What the smartest people do on the weekend, everyone else will do in 10 years • Hacker News Board

Re: What the smartest people do on the weekend, everyone else will do in 10 years

#71

Post by gizmo » Sun, Mar 03, 2013, 8:34 AM UTC

In an attempt to re-rail the discussion away from the somewhat fluffy and self-congratulatory tone of the blogpost, let me make a few observations.

Startups and new technologies need growth more than anything. Whether it's bitcoin or NoSQL, you need to reach some sort of critical mass or it's game over. As a general rule, if your idea is good there must be people out there who can get really passionate about what you're doing and you have to be able to find them. The earliest adopters. To them you have to provide what pg calls the quantum of utility.

You don't create these early adopters as much as you discover them. If the problem is real then the pain points are real and then people will automatically care about your solution and spread the word.

We programmers hack away at projects in the weekends, because it's what we love to do. Frequently we gravitate to projects that somehow make our lives easier. Maybe we just need a couple of scripts to grep through a music library or maybe something to reliably diff SQL table layouts. Of course it's not just programmers, it applies to makers of all sorts. For instance you'll see mechanics modify office chairs so they can work comfortably in odd positions.

These makers who hack together solutions for themselves aren't early adopters, they precede the early adopters. They're not just people who realize a some half-baked startup product prototype is useful but people who immediately see how it can potentially change the world exactly because they considered building it 9 months ago. A long time ago we learned that it's madness to market new products to Laggards. It doesn't matter that they need what you've made and that they have money. It doesn't matter because you have to persuade every Laggard individually. And that way you can't grow.

I'm thinking that in the same way targeting early adopters is madness when you can target Makers instead.

If startups are all about traction, who is a better advocate for your product than somebody who's been playing with the idea for the past year during their weekends? Nobody! If you have an army of makers as your first users and customers the regular early adopters will follow automatically. And with traction like that you'll be unstoppable. Like Stripe.

Re: What the smartest people do on the weekend, everyone else will do in 10 years

#72

Post by zosima » Sun, Mar 03, 2013, 8:50 AM UTC

jacques_chester wrote: post #61

pg wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This post is brief, but not fluffy. I wish he had dug more into the forces at work here. But it is an important point nonetheless. And we on HN could do better than merely dismiss it. We could try to dig into the underlying forces ourselves. E.g. not all hobbies consist of making the Apple I. So which do, and why? Are the things called hobbies two different types of work that are conflated by clueless observers simpl…

> I wish he had dug more into the forces at work here. But it is an important point nonetheless. He was busy slapping all nerds everywhere on the back with reflected glory. You're just reading in what you wanted him to say and judging your desired reading, not the original. (Edit: and I did the same, fixating on the self-congratulatory fluff and ignoring the selection-biased hypothesis about making predictions.) > In…

He coined a nice epigram I will remember. That is enough for the article to be interesting.

What is the problem with being self-congratulatory? What is wrong with focusing on the positive and thinking that your hobby and life's work is worthwhile? Would anything be created if people were constantly doubting themselves and their creations? Would anything be better then?

What harm would there be in people hoping to be the next woz? And with the low base rate of garage projects going anywhere, which we are all painfully aware of, don't you think it's better to give encouragement and hope. I do, and I think a dismissal such as yours is harmful to the greater cause of creating interesting ideas, programs and thoughts.

Re: What the smartest people do on the weekend, everyone else will do in 10 years

#73

Post by jacques_chester » Sun, Mar 03, 2013, 8:58 AM UTC

zosima wrote: post #72

jacques_chester wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wish he had dug more into the forces at work here. But it is an important point nonetheless. He was busy slapping all nerds everywhere on the back with reflected glory. You're just reading in what you wanted him to say and judging your desired reading, not the original. (Edit: and I did the same, fixating on the self-congratulatory fluff and ignoring the selection-biased hypothesis about making predictions.) > In…

He coined a nice epigram I will remember. That is enough for the article to be interesting. What is the problem with being self-congratulatory? What is wrong with focusing on the positive and thinking that your hobby and life's work is worthwhile? Would anything be created if people were constantly doubting themselves and their creations? Would anything be better then? What harm would there be in people hoping to be…

> What is the problem with being self-congratulory?

I'd like to say here that having some perspective can prevent certain kinds of mistake. I think that's correct.

I'd be on surer ground if I point out that a person entirely satisfied with their professional perspective isn't going to improve past a certain asymptote that they themselves are unable to perceive.

But honestly? I just find self-congratulation tremendously embarrassing. I don't know if it's inherited or a self-deprecating theme present in Australian culture or just plain old jealousy. Or some combination of the above.

Re: What the smartest people do on the weekend, everyone else will do in 10 years

#74

Post by jff » Sun, Mar 03, 2013, 9:00 AM UTC

mijustin wrote: post #37

pdeuchler wrote: post #15

I see where Chris is getting at, but he's not generalizing it well. I think a better rule of thumb would be: Look at what new and upcoming technologies people with large domain expertise are excited about. Those technologies will probably be included in business practices within that domain in the near future. Edit: It's also a rather self-fulfilling prophecy. Obviously industry leaders will pave the way for their pe…

Exactly. It's a bit tricky to do the attribution. Looking at a current technology and giving it a single origin isn't realistic. In the comments Chris cites HAM being a precursor for BBSes. Maybe; but so were actual physical bulletin boards.

Ham is not an acronym. Nobody's quite sure of what it means, but it doesn't seem to be an acronym.

Re: What the smartest people do on the weekend, everyone else will do in 10 years

#75

Post by Helianthus » Sun, Mar 03, 2013, 9:09 AM UTC

jacques_chester wrote: post #73

zosima wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He coined a nice epigram I will remember. That is enough for the article to be interesting. What is the problem with being self-congratulatory? What is wrong with focusing on the positive and thinking that your hobby and life's work is worthwhile? Would anything be created if people were constantly doubting themselves and their creations? Would anything be better then? What harm would there be in people hoping to be…

> What is the problem with being self-congratulory? I'd like to say here that having some perspective can prevent certain kinds of mistake. I think that's correct. I'd be on surer ground if I point out that a person entirely satisfied with their professional perspective isn't going to improve past a certain asymptote that they themselves are unable to perceive. But honestly? I just find self-congratulation tremendous…

When you congratulate yourself to more than three or four, it's an anonymous personal moment. Otherwise it's manipulation.

And with three or four, it's probably something inbetween.

Re: What the smartest people do on the weekend, everyone else will do in 10 years

#76

Post by enjo » Sun, Mar 03, 2013, 9:23 AM UTC

andrewljohnson wrote: post #3

Which hobbyist invented the web? Blogs? It isn't at all obvious to me who he is citing, if these people are hobbyists. Also, was "most" open source software a hobby, or a professional scratching an itch? And the first pc? Is Chris trying to say that's woz, and he was a hobbyist? The whole blog post is a little too pat.

It's confirmation bias of the highest order. What things have hobbyists been working on for years that we're not using? There are so many smart people doing so many different things, and most of them stay far out of the mainstream.

Hell I have a friend who's incredibly smart. He spends his weekend meticulously crafting civil war uniforms for his re-enacments. Should I be watching out for a big-time re-enactment craze in the near future?

Re: What the smartest people do on the weekend, everyone else will do in 10 years

#77

Post by return0 » Sun, Mar 03, 2013, 9:28 AM UTC

unimpressive wrote: post #34

Why is this the top voted article on HN? It's extremely short, makes a point that has already been stated elsewhere at least once, and it's entirely vapid. (See: Paul Graham essays.)

Because people up-voted it.

Re: What the smartest people do on the weekend, everyone else will do in 10 years

#78

Post by _delirium » Sun, Mar 03, 2013, 9:41 AM UTC

zosima wrote: post #72

jacques_chester wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wish he had dug more into the forces at work here. But it is an important point nonetheless. He was busy slapping all nerds everywhere on the back with reflected glory. You're just reading in what you wanted him to say and judging your desired reading, not the original. (Edit: and I did the same, fixating on the self-congratulatory fluff and ignoring the selection-biased hypothesis about making predictions.) > In…

He coined a nice epigram I will remember. That is enough for the article to be interesting. What is the problem with being self-congratulatory? What is wrong with focusing on the positive and thinking that your hobby and life's work is worthwhile? Would anything be created if people were constantly doubting themselves and their creations? Would anything be better then? What harm would there be in people hoping to be…

Maybe I'm traveling in the wrong tech circles, but I hardly see insufficient confidence in the greatness of ourselves as the major problem facing techie culture, such that we need more encouragement to cultivate such a self-appreciation. How great and ahead of our times we are, especially compared to all those rubes who aren't techies, is sort of an axiom of the culture.

Re: What the smartest people do on the weekend, everyone else will do in 10 years

#79

Post by tensor » Sun, Mar 03, 2013, 9:49 AM UTC

jacques_chester wrote: post #64

DannyBee wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's funny because most i've met are narrow minded about their own field. At least when I went chatting with lawyers and interviewing after I first got out of law school, every non-academic lawyer I met in the field of IP law was fairly narrow minded. Even asking them things that their businesses depended on, like "What do you think will happen as patents on computer implemented inventions become significantly more…

My current lawyer is a technology entrepreneur on the side. My law lecturers were variously keen observers of politics, literature, art, human nature and economics. One of the people I most admire as an essayist and thinker has three ( three! ) law degrees. However, putting aside the exchange of anecdotes at twenty paces: you're absolutely right . In every profession there are people whose vision never rises above th…

You suffer exactly what you criticize. You preach cross discipline, yet make an absurd generalization that people from a single domain are the best at not being in a single domain.

Do you have evidence to back this up? Something more then anecdote?

You cannot know everything about every domain. There are people better than you at everything. The balance between specializing and diversifying depends on so many variables. This isn't something you can make a trite generalization about.

edit: And out of the professions I've experienced, the most widely diversified one is "I don't have the data to tell you."

Re: What the smartest people do on the weekend, everyone else will do in 10 years

#80

Post by olalonde » Sun, Mar 03, 2013, 9:53 AM UTC

gizmo wrote: post #71

In an attempt to re-rail the discussion away from the somewhat fluffy and self-congratulatory tone of the blogpost, let me make a few observations. Startups and new technologies need growth more than anything. Whether it's bitcoin or NoSQL, you need to reach some sort of critical mass or it's game over. As a general rule, if your idea is good there must be people out there who can get really passionate about what you…

Your comment would be so much better without the last sentence. As much as we all like Stripe, they didn't invent a new technology or kick start an industry.