02.《黑客与画家》The Hacker and the Painter

Today we are talking about The Hacker and the Painter.
You may not easily guess what the book is about just by the title. The book is actually about how one should develop, and see, one's strengths.
To understand this theme, we have to understand the title of the book first. What is a hacker? The English word for hacker is Hack, which literally means to chop, the "chop" of chopping down a tree. Because in this group of people, he solves a problem like cutting down a big tree, this tree cutter is called Hacker, which translates to hacker. Nowadays we usually think of hackers as a group of people who use computers to commit crimes, but that's not what they meant in the first place, they meant a group of people who were very clever and smart. For example, if you used mathematics to solve an emotional problem that no one else could do, we would call you a hacker. Hacking skills, that is, writing. The average person finds writing difficult and has nothing to write about, thinking they are doing it because they don't have enough knowledge base and don't have the goods in their stomach, when in essence they haven't mastered the correct writing process. What is the correct writing process? It is divided into six steps: choosing a topic, collecting information, organising information, thinking deeply, setting a framework, and writing. When it comes to writing, the essay has already taken shape and all you need to do is to put it on paper. Writing is just the last part of the process.
To borrow from Steven Pinker, writing is taking a web of thinking and expressing it in a tree structure, in a linear way. You can imagine a kitten that takes a section of a ball of wool and starts pulling on it, and as it pulls, the round ball of wool becomes a long piece of wool, so you have to create at least that web before you put pen to paper.
About Graham, the author of this book, we all know that Graham is a famous investor in Silicon Valley. However, you may not necessarily know that he has a circle of his own in Silicon Valley called the YC Circle. What is the YC circle? It is a business incubation camp run by Graham in Silicon Valley. All the people who can join the YC circle are young entrepreneurs with great potential. And the reason they want to join the YC Circle is that Graham doesn't just provide them with funding, he also provides them with protection.
For example, Martinez, the author of the book "Chaos Monkeys", had received help from Graham. At the time, he poached two of the company's most powerful technical bullies to start a business with himself. The former boss was particularly angry. It just so happened that one of the two techies was an immigrant and only held a residence passport. Note that this passport is not valid for employment in the US. As a result, their ex-boss caught on to this weakness and threatened them. Say, either hurry up and dissolve the company or wait to be deported.
Just when everyone was at a loss, Graham stepped in. He didn't even go to this former boss, but went straight to the investors behind this former boss. He told them, "Tell this guy to stop, and if he doesn't, I'll have the whole YC community boycott you, and no one will accept your investment. When these people heard that, they were scared and accepted Graham's terms immediately.
You see, isn't Graham's way of solving the problem a bit surprising? He bypassed the lawsuit straight away and got to the source of the problem. Perhaps that counts as another hacking technique.
译文：
今天我们要说的是《黑客与画家》。
光听书名你可能不容易猜到这本书的内容。这本书其实说的是，一个人应该怎么培养，并且看待自己的优势。
要想理解这个主题，我们得先理解这本书的书名。什么是黑客？黑客英文单词是Hack，它的字面意思是砍的意思，就是砍树的那个“砍”。因为在这帮人来看，他解决一个问题就像砍倒一棵大树，这个砍树的人就叫 Hacker ，翻译过来就是黑客。我们现在通常把黑客理解成一群利用计算机犯罪的这么一帮人，但是其实最初不是这个意思，最初黑客就是指做事非常巧妙和聪明的这么一帮人。比如说你用数学的方法解决了一个感情问题，一般人都做不到，我们会称你为黑客。黑客技巧，也就是写作。一般人觉得写作难，没有东西可以写，以为自己是因为知识储备不够，肚子里没有货，其实本质上都是没有掌握正确的写作流程。正确的写作流程什么样？把它分为6步：选题、收集资料、整理资料、深度思考、设置框架、动笔。最后到动笔的时候，其实文章的雏形都已经出来，只需要把他们落在纸面上就行了。写作只是最后一个环节。
借用史蒂芬平克的说法，写作是把网状的思考，用树状的结构，用线性的方式表达出来，你可以想象一只小猫，牵着一个毛线球的一段开始拉扯，拉着拉着，这个圆形的毛线球就变成了一根长长的毛线，所以你在动笔之前，至少要制造出那一张网才行。
关于这本书的作者格雷厄姆，我们都知道，格雷厄姆是硅谷有名的投资人。但是，你可能未必知道，他在硅谷，还有一个自己的圈子，叫YC圈。什么叫YC圈？这是格雷厄姆在硅谷操办的创业孵化营。能加入YC圈的，全都是非常有潜力的年轻创业人。而且大家之所以愿意加入YC圈，是因为格雷厄姆不光为他们提供资金，还提供保护。
比如，《混乱的猴子》这本书的作者马丁内斯，就曾经接受过格雷厄姆的帮助。当时，他挖走了公司最厉害的两个技术大牛跟自己创业。前老板特别生气。正巧，这两个技术大牛里，有一个人是移民，只持有居住护照。注意，这个护照是不能在美国就业的。结果，他们的前老板就抓准这个软肋，威胁他们。说，要不赶紧把公司解散，要不就等着被遣返吧。
就在大家一筹莫展的时候，格雷厄姆出面了。他都没找这个前老板，而是直接找到了这个前老板背后的投资人。跟他们说，让这个家伙消停点，假如不照做，我就让整个YC圈抵制你们，谁也不会接受你们的投资。这些人一听，当时就吓怕了，马上接受了格雷厄姆的条件。
你看，格雷厄姆解决问题的方式，是不是有点出人意料？他直接绕过了这场官司，找到了问题的源头。也许，这也算另一种黑客技术吧。