The Million Dollar Question
sebastianmarshall.com
The Million Dollar Question
1–10 of 75 posts
Re: The Million Dollar Question
#2Very powerful - thanks for sharing.
But the more you do, the further away you get from being understood, from the joys of normal life, from being understood by your neighbors and backing each other up and living together harmoniously.
I cried for the first time in three years when I realized it.
The million dollar question… why don’t people take the large opportunities in front of them? Why don’t they allow their dreams to become realities?
Become it means you won’t be understood. And we need to be understood, fundamentally, it’s so important to us.
Wow.
Re: The Million Dollar Question
#3Very powerful - thanks for sharing. But the more you do, the further away you get from being understood, from the joys of normal life, from being understood by your neighbors and backing each other up and living together harmoniously. I cried for the first time in three years when I realized it. The million dollar question… why don’t people take the large opportunities in front of them? Why don’t they allow their dre…
I think this is really where YC shines and becomes such a magnet for success: you have guys who are willing to try out ideas that most people probably don't understand yet. Since many of the YC candidates are in a similar situation, they can begin to feel comfortable, and even understood among their peers.. giving them the confidence to be boldly different.
Re: The Million Dollar Question
#4This is awesome, and I totally agree-
"It’s like everyone fantasizes about… whatever… but once their fantasies start to become reality, they piss their pants and self-sabotage."
Re: The Million Dollar Question
#5Very inspirational. If you're a startup founder/entrepreneur, worth your time to read fully.
Reading from beginning to end, I found the last paragraph powerfully moving. (Skipping to the end won't work - that last short para builds on everything before.)
Re: The Million Dollar Question
#6This is a fantastic post, very thought-provoking. But also very sad to me. I disagree with the underlying premise that success and happiness are somehow negatively correlated. There's this idea in the post that if you want to be uber-successful, you can't have a "normal" life.
I know very successful people who are miserable, stressed-out workaholics. And I know very successful people who could have been one of the people strolling around Sebastian when he was writing this post. I know people who run startups from their home office and take their kids to school in the morning. Hell, look at Sebastian's own situation: he apparently has enough time to sit and pontificate for a couple hours on a train platform in Japan, in the middle of the day. He can't be working THAT hard :) Maybe what he's trying to say is that you can't have the idyllic suburban family life if you want to float around the world living off of random consulting gigs? But there are probably quite a few very successful people here on HN that live relatively idyllic family lives in cities and suburbs all over the world.
I think the idea of feeling isolated for being very ambitious is true, but I would caution Sebastian and others against the idea that you have to sacrifice your connection to a community, your face-to-face relationships, your health, and your overall happiness on the alter of amassing $40m for an amorphous purpose like being able to build a shrine with 5% of your wealth or less. You certainly can sacrifice all those things, but most people will never amass $40m no matter what they sacrifice. Better to find something (and someone) that you love, work hard at it, and enjoy life. Yes, you should take chances, yes you should push yourself and be ambitious. But this is the only life you get; don't squander it living a life you don't enjoy because you're hoping for the big payoff down the road. It probably won't come.
Re: The Million Dollar Question
#7This is a fantastic post, very thought-provoking. But also very sad to me. I disagree with the underlying premise that success and happiness are somehow negatively correlated. There's this idea in the post that if you want to be uber-successful, you can't have a "normal" life. I know very successful people who are miserable, stressed-out workaholics. And I know very successful people who could have been one of the pe…
All of this assumes a different definition of success than I have. It presumes wealth == success.
My definition: Being happy.
That comes with a loving family with strong relationships, intellectual challenges and growth, and work that I enjoy (and that pays the bills plus some), but where the job is a means not an end.
Re: The Million Dollar Question
#8Amazing post. I read every word of it (as opposed to just scanning it).
What type of work does he do* and where can I meet/read more people like him?
He strikes me as a kind of mentor...something which I find is lacking in the IT industry. Mentors don't always need to be the smartest person in the room, they just need to have experience and patience to see the things that you are blind to.
* He says he's a strategist, but that's awfully vague.
Re: The Million Dollar Question
#9This is a fantastic post, very thought-provoking. But also very sad to me. I disagree with the underlying premise that success and happiness are somehow negatively correlated. There's this idea in the post that if you want to be uber-successful, you can't have a "normal" life. I know very successful people who are miserable, stressed-out workaholics. And I know very successful people who could have been one of the pe…
I think you might be misunderstanding the post - or at least interpreting it differently than me.
I dont' think it's so much about success as it's about being different. Once you step over the cliff into the unknown there aren't that many people that will follow you. You become a loner, a misfit and a stranger to many people. Your desires, goals and interests drift away from normality, and thus you will eventually find yourself in a state of loneliness because there's noone else like you.
I think that's what it's about.
I wrote something similar, albeit on a more positive note, some time back: http://www.maximise.dk/blog/2009/04/moving-boat.html
Re: The Million Dollar Question
#10Amazing post. I read every word of it (as opposed to just scanning it). What type of work does he do* and where can I meet/read more people like him? He strikes me as a kind of mentor...something which I find is lacking in the IT industry. Mentors don't always need to be the smartest person in the room, they just need to have experience and patience to see the things that you are blind to. * He says he's a strategist…
From his about page:
"I’m consulting on increasing LVOC numbers (lifetime value of a customer – usually selling additional valuable things to customers you’ve already got, but also conversion rates, price points, referrals, etc), doing some light real estate development, and some professional writing."