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A relatively small amount of force applied at just the right place

tonykulesa.com

111–120 of 131 posts

Re: A relatively small amount of force applied at just the right place

#111
Perhaps a bit tangential, but the reason there aren't more bio-tech startups given the cited number of bio-tech PhDs is because graduate school / academia doesn't select for "entrepreneurship potential" (broadly defined), it doesn't nurture this potential over the course of one's graduate education, and it doesn't reward entrepreneurship.

Academia has favored "the mind" over every other quality of a human being for a long time. Maybe this is useful for capital-d Discovery. Jury's out on whether it is more effective to train researchers to be founders rather than training founders to be research-oriented.

Re: A relatively small amount of force applied at just the right place

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree it's not very sustainable, at least for your typical person in Western Society, but it's not unheard of either. I've worked hundred hour weeks and also supervised crews of Hispanic Americans that will work 100 hour weeks. On the other end of the spectrum, I've known m&a lawyers that do the same to close deals at the end of the fiscal year. 100 hour week is roughly 14 hour days with no weekend break. 6:00 a.m.…

It is not sustained/sustainable. I worked 100 hour weeks too, but then it took like a month to recover and during that time I could not properly work even 50 hours on my main job. Agriculture is historically seasonal: you work a lot during some times, but the rest of the time you do completely nothing on the agriculture front. Not a luxury at most modern workplaces.

Just to help clarify, not a luxury at the agricultural places, either, just the pace it runs at.

Re: A relatively small amount of force applied at just the right place

#113

I want to start a company, but will not. The main reason why the existence of YC does not change this is because I know my idea, even if I go all in, does not promise explosive growth on par with Airbnbs of this world, and therefore is not attractive to investment. It does have the potential to eventually become a lifestyle business, though, which would be good enough for me. Unfortunately, I guess it will have to wa…

99.9999% (or whatever) of businesses are started without VC funding.

Re: A relatively small amount of force applied at just the right place

#114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make it sound as if all you need to do is study, try hard, and roll a 50-sided die. Obviously that is not sufficient. And anyone who's playing in the NFL today was far better than "ok" at all previous levels of competition.

I actually think its better than rolling a 50 sided die. That was me just being nice about it. I think if you actually actively work with the goal of making it to the NFL, your odds are even better than 1 in 50. For example, sprinting times are atleast looked at. How often have you heard of a highschool or college athlete hiring a running and sprinting coach? I assure you its not very often. (my college gf of 7 years…

A running coach is not going to turn you into Tyreek, it's just going to be a waste of money. All the people you claim just didn't want it bad enough were realistic enough to realize that.

Obviously, if this were a career path available to anyone who bothered to hire a coach, it wouldn't pay millions of dollars.

Re: A relatively small amount of force applied at just the right place

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OpenAI shook the planet with something fairly groundbreaking. It's closer to the iPhone in the rapid impact it had, moving a lot faster than the iPhone did, than the extension of a payment processor made easier (which is what Stripe is). Stripe, Airbnb, Doordash, Uber etc. They're services that add value by extending existing concepts to the Internet or in a slightly better way. There's nothing revolutionary or earth…

Openai hasn't really proven itself to be a profitable business so the economic research is at best incomplete. I'm sure AI has real value, but what percent of that comes from LLMs and what contribution OpenAI will wind up making to the business of AI is not very clear. I don't really think the world will be different in ten years than it would have been without openai.

I would be willing to bet a lot of money that OpenAi will change the world 10 fold more than Stripe, Airbnb, and all other YC companies combined in the next 10 years

Re: A relatively small amount of force applied at just the right place

#116
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's important to learn the history of Jack Welch at GE. His choices echo through most modern society at the moment.

Can you say more about this? Why Welch specifically, vs other important execs over time?

GE used to be an R&D heavy company that paid it's employee's well. Welch, proved and popularized the trend of firing large business areas and hollowing out R&D to pump up the quarterly stock price. This was a sugar hit of profitability at the expense of the future.

Re: A relatively small amount of force applied at just the right place

#117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not sustained/sustainable. I worked 100 hour weeks too, but then it took like a month to recover and during that time I could not properly work even 50 hours on my main job. Agriculture is historically seasonal: you work a lot during some times, but the rest of the time you do completely nothing on the agriculture front. Not a luxury at most modern workplaces.

Just to help clarify, not a luxury at the agricultural places, either, just the pace it runs at.

I do not know what you mean. What I described with regards to agriculture is how it worked historically with communities growing stuff for themselves or to sell at a local market. I encountered leftovers of that personally growing up. People could work hard in planting/harvest times during summer and in winter do mostly nothing except maintenance and such. I am not talking about commercial industries which may well be working people to the bone unsustainably (and illegally, if it was a developed country) with 12+ hour shifts. Barely a worthy example.

Re: A relatively small amount of force applied at just the right place

#118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you are describing seems like hustling and/or privilege. If your goal is to create value long term, the worst way to go about it is to not take care of yourself. For people who were not born into strong safety nets it is usually harder and includes finances. Becoming ill is a sure way to be unproductive and make bad decisions, going broke and struggling to make ends meet is not going to help you focus on getting…

> For people who were not born into strong safety nets "Hustling" as you call it is pretty much the only way to start a successful business exactly for the people not born into "strong safety nets" and "privilege" as you call it. If you have those you can start your business and coast. I don't know any business owner - including myself - who didn't have to make sacrifices to his or her well being to push through. Tha…

First you have moved the goalposts from complete disregard for oneself (ignoring the possibility of becoming ill) to “making some sacrifices”.

Then you claimed “the human mind has an incredible force to resist becoming ill”. Tell your mind that while lying in a ditch with a few broken bones after an SUV crashed into you as you were walking half asleep after working for 18 hours straight and realizing you have no insurance or even a bank account because you failed to get or hold a job in pursuit of a moonshot startup idea.

The notion that starting a business automatically requires disregarding your life and people close to you is frankly some cool-aid fueled SV fever dream that doesn’t represent reality. Those startup founders with thousands to millions of YC funding, who pay themselves enough to live comfortably (with all the healthcare, dental care, good apartment and other things that many people struggle with) in one of the world’s most expensive places, are the prime example of the opposite!

People in my situation shouldn’t go all in on some new venture unless that venture can interest the likes of YC who can provide the required safety net. Not because we are mentally unfit to do it for the wild reasons you described, but just because the circumstances aren’t right.

Running even a small business is a great way to create more value for the world, but yes, it requires some sacrifices—and if you don’t have the leeway to make those sacrifices, ruining yourself is probably the worst way to go about it.

Take it easy!

Re: A relatively small amount of force applied at just the right place

#119
post #11

Most outsider analyses of YC are total nonsense. But this article focuses on the right things. One thing it gets wrong: > Despite Paul Graham’s assertion that startups should not co-locate, many of the YC startups of this period did live together (and still do today). This created a social community around YC startups that also attracted new recruits, such as Justin Kan’s brother, Dan Kan, who went on to found Exec (…

Thanks, I've added this correction to the essay.

Re: A relatively small amount of force applied at just the right place

#120
post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, no time at all. Can barely keep up. Recognize not everyone’s job is as easy as yours.

Do you also have no time in the evenings or weekends? Spend the hours that you normally watch TV or browse social media/Hacker News working on your project. But the fact that you're posting on here while complaining that you don't have time tells me you just don't want to do it enough for it to ever be worthwhile.

No time means no time in which I can do productive work.

I still have time to, say, occasionally exercise or have a walk or deal with life chores or get out with friends once in a while, but if I stop doing those things that would hurt my health/life and therefore my ability to work even further, as I know from experience.

As to HN, I read it mostly when I can’t sleep or in public transport.

I don’t watch or have TV.

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