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gtallen1187/slope_vs_starting.md

Created November 2, 2015 00:02

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A little bit of slope makes up for a lot of y-intercept
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slope_vs_starting.md

 "A little bit of slope makes up for a lot of y-intercept"

01/13/2012. From a lecture by Professor John Ousterhout at Stanford,
class CS140

    Here's today's thought for the weekend. A little bit of slope
    makes up for a lot of Y-intercept.

    [Laughter]

    [slope_vs_y]

    So at a mathematical level this is an obvious truism. You know if
    you have two lines, the red line and the blue line and the red
    line has a lower Y-intercept but a greater slope then eventually
    the red line will cross the blue line.

    And if the Y-axis is something good, depending on your definition
    of something good, then I think most people would pick the red
    trajectory over the blue trajectory (..unless you think you're
    going to die before you get to the crossing point).

    [Laughter]

    So in a mathematical sense it's kind of obvious. But I didn't
    really mean in a mathematical sense, I think this is a pretty
    good guideline for life also. What I mean is that how fast you
    learn is a lot more important than how much you know to begin
    with. So in general I say that people emphasize too much how much
    they know and not how fast they're learning.

    That's good news for all of you people because you're in Stanford
    and that means you learn really, really fast. This is a great
    advantage for you. Now let me give you some examples. The first
    example is: you shouldn't be afraid to try new things even if
    you're completely clueless about the area you're going into. No
    need to be afraid about that. As long as you learn fast you'll
    catch up and you'll be fine.

    For example I often hear conversations the first week of class
    where somebody will be bemoaning, "Oh so-and-so knows
    blah-blah-blah, how am I ever going to catch up to them?" Well,
    if you're one of the people who knows blah-blah-blah it's bad
    news for you because honestly everyone is going to catch up
    really quickly. Before you know it that advantage is going to be
    gone and if you aren't learning too you're going to be behind.

    Another example is that a lot of people get stuck in ruts in
    their lives. They realize they're in the wrong job for them. I
    have the wrong job or the wrong spouse or whatever...

    [Laughter]

    And they're afraid to go off and try something new. Often they're
    worried, I'm going to really look bad if I go..

    [Laughter]

    I'm kidding about the spouse. But, seriously people will be
    afraid to try some new thing because they're worried they'll look
    bad or will make a lot of rookie mistakes. But, I say, just go do
    it and focus on learning.

    [Laughter]

    Let me take the spouse out of the equation for now.

    [Laughter]

    Focus on the job.

    Another example is hiring. Before I came back to academia a
    couple of years ago I was out doing startups. What I noticed is
    that when people hire they are almost always hire based on
    experience. They're looking for somebody's resume trying to find
    the person who has already done the job they want them to do
    three times over. That's basically hiring based on Y-intercept.

    Personally I don't think that's a very good way to hire. The
    people who are doing the same thing over and over again often get
    burnt out and typically the reason they're doing the same thing
    over and over again is they've maxed out. They can't do anything
    more than that. And, in fact, typically what happens when you
    level off is you level off slightly above your level of
    competence. So in fact you're not actually doing the current job
    all that well.

    So what I would always hire on is based on aptitude, not on
    experience. You know, is this person ready to do the job? They
    may never have done it before and have no experience in this
    area, but are they a smart person who can figure things out? Are
    they a quick learner? And I've found that's a much better way to
    get really effective people.

    So I think this is a really interesting concept you can apply in
    a lot of different ways. And the key thing here I think is that
    slow and steady is great. You don't have to do anything heroic.
    You know the difference in slopes doesn't have to be that great
    if you just every day think about learning a little bit more and
    getting a little bit better, lots of small steps, its amazing how
    quickly you can catch up and become a real expert in the field.

    I often ask myself: have I learned one new thing today? Now you
    guys are younger and, you know, your slope is a little bit higher
    than mine and so you can learn 2 or 3 or 4 new things a day. But
    if you just think about your slope and don't worry about where
    you start out you'll end up some place nice.

    Ok, that's my weekend thought.

    [Applause]

@naomatheus
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naomatheus commented Aug 31, 2018

Very inspiring!

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@salutis
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salutis commented Dec 25, 2020

Beautiful.

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@gtallen1187
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gtallen1187 commented Dec 26, 2020 via email

Right? I loved this.
...
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***@***.**** commented on this gist. ------------------------------
Beautiful. -- You are receiving this because you authored the thread.
Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <https://
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@rajeshhazari
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rajeshhazari commented Dec 27, 2020

Very Inspiring and absolutely true, always learn something every day
related to your work, you can master it.

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@salutis
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salutis commented Dec 29, 2020

I wonder, is there a primary and/or reliable source to cite this?

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@wkasekende
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wkasekende commented Jan 6, 2021

This is awesome!

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@codingknite
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codingknite commented Sep 26, 2021

This is very nice

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@Tryptich
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Tryptich commented Oct 18, 2021

Very nice

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@philippe9
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philippe9 commented Oct 18, 2021

Interesting

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@phongnthai
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phongnthai commented Aug 29, 2022

Excellent talk!

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@DevComplex
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DevComplex commented Jan 15, 2023

This is awesome!

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@jasondotparse
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jasondotparse commented Feb 12, 2023

I wish I had read this years ago.

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