The Unix Beard

Everyone has seen one of these, but in order to define the UNIX beard one might have to ask themselves, “How on Earth did UNIX and the BEARD originate into a worldwide phenomenon or personality type in IT?”.  Ok, maybe YOU aren’t asking yourself but I certainly am, especially since I am very interested in different personality types in IT and also how they pertain to culture withen an organization.

So, I present to you one of the oldest and recognized personality types.  That Dude with the Unix Beard.  If he were to even go to the beach, he would be the one sitting on a chair, probably have one of the portable tent things to block the sun from his obviously been indoors too much skin. Maybe a cross between ZZ-Top and Milton from Office Space.  Yes, that Milton…with a beard….Get it?  OK, now that you have that visualized, imagine that same dude reading a book about how Mosaic revolutionized the Modern Day Web Browser, or how Netscape Killed Gopher.

See, over the past few years I have found that the UNIX beard guy is a generational thing and this personality type, at least in recent years has become almost somewhat of a rare species.  They are still out there, but they seem to be more and more No-It-All-College-Grads, Rockstar and Uber Introvert personality types in IT (more on those in subsequent blog postings).

The original UNIX beard comes from the inventors themselves. Ken Thompson and Dennis Richie:

A few people have dared to copy them, but these guys are heros to many nerds and geeks.  In fact, they are kinda my heros.  If it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t be typing this blog and probably still be using a Rolodex and who knows what my career would be.

I hope you enjoyed this little post.  I would like to elaborate a bit more on the Unix Beard personality type, but I will save that for a followup sometime in the future.  Or maybe when I publish my book?

@sangeek