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Value is created by doing

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: Value is created by doing

#51

Post by Q_E_D »

There seems to be an optimal mix between "work" eg:designing and "pseudo-work" like having meetings to discuss ideas. Which of those activities will lead to a better design is unclear, since much of the "deep thinking" which is the basis of coming up with something original happens outside of consciously focused thought eg: many writers only write 4 hours a day and do something else the rest of the day, or the common belief that many problems are solved in your sleep and "realized" in the shower.

So, lets not go in either direction for any one person; and let everyone optimize towards their own mix of work and pseudo-work to come to their own original ideas about X.

Some people will not have any original ideas and will therefore advocate work as a method to "focus" on derivative outcomes that make money.

Other people will "find inspiration" while taking a bath and run out of the bathroom to write down the genuinely valuable result and advise everyone to do the same.

These two groups are very different and most of us are somewhere in between.

Re: Value is created by doing

#52

Post by smacktoward »

gboudrias wrote: post #46
theoh wrote: post #44

Seriously, this _is_ the labor theory of value. Don't know why the other comment to point this out is dead. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value It's completely inadequate. See, for example http://www.ted.com/talks/rory_sutherland_life_lessons_from_a...

I've always been fascinated by people's propensity to write about things they don't know, with the excuse that it's just humanistic sciences. There's a huge body of work that's largely ignored on the Internet, because while the average geek knows a lot about hard sciences, they're very ignorant on humanities (maybe because it's not taken as seriously). (As a side note, it's ironically hard to find out what this guy a…

In this particular case it may also have something to do with the LTOV's association with Marxist economics. The only thing Americans are expected to know about anything even vaguely associated with Marxism is that it's bad (mmmkay?), so U.S. educational institutions tend to avoid teaching things in that category to students who aren't specializing in economics. Which leads to Americans coming up with their own labels and descriptions for things that Marx observed and labeled long ago.

All of which is too bad, because Marx had a lot of interesting and valuable things to say about the problems of industrial economies (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOP2V_np2c0 for a good introduction), even if the solutions that were tried in his name didn't work out. It just wastes people's time and energy having them spin their wheels re-discovering things he discovered 150 years ago.

Re: Value is created by doing

#54

Post by myth_drannon »

theoh wrote: post #44

Seriously, this _is_ the labor theory of value. Don't know why the other comment to point this out is dead. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value It's completely inadequate. See, for example http://www.ted.com/talks/rory_sutherland_life_lessons_from_a...

Thanks , really great talk.

Re: Value is created by doing

#55

Post by abiekatz »

What work is for an investor and an entrepreneur are quite different.

As PG says entrepreneurs should "Live in the future, then build what’s missing."

Investors allocate capital to what will be more valuable in the future: whether it is something that is missing now or whether it is something that will simply continue to grow in value.

Venture Capital is an interesting middle ground because not only do you allocate capital but you also assist the companies in creating value and you have to compete to be able to invest in the most promising companies. By blogging well you are building your brand and this will help you meet great entrepreneurs and increase your ability to have access to invest in their companies. Of course your reputation will mainly be based on the track record of your investments and how much you help the founders you work with but writing well and having it consistently on top of hacker news helps.

Plus, your writing helps clarify your thoughts and provides you with useful feedback which can help you refine your investment thesis.

Warren Buffett has said he spends 80% of his days reading and 20% talking on the phone. He only has needed one good idea per year to be the best investor of all time. His schedule doesn't sound like work to most people but it clearly has worked well.

Re: Value is created by doing

#56

Post by zeidrich »

gboudrias wrote: post #46
theoh wrote: post #44

Seriously, this _is_ the labor theory of value. Don't know why the other comment to point this out is dead. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value It's completely inadequate. See, for example http://www.ted.com/talks/rory_sutherland_life_lessons_from_a...

I've always been fascinated by people's propensity to write about things they don't know, with the excuse that it's just humanistic sciences. There's a huge body of work that's largely ignored on the Internet, because while the average geek knows a lot about hard sciences, they're very ignorant on humanities (maybe because it's not taken as seriously). (As a side note, it's ironically hard to find out what this guy a…

The average geek doesn't know a lot about hard sciences. The average geek is self taught and knows how to impress other people with scientific language. Rarely do I run into "geeks" that make me think, "Wow, this guy could write a novel paper on this". More often it's more a matter of "Wow, this guy knows just enough to completely misunderstand the subject but speaks like he has all the answers."

Re: Value is created by doing

#58

Post by mooreds »

tvladeck wrote: post #45
soneca wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Groupon (and everybody else looking at it) never stoped to think if their business model was good. They were so good executing it that no one thought it wouldn't. But the bill came.

Groupon has a market capitalization of 7.3 billion USD.

For more on that:

http://investor.groupon.com/financials.cfm

Groupon had (in q3 2013, the latest I could find) 595M in revenue and 14M in operating income, an EPS of 0.02 excluding "excluding stock-based compensation and acquisition-related benefit", and 1.1B in the bank.

Not a smashing success, but is it a failure? The jury is still out on this, imho.

Re: Value is created by doing

#59

Post by nswanberg »

lquist wrote: post #37

Value gets created when a company does things like build widgets and sell them to customers. As a rough guideline, it’s good to stay in roles where you’re close to the doing. It’s easier to sit around and talk about building a startup than it is to actually start a startup. And it’s fun to talk about. But over time, the difference between fun and fulfilling becomes clear. Doing things is really hard—it’s why, for exa…

YC is itself a startup that produces startups, so its employees/partners are certainly executing.
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