I volunteer as a mentor in a group where most mentees are recent college grads or early 20s juniors. ADHD is a perennial topic of discussion because most of them (no exaggeration) have either received a diagnosis or have self-diagnosed as ADHD.
One very common struggle I see is when they take internet advice that tells them it’s okay to offload their own struggles on to other people. Unfortunately this blog gives similar advice:
> Focus on managing how your limitations affect others rather than trying to eliminate those limitations. This means:
> Being explicitly upfront about your administrative weaknesses early in relationships
> Giving trusted contacts alternative ways to reach you when truly urgent
> Building a reputation for being aware of your limitations rather than in denial about them
This commonly translates to them adopting ADHD as part of their public persona within the company, which they believe will grant them some degree of protection from consequences.
From what I’ve observed: More often than not this provides a false sense of security. They don’t intend for it to become a free pass, but after “coming out” as ADHD they get the wrong impression that the pressure is now off.
I think they intend to continue working on becoming better at managing their struggles, but it’s really easy to let the opposite happen: Once they think their diagnosis can be used as an excuse, they relax and let their behavior slip even further.
So be careful about getting the wrong idea from this line of thinking. It is good to acknowledge your difficulties and do things like ask other people to follow up if you don’t reply in a timely manner. It is important that you own up when you’ve dropped the ball. However, none of these things should be interpreted as a free pass or a loophole that shields you from consequences. That line of thinking, in my experience, is where people get themselves in trouble.
This article hits home so precisely -- not personally but in terms of those who I've worked with in the past, and in particular the reputation bits.
It was been painful to watch, to be honest, because the impact on our team had been so acute, and it simply never got better after so much effort on the part of management, other engineers, etc.
Where I diverge with base assumptions however is that I suspect these particular people had been misdiagnosed with ADHD, were given medication, and it was the medication that led them to drop the ball. Why? Basic physiological needs were never being met, again and again. They were constantly reporting insomnia, missing meals, fatigue and all of the things you associate with stimulants being either misused or abused. Having _been there_, it was easy to spot. And I think this sort of thing is tragically common in our field.
> it's like trying to teach advanced machine learning to someone with an IQ of 100. No matter how well-intentioned the advice or how clear the potential benefits, there's a fundamental mismatch between the cognitive requirements of the task and the available cognitive machinery.
This obviously isn't core to the point OP is making, but I find it hard to believe that someone of "average" intelligence can't learn about advanced machine learning.
What is obvious is that OP is really into IQ elitism. Looking at the ‘A More Realistic Framework’ suggestions, it asks people to aim for the bare minimum.
I think it is core — the premise is that ADHD in some presentations makes basic administrative/maintenance activity difficult or impossible.
With machine learning, the concept or layman level explanation to support the application of the tech is definitely doable for the average person. But the average person won’t be able to get the math.
Folks I know with ADHD generally adapt well, with systems or coaching that they get from professionals or folks supporting them. Everyone is different, of course, and folks struggle with different things.
He’s right with the other stuff too imo. People who deliver get grace from non-core failures.
I think they are right. Advanced ML requires both IQ and career dedication. Doing say the intro YT series building yoyr own LLM and understanding and sucessfully using PyTorch data strucutres in 3 even 4 dimensional (as in an array of array of array of arrays) doing matrix algebra...
I would say this gets possible at 120 and only easy at 140 at a guess.
Anecdotally, as part of my job, I've taught ML concepts to a lot of people. I don't know if I've ever worked with anyone who was simply too "unintelligent" to grasp things. The bottleneck, as for most things in my experience, is time and motivation. In any niche of ML, there's just a lot of things to learn, particularly if you aren't starting with a particularly math-y background.
I have to constantly fight the struggle OP is describing, and one thing I’ve never tried is being upfront and honest about my shortcomings… I just get upset with myself and start writing post it notes about doing better, actions to take, and sticking them all over the place. I can’t even imagine the world where I share this about myself and it’s well received by people who, at the core, just want me to deliver a very steady stream of work they can plan for.
I was diagnosed with ADHD but I still think of myself as a lazy cunt. That probably doesn't help reputation either, I'm sure I project this belief outwards, even unintentionally. Other ADHD-afflicted individuals I've talked to about this report similar.
My neurologist has a LOTS of patients.
All of those with either Autism or ADHD / similar symptoms claim that they feel they don't get enough work done.
I start to believe that we are overly self-critical, and that the actual workers are having better ways of hiding their incompetence :D
If you felt satisfied with your productivity, why would you seek help? There's a selection bias, there. Likewise for those whose "locus of control"[1] is biased toward external factors--i.e. you ascribe lack of success to factors outside yourself.
Similarly, AFAIU, time and energy spent in self-reflection also tends to positively correlate with neuroticism--e.g. feelings of guilt and inadequacy. If you're not high on self-reflection (there's a negative correlation with extroversion), you're less likely to experience negative self-esteem.
I know ADHD correlates more strongly with some personality types than others, but by and large I believe people with ADHD (like everybody else) are spread across the spectrum along all these various axes, and it's only at some ends of certain axes that they're likely to seek assistance for themselves.
Maybe I have something like thus but admin tasks are a real challenge. Monday morning my heart wants to code and be in flow... but I know I need to plan future initatives, communicate stuff and worst of all make phone calls for personal stuff.
I volunteer as a mentor in a group where most mentees are recent college grads or early 20s juniors. ADHD is a perennial topic of discussion because most of them (no exaggeration) have either received a diagnosis or have self-diagnosed as ADHD.
One very common struggle I see is when they take internet advice that tells them it’s okay to offload their own struggles on to other people. Unfortunately this blog gives similar advice:
> Focus on managing how your limitations affect others rather than trying to eliminate those limitations. This means: > Being explicitly upfront about your administrative weaknesses early in relationships > Giving trusted contacts alternative ways to reach you when truly urgent > Building a reputation for being aware of your limitations rather than in denial about them
This commonly translates to them adopting ADHD as part of their public persona within the company, which they believe will grant them some degree of protection from consequences.
From what I’ve observed: More often than not this provides a false sense of security. They don’t intend for it to become a free pass, but after “coming out” as ADHD they get the wrong impression that the pressure is now off.
I think they intend to continue working on becoming better at managing their struggles, but it’s really easy to let the opposite happen: Once they think their diagnosis can be used as an excuse, they relax and let their behavior slip even further.
So be careful about getting the wrong idea from this line of thinking. It is good to acknowledge your difficulties and do things like ask other people to follow up if you don’t reply in a timely manner. It is important that you own up when you’ve dropped the ball. However, none of these things should be interpreted as a free pass or a loophole that shields you from consequences. That line of thinking, in my experience, is where people get themselves in trouble.
This article hits home so precisely -- not personally but in terms of those who I've worked with in the past, and in particular the reputation bits.
It was been painful to watch, to be honest, because the impact on our team had been so acute, and it simply never got better after so much effort on the part of management, other engineers, etc.
Where I diverge with base assumptions however is that I suspect these particular people had been misdiagnosed with ADHD, were given medication, and it was the medication that led them to drop the ball. Why? Basic physiological needs were never being met, again and again. They were constantly reporting insomnia, missing meals, fatigue and all of the things you associate with stimulants being either misused or abused. Having _been there_, it was easy to spot. And I think this sort of thing is tragically common in our field.
> it's like trying to teach advanced machine learning to someone with an IQ of 100. No matter how well-intentioned the advice or how clear the potential benefits, there's a fundamental mismatch between the cognitive requirements of the task and the available cognitive machinery.
This obviously isn't core to the point OP is making, but I find it hard to believe that someone of "average" intelligence can't learn about advanced machine learning.
What is obvious is that OP is really into IQ elitism. Looking at the ‘A More Realistic Framework’ suggestions, it asks people to aim for the bare minimum.
I think it is core — the premise is that ADHD in some presentations makes basic administrative/maintenance activity difficult or impossible.
With machine learning, the concept or layman level explanation to support the application of the tech is definitely doable for the average person. But the average person won’t be able to get the math.
Folks I know with ADHD generally adapt well, with systems or coaching that they get from professionals or folks supporting them. Everyone is different, of course, and folks struggle with different things.
He’s right with the other stuff too imo. People who deliver get grace from non-core failures.
Maybe if they really like math? I think there’s probably some correlation to being able to easily reason about these things and enjoyment.
So while you could teach anyone, with enough effort, they would not actually enjoy the experience.
I think they are right. Advanced ML requires both IQ and career dedication. Doing say the intro YT series building yoyr own LLM and understanding and sucessfully using PyTorch data strucutres in 3 even 4 dimensional (as in an array of array of array of arrays) doing matrix algebra...
I would say this gets possible at 120 and only easy at 140 at a guess.
Anecdotally, as part of my job, I've taught ML concepts to a lot of people. I don't know if I've ever worked with anyone who was simply too "unintelligent" to grasp things. The bottleneck, as for most things in my experience, is time and motivation. In any niche of ML, there's just a lot of things to learn, particularly if you aren't starting with a particularly math-y background.
I have to constantly fight the struggle OP is describing, and one thing I’ve never tried is being upfront and honest about my shortcomings… I just get upset with myself and start writing post it notes about doing better, actions to take, and sticking them all over the place. I can’t even imagine the world where I share this about myself and it’s well received by people who, at the core, just want me to deliver a very steady stream of work they can plan for.
I was diagnosed with ADHD but I still think of myself as a lazy cunt. That probably doesn't help reputation either, I'm sure I project this belief outwards, even unintentionally. Other ADHD-afflicted individuals I've talked to about this report similar.
My neurologist has a LOTS of patients. All of those with either Autism or ADHD / similar symptoms claim that they feel they don't get enough work done.
I start to believe that we are overly self-critical, and that the actual workers are having better ways of hiding their incompetence :D
If you felt satisfied with your productivity, why would you seek help? There's a selection bias, there. Likewise for those whose "locus of control"[1] is biased toward external factors--i.e. you ascribe lack of success to factors outside yourself.
Similarly, AFAIU, time and energy spent in self-reflection also tends to positively correlate with neuroticism--e.g. feelings of guilt and inadequacy. If you're not high on self-reflection (there's a negative correlation with extroversion), you're less likely to experience negative self-esteem.
I know ADHD correlates more strongly with some personality types than others, but by and large I believe people with ADHD (like everybody else) are spread across the spectrum along all these various axes, and it's only at some ends of certain axes that they're likely to seek assistance for themselves.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locus_of_control
Not working with too many people better than me has been terrible for my learning, but amazing for my self-confidence.
There's is sort of a natural efficiency in forgetting some things.
Sort of a sieve of things that weren't worth doing anyways.
Maybe I have something like thus but admin tasks are a real challenge. Monday morning my heart wants to code and be in flow... but I know I need to plan future initatives, communicate stuff and worst of all make phone calls for personal stuff.