301–310 of 421 posts
This comment really resonated with me, I found myself in this exact situation at 25, in a "very prestigious and selective place" for AI nonetheless. It took me a couple years to realize the smart people are just playing the game, the unsuspecting losers are "playing it straight" and getting endlessly frustrated. I found my balance by, frankly, taking advantage of a system that is FUBAR. Incidentally, I also took some…
Your art is beautiful, thanks for sharing.
This is a good essay. It's interesting to contrast it with some of the psychological/self-help literature around being your "true self", where the true self is fluid and amorphous and avoids being rigidly defined. Or with Drew Houston's commmencement address [1] - "That little voice in my head was telling me where to go, and the whole time I was telling it to shut up so I could get back to work. Sometimes that little…
This is a good essay. It's interesting to contrast it with some of the psychological/self-help literature around being your "true self", where the true self is fluid and amorphous and avoids being rigidly defined. Or with Drew Houston's commmencement address [1] - "That little voice in my head was telling me where to go, and the whole time I was telling it to shut up so I could get back to work. Sometimes that little…
> So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. Equally plausible is that we only write quotations from the people whose dots serendipitously connected.
This is a good essay. It's interesting to contrast it with some of the psychological/self-help literature around being your "true self", where the true self is fluid and amorphous and avoids being rigidly defined. Or with Drew Houston's commmencement address [1] - "That little voice in my head was telling me where to go, and the whole time I was telling it to shut up so I could get back to work. Sometimes that little…
PG here bridges the gap between the 'great-man' and the middling-man. With a fair bit of luck, he manages to become wealthy, but not wanna-be-space-cadet wealthy. It's an under read area and full of very good lessons in that bridge of worlds. I'm not in that bridge, so my take-aways weren't as much. But perhaps with some luck, I'll be able to revisit this in the future for more savoring.
This is a good essay. It's interesting to contrast it with some of the psychological/self-help literature around being your "true self", where the true self is fluid and amorphous and avoids being rigidly defined. Or with Drew Houston's commmencement address [1] - "That little voice in my head was telling me where to go, and the whole time I was telling it to shut up so I could get back to work. Sometimes that little…
I agree, this is a good one. It's a bit rare to get retrospectives like this. Typically they tend to fall into one of three categories: the 'great-man' biography, which are more history lessons than anything else. The very poor and/or very unlucky people, those born into genetic diseases, addicted families, or some bad misfortune. And the middling and very unread section of otherwise perfectly normal people without m…
You might be underestimating the value of the YC portfolio and PG's stake in it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree, this is a good one. It's a bit rare to get retrospectives like this. Typically they tend to fall into one of three categories: the 'great-man' biography, which are more history lessons than anything else. The very poor and/or very unlucky people, those born into genetic diseases, addicted families, or some bad misfortune. And the middling and very unread section of otherwise perfectly normal people without m…
> With a fair bit of luck, he manages to become wealthy, but not wanna-be-space-cadet wealthy. You might be underestimating the value of the YC portfolio and PG's stake in it.
[0] https://www.wealthypersons.com/paul-graham-net-worth-2020-20...
So a weird thing is happening today. When I was a kid, like Paul, I had to beg my parents to get me a computer ie. spend money on it. Once I got it, I couldn't stop using it and hacking and figuring things out. Kids these days... :) have everything, I made sure my kids have all good equipment, they have good instruction but they are kind of not interested it all. If they do something, this is more to please me, as th…
You just gotta find a gate-way drug activity, as well as a gate-way programming language because going straight to Lisp is like going straight to heroin.
> One of the most conspicuous patterns I've noticed in my life is how well it's worked, for me at least, to work on things that weren't prestigious. You might be able to reinterpret this through the lens of the old saying about how, during a gold rush, the people who "made shovels" made most of the money while a few miners got all the press. We don't usually hear about the folks making provisions or shovels. If you d…
To me his story of going into painting in his twenties, while having never been interested in visual arts before, spending on and off time on it for years and eventually abandoning it in his forties sounds like a story of internal vs external motivation. He WANTED to like painting, because "he could create something eternal", "he wouldn't have a boss", he made himself interested in it, but in the the end his natural…
It's common for people to follow a straight line in their lives: decide a career path, go to school and keep doing it, switching companies and jobs when necessary.
But the reality is, interests can change -- people can change in this respect. As noted elsewhere, there is this very common culture of "finding yourself", "discovering your true inner self", but it's more rare to acknowledge tastes develop (and evolve).
I'm sure pg didn't quit graduate school, spent a year painting in Italy, and came back to america if he didn't thoroughly enjoy painting. Maybe he doesn't like painting anymore, though! Tastes can change.
I've written elsewhere, but much of our tastes (ought to) develop following what we find important -- that is, the intersection of {what helps the world, what we would be good at, what we could become passionate about, what earns us money} (because without direct monetary reward your options can become constricted).
I believe in Japanese culture it is frequent to do this examination, known as Ikigai ("a reason for being"):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikigai
(Hopefully I'm not misrepresenting the concept from pop culture)
Because times change, opportunities change, this target can change! Maybe tomorrow you realize this could be becoming a painter, the next day you realize you can write software to change the world, and it's ok to give up being a painter; in fact, you might be barely able to think of painting again presented with such a rich and challenging opportunity.
Another thing I found valuable is to really retain the most valuable experiences. Even if you change tastes, you shouldn't ignore your past experiences, your past knowledge. The most disparate things A vs B can influence eachother; often, being so seemingly disparate the opportunity of influence can be greater if not many people share background in both A and B.
> One of the most conspicuous patterns I've noticed in my life is how well it's worked, for me at least, to work on things that weren't prestigious. You might be able to reinterpret this through the lens of the old saying about how, during a gold rush, the people who "made shovels" made most of the money while a few miners got all the press. We don't usually hear about the folks making provisions or shovels. If you d…