Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Work Hard (2007)

terrytao.wordpress.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 203 posts

Re: Work Hard (2007)

#141

Post by reasonabl_human »

didibus wrote: post #62
giantg2 wrote: post #25

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.

Bingo! It's been a while since I looked into it, but last time I checked, I couldn't find any evidence behind "hard work". This article kind of sums it up: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/does-success-come... > If you wake up in the morning full of vim and vigor, bounding out the door and into the world to take your shot, you didn't choose to be that way Your coworkers that come into work early ready to cr…

Thanks, needed to hear this today.

Re: Work Hard (2007)

#142

Post by Dracophoenix »

reidjs wrote: post #85
albatross13 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can assure you, when shit is broken in production and customers are knocking at the door threatening to cancel it is not a luxury to find out these types of things...let alone start untangling the web.

He means that those customers wouldn't exist in the first place if it weren't for the messy code.

And window repair customers wouldn't exist if it weren't for broken windows! If Bastiat were alive, he'd have a field day with the computing industry and its Freakanomics-like underpinnings.

Re: Work Hard (2007)

#143

Post by wheelinsupial »

courtf wrote: post #135
brailsafe wrote: post #79

So if you are already a child prodigy, born into a family of prodigies, specifically within Mathematics, and you want that PHD, gotta keep grinding.

It's also a lot easier to work hard when you are handed access to every academic resource on the planet before you hit puberty. His life story is the most blatant counterexample to this article imaginable. Sounds like a case of deep denial.

Maybe an article he wrote called A Close Call: How a Near Failure Propelled Me to Succeed [1] might be of interest to you.

"After many nerve-wracking minutes of closed-door de- liberation, the examiners did decide to (barely) pass me; however, my advisor gently explained his disappointment at my performance, and how I needed to do better in the future. I was still largely in a state of shock—this was the first time I had performed poorly on an exam that I was genuinely interested in performing well in."

"In retrospect, nearly failing the generals was probably the best thing that could have happened to me at the time."

[1] https://www.ams.org/journals/notices/202007/rnoti-p1007.pdf

Re: Work Hard (2007)

#144

Post by shepherdjerred »

dimitrios1 wrote: post #45
albatross13 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I used to think like this too, but now-a-days, it's more like "What a luxury to be in a position where you get paid to untangle a 600 line bash script" 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 never felt luxury when our service didn’t scale to meet the goals of higher-ups because the code was over engineered with hacks piled on top. It doesn’t matter how good of an MVP you built if it is so inflexible that it has to be thrown away and rebuilt to meet tomorrow’s needs.

Managers tend to reward those who complete tasks today as minimally as possible at the expense of the product tomorrow.

Re: Work Hard (2007)

#145

Post by joelbluminator »

ZephyrBlu wrote: post #138
TameAntelope wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, you need both to be the best in the world in a given field, but why is that a problem?

That is not a problem. The problem I see is touting the value of hard work to people who may not have the requisite IQ to go along with it for their desired outcome (Best in the world in their field, for example). You said, Additionally, I think the obsession over "intelligence" and "natural ability" is vastly overstated, in general" . I think it's actually understated in general. Telling people who don't have the me…

While I agree there is a certain threshold of skills below which one can't really function as a lawyer/software dev, after passing that threshold your IQ matters less. There is the top 1% or even 0.01% of performers out there and then there is the rest of us. The difference between a software dev with an IQ of 115 or 125 doesn't sound that big to me. A lot in their careers will depend on their people skills and work ethics more so than on their IQ. This is especially true for jobs like lawyers or even doctors, but if we go back to software development - a lot of it is quite repititive and actually favors well people with strong work ethic. Unless you work on cutting edge algorithmic computer science stuff (which isn't really software development), we all keep building classes and models and glueing libraries together; or we gain some deep knowledge in some mobile platform or even some embedded programming. Even stuff that sounds super complex to a web developer like Kernel development probably gets repititive after awhile.

Re: Work Hard (2007)

#146

Post by infinityplus1 »

gautamdivgi wrote: post #81
albatross13 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The obvious question is why this wasn’t caught and rectified in code review? This seems to be as much a failure due to lack of oversight as opposed to the failure of the person who created the mess.

There are no code reviews when we have to keep churning features quickly and continuously, with always changing requirements in the next meeting with the client.

Re: Work Hard (2007)

#147

Post by TameAntelope »

ZephyrBlu wrote: post #138
TameAntelope wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, you need both to be the best in the world in a given field, but why is that a problem?

That is not a problem. The problem I see is touting the value of hard work to people who may not have the requisite IQ to go along with it for their desired outcome (Best in the world in their field, for example). You said, Additionally, I think the obsession over "intelligence" and "natural ability" is vastly overstated, in general" . I think it's actually understated in general. Telling people who don't have the me…

There is no requisite IQ, and I absolutely would tell someone with a definitionally average 100 IQ to "work hard" to become a software engineer/lawyer, as they could be in the absolute top of their field if they did.

Re: Work Hard (2007)

#148

Post by emodendroket »

herodoturtle wrote: post #4

> there is an important distinction between “working hard” and “maximising the number of hours during which one works”. In particular, forcing oneself to work even when one is tired, unmotivated, unprepared, or distracted with other tasks can end up being counterproductive to one’s long-term work productivity, and there is a saturation point beyond which pushing oneself to work even longer will actually reduce the to…

This is a very important distinction. I realized over time that what I wanted out of work was not a job where I lived at the stupid office, but not one where I was twiddling my thumbs all day either. I really want to put in serious work, but then go home.

Re: Work Hard (2007)

#149

Post by kucing »

selestify wrote: post #73
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great point. I like to compare work capacity to exercise capacity. Too much exercise will actually harm your fitness rather than improve it. However, reasonable exertions, combined with appropriate rest, will improve your fitness over time. Like exercise capacity, one's ability to work hard can also be improved through practice. This doesn't mean pulling all-nighters and chugging caffeine to override the sleepiness,…

Are there any such tracking software that you’d recommend?

I like wakatime.com

Re: Work Hard (2007)

#150

Post by nicbou »

TameAntelope wrote: post #24

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…

I saw this in university. You passed the physics exam by studying hard and practicing. People who put in the work got the results. There was no just getting it.
Post reply on HN