Live data from Hacker News

Leonardo da Vinci was a hopeless procrastinator.

chronicle.com

1–10 of 58 posts

Re: Leonardo da Vinci was a hopeless procrastinator.

#4
Real artists occasionally ship?

Steve Jobs tried to motivate people by saying "Real artists ship." This is a fine sentence, but unfortunately not true. Many famous works of art are unfinished. It's true in fields that have hard deadlines, like architecture and filmmaking, but even there people tend to be tweaking stuff till it's yanked out of their hands.

http://www.paulgraham.com/startupmistakes.html

Re: Leonardo da Vinci was a hopeless procrastinator.

#8
post #5
post #2

It's just as true now as it was then, perfect is the enemy of good enough.

But would you rather have good enough or Leonardo?

Good enough, because masses will be able to afford it and benefit from it. Bring in Leo and the cost goes from nearly free to extremely expensive. Think bicycle against Ferrari, when all you need is a way to make the 3 mile commute between home and the plant.

Re: Leonardo da Vinci was a hopeless procrastinator.

#9
On a day to day basis Leonardo would allocate his time between customer projects and his own. He would balance client commitments with his natural energy for creativity - and according to this article, his natural energy often won that battle.

It could be argued that it was the vision and taste of the Medici family in Florence that actually launched the renaissance. Their customer dollars enabled a new class of Italian artists and scientists to pursue creativity and innovation. Leonardo took this to a whole new level - if you had the opportunity to see the recent exhibit in the San Jose Tech Museum, it is clear the he was standing on the shoulder of other intellectual giants at the time.. all spurred by customers with a taste for art and technology.

However, when the vision of the creator exceeds the vision of customer, what is the result? A starving artist, a 'self-sabatoger', a practitioner of 'sinful laziness' and 'self-abuse'?

The author points out that academia has no place for the passionate creative. I would argue that similarly the a customer driven market is also no place for the passionate creative. So, where do they belong? Are we content as a society to witness that occasional, rare intersection of the visionary customer with the passionate creative? As entrepreneurs, is it our place to find a solution?

Post reply on HN