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How Not to Die

paulgraham.com

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Re: How Not to Die

#111

Post by zaidf »

sytelus wrote: post #110

I don't think that million dollars can ever replace those years that you could have rather spent at school. Is money is everything Paul wants everyone to run after. Is there a place for passion for creating things without worrying about money, learning new stuff or just plain old play a better idea to spend your ONE life than to keep worrying about creating something that you would bag a big fat ass beurocratic giant…

"Is there a place for passion for creating things without worrying about money, learning new stuff "

Funny you say that because every single founder I was with this summer had two things in common: they were passionate about what they were doing and they learned A LOT over the course of the three months.

Relax. If you dislike an individual, you can simply state it rather than using some twisted logic to express the same thing.

Re: How Not to Die

#112

Post by altay »

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 started one of those YC-funded companies that "crawled off somewhere and died."

After that happened, I spent a couple of months staring at walls, feeling sorry for myself. During that time, I listened to everything at venturevoice.com, read Founders at Work, and kept thinking "man, these success stories are inspiring, but what I need right now are some goddamn failure storiesX." (If you're in the same position, I highly recommend this book: http://tinyurl.com/362eg5 )

Anyways, you're both right. Founders at Rest: Stories of Losers Who Fucked Up and Gave Up would be boring and depressing. But interviews with successful people about their failures -- e.g., Evan Williams' Blogger saga -- would be fascinating and inspiring. The classic story arc doesn't let the hero succeed right off the bat. First he hits a low point, then pulls himself up by his bootstraps.

One of these days I'll write that book. Right now, though, I'm too busy working on my next startup.

Don't forget, Microsoft wasn't Bill Gates' first company.

Re: How Not to Die

#113

Post by rms »

altay wrote: post #112
SwellJoe wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 started one of those YC-funded companies that "crawled off somewhere and died." After that happened, I spent a couple of months staring at walls, feeling sorry for myself. During that time, I listened to everything at venturevoice.com, read Founders at Work, and kept thinking "man, these success stories are inspiring, but what I need right now are some goddamn failure storiesX." (If you're in the same position, I h…

Have you thought about writing the story of your first startup? A lot of us would be very curious to get a different perspective of the Y Combinator experience.

Re: How Not to Die

#114

Post by Neoryder »

sytelus wrote: post #110

I don't think that million dollars can ever replace those years that you could have rather spent at school. Is money is everything Paul wants everyone to run after. Is there a place for passion for creating things without worrying about money, learning new stuff or just plain old play a better idea to spend your ONE life than to keep worrying about creating something that you would bag a big fat ass beurocratic giant…

I think PG expressed why making money is important in an earlier essay. So that we get making money out of the way of us making a life, or something like that.

Re: How Not to Die

#116

Post by uuilly »

far33d wrote: post #19

A good friend of mine once described pg as a "modern-day Horatio Alger for hackers".

I think of him more as the pied piper leading the children away from the corporations.

Re: How Not to Die

#119

Post by nabeel »

danw wrote: post #33
zach wrote: post #8

Interesting to hear about this since many of us wonder what ends up happening. Kind of an unappealing subject -- nobody wants to read Founders at Rest, right? I guess startups are like old soldiers, they just fade away. Anyone want memamp.com? It went to unregistered status a week or two ago. But this was a good handling of the subject, and good for founders to hear. What I think is great about YC's structure is that…

openCoffee club is perfect for this. Turn up every week and you'll get to know people who you respect. They'll always ask you what you're up to and what you've done since last week. The simple fact that you don't wan't to look bad in front of them is a great motivator. Or perhaps some kind of demo party. Everyone has to present something for 10 minutes, something they've done or learnt since last week.

danw, I don't think OpenCoffee club really is like this right now. But after reading PGs essay I think that perhaps it should.

Perhaps opencoffee should have a culture of demoing every week. You show up, you get scrutinized, but it's all for the best.

Re: How Not to Die

#120

Post by Mistone »

glad I took the time to chill out today with this talk/paper. I've already felt like crawling away a few times and we are just at the starting line. I love the idea of making it really matter if you fail, making it public to friends and family, risking something of yourself, these are the things you think about when its grim, "what will her mom say?", how will we repay the CC debt?, when it will hurt to fall, your better off holding on tight.

very inspiring, thanks pg!

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