An old essay called The Tyranny of the Extroverts resurfaced in my feed reader the other day. It got me thinking about some of the talented and shy developers and musicians I have had the privilege to work with over the years. These are the kind of people who trouble getting past an HR interview because of shyness or awkwardness. It scares me to think that a general gatekeeper might throw a potentially valuable candidate out the door before anyone else on the tech team would have a chance to talk to them because s/he seemed “weird” or “too quiet” or was unable to engage in tedious small talk involving American team sports. I consider myself to be a core introvert who can pass as a quasi-extrovert. It is impossible to be a manager without conjuring some style of extraversion from somewhere. My soul though remains allied to the introvert. The most difficult skill I have ever developed- the piano, was something I worked on and still continue to work on mostly alone. My great uncle was a renowned writer. He wrote alone for hours every day. When a talented software developer tells me s/he wants some time alone in a secret wi-fi treehouse bunker to think something through and bang out an idea or two I am inclined to make that happen.