Hacker Mythologies and Mismanagement by Betsy Haibel | Model View Culture:

But these beliefs about who we are are actually about what makes us feel special.

In other words, software engineers are humans.

As humans, we lie to ourselves. We lie to ourselves about who we are. (We’re smarter than you.) We lie to ourselves about what we do. (We are changing the world, one photo-sharing app at a time.) We lie to ourselves about how best to do it. (In caves.)

These lies pile atop each other and twine into intractable knots. At best, this hampers our ability to do work well. At worst, it creates destructive or abusive work environments.