Cody says “I hate fake geeks like Scoble”

July 21, 2006 By

Twenty-one-year-old uber geek Cody who still lives with his parents (I got both of those facts straight off of his blog) got tired of my crap and wrote “I hate fake computer geeks.”

He’s right. I’m not a real geek. I just play one on the Internet. Damn, I hate it when I get found out. ;-)

But, a real geek just finds solutions to problems, no? And at the lowest-cost and fastest way possible, no? At least that’s what Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple, told me. His Apple II motherboard was designed to be manufactured the cheapest and easiest way possible. It was so well designed that housewives in Silicon Valley could build them without any errors (seriously, it was that good). Or, if you watch this video of Alex Gounares, Bill Gates’ technical assistant (that’s a real geek to you Cody) you’ll see that he uses stacks of paper to raise his monitors to a proper height instead of doing it a more elegant, albeit more expensive, way.

I used to load up my own servers and prove that I was geekier than the rest of the world. I beta tested OS 7 and NT 3.5 before they were out (seriously, ask my ex-boss at San Jose State, I regularly frustrated people when I loaded their machines up with betas of the latest stuff — in fact, that’s how I got the name “Scobleizer” cause I “Scobleized” machines, both there, and later at Fawcette Technical Publications where I helped out on a computer programming magazine). Then, as I got older and wiser, I gave up and learned how to scale my life. And, that means letting other people host my wikis and weblogs. Matt Mullenweg, for instance, is freaking awesome at hosting my blog. It doesn’t go down. He doesn’t charge me any money. And every few weeks a new feature shows up without me asking for it.

Translation: I don’t need to know how to host my own WordPress server. I just need to be able to find people who do.

Oh, and Cody, go look at this photo over on Channel 9. Hint: you’re the guy in the blue shirt. Heheh.

Update: I forgot what could have been my best answer — if I wanted help setting up a Wiki I could just call the guy who invented them. Ward Cunningham. Here’s an interview I did with Ward back when we both worked at Microsoft.

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  • http://ninepointview.wordpress.com/ Kristine

    Out of a hundred…you’d think there would be one good looking photogenic no pen in my pocket protector where’s my eye glasses I’ve been up for three nights programming too tired to talk can’t you see the shadows under my eyes where’s the toothpicks or starbucks…whatever, someone get me a macbook for company!

  • http://ninepointview.wordpress.com/ Kristine

    Oh, I meant the ones that weren’t too young, too old, or taken. Scoble has a pleasant happily married look surrounding his geekishness. You guys are hilarious. Forgive me for making fun…each of you I’m sure is quite wonderful. Peace!!!

  • http://ninepointview.wordpress.com/ Kristine

    Oh, I meant the ones that weren’t too young, too old, or taken. Scoble has a pleasant happily married look surrounding his geekishness. You guys are hilarious. Forgive me for making fun…each of you I’m sure is quite wonderful. Peace!!!

  • http://raincoaster.wordpress.com/ raincoaster

    Now, Kristine, you have no idea what any of us look like, besides Robert, and he is indeed taken. So don’t be aspersion-casting, yo.

  • http://raincoaster.wordpress.com/ raincoaster

    Now, Kristine, you have no idea what any of us look like, besides Robert, and he is indeed taken. So don’t be aspersion-casting, yo.

  • http://range.wordpress.com/ range

    To Geek or not to Geek that is the question. This whole debate is pointless.

    No way Scoble, I’m no geek!

  • http://range.wordpress.com/ range

    To Geek or not to Geek that is the question. This whole debate is pointless.

    No way Scoble, I’m no geek!

  • LayZ

    Dude, again, take a chill. Your defensiveness speaks volumes. I didn’t tell you off, I simply made an accurate analogy. Again, nothing wrong with being a jock sniffer. It’s working out great for Cuban and seems to be working out well for you. Nothing to be ashamed of. But, by definition it appears you are the tech version of a jock sniffer. Hell, there are a lot of well off jock sniffers. Jerry Jones. George Steinbrenner, Stuart Scott, Chris Berhman. They’ve all made out pretty well. So, take it as compliment. You saw an opportunity to ride the coattails of those that actually perform in the tech industry and took it. (Wait for it, folks! Here comes the: “I got the highest scores at ”, or “I interiewed ”, tell me how many people can say that”? defensive retorts

    What does that make me? Simply another rubbernecker that Mr. Coulter alluded to.

  • LayZ

    Dude, again, take a chill. Your defensiveness speaks volumes. I didn’t tell you off, I simply made an accurate analogy. Again, nothing wrong with being a jock sniffer. It’s working out great for Cuban and seems to be working out well for you. Nothing to be ashamed of. But, by definition it appears you are the tech version of a jock sniffer. Hell, there are a lot of well off jock sniffers. Jerry Jones. George Steinbrenner, Stuart Scott, Chris Berhman. They’ve all made out pretty well. So, take it as compliment. You saw an opportunity to ride the coattails of those that actually perform in the tech industry and took it. (Wait for it, folks! Here comes the: “I got the highest scores at ”, or “I interiewed ”, tell me how many people can say that”? defensive retorts

    What does that make me? Simply another rubbernecker that Mr. Coulter alluded to.

  • http://www.nickhodge.com/blog/ Nick Hodge

    If there is one thing I’ve learnt in the last 25 years in this industry its that there is always someone younger and smarter than you., but youth is no match for experience.

  • http://www.nickhodge.com/blog/ Nick Hodge

    If there is one thing I’ve learnt in the last 25 years in this industry its that there is always someone younger and smarter than you., but youth is no match for experience.

  • http://tech.am/ Mike Puchol

    Whoa…what a flamefest! IMHO, everyone can be a geek, and nobody has the right to call someone else a ‘fake geek’, since there will always be someone that knows a lot more about you on any subject. It’s extremely hard to be the top geek on anything

    How would Cody feel if Linus Torvalds wrote (does he have a blog btw?) about him, stating that he’s a fake geek and he doesn’t know crap because he didn’t write his own wiki software? You could be an übergeek in your mother’s mind just because you programmed her VCR…

    So, geekiness is very relative, you can be a user geek, a circuit designer geek, or a wiki geek – but you don’t get the right to unleash you bile on someone else, just because he is not a geek in your personal cloud.

    (posted using a Nokia 770, is that geeky?)

  • http://tech.am Mike Puchol

    Whoa…what a flamefest! IMHO, everyone can be a geek, and nobody has the right to call someone else a ‘fake geek’, since there will always be someone that knows a lot more about you on any subject. It’s extremely hard to be the top geek on anything

    How would Cody feel if Linus Torvalds wrote (does he have a blog btw?) about him, stating that he’s a fake geek and he doesn’t know crap because he didn’t write his own wiki software? You could be an übergeek in your mother’s mind just because you programmed her VCR…

    So, geekiness is very relative, you can be a user geek, a circuit designer geek, or a wiki geek – but you don’t get the right to unleash you bile on someone else, just because he is not a geek in your personal cloud.

    (posted using a Nokia 770, is that geeky?)

  • http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/ Robert Scoble

    >(posted using a Nokia 770, is that geeky?)

    Mike: yes!

  • http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/ Robert Scoble

    >(posted using a Nokia 770, is that geeky?)

    Mike: yes!

  • http://rss.monroe-kc.com/ James M.

    Truely!

    The fact that we are discussing this means you are a geek! I am in the same boat as you. I started out being hardcore, loading, reading, searching, researching to understand how/what something did something but there is one fact that hits you very quickly. “Either you have a hobby or you have a career” Looks like we both decided to take the career path.

    While this path is full of more compromises I am still getting all of the stuff and getting exposed to more geek than ever.

    Being 24 years old can really be easy, wait until you find the special someone, graduate or start working, have kids, mortgage, debt. You quickly learn that a hobby will only sustain you for so long and you need a career.

    Or you could continue to live in the basement?

  • http://rss.monroe-kc.com James M.

    Truely!

    The fact that we are discussing this means you are a geek! I am in the same boat as you. I started out being hardcore, loading, reading, searching, researching to understand how/what something did something but there is one fact that hits you very quickly. “Either you have a hobby or you have a career” Looks like we both decided to take the career path.

    While this path is full of more compromises I am still getting all of the stuff and getting exposed to more geek than ever.

    Being 24 years old can really be easy, wait until you find the special someone, graduate or start working, have kids, mortgage, debt. You quickly learn that a hobby will only sustain you for so long and you need a career.

    Or you could continue to live in the basement?

  • Rakesh

    Scoble,
    Are you sure Cody is not a young relative you like and this is a clever ploy to give him some traffic?

    Why exactly would you be giving weight and key strokes to Cody’s rant which is embarrassingly ill-written and very un-geeky.

    Whats going on here? Come on now…

  • Rakesh

    Scoble,
    Are you sure Cody is not a young relative you like and this is a clever ploy to give him some traffic?

    Why exactly would you be giving weight and key strokes to Cody’s rant which is embarrassingly ill-written and very un-geeky.

    Whats going on here? Come on now…

  • Jake Lockley

    Scoble, real geeks don’t scale their lives, they build better tools for managing them. That’s why real geeks don’t have maids, they rather do themselves or do without.

  • Jake Lockley

    Scoble, real geeks don’t scale their lives, they build better tools for managing them. That’s why real geeks don’t have maids, they rather do themselves or do without.

  • http://abobslife.net/blog Bob

    No geek here, though I use old phone books to raise my monitor. A little duct tape and their as solid as a brick. ;)

  • http://abobslife.net/blog Bob

    No geek here, though I use old phone books to raise my monitor. A little duct tape and their as solid as a brick. ;)

  • http://www.atp.ie/ Mary Gilmartin

    I would like to stand up for the maths-geeks, book-geeks, science-geeks and hobbist-geeks totally left out of this arguement. ^-^

  • http://www.atp.ie Mary Gilmartin

    I would like to stand up for the maths-geeks, book-geeks, science-geeks and hobbist-geeks totally left out of this arguement. ^-^

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  • http://curt.phracture.com/ Curtis Bayne

    Hey Scoble!

    If Cody doesn’t want that job, then I’d be happy to take it ;)

    My uber “skillz” involve predominantly web technology (JSP, Servlets, ASP.NET and (shudder) PHP). Oh, and, I can set up a Wiki in only THREE minutes, which makes me 3.333 (recurring) times the geek that Cody is.

    Oh and, just an offer, I can host your uber custom wordpress blog for you if you like. I’m pimping Sun Fire Opteron servers in one of the best Australian datacenters on Teir 1 Optus bandwidth. (But as you may have noticed (if you bothered to traceroute), I tend to keep my blog closer to where my readers are ;) )

    Oh and, I’m 18 years old. So clearly I’ll work for less and have a fresher skillset than that oldschool washed up *nix nerd. Lets face it, Microsoft is where the enterprise is at, no matter how deep the open source community buries it’s head in the sand.

    .NET PRIDE!

    Looking forward to Vista server – can’t wait to see the joys that IIS 7 will bring for me!

  • http://curt.phracture.com Curtis Bayne

    Hey Scoble!

    If Cody doesn’t want that job, then I’d be happy to take it ;)

    My uber “skillz” involve predominantly web technology (JSP, Servlets, ASP.NET and (shudder) PHP). Oh, and, I can set up a Wiki in only THREE minutes, which makes me 3.333 (recurring) times the geek that Cody is.

    Oh and, just an offer, I can host your uber custom wordpress blog for you if you like. I’m pimping Sun Fire Opteron servers in one of the best Australian datacenters on Teir 1 Optus bandwidth. (But as you may have noticed (if you bothered to traceroute), I tend to keep my blog closer to where my readers are ;) )

    Oh and, I’m 18 years old. So clearly I’ll work for less and have a fresher skillset than that oldschool washed up *nix nerd. Lets face it, Microsoft is where the enterprise is at, no matter how deep the open source community buries it’s head in the sand.

    .NET PRIDE!

    Looking forward to Vista server – can’t wait to see the joys that IIS 7 will bring for me!

  • http://eric-b.net/ UserName

    This is some of the dumbest crap I ever heard. I know Cody only via the Internet, and we often do not get along, never share views, etc. But why the hell “The Great Scoble,” someone rather established in this life, is going to squable with some kid from Atlanta is beyond me.
    This battle over who is a bigger geek is also childish and retarded. Just once I would like to see one of these battles in real life and not on the internet. It would be quite amusing.

  • http://eric-b.net UserName

    This is some of the dumbest crap I ever heard. I know Cody only via the Internet, and we often do not get along, never share views, etc. But why the hell “The Great Scoble,” someone rather established in this life, is going to squable with some kid from Atlanta is beyond me.
    This battle over who is a bigger geek is also childish and retarded. Just once I would like to see one of these battles in real life and not on the internet. It would be quite amusing.

  • http://www.geeks-in-route.com/ Geeks-In-Route

    I have to say I agree with Mr. Scoble. It doesn’t mean your not a true Geek if you don’t do everything yourself. It just means you are a General Geek. You have mastered the art of delegation, and as such, command other Geeks to do your bidding.

    That doesn’t make you a lesser Geek. Rather, it makes you a smarter Geek!

    I have over 2000 Geeks in 47 states that take their marching orders from me. Yet when they come to an issue that they cannot resolve, they look to me for the solutions.

    Going by Cody’s definition, they should technically be better Geeks than me, since they are out doing the Geeky work, and I should be less of a Geek, as I pay them to do the Geeky work for me.

    Fortunately for all concerned, Cody’s definition is flawed.

  • http://www.geeks-in-route.com Geeks-In-Route

    I have to say I agree with Mr. Scoble. It doesn’t mean your not a true Geek if you don’t do everything yourself. It just means you are a General Geek. You have mastered the art of delegation, and as such, command other Geeks to do your bidding.

    That doesn’t make you a lesser Geek. Rather, it makes you a smarter Geek!

    I have over 2000 Geeks in 47 states that take their marching orders from me. Yet when they come to an issue that they cannot resolve, they look to me for the solutions.

    Going by Cody’s definition, they should technically be better Geeks than me, since they are out doing the Geeky work, and I should be less of a Geek, as I pay them to do the Geeky work for me.

    Fortunately for all concerned, Cody’s definition is flawed.

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