IMHO I think free advice is the worst. I'm gonna generalize, but free advice usually:
- There is no incentive to give you good advice
- Ulterior motives are much more prevalent
- Rarely contextualized
Most advice is pretty bad
21–30 of 90 posts
Re: Most advice is pretty bad
#22When I have a question, I rarely settle for one piece of advice. Instead, I read a bunch of them, often in a forum like this one. Inevitably people will start arguing with each other, and I will find myself sympathizing more with one or another side of the argument. Well, there you are: that's what I think I should do.
On the other hand, "how to be successful" is so nebulous that I think your first step is defining the question better. Of course the advice is vague and un-actionable, because what you need to do if "being successful" means being the world's greatest Tekken player is different than if it means starting a business, and different again if it means being a great parent, and different once more if it means doing well as an employee in the company you work for now (and among these one can imagine many more variations). I guess in most cases the unspoken premise here is that we're talking about a tech-based startup, but even then, if your startup has so few unique traits that you can ask such a broad question, what's your competitive edge, really?
Re: Most advice is pretty bad
#23Our obsession with non-obvious advice stems from our base addiction to novelty. For good reason, pathways in our brain become myelinated and more efficient the more often we use them, to the point where we can process well-worn thoughts almost subconsciously. Thus, toys we've played with too long become boring. Advice we've heard too many times before seems blah. We're hardwired to notice more when we encounter thing…
This depends on whether the field is an arms race. In plenty of areas, common advice is quickly implemented by most competitive participants. See college admissions or even getting jobs after university.
At one point founding a charity was considered evidence of leadership. By my graduating class for high school, half the class had a charity. The person I know who has been the best at admissions has founded 4. But now there is nothing special about charity creation.
Same with getting jobs after university. It used to be that you earned your degree and a good job awaited you. But then lots of extra people went to university and you started needing better grades, an internship, and now several internships to be competitive.
In those cases you need something novel to stay ahead.
Or consider unlimited vacation for developers. At one point that was a fairly novel perk. Now, everyone has that. I would be surprised to work for a company with fixed vacation ever again.
It was once a perk that would win you staff. Now, it is just being competitive for certain kinds of people.
Re: Most advice is pretty bad
#24I disagree strongly with the article's central thesis, but it is still worth critically examining the source and utility of advice. Even honest and sincerely given advice is often more a form of nostalgia on the part of the giver than a lucid examining of your specific situation and the nuances therein. It's most often a form of "well this is what I wish I'd done when I was in a similar situation years ago" or "here'…
Agreed — when I’m on the receiving end of advice, I try to suss out the distinction you describe. Is the advice-giver just lazily ruminating (usually the case) or are they actually thinking through my particular circumstances and reflecting on the optimal path given these constraints and/or plugging a particular blind spot holding me back? You can often feel, viscerally, the difference between the two types of advice-giving.
Re: Most advice is pretty bad
#25I wonder if what people get out of the general advice literature is more like a reminder or motivation, rather than actual insight.
Re: Most advice is pretty bad
#26"...for advice is a dangerous gift, even from the wise to the wise, and all courses may run ill." - Gandolf (fictional character by J.R.R. Tolkien)
Re: Most advice is pretty bad
#27Advice is a way to get someone else to try out your hypothesis.
Re: Most advice is pretty bad
#28I think part of the dynamic here is that when people give advice it often comes from one of two very different modes: 1. There's a piece of advice I want to give, and I'm going to give that advice to some degree regardless of the question or situation. Maybe I'll wait for a question where my advice fits, or maybe I won't, but it's a play _I_ want to suggest, so I'm going to suggest it. For example, "use Django" is ad…
For #2, I think that a secret to being perceived as a great advice-giver is that, in their heart of hearts, most askers already know what they want to do, but need your help discovering it. It's more effective to simply restate the question in a novel way than it is to just tell them what to do.
Re: Most advice is pretty bad
#29I've thought a lot about this recently: what type of person is subject to a greater amount of variance in the outcome of something due to good/bad advice than a founder?
Other professions with the potential for drastic upticks of success or net worth (e.g. a professional athlete, an entertainer) are so standardized that the advice to follow is pretty much down the center of the fairway.
Given the complexity/uniqueness of a company and its market, almost any piece of advice given to a founder is at best inadequate, at worst, gravely detrimental.
Paul Buchheit had a slide at founder school that read something like "Advice = Limited Life Experience + Over generalization" - I have no idea if I interpreted it correctly, but most advice I've received (and thought was great at the time) ended up being wrong. The people giving me the advice weren't being malicious - they were just looking at my problem with _their_ life experience and abstracting it a very general way.
And the worst part is - and I say this with a lot of experience - when someone else's advice was wrong, you can't blame them, you can only blame yourself.
Re: Most advice is pretty bad
#30I think part of the dynamic here is that when people give advice it often comes from one of two very different modes: 1. There's a piece of advice I want to give, and I'm going to give that advice to some degree regardless of the question or situation. Maybe I'll wait for a question where my advice fits, or maybe I won't, but it's a play _I_ want to suggest, so I'm going to suggest it. For example, "use Django" is ad…
Giving unsolicited advice is disrespectful and will do your relationship with the person in question no favors. Contrariwise, soliciting advice from someone else is respectful, and will often improve their disposition towards you. The simple rule that I endeavor to follow is to never give unsolicited advice, but to give solicited advice if I can be helpful.
A blog post isn't unsolicited advice because nobody reads it without choosing to visit your blog. Incidentally that indicates the reader has at least some respect for your thoughts. It probably won't be as helpful as personalized solicited advice, but it's still potentially valuable.
Another rule I follow for advice-giving is asking myself, am I suggesting a way that is really better or just how I would do it? If it's the latter case then I'll often demur, or at least say it's really just my opinion and there are probably other, possibly better, ways to do whatever it is.