[HN Gopher] Do What Makes the Best Story
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Do What Makes the Best Story
Author : tosh
Score : 52 points
Date : 2021-03-05 17:26 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (amasad.me)
(TXT) w3m dump (amasad.me)
| neonological wrote:
| The best stories are fiction. From books, to movies, to resumes.
| kodah wrote:
| Some important context that I think that's missing here is that
| Amjad is the founder of repl.it
|
| My participation in the start up ecosystem has been strictly as
| an engineer and advisor. What I've observed of founders and early
| leaders over the years is that they don't live in reality and
| this often by necessity. What people see from the outside is
| these strong, pervasive, bulletproof personalities that are
| leading, changing our way of thinking, and changing our way of
| life - often in a meta-sense very rapidly. These people, like
| anyone else, doubt themselves and are quite often doubted by a
| majority of people they come into contact with. Ordinary people
| in the face of such doubt and opposition would likely fold to
| this feedback; thinking something along the lines of, "The
| majority of people tell me this is a fruitless idea" and move on
| with some momentary pause. Start up founders can't afford such a
| luxury. Peoples money, jobs, and futures lie in their hands and
| their continued interest of chasing this dream. _Something_ has
| to fuel that mentality and when I read a piece like this it
| speaks to me in the way I observed what those founders had to
| tell themselves every day just to get through the day.
|
| One of my mentors, who also came from the startup ecosystem,
| recently reflected, "Great engineers deal in reality because
| reality can be defined, measured, and acted upon but perception
| matters too. That is the struggle of every great engineer." Amjad
| isn't wrong, he's just a founder, and he deals in reality but
| also has to dabble in perception.
| [deleted]
| picodguyo wrote:
| >Notice how the most successful startups in the world all have
| remarkable genesis stories.
|
| I like this article and philosophy, but I had to scoff at this
| point. I've seen too many startups invent their remarkable
| genesis story to create a convenient narrative. The truth is
| usually mundane and largely/entirely money-driven.
| Fricken wrote:
| All we did was evolve from apes, but for much of that we were
| telling ourselves that we were in fact diving beings of light
| temporarily ensconed in corporeal flesh. History suggests that
| it's a winning formula.
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| "There are good stories and there are good decisions"
|
| I think most people want to be somewhere in the middle. Unless
| you have a very high risk tolerance or are trying to be a writer
| you probably don't want to optimize for stories. If you wanted to
| optimize for good decisions you'd probably be an actuary and
| marry a woman you met at church.
|
| Edit: I am genuinely not sure why this is being downvoted.
| lupire wrote:
| The weird stereotyping isn't appreciated.
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| Fair enough.
| timwaagh wrote:
| not a bad approach, just make sure its not the 'how did he die'
| kind of story.
| iujjkfjdkkdkf wrote:
| I see this advice as mostly mapping to "get out side of your
| comfort zone", "do something everyday that scares you", "the
| definition of insanity is doing the same thing every day and
| expecting something to change", "you miss 100% of the shots you
| don't take" and so on. Overall it's good advice, only by trying
| new things and stirring the pot are we likely to get somewhere
| better.
| questionforya wrote:
| I don't necessarily agree with this advice but I have a question
| that's related.
|
| How do you get really good at telling stories?
|
| I've done a lot of cool stuff in my life but usually don't do
| into much detail because when I tell them it usually falls flat.
| pingpongchef wrote:
| Somewhat good advice, but with a caveat. While a good narrative
| is generally helpful, results still matter. Case in point, a team
| that ships quickly but also has crunch time can craft a story
| about heroic devs staying long hours to ship a product, but this
| is not better than doing things right the first time to avoid
| crunch
| secfirstmd wrote:
| This article is total startup mumbo jumbo navel gazing. The
| start-up cultural thing about making the leaders tell their story
| and make that a whole part of the package has become tedious.
|
| The best story? Oh please, many people work in things were they
| acquire incredible stories and for various reasons (security,
| privacy, humbleness etc.) will never be able to tell anyone.
|
| But you know what, that's fine, once they are happy with what
| they have done themselves. Do what makes you happy.
| rebelshrug wrote:
| I can see that story ending like this: "... and that's how our
| startup failed."
| bombcar wrote:
| There's something very Terry Pratchett about this - and there's
| some truth to it, too.
|
| I think we can reduce it to "be willing to take risks but don't
| be insanely stupid."
|
| Which doesn't sound as amazing, to be honest.
| mettamage wrote:
| I'll play along with the author. I haven't made my mind up
| whether I think the author is right, but I'll play along, because
| from that perspective I have a couple of things to note.
|
| -----
|
| > So next time you're faced with a tough decision, consider the
| path that makes a more interesting story. If it turned out to be
| the wrong decision to have made, you'd at least be fun at dinner
| parties.
|
| The issue is that a good story enhances the propagation quality
| of a particular set of concepts that relate back to you in this
| case. I daresay that the quicker you can make your story into a
| meme, the higher that propagation quality will go -- attracting
| all kinds of success for you in the process. There is however one
| huge huge issue with this. It is devoid of ethics!
|
| By that I am not saying it's evil. But it does mean it can be
| used for evil purposes, and it has (e.g. Enron, vaporware
| companies). Moreover, if you do not decide about the ethics of a
| story, then you might risk that you're secretly going to lead a
| very narcisistic life. It might be successful, but it ultimately
| might not be the best you can do or the best you can be. I hear
| you saying: "and you're supposed to tell what it is? You? A
| random guy on the internet?"
|
| I'm going to tell you what it is.
|
| :)
|
| Next to optimizing for story also optimize for: bringing the
| future present _and_ optimizing for humanity as a whole. From
| this perspective I think Elon Musk could be considered a role
| model. His story is much cooler than any rock star has or also
| much cooler than Tim Ferriss his story. Why? Because those
| stories don 't add that much to humanity (Tim did have a couple
| of things, but Elon is disrupting that part with Neuralink).
| Stories like Bill Gates eliminating whatever disease ails the
| planet is awesome, that he made Microsoft is a fun story, but
| it's peanuts compared to his work of setting up a team that's
| playing for a demi god.
|
| Amazing stories have altruism towards humanity, without it things
| can still sound cool but it will make us blindsided to simply
| things that sound cool. Eventually that's not the best you can
| be.
|
| -----
|
| Alright, that was me playing along. I'm still not sure what I
| think of this concept, or my own opinion/story on the matter. I
| feel the thinking is too heuristic-based, like something isn't
| fully thought through. I can't put my finger on it. But it was
| fun to play along, and from that perspective I'd vouch for more
| altruism towards humanity and sci-fi awesomeness to be
| incorporated into anyone's life story!
| indigochill wrote:
| I've been revisiting The Lord of The Rings lately, and
| something that sticks out to me is that I'm especially enjoying
| digging into the background lore. The reason being it all
| fundamentally revolves around "one theme to rule them all": the
| nature of good and evil.
|
| To me, this thematic cohesion is what makes LotR a good story.
| By the same token, when we look at stories of famous historical
| figures (both those we consider ethical and those we don't),
| the stories tend to distill some sort of theme from a person's
| life.
|
| By all means, it's good to be altruistic. But I think this is a
| further distillation of what a good story is, and how it
| pertains to the stories we tell about our history.
| alexashka wrote:
| I wonder if there'll come a time when people graduate to thinking
| in tones of grey, rather than trying to boil life down to fortune
| cookies, or if it's just limited by people's brains.
|
| Take this for instance:
|
| > Self storytelling is so essential for people that one of the
| most effective techniques for treating depression and anxiety
| boils down to "tell yourself better stories."
|
| This is trivially false _and_ the author doesn 't seem to feel
| any need to substantiate this wild claim. He's stuck in fortune
| cookie world where you can just say shit, as long as it
| feels/sounds good.
|
| Hopefully the internet will expose fortune cookie thinkers to
| people who actually use their brains for more than talking out of
| their ass and it'll be a rude wake-up call. Of course brainless
| people are on a holy crusade to ban speech that doesn't agree
| with their idiotic ideology, so we'll see who wins out in the
| end. If history is any indication - idiotic beliefs lose out in
| the long run, but they sure can destroy a whole lot of lives for
| centuries in the process.
| throwaway98797 wrote:
| Sounds like fortune cookie thinking works for some people.
|
| Given your angry? tone it seems like your better way of
| thinking isn't working. Unless you like sounding the way you
| do.
| zcw100 wrote:
| I like the way he sounds. Sometimes anger is the correct
| response.
| aarreedd wrote:
| > Self storytelling is so essential for people that one of the
| most effective techniques for treating depression and anxiety
| boils down to "tell yourself better stories."
|
| This sounds a lot like what Jordan Peterson calls "Self
| Authoring" https://www.selfauthoring.com/
| [deleted]
| titzer wrote:
| It's not bad to have a few good stories at the end. But the
| article is bullshit for the Instagram crowd. Sometimes you gotta
| work your ass off just to get the thing done, story be damned.
| brundolf wrote:
| I wish I could truncate the last two paragraphs; I roll my eyes
| when seemingly everything on this website gets reframed as advice
| for startup founders (I know, I know, the site is literally run
| by an incubator)
|
| But I think the fundamental point about the human condition (we
| are both subjects and writers of our own stories, and taking hold
| of one's own story is key to finding happiness and fulfillment)
| is very true and important
| exolymph wrote:
| To be fair, the writer is the CEO of Replit, a hot up-and-
| coming startup (cliche description, I know, but it's true). So
| it's understandable that the subject is on his mind, no?
| breck wrote:
| My friends uncle said to us when we were teens "boys, I know boys
| like to do stupid things. Just make sure you don't hurt anyone
| and only break the law if it's really funny so the judge will
| laugh and go easy on you."
|
| Another one I heard recently that I like: "If you ain't having
| fun building it your users ain't gonna have fun using it."
| strictnein wrote:
| > "only break the law if it's really funny so the judge will
| laugh and go easy on you."
|
| A friend did just that. The judge read the arresting officer's
| description of the event, making sure to clarify all the really
| dumb/embarrassing stuff he did. Everyone in the courtroom
| laughed at my friend (including the judge), and he ended up
| just having to pay a fine + court fees.
| I_Byte wrote:
| If you don't mind, could you explain what happened?
| dfee wrote:
| That's about it. This is a "you must've been there to
| believe it". Enjoy the anecdote and move on.
| I_Byte wrote:
| I did enjoy the anecdote. If the original commenter is
| comfortable sharing the story I would also enjoy reading
| that as well.
| strictnein wrote:
| Without going into full details:
|
| You shouldn't poop in the road at 1am and then stop cars by
| standing naked in the street about a mile from the police
| station. The fun time ended when the next car he stopped
| was a police car.
| I_Byte wrote:
| That's pretty funny! Thank you for sharing!
| neonate wrote:
| "Without going into full details"
| breck wrote:
| Thank you for not going into full details. ;)
| Graffur wrote:
| This strikes me as a teenager attitude - trying to look cool. If
| your stories are great because you go out of your way to try make
| those stories.. it's not that interesting to other people.
|
| Being boring is seen as bad to teenagers but really, it's not
| that bad.
| aparks517 wrote:
| I don't build my life around it, but I try to sometimes do
| things that would have tickled my teenage self. I did sell the
| loud, blue-with-green-flames 1988 Fiero that all the kids in
| the neighborhood waved at. I still try to do cool stuff and
| scare myself from time to time.
|
| I agree it's not bad to be boring... but it's not the only
| thing that /I/ want to be.
| Graffur wrote:
| That seems reasonable. I implied it was a bad thing to be
| like a teenager but maybe that can be good too at times.
| aparks517 wrote:
| Fair enough. I think it just depends on what you're going
| for :)
| I_Byte wrote:
| As a teenager myself I experience a lot of external pressure
| from my peers, adults, and even the education system to not be
| boring.
|
| My friends don't want to hang out with someone who is boring.
| Adults don't want to talk to a kid who can't show that they are
| mature and can't provide experiences to back that up. Colleges
| aren't going to admit a potential student who can't an tell an
| interesting story.
|
| There is too much incentive to not be boring in my current
| environment.
| notsureaboutpg wrote:
| That's why it's a teenager attitude. Teenagers are building
| themselves, everything is about them mostly. (nothing wrong
| with that, it's the perfect time and place for that
| attitude).
|
| But once you're older, you want a companion, kids, strong
| ties to family and friends, and then you realize it doesn't
| really super matter that you're boring or not to the people
| who hold the keys to your future (admissions officers,
| teachers, professors, etc.), just that 5-10 people close to
| you aren't bored by you.
| brundolf wrote:
| What's important is that your criteria is based on what _you_
| think is interesting or worthwhile (or by your paraphrase,
| "cool"), so that you personally are happy with your own story.
| The mistake teenagers make is trying to optimize for the
| definitions that _others_ have for those things.
|
| (I say "mistake", but really it's just the natural consequence
| of not yet having a clear sense of self, which is perfectly
| normal at that age)
| burntoutfire wrote:
| > If your stories are great because you go out of your way to
| try make those stories.. it's not that interesting to other
| people.
|
| It reminded me of something I've read about the attitude among
| Math students at Oxford some decades ago - you were only cool
| if you we've shown effortless brilliance. If, on the other
| hard, you were working very hard to bring your math skills to a
| remarkable level, you were basically a rube.
| ascales wrote:
| This is kinda an analog for doing the uncomfortable thing.
| There's a certain amount of security in doing what's comfortable,
| and if you can find happiness in that I think that's great. It's
| all relative. I think it's less "be cool at dinner parties" and
| more being happy with the path you've taken through life.
| weeblewobble wrote:
| I really dislike this advice, I think it encourages people to be
| shallow and superficial. This quote from Parks and Recreation
| captures it nicely
|
| Ron (sitting down next to Leslie at the Senior's Ball):
| Everything ok, Knope?
|
| Leslie: My boyfriend is a lawyer, and he's smart and interesting
| and there are a lot of things about him I really like. But he
| acted like a real jerk today. I don't know, it's something about
| the way he treats people or something.
|
| Ron: He's a tourist. He vacations in people's lives, takes
| pictures puts them in his scrapbook and moves on. All he's
| interested in are stories.
|
| Leslie: Ha.
|
| Ron: Basically, Leslie, he's selfish, and you're not, and that's
| why you don't like him.
| carabiner wrote:
| Just don't epic. An epic is usually the result of some short
| sightedness or mistake.
| superbcarrot wrote:
| > If it turned out to be the wrong decision to have made, you'd
| at least be fun at dinner parties.
|
| Or you'll regret it for the rest of your life.
|
| This advice only works for easily reversible decisions.
| [deleted]
| notsureaboutpg wrote:
| Yeah, the failed startup founders here probably don't
| appreciate this approach from a guy whose every venture wound
| up golden.
| zemvpferreira wrote:
| Hear hear. Don't risk throwing your life away to try and look
| cool to other people.
| Tarsul wrote:
| "you'd at least be fun at dinner parties." could also be read
| as "you'd be laughed at at dinner parties" (well, maybe not
| even invited anymore). But I don't like to end my posting on
| such a sour note... The more often you take risks the less
| sensitive you are to failing. That's good.
| bregma wrote:
| It has taken me many decades, but I finally settled on this a my
| main approach to life.
|
| When it's all over, all you will have left is the story. Make
| sure it's a good one.
| nbzso wrote:
| Success != Story | The article oversimplification is not
| acceptable for me.:)
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