modern day philosopher king vs. the do-er
I’m curious about how people become great engineers, operators, and leaders. I know the basic guidance - do good work every day, for many days. but what does good work mean? what’s the split of time between doing and thinking?
to answer this question, I think about who would be a stronger governor:
A man who has governed his whole life, but has never thought about it
A philosopher who has thought about governing his whole life, but has never done it?
Plato seems to think #2 would be perfectly suitable, and #1 would be trouble. his stance is that either the philosophers should become kings, or the rulers should take to the pursuit of philosophy.
“Unless, said I, either philosophers become kings in our states or those whom we now call our kings and rulers take to the pursuit of philosophy seriously and adequately, and there is a conjunction of these two things, political power and philosophic intelligence, while the motley horde of the natures who at present pursue either apart from the other are compulsory excluded, there can be no cessation of troubles, dear Glaucon, for our states, nor, I fancy, for the human race either.” (The Republic, 473d–e).
but if Plato is correct, then why are the ceramics students able to produce higher quality art when they make 60 pots, instead of one thoughtful piece?
I think both ideas are overly simplified and wrong to some extent. The thinking is just as important as the doing, and vice versa. A philosopher king is not ready to lead an empire until he has led a town, and a ceramics student who does 3 thoughtful pieces will win over the 60-piece achiever.
to get precise, “doing” is committing actions that have consequences. if we consider two engineers, one who only thinks and one who only does:
the aspiring engineer thinker could theoretically sit in a room all day learning everything there is about a codebase, planning out all the lines of code that she’ll write to build a new feature, and imagining how it will be to roll the feature out. maybe there’s even a simulation machine that presents potential future paths and queries her for what her decision will be at any given point. but importantly, she is not doing until her decision impacts real-world outcomes outside of the imagination.
on the other hand, a non-thinking engineer will build and deploy functional solutions, but he won’t be thinking about the best solution to implement. he also won’t give any more thought to his past work. his thought process will solely consist of pattern matching rather than deep inductive reasoning or creative exploration.
Steve Jobs is a good example of someone who invested in both modes of work. he started exercising his agency at the age of 17, selling “Blue Boxes” with Wozniak for people to make long distance phone calls. they made about $10k (about $70k today). no matter his eagerness to jump into shipping, he thought a lot. he would disappear for days at a time to be able to hear his thoughts and his thoughts alone, then he would come back with a decision made.
it seems like today’s society glorifies an extreme on either side - you’re either a well-dressed academic with a love for the classics, or a “locked-in” 20-year-old who is nonstop shipping and just doing things. this is partly social media skew and myopic cultural obsession, but I think it’s indicative of a loss of care for the balance of these extremes.
good thinking exercised across years of experience can compound. you can see this in software engineer hiring pipelines. the top 90th percentile of engineers are leagues above the average, even when holding years of experience constant. the best engineers I’ve worked with have immaculate reasoning skills that come through in their deliberate breakdown of problem statements, Slack messages diagnosing issues, or thoughtful emails advocating for a shift of investment. clear thinking is a muscle they’ve honed, not necessarily on purpose but out of pure passion for the art of problem solving.
I’m lucky to be surrounded by friends who are big on executing and always doing things, but I constantly need to remind myself to slow down and think through decisions or reflect on my work. bit by bit, maybe we’ll all become locked-in philosopher kings.