41–50 of 203 posts
If there's anyone I'll listen respectfully to about the value of hard, diligent work, it's Terence Tao. Reminds me of Richard Hamming talking about his professional envy of John Tukey: One day about three or four years after I joined, I discovered that John Tukey was slightly younger than I was. John was a genius and I clearly was not. Well I went storming into Bode's office and said, ``How can anybody my age know as…
On a related note, this always trickles down to low level managers who then proceed to tell it to the floor workers. Trying to motivate a cleaner, assembly operative, driver, cashier, warehouse operative, packer and other low level workers with it is like telling them to go fuck themselves. It sounds like bullshit. It is bullshit. No one fucking loves these jobs. There's nothing to aspire to. Working hard means just…
I've held for a long time that you must know the rules quite well before you're "allowed" to break them, and I think this reinforces my opinion on that. Additionally, I think the obsession over "intelligence" and "natural ability" is vastly overstated, in general. It absolutely helps, and it compounds, to be smart, but a person who "works hard" is infinitely more valuable to their colleagues than a smart person who d…
Additionally, I think the obsession over "intelligence" and "natural ability" is vastly overstated, in general. It absolutely helps, and it compounds, to be smart, but a person who "works hard" is infinitely more valuable to their colleagues than a smart person who doesn't, and tries to rely on raw intellect. That may be true for something like digging a ditch, but IQ is needed to make those necessary logical leaps f…
I've held for a long time that you must know the rules quite well before you're "allowed" to break them, and I think this reinforces my opinion on that. Additionally, I think the obsession over "intelligence" and "natural ability" is vastly overstated, in general. It absolutely helps, and it compounds, to be smart, but a person who "works hard" is infinitely more valuable to their colleagues than a smart person who d…
Additionally, I think the obsession over "intelligence" and "natural ability" is vastly overstated, in general. It absolutely helps, and it compounds, to be smart, but a person who "works hard" is infinitely more valuable to their colleagues than a smart person who doesn't, and tries to rely on raw intellect. That may be true for something like digging a ditch, but IQ is needed to make those necessary logical leaps f…
I've held for a long time that you must know the rules quite well before you're "allowed" to break them, and I think this reinforces my opinion on that. Additionally, I think the obsession over "intelligence" and "natural ability" is vastly overstated, in general. It absolutely helps, and it compounds, to be smart, but a person who "works hard" is infinitely more valuable to their colleagues than a smart person who d…
It's kind of a double edged sword- I've worked with a few people that "work hard" and "get things done", only to find out once they leave (or go on vacation) that now we have to untangle a 600 line bash script that's integral to production. I'm being a bit hyperbolic here, but the gist of my point is: not everyone who works hard is worth keeping around, especially if their hard work leads to an un-managable mess in t…
That is, usually these few hard workers are typically the ones responsible for getting a company to profitability precisely because of their GSD attitude. Now that the company has some runway, the architecture and refactoring can proceed.
I've held for a long time that you must know the rules quite well before you're "allowed" to break them, and I think this reinforces my opinion on that. Additionally, I think the obsession over "intelligence" and "natural ability" is vastly overstated, in general. It absolutely helps, and it compounds, to be smart, but a person who "works hard" is infinitely more valuable to their colleagues than a smart person who d…
Additionally, I think the obsession over "intelligence" and "natural ability" is vastly overstated, in general. It absolutely helps, and it compounds, to be smart, but a person who "works hard" is infinitely more valuable to their colleagues than a smart person who doesn't, and tries to rely on raw intellect. That may be true for something like digging a ditch, but IQ is needed to make those necessary logical leaps f…
1) Knowing when to apply previous experience is a skill that requires work and practice. 2) Someone else knowing a shortcut that I don't know means they worked hard when I was not observing them.
And the thing is, I don't know if anyone is successful at that. I feel most success comes from people who had the motivation for it. Can you force yourself or others through work that they're not motivated to do and actually expect it to deliver on breakthroughs?
It's probably good advice, and maybe my dissent is just due to my burn out, but... I'm tired of hearing "work hard". Very often, working hard does not lead to success. It sure as shit didn't work out that way for me. There are many people who do not work hard and make tons of money in things like NFT, crypto, securities, office politics, scams, etc. It seems like luck is the shared variable... of which I have none.
It's probably good advice, and maybe my dissent is just due to my burn out, but... I'm tired of hearing "work hard". Very often, working hard does not lead to success. It sure as shit didn't work out that way for me. There are many people who do not work hard and make tons of money in things like NFT, crypto, securities, office politics, scams, etc. It seems like luck is the shared variable... of which I have none.
His advice isn’t for how to get rich in crypto, it’s for how to succeed in academic mathematics. I can’t imagine that anyone has ever “lucked” their way into that.