent 6 months sucking up to her instead of doing any work, and got her to sit in it. I got a 40% raise. Once I saw that, I couldn’t work there anymore. I had speedrun the game.
People ask me why I didn’t stay longer and get another promo and another promo, but I lost interest and faith in the system. Something I wonder about the hacker mindset: do all the people speedrunning games just keep speedrunning them? Or do they design ones that can’t be? Or do they feel “done” with video games as a genre and do something completely else?
Thanks for sharing. I think it depends on the reason one might want to stay. If the only purpose is the next promotion, then it feels demoralizing and jumping through weird hoops - I don't even want to play this game. But if the promotion is more instrumental - I want to influence this product or technology or use it as a stepping stone for some other purpose that matters to me - that could change the calculus.
This piece reminds me of: https://drmaciver.com/2022/05/learning-to-walk-through-walls/
I hadn’t seen that, it was really good!
I'm a long time reader. I thought this was a good opportunity to answer to your 'very long and complex search query to find fascinating people and make them route interesting stuff to your inbox'.
I wish the ethical bit had been more than a footnote, but great piece.
The twitter link is broken, search should read "Dangerous Professional from:patio11" instead of "Dangerous Professional (from:patio11)" ;)
How odd, mine works for me but not yours. Twitter is reaching new levels of broken
Are you using the app perhaps? I'm on browser.
Browser, too. Hm
Dangerous Professional (from:patio11) works just fine for me on Browser.
Great refresher course for seeing past the noise. There are entire hacker nations - they usually become that because of constraints, restrictions and friction. I’m Polish , spent some time in film school & I’ve seen what is possible.
I really appreciate the example of the filmmaker. I stumble with the speedrunning metaphor, though, because it confuses the goals. Speedrunning a game is fun and impressive if you want to experience it that way. But it misses the entire joy and art of the game itself. I’m sure you know this, but it’s an off note for me because it seems like a different case than with the movie where the goals are the same in Hollywood-style vs hacker-style. Perhaps along with the ethics note, there’s a key aspect of defining your goals *first,* separate from the way the system defines them for you. I think you’ve written about that elsewhere, right?
Sometimes we forget the world is a sandbox game.
This just seems like a fancy description of first-principles thinking, no? (I say that with no condescension, this was a great read)
Another way to describe the hacker mindset is the ability to see things differently, to describe problems differently.
I'm a software engineer and I feel like 99% of success is based on framing the problem correctly. If you can notice the right things, and if you can notice the right relationships between them, the solution suggests itself.
I think this easily transfers outside of software, like your Rodriguez example, because it's really asking "what am I really looking at? what is really there?"
The only things left to hack are language and stories, our final illusions of control.
Nice thought!
I’ve heard the term “hacker mindset” before but assumed I knew nothing about it before reading this essay. Halfway through I realised I know all about it - it runs in my family, and those who practiced it (my own father, in particular) were always called “chancers”. Looking at this as a mindset rather than a fixed trait some people are born with, as this essay does, is a fascinating perspective.
Is Tump our first hacker president? He certainly is - but…..there is so much more to say about that.…just wanted to bring it up.
Major analogies with the so-called Hard Problem of Consciousness.
Some philosophers are playing the game and thinking they need to account for real hens, real walls, real villages. The underlying reality only loosely maps to that naive interpretation.