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In work, once you remove all that is unnecessary, wrong, and bad. Then what you are left with must be greatness.
What an empty and depressing world it would be if that was true.
> 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?
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FWIW existential crises can strike at any part of life, so naming them like that is outdated.
Genuine question, what work has Paul Graham done that can be classified as 'great'?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
> 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?
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
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
What do you want it to be synonymous to? The people who've managed to do great work without generating large investment returns not that large. Compared to the number of ambitious people presently looking for advice it is small.
If you're great work only consists of work that generates money, then you're neglecting the entire spectrum of the human experience.
Genuine question, what work has Paul Graham done that can be classified as 'great'?