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How to Do Great Work (2023)

paulgraham.com

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Re: How to Do Great Work (2023)

#31

Post by bryanph_ »

resonious wrote: post #25
bryanph_ wrote: post #22

When Paul Graham uses a phrase like "great work" I can't help but only consider it as being synonymous to "work that generates a big return for the investor" in his context of Y Combinator

That probably is what it means and I think there's still value in the analysis.

I agree. Though the article mentions work from people like Einstein, Copernicus, Darwin, etc. A far cry from the kind of work Y Combinator funds. It gives the post a comedic air to it. Perhaps if had given some more grounded examples that feel more relevant to the work he's done himself then the article would land more for me.

Re: How to Do Great Work (2023)

#35

Post by rvba »

PG could really work on style to shorten those walls of text (yes he refers to it near the end)

That's actually my own problem too - I often use AI to summarize / shorten my own texts. (Opposite of what most who seem to use it for generation?)

Re: How to Do Great Work (2023)

#36

Post by api »

rvba wrote: post #34
dtj1123 wrote: post #8

Genuine question, what work has Paul Graham done that can be classified as 'great'?

For me keeping Hacker News in the way it is. One of the last "inspiring" places, now that reddit is dead.

It’s declined in quality too but not as sharply as Reddit or the cess pools of the rest of social media.

Re: How to Do Great Work (2023)

#37

Post by api »

gus_massa wrote: post #19
dtj1123 wrote: post #8

Genuine question, what work has Paul Graham done that can be classified as 'great'?

https://paulgraham.com/spam.html I think all the parts were invented by other people, but he got the right mix to make it work. It's also like the wheel. Before it was a huge problem and no one know how to solve it. Now it's invisible. Note that all modern versions use enhanced variants with a lot or trick to make it better.

Every invention is made of other inventions all the way back to big rock and sharp stick.

So yes Bayesian spam filtering was impressive for its time. I remember it being done locally in mail clients.

It’s also one of the early popular deployments of a form of “AI” but that was still during the hangover from the first AI bubble when you had to call it “machine learning.”

Re: How to Do Great Work (2023)

#38

Post by wseqyrku »

jagged-chisel wrote: post #30
wseqyrku wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because I enjoy his talks but he obviously didn't do a talk for every single essay.

Might be a voice that’s sampled of PG’s speech, but it won’t deliver it like PG himself.

Actually try it, it's pretty good. Especially when the alternative doesn't exist. And mind you, I am not pro-AI at all, it might not come off that way under this thread. Despite that I did appreciate whoever made it. File it under personal preference.

Re: How to Do Great Work (2023)

#39

Post by rvba »

resonious wrote: post #26

> At 7 it may seem excitingly ambitious to build huge things out of Lego, then at 14 to teach yourself calculus, till at 21 you're starting to explore unanswered questions in physics. Is this supposed to be relatable?

For me it is

Re: How to Do Great Work (2023)

#40

Post by inigyou »

Archer6621 wrote: post #24

It's a nice post, with a lot of valuable insights. There is one that I disagree with though: "Never abandon the root node". There are plenty of instances that show that in reality this is not what happens, and in fact this is often a necessary step of reinventing yourself if things really aren't working for you. The mid-life crisis is a famous example of this, or even the quarter-life crisis. In some specific psychol…

FWIW existential crises can strike at any part of life, so naming them like that is outdated.
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