Work on Unimportant Problems (2012)
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Work on Unimportant Problems (2012)
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Re: Work on Unimportant Problems (2012)
#2Theres a decent point in here, but the examples given are far less convincing than the author seems to think.
> C/Unix
developed to improve global telephony (important)
> the world of businessy/officy/enterprisey software (Windows, VB, Java, C#, ASP)
Perhaps "unimportant" to the author but most of these were aimed at multimillionaire sales contracts or major consumer sales (important). Its a categorical difference from a "small side project" (e.g. Python, Linux, etc.) of a solo author, and not really beneficial to his point.
Re: Work on Unimportant Problems (2012)
#3Important problem: you have to raise lots of money, work with a huge team, become a manager, fight with government regulators, do lots of marketing.
Unimportant problem: you spend your days coding, you work alone or with a small team, you stay lean and don't worry too much about money, nobody can override your architectural decisions, the government has never heard of you, your product spreads via word-of-mouth from excited users.
Re: Work on Unimportant Problems (2012)
#4Theres a decent point in here, but the examples given are far less convincing than the author seems to think. > C/Unix developed to improve global telephony (important) > the world of businessy/officy/enterprisey software (Windows, VB, Java, C#, ASP) Perhaps "unimportant" to the author but most of these were aimed at multimillionaire sales contracts or major consumer sales (important). Its a categorical difference fr…
No, C and Unix were not developed to improve global telephony.
Part of the story is that Ken Thompson wanted to play a video game. This is documented in a number of places
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Travel_(video_game)
As a part of porting the game to the PDP-7, Thompson developed his own operating system, which later formed the core of the Unix operating system.
Multics was closer to something "important", while Unix was something unimportant and a great example of the principle laid out in the article.
Also, the first application of Unix beyond Bell Labs was typesetting. They were using it to produce patent applications, saving the labor of many secretaries. It was not used for telephony.
C was co-evolved with Unix as portable language to write an OS in.
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edit: For some color on how Bell Labs related to the rest of the org, I recommend "The Idea Factory" by Gertner and Brian Kernighan's recent memoir on Unix.
Re: Work on Unimportant Problems (2012)
#5I think this is a basic tenant of research - you can't always expect a specific outcome, sometimes you just have to explore curiosity and see what turns up.
However the contrarian in me wants to call out a counter-point:
> Working on unimportant problems can create important side-effects.
If over-applied - this logic can essentially become the tech-investor equivalent of trickle-down economics.
Who is to say that those areas that benefited from the side-effects of other work wouldn't have benefitted even more from direct investment?
Re: Work on Unimportant Problems (2012)
#6Love it!
Re: Work on Unimportant Problems (2012)
#7Theres a decent point in here, but the examples given are far less convincing than the author seems to think. > C/Unix developed to improve global telephony (important) > the world of businessy/officy/enterprisey software (Windows, VB, Java, C#, ASP) Perhaps "unimportant" to the author but most of these were aimed at multimillionaire sales contracts or major consumer sales (important). Its a categorical difference fr…
No, C and Unix were not developed to improve global telephony. Part of the story is that Ken Thompson wanted to play a video game. This is documented in a number of places https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Travel_(video_game) As a part of porting the game to the PDP-7, Thompson developed his own operating system, which later formed the core of the Unix operating system. Multics was closer to something "important",…
Gotcha, that’s an interesting history and the additional context definitely illustrates the authors point.
Re: Work on Unimportant Problems (2012)
#8I think this is a basic tenant of research - you can't always expect a specific outcome, sometimes you just have to explore curiosity and see what turns up. However the contrarian in me wants to call out a counter-point: > Working on unimportant problems can create important side-effects. If over-applied - this logic can essentially become the tech-investor equivalent of trickle-down economics. Who is to say that tho…
Meaning and purpose are not things that you find in work; they are things that you make. As a CTO in a small adtech company, my standard pitch to hungry young talent went something like this: You're not going to be curing cancer or putting people on Mars, and we don't have daily catered lunches or a foosball table, but I will give you A) more responsibility than you would have elsewhere, B) more opportunity to make an out-size contribution to the company, C) more freedom to choose the tools and methods you want to use, and D) lots of data to play with. And then I would point out people who honed their crafts and made money in adtech and then went on to work on curing cancer, sending people to Mars, etc.
I am reminded of a story about a janitor. Being a janitor doesn't seem like an obviously meaningful and fulfilling job, but if you work as a janitor to provide for your daughter so she can go to college, then that job indeed can be profoundly meaningful.
Re: Work on Unimportant Problems (2012)
#9They had them back then, too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4088214
Re: Work on Unimportant Problems (2012)
#10I think this is a basic tenant of research - you can't always expect a specific outcome, sometimes you just have to explore curiosity and see what turns up. However the contrarian in me wants to call out a counter-point: > Working on unimportant problems can create important side-effects. If over-applied - this logic can essentially become the tech-investor equivalent of trickle-down economics. Who is to say that tho…
FYI, the word is 'tenet', a tenant is a person who lives in a particular residence.