Paul Graham revisits Adam Smith on economics?
Be Good
41–50 of 209 posts
Re: Be Good
#42While I am sure that there is a lot of truth in that post, I'd say that selling "sins" is much more profitable: sex, drugs, alcohol, tobacco - lots of money involved.
These are your definitions of sin. Tobacco companies have been bad in the past for lying to their users. However, you could argue that many of these companies are being good to their users.
Good point. However, if "being good to your users" is the meaning of "good" in the article, then using the word "good" (with all its connotations) might be misleading. "Good" basically reduces to "do what your users want".
Re: Be Good
#43Regarding Microsoft... it really struck me when I watched Steve Ballmer talk with Guy Kawasaki ( http://visitmix.com/blogs/News/Watch-Steve-Ballmer-and-Guy-K... ) that Steve over and over again touted that it was important for them to get big into online advertising. Not once did he frame a single Microsoft goal in the form of how it was going to help a customer.
Certainly a valid point. And PG's criticisms were deserved as well. At the same time, I can't help but think some of this is an overreaction. Microsoft beat Apple as well as IBM in the market the first time by letting users pick their hardware vendor. And, even today, they still do that, and that's still Apple's achilles heel in gaining market share -- if someone wants more choice than a half a dozen or so models, th…
i think microsoft beat apple because apple was busy beating itself. apple had about a ten-year lead in gui operating systems, but couldn't keep up. steve jobs was immature, and engineered things such that he was made irrelevant in his own company. the dude's firing on all cylinders now, and is virtually unstoppable.
it's very painful to switch operating systems, due to network effects. all your friends use windows, you've spent a lot of money on windows software, people you know pass around windows-centric .xls and .doc files, you've been using windows long enough to have become familiar with it, etc. if it wasn't for all that, i think apple would have already eaten about half of microsoft's lunch.
Re: Be Good
#44"And the very best hackers tend to be idealistic. They're not desperate for a job. They can work wherever they want." I've heard PG repeat this but I think it's fallacious. A lot of up-and-coming hackers can't pick and choose where to work except in the sense that any person can quit one job and apply for another one. They can't unilaterally get themselves into Google, for example. Established hackers also may have c…
I'd argue that "the very best hackers" can pick and choose.
"Up-and-coming" != "the very best".
Maybe they'll get to be the some of the very best with some experience (work or project) under their belt, and at that point, if it's great code/work, they can absolutely get a job (almost) anywhere.
I'm not sure what the rest of your points have to do with the PG quote exactly. Yes there are many factors around what job works for you given your current situation. You still have options, they may just be options that don't make sense for you, or that carry more risk than you're personally happy to take on, etc...
Re: Be Good
#45"And the very best hackers tend to be idealistic. They're not desperate for a job. They can work wherever they want." I've heard PG repeat this but I think it's fallacious. A lot of up-and-coming hackers can't pick and choose where to work except in the sense that any person can quit one job and apply for another one. They can't unilaterally get themselves into Google, for example. Established hackers also may have c…
I think PG's qualification of "very best" is important here. While he has restricted his assessment to programmers, that need not be the case. This is applicable to the very best in any profession.
I don't consider myself to be in the category of very best hackers, but I am pretty good, and I have never worried about money. If you have a decent reputation there will always be somebody practically begging for you to take their money to do some work for them.
While you're probably correct that no one person can just unilaterally walk into Google and give themselves a job, the very best hackers can get pretty close to that. I'm sure they're probably an email or a phone call away from getting an interview. If you haven't tried to find good programmers, it'll be difficult to grasp just how very difficult it is to find good programmers. I have interviewed programmers for a number of positions and, quite frankly, it is a bit disconcerting what I have seen. In the past 2 years I have interviewed about 20 programmers and only 1 blew me away. He was just brilliant. Roughly 4 were good. And the other 15 were kind of crappy. We were forced to hire more than 4...
Re: Be Good
#46The business literature of previous generations often talked about "service to mankind" as an ingredient of success. This essay sheds some light on what they might have meant by that.
Do you have any links or even just names of source material? I'm curious.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations
:-\
Could you, for example, grow a successful startup out of curing an unfashionable but deadly disease like malaria?
Is it just me, or are pg's many draft-readers (and presumably fact-checkers) sleeping on the job here? I mean, c'mon,
http://biz.yahoo.com/ic/510.html
or, specifically, the company that more-or-less cured malaria (indirectly), until the efforts were quashed by goody-two-shoeses,
Re: Be Good
#47Peter Drucker said much the same thing: profit is the cost of doing business, not the purpose . The true purpose of a business is to provide goods & services to its customers. The "profit motive" is essentially a check on the resources consumed by the business, to ensure that it's not spending resources inefficiently, much as PG mentions in the 2nd footnote. Up until the 1970s, it was common for corporations to be ma…
Yes, and looking at purpose another way: if something is worth doing it's worth doing at a profit, because non-profit enterprises are always underfunded.
Re: Be Good
#48Brings new meaning to "software as a service."
Re: Be Good
#49Regarding Microsoft... it really struck me when I watched Steve Ballmer talk with Guy Kawasaki ( http://visitmix.com/blogs/News/Watch-Steve-Ballmer-and-Guy-K... ) that Steve over and over again touted that it was important for them to get big into online advertising. Not once did he frame a single Microsoft goal in the form of how it was going to help a customer.
Certainly a valid point. And PG's criticisms were deserved as well. At the same time, I can't help but think some of this is an overreaction. Microsoft beat Apple as well as IBM in the market the first time by letting users pick their hardware vendor. And, even today, they still do that, and that's still Apple's achilles heel in gaining market share -- if someone wants more choice than a half a dozen or so models, th…
Nintendo had a great comeback with the Wii after the GameCube (and even the N64). Microsoft could do something similar, but I haven't seen any indication they will.
Re: Be Good
#50Paul Graham revisits Adam Smith on economics?
Adam Smith said something about trusting the selfish motives of the businesses he bought stuff from.
Many bad deeds are done with good intentions (by charities and NGOs), and many profit-seeking deeds are done competently (by corporations), bringing wider benefits
But start-ups can fall into the rare category of performing good deeds with good intentions. The founders genuinely want to make the world a better place, and they're prepared to take risks in order to bring it about.