In recent years I’ve come to the conclusion that much of what ails our society is that we don’t let the patriotic polymaths do their thing.
Time and again, there’s the stiflingly numb comforts streak which dulls everything great.
Worse yet, foreign interlopers recruit the sort of misfits that might otherwise make the United States and her allies more powerful. One of the tragedies of things like the Thiel fellowship is that it takes some of our more out there nerds and presses them into projects which are fundamentally a waste of time.
I’m endeavoring to do something a little bit different with Traitwell, the DNA company I cofounded.
So it was mostly out of rebellion and with a keen eye to recruitment and more than a bit of silliness that I posted a job request on Twitter last night.
“Full stack developers [wanted.] I am looking for this [sic] motherfuckers who love programming and troublemaking. Come to me my fellow autistics.”
I elaborated. “I am looking for software engineers who have been in physical fights. Who are berserkers. Who are troublemakers. Who like to fight. I am looking for gentleman (and gentlelady) programmers who would be equally comfortable wrestling with a lion.”
I’ve been surprised how many software engineers have replied at what was sort of a joke.
Here’s what we’re hoping to do:
I’d like to take all the genome wide associated studies which are being produced and turn them into software almost as soon as they are published.
Reply with something courageous you’ve done.
Tell me what you’d do if you had access to 23andMe (or Ancestry’s DNA) database.
Points for personality. Double points for evidence of polymathic oddity.
I’ll then pass you on to our CTO Gavan Tredoux who has written a rather wonderful biography of Francis Galton.
Now he’d make for a great hire! Galton, that is.