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Value is created by doing

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: Value is created by doing

#21

Post by sheetjs »

natural219 wrote: post #11

All advice is a two-way street. I think at this point, the proverbial "advice market" is saturated with this idea that "doing" is far superior to "thinking". This is because, traditionally, hackers tend to lie squarely on the "thinking too much" end of the spectrum. I'm interested to read at least one post on the opposite advice -- what happens when you're too heavy on the "doing" end of the spectrum? Are there examp…

> Are there examples of startups failing because of too much emphasis of execution?

Plenty, and we see it every day, except they don't call it "failure by doing too much". They call it things like "not understanding the target market" or "focusing on features rather than experience" (more generally "not thinking enough")

Re: Value is created by doing

#22

Post by discreteevent »

minimax wrote: post #6

Writing software no one wants does not create value—that’s called a class project. My corollary to that is that if you write software that does create value, it doesn't matter what editor or language you use. So if you're super duper productive in Perl (or whatever) don't worry too much about chasing after whatever language HN is fetishizing at the moment. It will change in a few months anyway.

A while ago I met an older friend for lunch. I used to work with him years ago in my first job (failed startup). He was out on his own again building out an innovative idea he had in Smalltalk, (which is what he knew). I was talking to him about FP and type theory about all the debates that were going on about it. He just said that its a waste of time listening to most of the people on these kinds of sites because you can tell straight away that most of them don't build anything. Of course that's not quite true, but there was enough truth in it for me to feel like it was a friendly kick in the ass.

Re: Value is created by doing

#23

Post by j_baker »

natural219 wrote: post #11

All advice is a two-way street. I think at this point, the proverbial "advice market" is saturated with this idea that "doing" is far superior to "thinking". This is because, traditionally, hackers tend to lie squarely on the "thinking too much" end of the spectrum. I'm interested to read at least one post on the opposite advice -- what happens when you're too heavy on the "doing" end of the spectrum? Are there examp…

I think the point is: you should measure success by the things you've gotten done. Thinking has no value if it doesn't lead you to do anything. If stopping and thinking leads to a better product (and I think it usually does), then it's worth doing.

Re: Value is created by doing

#24

Post by j_baker »

You know, coffee and chat and conferences and whatnot are to the startup world as meetings and hierarchy and process are to big companies. They're both excuses not to get anything done.

Re: Value is created by doing

#25

Post by squintychino »

minimax wrote: post #6

Writing software no one wants does not create value—that’s called a class project. My corollary to that is that if you write software that does create value, it doesn't matter what editor or language you use. So if you're super duper productive in Perl (or whatever) don't worry too much about chasing after whatever language HN is fetishizing at the moment. It will change in a few months anyway.

I think you misunderstood that comment. I don't think he was referring to writing IN A software no one wants, as in a specific programming language. I think he meant that if there's no demand for the software itself then it doesn't create value for anyone because, well, no one wants it.

Re: Value is created by doing

#26

Post by beat »

A minor quibble here... while value is created by doing, value doesn't necessarily reflect in something that can be sold to other people for money.

"Writing software no one wants" can create value if the person writing it wants it. Just not monetary value.

Re: Value is created by doing

#28

Post by DorintheFlora »

natural219 wrote: post #11

All advice is a two-way street. I think at this point, the proverbial "advice market" is saturated with this idea that "doing" is far superior to "thinking". This is because, traditionally, hackers tend to lie squarely on the "thinking too much" end of the spectrum. I'm interested to read at least one post on the opposite advice -- what happens when you're too heavy on the "doing" end of the spectrum? Are there examp…

I am of the opinion that "ideas are nothing, execution is everything" grows in part out of the lack of adequate language and mental models to distinguish amongst ideas of the armchair politician variety and ideas with legs. There are some words to distinguish such things, like hypothesis and theorem, but they mostly don't apply in the realm of business. I have been trying to sort out how to do a post on that very topic but I am not ready for it.

Re: Value is created by doing

#29

Post by mkramlich »

> Another example of not-quite-work is every night in San Francisco, there are dinner parties where people get together and talk about the future. It’s always fun and usually not very contentious—most people agree we need to go to space, for example. But at the end of it, everyone goes home and works on something else.

except for Elon Musk and team at SpaceX

Re: Value is created by doing

#30

Post by zoba »

I agree, although this makes me think of the great number of people who have the potential to create value but cannot, because their ability to "do" is blocked. Most people I know who cannot create value have an issue of time. Most everyone is locked into their job with rent payments, student loans, and other debts. Its frustrating to see that those with wealth can also purchase time for themselves to use to get more wealth, while the majority of people are strapped in for the ride.

Of course non-wealthy people can build things in the evenings and weekends, but, then they begin dealing with issues of stress and burnout. I'm glad YC helps to give folks a chance. I do think one of the less talked about benefits of a strong middle class and even wealth distribution is people have time/ability to innovate on their own.

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