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How to Think for Yourself

paulgraham.com

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451–460 of 874 posts

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#451

Post by bshanks »

The most radical solution would be to grow revenues without growing the company

Some investment firms already seem to be able to grow revenues without growing the number of employees.

Growing revenue without growing employees is probably a good thing for many reasons if it's possible. However w/r/t the investment firms, imo many investment firms can grow revenue without hiring only when the bottleneck constraint on their revenue is just their reputation.

As their reputation grows, investment firms are often able to do the same thing but with a larger quantity of investor money. Perhaps their reputation also helps on the other end; maybe some can make the same quantity of deals per unit time but as their reputation grows perhaps they become better connected so maybe the deals get bigger and/or more profitable.

In other industries you have to produce a higher quantity of goods or services in order to get more revenue, so this may not generalize.

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#452

Post by daleharvey »

mcguire wrote: post #410

" Ditto for essayists. An essay that told people things they already knew would be boring. You have to tell them something new. " How come I know exactly where this essay is going? It is yet another "start-up founders are genetically, intellectually, and emotionally superior; the rest of the muggles are so envious." Does Paul think everyone except startup founders works on an assembly line? " You see this especially…

Its hard to think of a more homogenous industry / group of individuals than the HN / SV startup founder clique.

The length that people will go to to pretend that it isnt another rich boys club that leans somewhat conservative (sorry "libertarian") is interesting in itself.

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#453

Post by B1FF_PSUVM »

"You don't want to start a startup to do something that everyone agrees is a good idea, or there will already be other companies doing it."

(1994)

"Yo, Jeff, what's this about selling books online? The books.com guys in Ohio have been doing that for years!"

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#454

Post by strofcon »

"To be a successful scientist, for example, it's not enough just to be correct. Your ideas have to be both correct and novel. You can't publish papers saying things other people already know. You need to say things no one else has realized yet."

Oof, first paragraph and he's entirely wrong. That's rough.

One of the most worrisome aspects of the world's take on science lately is that reproduction of published results is considered the work of dullards and thus unworthy of funding.

By definition, reproduction of results is not novel, and yet it is (or at least really should be) one of the single most crucial aspects of a shared scientific method.

This is profoundly bad thinking by Paul.

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#456

Post by MinusGix »

Garlef wrote: post #110

> An essay that told people things they already knew would be boring. You have to tell them something new. I think there's something off about this statement: A lot of people enjoy watching a new marvel movie once or twice a year while the movies themselves are more or less reiterations of the previous ones. People seem to enjoy the repetition. The same seems to be true for essays: People enjoy finding their own thou…

> A lot of people enjoy watching a new marvel movie once or twice a year while the movies themselves are more or less reiterations of the previous ones. People seem to enjoy the repetition.

Honestly, I would argue against this. While they tend to do simplistic plotlines that are similar to the previous, they're very visibly different and so do not trigger any of the usual "I already watched this." that I get from watching sitcoms.

Though, I do agree that people at times read essays because they reiterate your thoughts back to you, but as you say I'd agree that its more comfort/shared-experiences than the content that they've already seen (ex: reaction videos). At times, I've done this because I know an article will be able to provide an alternative view on the topic to further fuel my own reasoning, or simply helping to ground my reasoning more into words.

But, I do think an essay that is obviously what I already know would be boring. If I had to read an article about basic programming techniques, I'd be likely bored, due to having seen it all before.

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#457

Post by mcguire »

RickHull wrote: post #281
judofyr wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He's writing to and for people like him, trying to help them put words and clear thought to vague understandings and apprehensions they've been wrestling with. Ah, yes, he's writing an article about how to think for yourself to the people who already think like him. So if we don't think like him, but rather in an independent way, then it makes sense that we wouldn't agree with this article. Got it!

Ha, you jest, but you bring up a subtle point. There are degrees and dimensions of similarity. For example, two people who uphold a principle of freedom of speech may nonetheless completely disagree on any particular issue. But they are very similar in an important way. Do you value independent thinking? If so, what part of the article did you most disagree with?

Independent thinking itself isn't a virtue. As someone else pointed out, prisons are full of nonconventional thinkers. The Time Cube guy has independent thinking out the wazoo.

New ideas, like speech, are good or bad on their own merit.

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#458

Post by coolgod »

daleharvey wrote: post #452
mcguire wrote: post #410

" Ditto for essayists. An essay that told people things they already knew would be boring. You have to tell them something new. " How come I know exactly where this essay is going? It is yet another "start-up founders are genetically, intellectually, and emotionally superior; the rest of the muggles are so envious." Does Paul think everyone except startup founders works on an assembly line? " You see this especially…

Its hard to think of a more homogenous industry / group of individuals than the HN / SV startup founder clique. The length that people will go to to pretend that it isnt another rich boys club that leans somewhat conservative (sorry "libertarian") is interesting in itself.

You mean more homogenous right?

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#459

Post by kinkrtyavimoodh »

daleharvey wrote: post #452
mcguire wrote: post #410

" Ditto for essayists. An essay that told people things they already knew would be boring. You have to tell them something new. " How come I know exactly where this essay is going? It is yet another "start-up founders are genetically, intellectually, and emotionally superior; the rest of the muggles are so envious." Does Paul think everyone except startup founders works on an assembly line? " You see this especially…

Its hard to think of a more homogenous industry / group of individuals than the HN / SV startup founder clique. The length that people will go to to pretend that it isnt another rich boys club that leans somewhat conservative (sorry "libertarian") is interesting in itself.

Did you mean to say "more homogenous"

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#460

Post by renewiltord »

Funny. The article cannot live up to the title if some of the premises are true: if independent thinking is nature bound, then you can't learn to do it.

At least the advice to find out which one you are and commit to that is useful.

Lots of value in being conventional: all my friends who went and worked at AMZN and GOOG are far wealthier than the rest of us today.

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