I'm glad this conversation played out productively and respectfully - another reason why I enjoy this site.
For what it's worth, I initially misunderstood your statement that "being focused and having lots of random interests are mutually exclusive" in the same way that the other commenter did, as implying that someone with a life outside of work cannot be a good employee. I see now that you were stressing the "_lots of random_" part of the statement (that is - if you have 20 different "passions" in a month, you cannot truly be said to be focused on any of them) - in this case, I agree!
> a very senior guy [...] famously once rejected the team's top choice because the guy had claimed to be fluent in a particular (natural) language on his CV, and then turned out to be anything but...
Wow - an extreme, but defensible, position! Integrity is important.
For what it's worth, I initially misunderstood your statement that "being focused and having lots of random interests are mutually exclusive" in the same way that the other commenter did, as implying that someone with a life outside of work cannot be a good employee. I see now that you were stressing the "_lots of random_" part of the statement (that is - if you have 20 different "passions" in a month, you cannot truly be said to be focused on any of them) - in this case, I agree!
> a very senior guy [...] famously once rejected the team's top choice because the guy had claimed to be fluent in a particular (natural) language on his CV, and then turned out to be anything but...
Wow - an extreme, but defensible, position! Integrity is important.
> if you do MMA, they may be more mixed
Pun intentional? ;)