[HN Gopher] How to Be Successful (2019)
___________________________________________________________________
How to Be Successful (2019)
Author : Brajeshwar
Score : 209 points
Date : 2022-05-21 08:39 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.samaltman.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.samaltman.com)
| swayvil wrote:
| I think that the only way for me to achieve material security is
| to impress a bunch of tin-eared monkeys.
|
| And the only way to impress a bunch of tin-eared monkeys is to
| either produce a hill of bananas or to spend too much of my
| precious time working in a banana factory.
|
| Both seem bad.
| codingdave wrote:
| Note that "success" is defined at the start of the article -
| "make a huge amount of money or to create something important"
|
| If you agree with that definition, this article makes sense. But
| that is by no means a universal definition of success, and anyone
| should feel free to choose different goals in life.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| He presents a really narrow view of success. It makes me sad
| that his viewpoint includes nothing about helping other people
| or making improvements bigger than the individual and their
| bank account.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| > make a huge amount of money or to create something important
|
| That doesn't mean the advice is not good. Change the telos a
| little and it mostly still applies.
|
| It's possible to make something important and not get rich. I'm
| happy having done that and live a (economically) modest life.
| The most important yet contentious point, I believe, is this
| one:
|
| > Be internally driven
|
| My feeling is that true freethinkers with the courage of their
| convictions are less than 1%. I also believe that for most of
| us, it's actually something that holds one back from wealth.
|
| I won't quote it chapter and verse, but what I believe the
| author is describing in the last part of this article is not an
| _entrepreneur per se_ , but an _" activist"_. Or rather, what
| has come to be labelled in this age of tedious conformity and
| wannabeism as "activism" - that being the sincere desire to
| change the world for the better. And all the better if that can
| be separated from the distraction of ego and personal wealth.
|
| The unfortunate requirement of modernity is that money is
| necessary for action. Words alone may make a difference, but
| money helps. Since most so-called "successful" people are
| merely building fortunes to enable their real success, the
| _telos_ or vision of their life, the distraction of making
| money as a step can be excused.
|
| But I would add one last point to the article to make it more
| rounded.
|
| 14. Don't lose sight of your original, real motive.
|
| Along the way many an ambitious person is overwhelmed by their
| "success", be it money, fame, or power. The cautionary
| narrative archetype is of course Tony Montana (Scarface). They
| forget their essential self-hood and the seed from their
| childhood that really drives them.
| shafyy wrote:
| > _My feeling is that true freethinkers with the courage of
| their convictions are less than 1%_
|
| This statement assumes that there's such a thing as free will
| and original thought. I know that this is a completely
| different, philosophical and metaphysical discussion, but
| still fundamental to the question of "how to be successful?"
| CrazyStat wrote:
| If you don't believe in free will then there's no reason to
| discuss how to be successful.
|
| Any `how to` discussion presumes free will as a fundamental
| axiom.
| iratewizard wrote:
| Not necessarily. An automaton without free will can
| consume and become the hundreds of bits and pieces of
| philosophies that are laid out in front of them. You
| might imagine the automaton to be like Kirby in the
| original Nintendo games. Never intending to become the
| laser Kirby, but instead being pulled by the invisible
| hand of fate (user input) and becoming a crude mockery of
| the things that cross its path.
|
| Note that I don't believe any of this to be true, but
| it's an interesting thought experiment.
| coastflow wrote:
| The definition of freethinking that was used leans more
| towards "the ability to resist social pressures" than a
| consideration of the philosophical debate on free will,
| even if it is plausible that life is deterministic from a
| philosophical perspective [0].
|
| For practical purposes, it's best not to worry about
| determinism so much, and adopt the belief of compatibilism
| [1], which many institutions in society--such as the courts
| and legislature in Western countries--effective assume (if
| not free will).
|
| The existence of original thought also matters less than
| the ability to effectively execute a plan to create a
| useful good or service, for the purpose of career
| development.
|
| [0] Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
| https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/determinism-causal/
|
| [1] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/
| RosanaAnaDana wrote:
| No I think you completely misunderstand the point of the
| statement. Its not about that the ideas or thoughts are
| truly free or original. That part is irrelevant, and if
| anything, almost assuredly false: even the most successful
| will admit to this.
|
| No no, the second part of the statement, "the courage of
| their convictions", that is the rare part.
|
| New ideas are common and most are just laying around in the
| ether to be picked up or put down at ones leisure. Only
| novices or fools think they're the first person to pick up
| a given lane of reason.
|
| Its only the true imbeciles who decide to jump off a cliff
| and risk it all on an internal belief that they've 'got it
| right' with whatever they're doing that make it. There are
| plenty of cowards with ideas who never make it. Those
| aren't the people we're talking about.
|
| The demonstrative proof is that everyone is free to take an
| idea and try and fly with it by jumping off a cliff. The
| rarity is that almost no one does it. The selection bias is
| that we only acknowledge those who do fly and not the pile
| of bodies at the bottom of the cliff.
| WalterBright wrote:
| And the ones who do risk it all and succeed are then
| derided with "you didn't build that" from people who
| didn't risk anything.
| puranjay wrote:
| as I've grown older, I've started redefining my idea of
| "success" and "achievement".
|
| To me, achievement is anything that you genuinely had to work
| hard towards, make sacrifices for, and overcome your own
| prejudices and biases.
|
| Making XZY money every year can be an achievement if making
| money is simply not something that comes naturally to you, or
| something that you grew up understanding anything about. If you
| grew up in a business-focused environment where you were taught
| about money (and how to make it), you'd have an arguably easier
| time making money than someone who grew up with deadbeat
| parents, addicts, or a family that never understood money or
| careers.
|
| At a personal level, my biggest achievement has been my ability
| to build a loving family and healthy relationships. These don't
| come naturally to me. I've had to overcome so many bad habits,
| biases, beliefs and sheer genetic inertia to get to that point.
| It's my proudest achievement and I'll value it more than any
| business I create or book I write.
| jrm4 wrote:
| I'm glad the author separated these two, because they're
| frequently (though not always) opposites.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Yes, the article says right up front what it's about.
|
| > anyone should feel free to choose different goals in life.
|
| I don't know why anyone would feel otherwise.
| Victerius wrote:
| annyeonghada wrote:
| >No one (or certainly no one not conventionally successful)
| will ever laud your success as a teacher making $45,000
|
| Well, I've always loved being a teacher. I started tutoring
| weaker students in my last year of high school. I really
| couldn't care less that someone "conventionally successful"
| will not laud me for not destroying my soul in a high
| earning, high stress, high burnout environment. I will take
| the lauds of my students, thanks.
| koheripbal wrote:
| I find little value in these semantic arguments.
| elefanten wrote:
| And yet semantics like that drive massive influence over
| civilization -- it builds into the rhetoric and narratives
| people affix their instincts upon.
|
| So, there's value in observing them.
| bambax wrote:
| Yet definitions are paramount. If we don't know what we are
| talking about, there is no point in talking.
| yakshaving_jgt wrote:
| But we _do_ know what we are talking about, because it was
| clarified in the article.
| [deleted]
| jeltz wrote:
| Agreed. If an article defines a word clearly and does not
| pick meanings in an intentionally missleading way I do not
| see the value in talking semantics. The definition used in
| this article is common enough even of it is not my personal
| definition of what I think being successful is.
| mirekrusin wrote:
| As they say the richest person is the one who needs the least.
|
| But I'd add - it's wise when read by wise person and stupid
| when read by stupid person.
| spa3thyb wrote:
| (2019)
|
| Previous discussion, Jan 24, 2019, 299 comments:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18992914
| unityByFreedom wrote:
| I wonder if he still feels as strongly about basic income. That
| seems to me like something that would just increase inflation
| and not solve any problems, while at the same time cutting
| funding for other programs designed to help people in more
| specific ways. Like, I understand the aim, to enrich people and
| give them free time. Everyone deserves that. But that doesn't
| work if your new found money is worth less and you still need
| to work two jobs to get by. The markets, aka people, will
| continue reassessing the value of things regardless of your
| requests for them to stop.
|
| Looks like he hasn't said anything about it since.
|
| https://www.google.com/search?q=basic+income+site%3Ahttps%3A...
| prawn wrote:
| I'm on my phone in a tent so can't search as easily as normal
| but I'm pretty sure he's referenced UBI positively on Twitter
| in the last few weeks.
| deepGem wrote:
| "Self-belief alone is not sufficient--you also have to be able to
| convince other people of what you believe."
|
| This is the true test of self belief. In the corporate world this
| is why many ideas don't take off or take off in a half baked
| manner. Just like self belief is visible, the absence of it is
| also visible. I can quite figure out when someone is proposing an
| idea or wants to make something work but they themselves don't
| believe in it. The corporate world is littered with such people
| and leaders as well.
|
| My boss put it very well 'The moment you think what's in it for
| me, you've lost the plot". This question does not arise in anyone
| who has this utmost self belief in what they do.
| Bubble_Pop_22 wrote:
| amelius wrote:
| > Self-belief alone is not sufficient
|
| Self-belief can also be a problem when it turns into
| overconfidence. See Pinky and the Brain.
| darkerside wrote:
| What I've learned is that it's not about self belief. It's
| about believing in something bigger than you. Solutions can
| have holes poked in them, but real problems are eternal. They
| can only be solved (or ignored).
| sgt101 wrote:
| Missing words: wife, husband, partner, friend, child, mother,
| father, children.
|
| Even accepting the success criterial of "get rich" or "be
| important" some of the above are going to be fundamental for 99%
| of those who manage to reach the end line.
|
| This article contains bad and harmful advice that will hurt many
| people.
| oliv__ wrote:
| To be fair, I've seen a lot of people who are married out of a
| fear of being alone and not necessarily because they were crazy
| in love with their spouse.
|
| I don't think "wife" or "husband" alone is enough of a keyword
| to fill up your life and be meaningful. So many "successful"
| dysfunctional families out there
| sgt101 wrote:
| Yeah - but your few sentances above indicate you have
| perspective and insight to contribute that is completely
| missing from the advice in the OP.
| leroman wrote:
| Have lots of money to begin with.
|
| This is what I believe in from my experience in starting
| businesses. Much of the "stomach" to take risks and taking them
| multiple times depends on how "lucky" you were to begin with.
| People around you will see risk if you don't have money or
| opportunity if you do, so expect their support accordingly.
| koheripbal wrote:
| OP should list these defeatist attitudes as something to
| eliminate if you want to be successful.
| annyeonghada wrote:
| If by defeatist attitude it is meant acknowledging the
| reality that some people have a head start or immense amount
| of luck than I'm not only a defeatist, I am a Christian
| during the 31th December 999, 11:59:59PM waiting for the
| apocalypse.
|
| I have a family relative, one of the most lazy people in the
| world, that some day found herself rich. How? Hard work?
| Business value? Education? No, she discovered she had a
| grandaunt and that she would be the heiress of three
| 300000EUR houses, plus half a million euro. The scene seemed
| out of a 90s love comedy, if only it weren't tragic.
| eastbound wrote:
| Starting with money is a bane. (I know, you'll find the
| worst-of-the-worst example of poverty just to be right,
| like "What if you are in the middle of nothing and have
| unrelated skills", but hear me). People who start with
| money have way-too-high costs and are incapable of
| optimizing the business. They run inefficient companies.
|
| So, if you start with money, you end up like WeWork. You
| may renew your money but nobody likes you.
| WalterBright wrote:
| What's tragic about it?
| woojoo666 wrote:
| It's a trend that's well supported afaik [1]. Whether or not
| that trend manifests inside you as a defeatist attitude is a
| personal choice. But at the same time, whatever attitude you
| have isn't going to magically get rid of whatever
| disadvantages you were born into, so simply dismissing it a
| defeatist attitude is counterproductive.
|
| The danger is ignoring the tendency of egocentric bias in
| these articles[2]. Successful people assume that their values
| and ethics are what led them to success, when that may not be
| true. Though that then bears the question: who do we listen
| to for advice on success? Rich people? Scientific studies
| [3]?
|
| A thread I read on a previous hackernews post (coincidentally
| about Paul Graham, another founder of ycombinator) perhaps
| puts these ideas in better words than I [4]
|
| [1]: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.3102/00346543075
| 0034...
|
| [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LopI4YeC4I
|
| [3]: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2332858419
| 8577...
|
| [4]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27682107
| WalterBright wrote:
| > whatever attitude you have isn't going to magically get
| rid of whatever disadvantages you were born into
|
| Yes, it is. I see it all the time. Scott Adams wrote a book
| about it entitled "Loser Think".
|
| BTW, _everybody_ is born with disadvantages. But everyone
| also has advantages. Like being born in the US (instead of,
| say, Venezuela) is a big advantage.
| [deleted]
| amelius wrote:
| > The biggest economic misunderstanding of my childhood was that
| people got rich from high salaries. Though there are some
| exceptions--entertainers for example --almost no one in the
| history of the Forbes list has gotten there with a salary.
|
| The problem with owning things is that it is usually zero-sum. A
| thing can only owned by one person. This means that owning things
| reduces the opportunities of other people.
|
| And here is also the biggest problem with the entire article: if
| everybody applied this advice, would everybody be successful?
| Probably not.
|
| Perhaps I'm overly cynical, but I think a better title would be:
| "how to rig the system to your advantage".
| DantesKite wrote:
| If that was true, GDP would never increase and we'd all still
| be eating raw fish in caves, the average total of everybody's
| net worth being a few dates and some shiny sticks.
|
| > if everybody applied this advice, would everybody be
| successful?
|
| He literally says it would not work for everyone as it requires
| a baseline level of success already achieved.
| dahart wrote:
| > The problem with owning things is that it is usually zero-
| sum.
|
| Can you give some examples? Certainly this is party true with
| real-estate in some large cities, but there are lots of places
| where land is available and real-estate isn't yet zero-sum. I'm
| having a hard time seeing other examples, so I'm wondering why
| you said "usually". I would assume that Sam is also referring
| to software, where ownership means owning all parts of
| production, or means owning the rights to IP & creative work.
| In the software startup and in the creative art sense, I don't
| think ownership is zero-sum at all. Ownership there is more
| about having control over the income and expenses of all parts
| of your business, and avoid rental traps. In general, this does
| seem like good sound advice to me.
|
| > Perhaps I'm overly cynical but I think a better title would
| be: "how to rig the system to your advantage".
|
| That does seem a bit cynical when the majority of points were
| things like 'work really hard' and 'believe in yourself' and
| 'think independently'. It's hard to even find something I would
| consider 'rigging the system' - like owning things and having a
| network are the only two, but those are pretty generic and more
| centered on what I should do more than affecting the system.
|
| Not that there's anything wrong with being cynical. ;) We can't
| all be billionaires, and using the Forbes list as the example
| of success is questionable and gives real reason to be cynical.
| I'm wondering what your list of how to be successful looks
| like, and what makes it different?
| pmichaud wrote:
| It's only zero sum if there is only a preset amount of things
| to own, but in fact you can own something that never existed
| before you owned it.
| belter wrote:
| It's a zero sum because the persons and financial resources
| buying what you have to sell is a finite number. If they buy
| from me they probably wont buy from you.
|
| This is independent of the relative merits of the products we
| are both selling. Maybe I forced my products to be shown in
| the major television channels, because I also own the
| television channels and you dont.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > It's a zero sum because the persons and financial
| resources buying what you have to sell is a finite number.
|
| Nope. It's obviously false by inspection - the GDP grows
| most years.
|
| At the micro level, suppose I give Picasso $25 worth of art
| supplies. He then creates a painting with it worth
| $1,000,000. This painting becomes a valuable asset that he
| can then use as collateral for a loan. Banks loan money by
| _creating_ it.
|
| I.e. $999,975.00 magically appeared!
|
| I wish the schools would teach this stuff. In my
| experience, very very few people understand this.
| belter wrote:
| That is called leverage and only exists because the
| government prints money. You are now seeing the results
| of that unfettered activity.
|
| The bank did not create money, the bank loaned money up
| to the percentage the government allowed it to leverage
| itself...
|
| "The Fed's Tools for Influencing the Economy": https://ww
| w.investopedia.com/articles/economics/08/monetary-...
|
| "Reserve Requirements:
|
| The Federal Reserve also has the ability to adjust banks'
| reserve requirements, which determines the level of
| reserves a bank must hold in comparison to specified
| deposit liabilities. Based on the required reserve ratio,
| the bank must hold a percentage of the specified deposits
| in vault cash or deposits with the Federal Reserve
| banks..."
|
| "...By adjusting the reserve ratios applied to depository
| institutions, the Fed can effectively increase or
| decrease the amount these facilities can lend. For
| example, if the reserve requirement is 5% and the bank
| receives a deposit of $500, it can lend out $475 of the
| deposit as it is only required to hold $25, or 5%. If the
| reserve ratio is increased, the bank is left with less
| money to lend out on each dollar deposited..."
|
| The monetary value of Picasso work, is tied to the
| competition between the ones who have a part of the
| current money supply, and how much they want a Picasso.
| If Picasso could produce 10,000 paintings per day, so
| that each person in planet could have one, we would not
| be talking about millions of dollars per painting.
|
| So no money is being created from nothing. It's leverage
| plus application of constrain theory. The main constraint
| being the amount of money printed and the leverage on the
| assets.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > That is called leverage and only exists because the
| government prints money.
|
| This existed long before the government took over the
| banks and decoupled it from gold. It's called "fractional
| reserve banking".
|
| > The bank did not create money
|
| It absolutely did. It's how fractional reserve banking
| works. The "fetters" are the collateral backing up the
| loan. The money is destroyed when the loan gets paid
| back. I know it sounds like magic, but it isn't.
| belter wrote:
| No bank in the world will loan you money without
| collateral. Now using your example of a loan based on a
| Picasso painting, the value of the painting is correlated
| to the money supply.
|
| If Picasso decided to go live in Zimbabwe and decided
| never to sell his paintings to other than Zimbabwe
| nationals, paying on the local dollar, that would limit
| the loan the bank can collateralize with the asset, in
| other words the painting.
|
| The bank does not create money.
|
| "Fractional Reserve Banking: The Myth of Creation of
| Money" :
|
| https://medium.com/politicoid/fractional-reserve-banking-
| the...
| WalterBright wrote:
| > No bank in the world will loan you money without
| collateral. Now using your example of a loan based on a
| Picasso painting, the value of the painting is correlated
| to the money supply.
|
| That's what I wrote. The value of the painting was
| _created_ by the painter, and money was _created_ to back
| it. (And that money is destroyed when the loan is repaid,
| until the next time the painting is used as collateral.)
|
| This is how the money supply (in free banking) naturally
| rises to match the asset wealth in the economy.
|
| > The bank does not create money.
|
| Of course it does. Your linked article is simply wrong.
| Trying to equate it to gold bars is a grossly wrong
| equivalence.
| belter wrote:
| If Fractional Reserve Banking would create money, then it
| would not have a problem when all the depositors go at
| the same time to claim their money at the bank. :-)
|
| As the previously mentioned article states, the bank does
| not create money, it increases the Velocity of Money.
|
| "Banks do not create money out of thin air":
| https://voxeu.org/article/banks-do-not-create-money-out-
| thin...
| WalterBright wrote:
| > all the depositors go at the same time to claim their
| money at the bank.
|
| If the bank did not create money, and simply loaned out
| the deposits, the depositors would still not find their
| money there when they run to get it.
|
| Banks loan out a _multiple_ of the deposits, meaning they
| create money.
|
| Your theory that FRB doesn't create money is a fringe
| one, which should give some pause. What should also give
| pause is the gold example, which doesn't apply, and the
| false notion that bank collapses from runs only happen
| when they use FRB.
| belter wrote:
| "The Money Multiplier and the Myth that Just Won't
| Die..."
|
| https://www.pragcap.com/the-money-multiplier-and-the-
| myth-th...
|
| "Banking and the Laughable 'Money Multiplier' Myth"
|
| https://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2016/06/29/bank
| ing...
| solveit wrote:
| New persons are born every day and financial resources are
| a bookkeeping tool. If I make something new and you make
| something new then we can trade our products and we both
| gained without anyone losing out. It is not true to say the
| world is zero-sum.
| belter wrote:
| The Federal Reserve who controls the M1 supply would like
| a word with you.:-)
|
| There is a limited amount of goods and services you can
| sell to the inhabitants of a planet with a population of
| 7.7 Billion.
|
| What if the planet would have only a population of 7?
| Each person owning one of the 7 continents? Let's say the
| persons owning Africa and the person owning North
| America, due to some meteorological disaster, and
| unfortunate investments, had to sell their respective
| continents to the hotshot owning Europe?
|
| If the money supply is infinite, then has no value. Now
| from the finite money supply in the world who is going to
| gain the most?
| karpierz wrote:
| The wealth of the world per capita grows at an exponential,
| but fixed rate (~3%, plus or minus). I don't think there's a
| way to get around that, so that 3% is zero-sum. You can argue
| that the rate that our productivity can grow yearly is
| unbounded, but I have yet to see evidence.
| samatman wrote:
| You can only describe a growing system as zero-sum by
| abusing the definition of the term.
| karpierz wrote:
| Why? Zero-sum just refers to the allocation of a bounded
| quantity; growth is a quantity. If the derivative of a
| value is bounded, then the delta of that value over time
| is bounded.
|
| If one new oil well is discovered every year, then you
| can say that who own that growth is zero-sum. You can
| also say that the amount anyone can increase their wealth
| via oil wells by is zero-sum.
|
| Sum over the growth of capital over the year, and you
| find that the allocation of the ownership of growth is
| also zero-sum. And so are the proceeds of that yearly
| growth.
|
| If your claim that the growth of the world's productivity
| on a yearly basis is unbounded, then sure, zero-sum isn't
| an applicable term.
|
| If your claim is that you can generate growth without
| hampering the growth of others; that's true to a point.
| Someone needs to sweep the floors and take out the trash.
| You can make robots do it, but those robots need to be
| made and maintained by someone. Someone needs to make
| food as you do it. Someone is on "robot design duty" and
| someone is on "farming duty". The person on "farming
| duty" can't stop without someone coming in to replace
| them.
|
| But I haven't been able to see any evidence of that claim
| being true.
| samatman wrote:
| > _owning things is that it is usually zero-sum_
|
| The only thing I can think of to which this applies is
| collectables.
|
| Land? No. There is an aspect of land ownership which is zero
| sum, but if all you want is land, it's always for sale, and the
| value of a given plot can be improved with labor and
| investment. The land the Empire State Building sits on would be
| very valuable just sitting on Manhattan Island, but is even
| more valuable with an iconic skyscraper on it.
|
| Businesses? Absolutely not, they can be created for modest
| amounts of money at any time.
|
| "Real capital" like equipment? Clearly not, every purchase is
| presumably profitable to the seller, meaning they get enough
| money to make another one for the next customer in line.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > would everybody be successful? Probably not.
|
| Yes, everyone can be successful. It is not zero-sum. Someone
| else's success is not at your expense.
|
| Though there are some endeavors that are deliberately set up to
| be zero-sum. Like the Olympics. Only the fastest wins a gold.
| But note that this is a completely artificial constraint. Real
| life in a free market society is not like that at all.
| [deleted]
| Layke1123 wrote:
| I wonder if this list applied in 1800 would have been applied to
| the concept of slavery. If so, what does that tell you about it's
| ethical value?
| marban wrote:
| Too many of us have been fried by hustle culture but if you read
| HN along with a coffee and have food on the table, along with
| someone you can trust your life, you're already pretty much in
| the realm of success. But thanks Sam for projecting your
| definition of a liveable life.
|
| And here's the gist of it all: Manage to survive long enough for
| luck to go your way.
| political12345 wrote:
| The problem with these articles is that they tell you the 'what'
| but not the how. I would argue everyone knows the 'what' but the
| 'how' is not really possible explain, otherwise everyone would be
| an Elon Musk. So it's implicit. So cool story, but i don't think
| it will help anyone
| Rezwoodly wrote:
| How trite
| gjvc wrote:
| stick around
| Rezwoodly wrote:
| Yes George, I do that from time to time.
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| This is hinging on the assumption that there is a how. You can
| do everything a successful person does and still fail
| spectacularly -- many people aiming for success do. It isn't
| like baking cookies where you are more or less guaranteed a
| result if you do the correct steps.
| chrisweekly wrote:
| Yeah, that's the TLDR for Ben Horowitz's "The Hard Thing
| About Hard Things" -- there is no recipe.
| hackernewds wrote:
| Also hinges on the assumption that Elon Musk is someone that
| one should aspire to emulate.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Mathematically most people can't be as successful as the say
| top 0.01% even if they all tried their ass off and followed
| every famous rich person essay to the letter. There is a lot
| of people not trying sure, but alot that are. Check out the
| next burnout Tell HN.
| WalterBright wrote:
| One thing he missed is something Scott Adams says. Do not have
| goals, have systems. For example, having a goal of reaching some
| level of fitness is not nearly as effective as having a system of
| incorporating exercise into your daily activities.
|
| For example, there's the popular P90X program to get fit in 90
| days. So you get fit in 90 days. Then what? Stop exercising, and
| the fitness will evaporate like water on an Arizona sidewalk.
|
| For another, if you want to be a successful writer, have a system
| of writing every day rather than some specific goal. And so on.
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| Systems never worked for me. I sort of lucked in to everything
| I did.
|
| Periods of intense focus seemed to dramatically increase how
| lucky I got, though. I don't think it was coincidence.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I don't think that was a coincidence, either. You worked at
| making your luck and made it possible for luck to find you.
|
| For example, if you want to get a better job in the tech
| industry, go to a tech conference where companies wanting to
| hire will be.
|
| (The real reason for most tech conferences is its a
| recruiting tool.)
|
| Besides, if you play your guitar every day, I can't imagine
| how you'd fail to get better at it.
| bachmeier wrote:
| In case you aren't aware of the background of the author: He went
| to Stanford and was President of Y Combinator at the time he
| wrote this.
|
| If you feel as though you could feed a bunch of VC advice into a
| database and have your ML algorithm generate something similar to
| this post, you're right. If you don't subscribe to the philosophy
| that success coincides with doing things that make VCs richer
| (with a small chance of benefits for yourself too) there's not
| much in there for you.
| beanlog wrote:
| Every time there's a post giving advice on making money or
| entrepeurship, the majority HN response is "but success is mostly
| luck" + "you need not want this kind of success". But when
| there's a post on, say, how to win at poker, people don't feel
| this need to bring up these points, even though they still apply
| at least as much. Somehow we're unable to accept the concept of
| picking a game and playing it when the game is getting rich or
| making an impact. I suppose it's because this game is so culture
| dominating that it affects those who don't play it too, as it
| makes everyone feel like they're supposed to be playing it, and
| resisting requires extra effort.
|
| I guess this is fine and inevitable. But it makes me wonder where
| to go to find focused quality discourse about entrepreneurship /
| getting rich if not HN.
| [deleted]
| nicholast wrote:
| The funny thing is that entrepreneurship doesn't even have to
| require dropping out of school. A three month summer break is
| easily enough time to start digging into a niche and validating
| the market. It probably won't get to sustainability, but by the
| end of a summer of focus you may at least know if there is
| something there worth pursuing. A better investment of time than
| backpacking across Europe.
| hardware2win wrote:
| I would say that backpacking across a few countries is very
| good life lesson
| christophilus wrote:
| > A better investment of time than backpacking across Europe.
|
| For some definition of "better". I'd personally go with
| backpacking at this stage of my life and what I currently
| value.
| rimeice wrote:
| My version of backpacking across Europe is what inspired me to
| start my own business when I returned home. A business I've
| been running for 5 years now. My eyes were opened to
| alternative life and career paths by the extraordinary people I
| met along the way. Had I stayed in my bubble after university I
| would likely have gone down the corp route like almost all of
| my peers.
| burntoutfire wrote:
| It will be interesting to see what happens to YCombinator and
| other unicorn-focused VC in the era where tons of money is no
| longer printed and pumped into stocks every year. In the past
| decade, lots of VC's profits came from faux-unicorn piramid
| schemes such as Uber, and there's a good chance it won't be
| possible to pull off the same trick in the coming years.
| simonswords82 wrote:
| Careful what you take as gospel for your own life. There is no
| right or wrong answer to this question... Especially if the
| answer being offered up is from someone who has failed their way
| to success.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| _> I've observed thousands of founders and thought a lot about
| what it takes to make a huge amount of money or to create
| something important. Usually, people start off wanting the former
| and end up wanting the latter._
|
| I'm not rich. I've done important stuff, that has almost
| certainly saved lives, and is being used daily, by thousands,
| around the world. I'll never get much credit for it, and never
| made a dime (in fact, it cost me thousands, out of my own
| pocket).
|
| I have to work on projects for no pay, because folks don't think
| my skills are worth paying for.
|
| I feel that I am quite successful.
| nlitened wrote:
| As an aside, sir, I'd like to share my feelings here. For some
| reason, your username stands out for me, so I get to notice
| your comments here often in the topics that I am interested in.
| And I always enjoy your perspective and wisdom, and appreciate
| what you write. Sorry for this off-topic, I've just found an
| opportunity to share this.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Thanks so much!
|
| I know that my outlook is a bit orthogonal to the zeitgeist
| of this community, but I love tech, and love people.
|
| I don't think we should be forced to choose between them.
| koheripbal wrote:
| And in the spirit of OP's article, what do you think makes you
| successful?
|
| What differentiates you from other people who are not
| successful?
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I enjoy what I do. I live humbly, and plan for the long game.
| I like helping others.
|
| It really is that simple.
| belter wrote:
| I bet you are a happier man than some billionaires we all
| know.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| In some cases, but I have known pretty happy
| billionaires.
|
| Being happy is being satisfied with what we have. If we
| have what we want, we tend to be happy.
| sgt101 wrote:
| Most people would agree with you. It is very surprising
| when you manage to give ordinary people a voice what they
| actually articulate as fair and proper and successful.
|
| I remember being involved in running the set up for a major
| program (very early phase, pre funding but the program
| eventually burned PSbillions of investment and took 20k +
| folk to deliver - I had been long sidelined by then). We
| ran stakeholder workshops to create definitions of the
| mission and of success for the people who would be doing
| the hard yards. I brought representatives in from the field
| and from the lower management; their verdict on what the
| programme was for and who should get what was _light years_
| from the accepted C-suite wisdom.
|
| Our media parrots that money talks, and the monied classes
| fervently believe it, but that is still not the wisdom of
| people on the ground.
|
| But who cares about them, eh?
| jef_leppard wrote:
| Not really a fan of these listicles of boxes to check to get
| successful. That said there is one really great gem in there:
|
| "You don't want to be in a career where people who have been
| doing it for two years can be as effective as people who have
| been doing it for twenty"
|
| ^ that is very good advice.
| sidcool wrote:
| I agree with most points in the article. But it has a narrow
| definition of success, very limited to the Silicon valley, may be
| the US. It is applicable to a very small population.
| alberth wrote:
| 299 comments (original HN post)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18992914
| DantesKite wrote:
| I like how every time there's a post about being successful, no
| matter how many caveats and carefully worded it is, a bunch of
| defeatist, cynical, bitter, and jaded commentators instinctively
| react and misread what is said.
| makach wrote:
| also * luck * investors with money * location location location
| (western population is on easy mode) * detachment
| k__ wrote:
| I just read the compound part and it has literally no actionable
| advice.
|
| It's like all the talk product/market fit "You will notice when
| it happens"
|
| ....okay?
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Having watched a famous Steve Jobs speech I have decided
| success is not being a billionaire. It is doing stuff you love.
| Just aim for that. That might be in a corporate job or you
| might need to start a business.
| k__ wrote:
| This advice also just reads good.
|
| In todays world, many people live with messed up dopamine
| receptors. And if you never had parents that really taught
| you crucial things, you're basically LARPing all your life--
| emulating other peoples behavior without really understanding
| the "why?".
|
| If you constantly getting your "hit" from social media and
| junk food "doing stuff you love" is anything but obvious.
| matwood wrote:
| Every person who is already rich likes to say do what you
| love. That's great advice once you're financially set, but
| until then you need to find something you can tolerate that
| makes money.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Yeah I didn't give that enough nuance. I should have said
| do what you love to the extent that it can make you a
| living. The novel writer works as a technical author. I
| wanted to write games for the Acorn Electron when I grew
| up. Writing Typescript for web applications ain't a bad
| second.
| yetihehe wrote:
| > find something you can tolerate that makes money.
|
| That has different answers for different people. I've had
| this conversation several times:
|
| - Them: "You work hard? Try working as a mechanic/builder".
|
| - Would you like to change with me?
|
| - Nah, I couldn't keep sitting 8h doing mundane office work
| day after day.
|
| I'm a programmer, but I also helped build a building so I
| know what is hard physical work. It typically gives more
| satisfaction than programming, but programming pays better.
| papito wrote:
| Well, at least the author did not suggest a specific morning
| routine.
|
| As the others said, taking serial risks is a _luxury_. I did not
| have that luxury coming from a family on wellfare. I _had_ to
| finish high school with honors, I _had_ to go to college, I _had_
| to graduate, I _had_ to find a job, and I _had_ to pay my first
| rent.
|
| There was no messing around with a startup in my parents' garage.
| Didn't have a garage. Didn't even have a computer while the other
| kids did. People describe garages as a rags to riches story.
| Nope. If you can do that, you are already ahead. Stop bragging
| about starting out in your garage.
|
| Here is what it's all about. THERE IS NO FORMULA. Is success a
| product of pure luck. No. Is it a product of hard, non-stop work.
| Also no.
|
| The truth is in the middle, and the middle itself is highly
| individual. Life is about tilting the scales of luck in your
| favor with hard work, but there is absolutely zero guarantee.
|
| Some people just walk into riches with minimal effort. Why? They
| were at the right place, right time, of the right age, enough
| means, and enough ability to take risk.
|
| Others just have a nuclear motor up their ass, like Masa Son, who
| never stops until the macaroni sticks to the wall. Masa famously
| set out to produce one business idea per day. Is he a brilliant
| business mind? He has made some shockingly bad decisions, and
| have you _seen_ his slide decks and the 300-year-long plan? The
| man is pure hard work, but if you read his story, a lot of stars
| had to align. Entrepreneurial parents, relatives in the US when
| he went to school here, etc. What 's a smart poor kid in Peru to
| do?
|
| And the rest of us? We try to work hard, we do our best every
| day. Will it work? No one knows. The variables are too many, and
| the luck factor will take it in either direction.
|
| If I ever make it, I promise you, HN, I will not be talking about
| what YOU should be doing in order to become successful, and I
| will never start a podcast about how to live the "correct" life
| in order to make it. Tim Ferriss, I am looking at you, buddy.
| nlitened wrote:
| > If I ever make it, I promise you, HN, I will not be talking
| about what YOU should be doing in order to become successful,
| and I will never start a podcast about how to live the
| "correct" life in order to make it.
|
| What _will_ you do when you make it though?
|
| Edit: will people in comments consider you flawless by then?
| bruce343434 wrote:
| > what will he do
|
| Who cares? I hope he enjoys it.
| yetihehe wrote:
| > It's not entirely clear to me why working hard has become a Bad
| Thing in certain parts of the US
|
| Because it depends on who is getting richer from your hard work.
| If you work hard in a corpo and you have constant salary
| independent of your work results, your boss will have a ferrari
| sooner. If you work hard on your own project, _you_ will reap the
| benefits.
| mrweasel wrote:
| Another comment point out: "For a very specific definition of
| "success."". Some might read the article as "this is how you
| make a lot of money". I read it as how to be
| appreciated/valued/be indispensable. Neither is necessarily
| wrong, but you correct that if you goal is to be richer,
| monetarily, then the setting in which you apply these advise
| will make a large difference.
|
| In a corporate setting, the advice on: Get good at sales, Be
| hard to compete with and Build a network, will get you much
| further than working hard. Working hard in large corporation
| will in many case only grind you down, if don't manage to make
| your work visible. It's not only in the US, other countries
| don't view working hard so favorably anymore, and I think it's
| due to it being tied more directly to stress, rather than
| success. Hard work alone will make a person stressed, but does
| not guarantee success, selling yourself and networking will be
| much more likely to result in success if applied alone.
|
| Overall it is good advice, as a whole, perhaps more so if just
| want be happy in you profession, feel secure and have a sense
| of belonging.
| ilteris wrote:
| >In a corporate setting, the advice on: Get good at sales, Be
| hard to compete with and Build a network, will get you much
| further than working hard. Working hard in large corporation
| will in many case only grind you down, if don't manage to
| make your work visible. It's not only in the US, other
| countries don't view working hard so favorably anymore, and I
| think it's due to it being tied more directly to stress,
| rather than success. Hard work alone will make a person
| stressed, but does not guarantee success, selling yourself
| and networking will be much more likely to result in success
| if applied alone.
|
| >Overall it is good advice, as a whole, perhaps more so if
| just want be happy in you profession, feel secure and have a
| sense of belonging.
|
| Something is missing in that formula because this is exactly
| why we have the toxic culture we have in a big corp today
| killing creativity, promotion first attitude, and all kinds
| of politics. It's pretty screwed up. People are not robots. I
| hate these pieces of advice that treat people as soldiers
| with no emotions. If you want to go A you have to do B. then
| it will work. Yeah right...
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| Not sure why you are getting downvotes, this is a sound take.
|
| I'll springboard off it: what are some good ways to network?
| I'm 40 and have been ignoring these skills for too long,
| opting for the "hard work" path, and seeing the limits of
| that. Confs? Open source? Talks? Twitter (please no)?
| mrweasel wrote:
| Honestly I just like talking to people, so I automatically
| build a network.
|
| The best why however seems to be helpful. Solving a minor
| issue for someone in accounting may seem like nothing, but
| it's important to them and they will remember you.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| networking to consciously grow your network is about as
| useful as growing your followers so... you have a lot of
| followers.
|
| What can you offer? what do you want to share? what are
| your passions? What brings you great joy?
|
| Define some of these and then look for people who share
| your values. "do things that don't scale" as in find a
| handful of people and reach out directly. small focused
| networks are superior to large dispersed networks
| rajin444 wrote:
| The political ruling class of the US sold out their people for
| short term gain (starting around the 60's or so). Working hard
| for a high trust, tight knight community is likely the ideal
| state for most people. The solution isn't retreating further
| and isolating yourself - the solution is figuring out how we
| can be a cohesive society again.
| MrLeap wrote:
| This is a challenge but I'm trying. I have a long and sordid
| history of overworking on things that did not give back
| anywhere near what I put in. I'm testing the thesis that it
| was because of power dynamics and ownership.
|
| I'm a year and a half into a project that I've worked on
| fullest time with max grit that I own completely. If it
| succeeds even a little I plan to build 3-5 dome houses on our
| rural land for indie gamedevs and artists to work on their
| personal projects for a year without rent. We'll only ask for
| a tiny percentage of revenue sharing just to try and make the
| thing self sustaining. A little forest moon base for dreams.
|
| I hope by not being parasitic and actually just helping
| people do the thing I have been struggling to death to do, it
| would move the needle a few atoms towards what you're
| describing.
|
| My greatest fear is that the system is so efficient that some
| how helping others is impossible, and I'll figure out why
| only when I'm dry. It's hard to imagine, but I haven't seen
| much help from the waterworld captains while I've been
| cobbling together my raft of flotsam. Maybe it's because
| sailing is hard and storms are kind of scary no matter how
| big the boat. Few grow old enough to find the time.
|
| Feel free to email me, especially if you're among that rare
| resplendent type.
| kilroy123 wrote:
| I'd argue the early 70s.
|
| See:
|
| https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
| civilized wrote:
| I find these charts interesting but don't buy the tie to
| ending Breton Woods. Society was just as capable of extreme
| inequality under a gold standard. See the Gilded Age.
|
| Globalization and the IT revolution also happened in the
| same time frame, and have contributed to inequality via
| much more obvious mechanisms.
| kilroy123 wrote:
| This is very long but it goes into a well thought-out
| theory for why and how this happened.
|
| Very interesting stuff. Well worth a watch.
|
| https://youtu.be/1gEz__sMVaY
| civilized wrote:
| Anything other than one person's video? Videos take a
| long time to watch, and longer still to ferret out and
| check out cited evidence for the claims (if there is
| any).
| shafyy wrote:
| Also because there's more to life than work. In fact, for most
| work should just be an means to an end. This doesn't mean that
| you work should be boring or unimportant, quite the opposite in
| fact.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| Are we working to live or living to work?
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| It's possible for certain addicts, like myself, to have an
| amazing quality of life living to work to live. Total
| alienation, just work like fuck. Workaholic, only with an
| actual substance acting as workahol.
|
| So what I would do when I was both well-stocked as far as
| the medicine cabinet, and in addition getting paid a job
| where I ended up well ahead, was just work.
|
| I'd show up to work like three times a week because the
| commute was long and very dangerous, biking on highways and
| such, til I found the terrible bike path I was meant to
| use. Still riding on roads a lot.
|
| But when I got to work? Just plow through it. No shifts,
| none of that, no. Like yeah socialize at meals with the
| company, but just work. Just work. Pit stops, so like I
| needed dex as energy, really high octane fuel, because
| there was no other way to support those work trances. All
| the energy was in my skeletal muscle and brain. And I did a
| great job at everything on the first try.
|
| Plus I had very productive behaviors as an employee, so I
| had a few things I was doing in parallel, solving them like
| puzzles, then when I got stumped I'd switch puzzle. Then
| when I had three questions together I'd tell my boss, so as
| not to be interrupting all the time, and figured them all
| out and got back to work. This happened on a like 2 hour
| basis. But mostly it was not based on hours, but on
| milestones. Like if it took fifteen hours to get to the
| next milestone, and I showed up at 10 AM, that just meant
| I'd be done at 2:30 AM (with lunch and pit stops, talking
| to people on the hallway).
|
| And I ended up with more and more money! Then, what I did
| is I went to the City and partied. I was generally the life
| of the party among the men. I met so many beautiful women,
| hot women, cute women, mysterious women, flawed women (my
| favorite), of so many nationalities, like I was going to
| meet two Afghan women even. It was great. Very romantic.
|
| It was much better than before, instead of work to live and
| live to work it was work at a loss for an ungrateful
| Chilean negrero, get nagged about the clock, negotiating a
| pay cut from under the local minimum wage to even less,
| constantly, deal with a doctor who also wanted to starve me
| of medication, and feed bad habits like smoking and coca-
| cola which were an inferior substitute to the medication on
| shortage.
|
| Work to live and live to work, hey at least you live and if
| you like the work!
| solveit wrote:
| A corollary of "13. Be Internally Driven" would be that you
| should find work that is not just an instrument for
| supporting your life, but a goal that is meaningful in
| itself.
|
| That is, you should live (at least partially) to work, and
| your work should be worth (part of your) life.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Thats what he goes on to say in a kind if way
| verisimi wrote:
| I'll add a couple.
|
| #0 Be given lots of money to start with.
|
| #14 Start telling everyone else what they need to do, that you
| didn't.
| Bubble_Pop_22 wrote:
| md_ wrote:
| For a very specific definition of "success."
| jason0597 wrote:
| > It's not entirely clear to me why working hard has become a Bad
| Thing in certain parts of the US
|
| Because working hard is not a guarantee to a successful material
| life.
|
| https://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/2020-edelman-tr...
|
| Success in life is mostly a function of starting conditions, i.e.
| where you're born and how rich your parents are. I know he
| mentions the US, but please let's not discount the billions of
| people around the globe who will never amount to anything no
| matter how hard they work. I was lucky enough to leave Greece
| soon after it was destroyed by the Economic Crisis, but not
| everyone was.
|
| A lot of it comes down to luck too. Let's not idolise the people
| who got successful and keep repeating the same points over and
| over again of "work hard" and "networking", we've heard this
| before so many times. What about the people who worked hard and
| networked and still failed? I'd rather listen to them.
|
| Finally, some people become great musicians, great inspirational
| mothers, absolutely incredible teachers, yet they get paid
| pennies. If I had to name successful people I've met in my life I
| would certainly put at the top my teachers in school who slogged
| through so much BS to deliver the best teaching to the children.
| People with lots of money are very down my list.
| CPLX wrote:
| 14. Become part of the transnational establishment power
| structure that runs global commerce and arms trading.
|
| https://www.marketwatch.com/story/photos-from-one-of-the-mos...
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| A willful, bold, internally driven, independent thinker with
| (almost) too much self-belief who is focused on "sales" and
| believes extreme people get extreme results.
|
| The world is full of individuals like this who fail to create
| something of value and importance. Not one point here focuses on
| building people and leveraging the power of a team to accomplish
| something great. There's lots of ways to get rich, but they're
| not all equal.
| nathias wrote:
| I think success is a side effect of networking, everything else
| comes down to a tool for networking, this is why people not
| capable of networking (myself included) can never be successful.
| api wrote:
| Networking is necessary but not sufficient (unless you are a
| con artist or a bullshitter), and networking can be very
| broadly defined to include things other than schmoozing.
| Pushing open source code that gets attention is networking.
| Contributing to projects is networking. Creating stuff
| independently that people like is networking even if they never
| directly interact with you. Networking just means communicating
| with other people _in any way_ so as to make them aware of your
| existence and that you can do something of value to them.
| Bubble_Pop_22 wrote:
| Networking is just like investing in the stock market.
|
| It's the action that your body does , but both are based off
| the mental task of predicting.
|
| Predicting social , economic and technological trends at the
| macro level is no different than predicting the reaction of a
| person you are talking to at the micro level.
|
| And you constantly change your position on an idea or a topic
| and you can also venture into a different topic just as you
| would when you go long/short on the stock market, or when you
| close your position in General Electric to open one in Costco.
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| > I am deeply aware of the fact that I personally would not be
| where I am if I weren't born incredibly lucky.
|
| It's a pity that Sam's comment above was missing from the
| original post, and was added after this discussion on HN. It
| should have been point #1.
| sudhirj wrote:
| It's covered pretty clearly in the post, in the point about
| establishing a baseline first through privilege or effort. I
| don't think it's necessary to ask which method(s) the author
| used/had.
| dennis_jeeves1 wrote:
| >> I am deeply aware of the fact that I personally would not be
| where I am if I weren't born incredibly lucky.
|
| >It's a pity that Sam's comment above was missing from the
| original post, and was added after this discussion on HN. It
| should have been point #1
|
| Which translate into the following advice: choose your parents
| wisely.
| WalterBright wrote:
| People often say this as a form of virtue signalling. Whether
| they believe it or not is another matter entirely.
|
| Successful people make their own luck, and spend a lot of
| effort making it easy for luck to find them.
|
| For example, if you never leave your basement, you're unlikely
| to get lucky finding a life partner.
| papito wrote:
| The Chinese say "luck is the combination of hard work and
| opportunity". It requires both. There are limitless scenarios
| in which the same type of hard work will give you a
| completely different result, if the opportunity never comes.
|
| This is why I am so annoyed by the Left and the Right
| simplistic view of this.
|
| The Left: "You are rich because your are privileged!"
|
| The Right: "You are poor because you are not working hard
| enough!"
|
| Oh, how do I hate both.
| belter wrote:
| Research seems to indicate successful persons,
| underestimate the role luck had in their success.
|
| "Is Success Luck or Hard Work?":
| https://youtu.be/3LopI4YeC4I
| WalterBright wrote:
| The details are luck, but the overall arch is much less
| so. For example, if you:
|
| 1. stay in school
|
| 2. don't do drugs
|
| 3. don't do crimes
|
| your odds of being "lucky" in life rise considerably.
| belter wrote:
| Its fair to say, most of the recommended practices, were
| applied both by every single successful entrepreneur but also
| every founder who saw their startup fail.
|
| The problem of these types of recommendations, like work hard,
| have self-confidence, think independently, is that they are
| condition necessary but not sufficient for startup success.
|
| It's similar to recommendations on how to make a cake: Make
| sure the eggs are fresh, measure well the amount of sugar and
| the oven temperature. None of that will guarantee a prize
| winning cake:-)
|
| A great piece of advice for founders would be on how to found a
| startup, and despite consuming 30 millions dollars, still
| manage to find a buyer willing to pay 43 million dollars for
| the business. The explanation of those details could provide
| the business acumen, insight and experience many young founders
| require.
|
| Certainly all, successful and less successful founders, are
| focused, working hard, and thinking independently. Otherwise
| they would not be startup founders.
|
| "In 2005, at age 19,[9] Altman co-founded and became CEO of
| Loopt,[10] a location-based social networking mobile
| application. After raising more than $30M in venture capital,
| Loopt was shut down in 2012 after failing to get traction. It
| was acquired by the Green Dot Corporation for $43.4 million."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Altman
| belter wrote:
| So after reading the quote I posted from the Wikipedia
| article, my curiosity led me to look into this deal a bit
| more.
|
| Official announcement (2012): "https://ir.greendot.com/news-
| releases/news-release-details/g..."
|
| Couple of interesting bits: So Sequoia Capital had done a 20
| million series B into Green Dot Corporation ( now
| GreenDotBank ) followed by a private equity investment
| according to public records. By the acquisition time the
| initial funding of Green Dot was recorded as total of 33
| million dollars.
|
| Now it happens Sequoia Capital was also a VC for Loopt, and
| had put at least 17 million dollars into Loopt, also
| according to public records.
|
| The deal was 43 million in cash! including 10 million dollars
| for employee retention of Loopt employees.
|
| Now such a good deal, is what I call the definition of
| success. And how to close one of these would be a blog worth
| writing...
| WalterBright wrote:
| > necessary but not sufficient
|
| The term for it is "risk". Successful people often fail many
| times, but each time they get up again, learn what went
| wrong, and try again.
|
| Losers quit before they start.
| Bubble_Pop_22 wrote:
| > "In 2005, at age 19,[9] Altman co-founded and became CEO of
| Loopt,[10] a location-based social networking mobile
| application. After raising more than $30M in venture capital,
| Loopt was shut down in 2012 after failing to get traction. It
| was acquired by the Green Dot Corporation for $43.4 million."
|
| What a great success...create tons of hype, run the company
| into the ground and offload overpriced equity onto a bigger
| fool. The American dream.
|
| No wonder he likes Musk so much. It's basically the same
| modus operandi.
|
| Title suggestion for next blog-post:
|
| "How to fail upwards" also
|
| "How to play poker with chips payed for with teachers
| pensions funds"
| inglor_cz wrote:
| "No wonder he likes Musk so much. It's basically the same
| modus operandi."
|
| Both SpaceX and Tesla got helluva lot of traction. The US
| now depends on the Falcon/Dragon combo to get American
| astronauts into the orbit, a task which Boeing so far
| failed to accomplish. And the Ukrainian artillery is
| pounding Russian targets to pulp with use of Starlink
|
| How this is basically the same as Loopt, I cannot see.
| Bubble_Pop_22 wrote:
| Musk has been at the helm of Tesla for 20 years and in
| that timeframe he didn't even manage to get to 1% of
| total vehicles sold globally. In FY21 Tesla still
| accounted for 0.9% of vehicles sold globally. And it was
| a slow year for the global auto industry.
|
| That's basically after billions of tax breaks and
| subsidies at the County, State and Federal level, which
| were showered on Tesla during the last 20 years, not even
| mentioning the blind eye that regulators turned on Tesla
| and Musk personally because they all bought into the
| narrative that he was Phoney Stark. Again not even 1% in
| 20 years.
|
| SpaceX is totally dependant upon the goodwill of
| taxpayers, the moment they lose interest in space, then
| down goes SpaceX.
|
| The only traction that a person anchored in reality sees
| is the cult of personality and techo-utopianism that mr.
| Musk managed to create around himself.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Your space argument is extremely misleading. Space
| industry in general is dependent on government orders,
| this is not a unique problem of SpaceX / Musk. How long
| do you think that Boeing or Morton Thiokol space
| facilities would survive if the US space program were
| shuttered?
|
| Unless you consider the entire space activity of humanity
| a kind of cult/scam/hype, you have to admit that SpaceX
| technology is competitive.
| Bubble_Pop_22 wrote:
| imgabe wrote:
| No, this endless need to prostrate yourself and attribute
| everything to luck is silly and harmful.
|
| What does that tell people in less fortunate circumstances?
| Sorry, you weren't lucky, too bad. Better just hope some lucky
| person fixes everything for you because you have no agency over
| your own life.
| treyfitty wrote:
| You seem to be under the impression that developing palatable
| narratives for the less fortunate is an objective. Says who?
| Just because it doesn't sound fair, that doesn't mean we can
| ignore it's existence. More harmful, we can't coddle people
| into believing everyone is very much capable of success and
| it's an equal playing field. It's not.
|
| Entropy and randomness exists. Agency exists. People don't
| generally attribute success to solely one or the other.
| However, think about this: if the objective function is $10MM
| net worth, and there are two variables, luck & agency, and
| each variable has a threshold one must exceed before
| contributing to the objective function, it's easy to see that
| randomness (luck) will contribute to your networth, more so
| than grokking (agency) it.
|
| In other words, a small amount of luck has a larger effect
| than a small amount of agency. But, if small amount of luck
| translated to $10MM net worth, isn't that lucky by
| definition? Conversely, if a small amount of agency
| translated to $10MM net worth, what does that mean? Can you
| say that it was all your efforts that solely got you to $10MM
| net worth?
| imgabe wrote:
| Nobody is saying it's all one or the other. One you can
| control, so that is where it's useful to focus your
| attention.
|
| It's not a simple made up equation with two variables and
| an outcome. It's an iterative game you play over and over
| again throughout your life.
| woojoo666 wrote:
| It's not just luck, Sam Altman mentions being _born_
| lucky. This is more related to topics about family
| socioeconomic class and other factors, which is important
| to acknowledge because maybe instead of telling people
| simply to work hard or have a good mindset, we should be
| pushing to level the playing field.
| imgabe wrote:
| There will never be a level playing field. People are
| different. "Pushing to level the playing field" is just
| doublespeak for authoritarianism.
|
| Just a quick question, who will be in charge of "leveling
| the playing field"? Who gets to choose what criteria
| determines whether it's level or not? Do you think they
| might have some advantage? Will it be a level field for
| them?
| woojoo666 wrote:
| These are all hard questions but this is a different
| debate entirely. I was explaining why acknowledging birth
| privilege is not the same as just telling people "sorry
| you weren't lucky, too bad". For the people that believe
| in leveling the playing field, actual social change can
| be just as important (if not more) as the mindset and
| hard work touted by successful people.
| karmakurtisaani wrote:
| Check out the Nordic countries for an example of an
| attempt to level the playing field. They're not perfect,
| certainly not authoritarian and have a good social
| mobility.
| treyfitty wrote:
| > "this endless need to prostrate yourself and attribute
| everything to luck is silly and harmful"
|
| ...you're saying it in your post that everyone is saying
| it.
| imgabe wrote:
| True, people are saying it's nothing but luck, which was
| my point. It is discouraging and unhelpful to
| relentlessly best people over the head with nonsense like
| that, which happens in every post like this.
| fleetwoodsnack wrote:
| Is it nonsense when it is backed by studies linked above,
| experiences shared by others here, and those of our own?
|
| I've made plenty of money advising startup entrepreneurs
| on IP law, incorporation, and tax strategy. That means I
| have visibility into founders' most sensitive personal
| financial information and I can count on my hands how
| many founders I've met who don't come from financially
| well-off backgrounds.
|
| That may be a function of the fact that my services are
| expensive and only those who are well-resourced would
| seek me out... but truth be told if they can't afford me
| they probably couldn't afford to take the kinds of risks
| necessary for the success defined in this article.
|
| I say this as someone who was "born lucky" too. If my
| parents weren't both professionals with money to invest
| in my education and a network for me to tap when I
| started my firm, all the hard work in the world couldn't
| guarantee I'd be where I am. And I don't even consider
| myself that successful compared to others I know.
| dasil003 wrote:
| The two variables aren't independent though. Your agency is
| affected by your own beliefs about luck. Similarly, luck is
| created by choices.
|
| Trying to quantify these things is a fools errand and I
| would argue tilts towards social justice narratives.
| There's nothing wrong with that, but I do believe it is
| counter productive for individuals who want to be
| successful. Everyone has advantages and disadvantages, but
| the common thread with successful people is a bias for
| action and not getting lost daydreaming and pontificating.
| WalterBright wrote:
| An unlucky man falls down the stairs and breaks his leg. "Oh,
| I'm so unlucky, I just broke my leg!"
|
| A lucky man falls down the stairs and breaks his leg. "Phew,
| I'm so lucky I didn't break my skull!"
| danrocks wrote:
| #14 have the Fed print ungodly amounts of money so you can easily
| raise capital for your dumb startup idea.
| draw_down wrote:
| [deleted]
| tomcat27 wrote:
| How to be a Sam Altman: Find a Paul Graham
| pojzon wrote:
| TBH to make huge loads of money from 0, you need only two things:
|
| - work hard
|
| - have ALOT of luck
|
| There are thousends of ppl that work hard and have great ideas.
| Only a fraction of them makes it big.
| j_barbossa wrote:
| Because it was mentioned in the article: I looked at the resumes
| on the Forbes richest people list and found not a single person
| among the top 100 who came from poor circumstances. The opposite
| was the case, many of them became rich only through inheritance.
| sgt101 wrote:
| Well I wouldn't trust that list. No Putin or Ji for a start.
|
| However, I would point at Jack Ma as being someone from humble
| origins. Only 67th now.
| vimy wrote:
| 14. Don't have health problems which sap all your energy.
| gjvc wrote:
| ...and which you don't know about until it's too late.
| [deleted]
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