salesbrain, coolbrain, engineerbrain
Belle, 2021
At dinner Michael and I were talking about the three types of AI discourse that appear on our timelines. There are the rationalists, freaking out about how inadequate AI alignment will lead to the end of the world. There are the AI researchers, theorizing about the various capabilities of LLMs. Then there are the startup founders, posting graphics about how their “AI for X startup” went from 0 to 10 million ARR in one year.
This discussion led to the explicit formulation of a theory. Here goes: there are three types of brains you can have. Salesbrain, engineerbrain, and coolbrain. These roughly translate to the qualities known as charisma, skill, and taste.
You have a total of 1.5 points you can distribute across all of these brains. Sam Altman, for instance, seems to have 1.5 salesbrain. Mark Zuckerbrain has 1 engineerbrain and 0.5 salesbrain and possibly negative coolbrain (I haven’t worked out my theory of negative points yet). Steve Jobs is a combination of coolbrain and salesbrain.
Poets and novelists are usually 100% coolbrain, as are most people in academia (there are exceptions). VCs have salesbrain. Many people in Silicon Valley have pure engineerbrain.
People who have too much salesbrain have incredible charm and can get results but are prone to feeling like they don’t have “concrete skills.” People who have too much coolbrain are highly volatile, not grounded at all, and are often unreliable (cause they’re too busy thinking or making art). People who have pure engineerbrain… you’ve all seen the shape rotator memes on Twitter.
Successful teams consist of people with complementary traits. In Silicon Valley the engineerbrain (CTO) + salesbrain (CEO) combination is extremely common.
Many people are in denial about what kind of brain they actually have. For instance, you might have a salesbrain, but instead of leaning into your ability to talk your way into whatever you want you dream of being an artist. Or maybe you have an engineerbrain, but you’re convinced you can do sales.
I posted this on Twitter and saw a lot of people complaining about points system. The reason why there are 1.5 points is because I don’t want a 10-point system where people are like “I’m 6 points salesbrain, 2 points engineerbrain, 2 points coolbrain.” That’s not how it works. You only get to pick two. There are probably people who have all three but there’s like five of them in the world so it’s statistically highly unlikely.