691–700 of 874 posts
I find reading this article a very uncomfortable experience. It's just assertion after assertion without evidence to back them up. Do people believe this guy because he's rich?
Definitely part of it, along with the cult following he's managed to gather here. Quite ironic to see the high priest of HN commanding his devotees on how to think for themselves.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> > I went into Aerospace Engineering thinking that I'll be able to design radically different looking airplanes. > What is it you're doing as an entrepreneur you find so rewarding? The aerospace industry rewards making minor improvements to conventional airplanes rather than building something novel. Entrepreneurship rewards building something new and "radically different", which is what he was looking for in the fi…
Counterpoint: exceedingly few tech entrepreneurship companies are doing anything at all that is really new and "radically different". Most are doing rather small and unimaginative things that make money by doing some equivalent of selling more ads. If the GP commenter was working at, for example, SpaceX (a large aerospace company), I can 100% guarantee their work would be more meaningful and rewarding than at basical…
On the other hand, SV is littered with names of people who single-handedly turned unprofitable late-stage tech companies into major successes. There's less regulation, stakes are lower, capital requirements are lower, less of the available landscape has been claimed, and the industry lends itself well to the power of computation. It's a little bit like trying to get rich in 18th century England vs 18th century USA. Would it be fair for US farmers to claim that they are doing "radically different" work compared to their English counterparts? Perhaps the work looked similar ("put food on the table"), but the rules and opportunities were vastly different and created different outcomes for individuals (as in - the smartest/most fit/hardest working people got more out of their work).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think this may attest to the value of (apparent) novelty/innovation in PG's sphere. Seeming unconventional and disruptive has better ROI than spending years mining the history of human thought. He doesn't do science, he funds and markets products. He's competing to capture pieces of a finite pie, not creating knowledge. More broadly, he promotes a zeitgeist which has made him wealthy. I wonder if this has something…
Sorry but I strongly disagree with your assertion that building a business is a zero-sum game. At the basic level, a farmer who sows a field and harvests a crop is making the world one harvest richer, and no one poorer. Ditto for the carpenter making a table or mechanic fixing a car. PG addressed this long ago: http://paulgraham.com/gap.html Scientists turn money into knowledge. Entrepreneurs turn knowledge into mone…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you missed the point of the article. It explains why Bob is better than Sally in job A, but Sally is better than Bob in job B. Perhaps you figured that out, but I can't see that from your response, so I'll give you why this was so impactful for me. I went into Aerospace Engineering thinking that I'll be able to design radically different looking airplanes. After two degrees, three internships, three years of…
What would have been the right time? When you were a student studying during your first degree or your second? In hindsight, I think it is almost dubious to assume that exposure to this article would have helped you at any given time in the past. It's quite possible you would not have come to the same realization about tech entrepreneurship had you not obtained your AE and had the experiences that you did.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry but I strongly disagree with your assertion that building a business is a zero-sum game. At the basic level, a farmer who sows a field and harvests a crop is making the world one harvest richer, and no one poorer. Ditto for the carpenter making a table or mechanic fixing a car. PG addressed this long ago: http://paulgraham.com/gap.html Scientists turn money into knowledge. Entrepreneurs turn knowledge into mone…
> At the basic level, a farmer who sows a field and harvests a crop is making the world one harvest richer, and no one poorer. Not quite true; the farmer using that land to grow crops is externalizing an opportunity cost onto those who might use that land for something else, e.g. for the carpenter's workshop or the mechanic's garage. Same with the water consumed by those crops. With these natural and finite resources…
Every drop of water on Earth has been "consumed" many, many times over. It doesn't just get used once and then disappear.
There may be localized shortages of water (e.g., in California), but that doesn't mean that the Earth's water overall gets "used up", in any meaningful sense.
I find it interesting that conventional thinkers are described as "sheep" in this article. In my experience, most people who I thought were shallow or "conventional" thinkers were not. Rather, they cared about different things than I did. They were independent thinkers, questioning assumptions, in the field where they were expert or passionate, and conventional thinkers everywhere else because they want to save their…
I also think it doesn't apply to me, but I worry about how really independent my thinking is.
Am I the only one is getting pretty bored of "formula for success" content? This essay and other's like it, without evidence or data, implies that some of us know the formula for success. I get it, the things that change convention are unconventional at first. This is the definition of unconventional. I agree with the general vector of his essay but this is just boring to me. Here is my formula for success (in case a…
I don't know, but I rather hear sporting/fitness advice from someone that won NBA finals, or the soccer World Cup, then just some random loser. The winner at least can tell you how they did succeed personally, even if they have no comprehensive studies with data. On the other hand, you are just a random guy from the internet, and offering advice with no data at all. You might be broke and posting from your mom's base…
I find it interesting that conventional thinkers are described as "sheep" in this article. In my experience, most people who I thought were shallow or "conventional" thinkers were not. Rather, they cared about different things than I did. They were independent thinkers, questioning assumptions, in the field where they were expert or passionate, and conventional thinkers everywhere else because they want to save their…
I find it interesting that conventional thinkers are described as "sheep" in this article. In my experience, most people who I thought were shallow or "conventional" thinkers were not. Rather, they cared about different things than I did. They were independent thinkers, questioning assumptions, in the field where they were expert or passionate, and conventional thinkers everywhere else because they want to save their…
Every time a new pg essay comes out, comments appear saying how much he and his essays have changed (for the worse, of course). I think this perception has the nicely ironic property that it exists because it's false. pg hasn't changed. He can't; he's too weird (nonconformist, if you prefer). Traits at that level just are. What's changed is his status. Becoming rich and famous changes how people perceive you. What so…