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Success may not matter if you aren't doing what you love

12gramsofcarbon.com

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Re: Success may not matter if you aren't doing what you love

#11

Post by ElProlactin »

There are way too many straw man examples in this article that it distracts from the point the author is trying to make.

A former jazz pianist and Buddhist monk who used psychedelics, the Spanish-speaker trying to sell into a Chinese-speaking market, the introvert selling to enterprise buyers who love going to steakhouses and watching the Yankees from box seats, etc.

Interestingly, two words that aren't mentioned even once in this entire article: "co-founder" and "hire". Very few people singlehandedly build the type of businesses the author is talking about. They team up with and recruit other people to join them so that they can focus on what they do best and fill in the gaps with other people's talent.

Re: Success may not matter if you aren't doing what you love

#12

Post by ericls »

measurablefunc wrote: post #8
ericls wrote: post #4

Success is not a defined term.

Article is about economic/business success which is defined in terms of revenue/profits, i.e. numbers going up & to the right.

But when it's tangled with emotional/personal stuff such as love. It gets really messy.

Re: Success may not matter if you aren't doing what you love

#14

Post by chungusamongus »

gnabgib wrote: post #9

Your entire history seems to be self-promotion, you're aware of the guidelines? > Please don't use HN primarily for promotion. It's ok to post your own stuff part of the time, but the primary use of the site should be for curiosity. Perhaps you could submit something you're curious about, instead? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[flagged]

Re: Success may not matter if you aren't doing what you love

#16

Post by gjvc »

gnabgib wrote: post #9

Your entire history seems to be self-promotion, you're aware of the guidelines? > Please don't use HN primarily for promotion. It's ok to post your own stuff part of the time, but the primary use of the site should be for curiosity. Perhaps you could submit something you're curious about, instead? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Your entire history seems to be kvetching

Re: Success may not matter if you aren't doing what you love

#17

Post by [deleted] »

gnabgib wrote: post #9

Your entire history seems to be self-promotion, you're aware of the guidelines? > Please don't use HN primarily for promotion. It's ok to post your own stuff part of the time, but the primary use of the site should be for curiosity. Perhaps you could submit something you're curious about, instead? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[deleted]

Re: Success may not matter if you aren't doing what you love

#18

Post by CosmicShadow »

Great article, finally something worth reading fully on here. As a serial entrepreneur this definitely hits home and is something I've had to learn the hard way over my 17 years of entrepreneurship. Just because you come across a great opportunity and you have the skills and gusto to make it happen doesn't mean it's a good fit. If you don't give a shit about the idea/problem/market it doesn't matter if you are good at every aspect of the business, it will be a slog and you just won't care and will set yourself up to fail sooner or later.

Re: Success may not matter if you aren't doing what you love

#19

Post by theahura »

gnabgib wrote: post #9

Your entire history seems to be self-promotion, you're aware of the guidelines? > Please don't use HN primarily for promotion. It's ok to post your own stuff part of the time, but the primary use of the site should be for curiosity. Perhaps you could submit something you're curious about, instead? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> Perhaps you could submit something you're curious about, instead?

Hi, author here. I write about what I'm curious about. I don't think it's promotion (both in spirit or letter) to share what I am curious about. I hate just linking to without any commentary, since that has very low value-above-replacement.

I'm curious why you went into my posting history -- do you do that for every post?

[EDIT] to be clear this isnt written by AI, despite a few people seemingly tripped up by it. Check pangram if you doubt

Re: Success may not matter if you aren't doing what you love

#20

Post by theahura »

ElProlactin wrote: post #11

There are way too many straw man examples in this article that it distracts from the point the author is trying to make. A former jazz pianist and Buddhist monk who used psychedelics, the Spanish-speaker trying to sell into a Chinese-speaking market, the introvert selling to enterprise buyers who love going to steakhouses and watching the Yankees from box seats, etc. Interestingly, two words that aren't mentioned eve…

> Interestingly, two words that aren't mentioned even once in this entire article: "co-founder" and "hire"

I actually debated including this!

But I ended up not doing so, because your co-founder and the people you hire will end up being more aligned to you (your values, judgements, whatever) than even the market you end up in, especially early on. And if they don't, that's an even bigger problem. Founder breakups are the #1 cause of startup death.

Also, agreed, all of this is out the window once you _already_ have the ability to hire a bunch of other people, but that rarely happens right out the gate, which is where most of my interest lies

> straw man examples

not straw men, all real but unnamed examples (also not really what a straw man is but whatever)

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