How Not to Die • Hacker News Board

Re: How Not to Die

#91

Post by skeptic » Fri, Aug 31, 2007, 5:49 AM UTC

"It would be unthinkably humiliating to fail now. At this point he is committed to fight to the death."

I'm going to have to disagree with the majority of fanboys here and say that I (still) disagree with Paul's premise that a good way to spend your life is to be miserable in anticipation of a tiny chance to be wealthy. I'd rather enjoy my job every day instead of live in the kind of environment where failure would be synonymous with my actual death. Many great things have come of "failure."

Re: How Not to Die

#92

Post by dfranke » Fri, Aug 31, 2007, 6:47 AM UTC

dfranke wrote: post #67

juwo wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about this: If you are in the YC club, you and your cofounders, the idea, prototype, business model, user base have passed muster. Your team is in a startup hub like SFO/BOS. You will have the backing, connections and resources of YC. Otherwise, the qualifiers that apply to any other startup in general, apply.

If this talk didn't apply to people not accepted by YC, Paul wouldn't have bothered publishing it.

Ok, I don't want to come off as whining, but I'm just really curious: who downmodded this comment and why? Usually when I get a downmod it's on a statement that's at least somewhat controversial, and I don't understand why this one would be. I can't figure out why anyone except possibly juwo would want to downmod it, and I know it wasn't him because you can't downmod replies to your own posts.

Re: How Not to Die

#93

Post by davidw » Fri, Aug 31, 2007, 7:18 AM UTC

SwellJoe wrote: post #53

davidw wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's one of the points in 'The Black Swan'. People concentrate way too much on success stories without looking at the failure stories.

"People concentrate way too much on success stories without looking at the failure stories." By what definition of "too much"? I see nothing wrong with focusing on studying the best--the ones that made it. Those are the people to emulate. Why spend your limited time studying the ones that failed? Sure, learning from mistakes is great. But I suspect I'm going to weather the storm better if I learn about mistakes from…

"I see nothing wrong with focusing on studying the best--the ones that made it. Those are the people to emulate."

What if the failures are doing a lot of the same things? You just can't get a complete picture without examining the failures, too.

It's probably better to be optimistic, because being realistic is likely to simply be depressing, but still, for those curious about the system as a whole, you can't just look at success.

Re: How Not to Die

#94

Post by mattmaroon » Fri, Aug 31, 2007, 7:21 AM UTC

mynameishere wrote: post #44

jsjenkins168 wrote: post #13

I will say it plainly: This is the most influential, well written essay I have ever read. It hit a chord very deep with me..

I hate to always be the jerk on this board, but: 1) How can a just-now-released essay be influential at all? 2) At least half of pg's essays are better written than this, which to me seemed a little phoned-in. It's not really an essay anyway, but a peptalk. He didn't even have the usual cavalcade of proofreaders at the bottom. 3) The most influential essay I've ever read is the first essay of "Genealogy of Morals".

All of Paul's essays are better written. This wasn't an essay. It was a talk, and one written quickly.

Re: How Not to Die

#95

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Aug 31, 2007, 7:25 AM UTC

imp wrote: post #84

mynameishere wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate to always be the jerk on this board, but: 1) How can a just-now-released essay be influential at all? 2) At least half of pg's essays are better written than this, which to me seemed a little phoned-in. It's not really an essay anyway, but a peptalk. He didn't even have the usual cavalcade of proofreaders at the bottom. 3) The most influential essay I've ever read is the first essay of "Genealogy of Morals".

I think that sometimes off-the cuff speeches/essays are more influential because they aren't heavily edited and flow more like how a normal person would speak. I thought this was a great essay.

[deleted]

Re: How Not to Die

#96

Post by portLAN » Fri, Aug 31, 2007, 7:39 AM UTC

skeptic wrote: post #91

"It would be unthinkably humiliating to fail now. At this point he is committed to fight to the death." I'm going to have to disagree with the majority of fanboys here and say that I (still) disagree with Paul's premise that a good way to spend your life is to be miserable in anticipation of a tiny chance to be wealthy. I'd rather enjoy my job every day instead of live in the kind of environment where failure would b…

> Many great things have come of "failure."

Especially condom failure.

Re: How Not to Die

#97

Post by vikram » Fri, Aug 31, 2007, 10:00 AM UTC

What counts as not dying? If you drop the initial idea and start work on a very different one does that also count as dying?

Re: How Not to Die

#98

Post by damir » Fri, Aug 31, 2007, 10:15 AM UTC

I read lot's of biographies (of self made rich pepople). Almost every single one finishes at least one chapter (or book) with "... but don't give up!".

PG, you just scored.

Re: How Not to Die

#99

Post by pg » Fri, Aug 31, 2007, 1:17 PM UTC

vikram wrote: post #97

What counts as not dying? If you drop the initial idea and start work on a very different one does that also count as dying?

Not usually. But it can be if the initial idea was good and the new one is bad.

Re: How Not to Die

#100

Post by pg » Fri, Aug 31, 2007, 1:51 PM UTC

skeptic wrote: post #91

"It would be unthinkably humiliating to fail now. At this point he is committed to fight to the death." I'm going to have to disagree with the majority of fanboys here and say that I (still) disagree with Paul's premise that a good way to spend your life is to be miserable in anticipation of a tiny chance to be wealthy. I'd rather enjoy my job every day instead of live in the kind of environment where failure would b…

> in anticipation of a tiny chance to be wealthy

It isn't tiny in the case of Octopart or the audience I was addressing. They've all been selected out of a much larger pool. For them the odds might be as high as 50%.