Taking back everything else? Does that include knowledge, experience and lessons learned? Because that greatly affects what pg would start doing today.
If you have all the knowledge and experience, you are who you are already.
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Ask PG: Can you do it again?
11–20 of 40 posts
Re: Ask PG: Can you do it again?
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you have all the knowledge and experience, you are who you are already.
Isn't your question then the same as: did you think you got lucky?
Luck could one factor yes- but its mostly a question about with enough work can everything man has done be repeated?
Re: Ask PG: Can you do it again?
#13The whole point of entrepreneurship is persistence, you don't need anything else. If you have persistence, then IQ, upbringing, social environment, education dwarf in importance.
If you simply never stop, try things that no one else has tried before, it's impossible to not become successful. :)
Re: Ask PG: Can you do it again?
#14You are confident that you can repeat "doing nothing significant in life" again and again? Whoa, you're really setting the bar high, aren't you? :P
I have not improved the world, but I still consider myself successful in personal life.
Don't be so hard on yourself about not improving the world. I'm sure that you've positively affected someone. Even if it is a side-effect of your personal success, that allows you, for example, to leave a decent tip at a bar or restaurant. That decent sized tip helped the waitress make rent that month, and not get kicked out to the curb. Which kept her kids in a decent school district, where they learned a lot and will someday cure cancer. (Just an example).
Re: Ask PG: Can you do it again?
#15The whole point of entrepreneurship is persistence, you don't need anything else. If you have persistence, then IQ, upbringing, social environment, education dwarf in importance. If you simply never stop, try things that no one else has tried before, it's impossible to not become successful. :)
So that sounds appealing but we don't know whether that's true.
Re: Ask PG: Can you do it again?
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, exactly. If we could go back in time with just a few pieces of information, we could be gods. Predict and invest in every major startup success, write about it and look like a prescient guru, make even more money from speaking engagements, etc. If you can't take back your knowledge and experience, then it's kind of a boring/null question- you're just back to where you started, and you'll just be affected differ…
The question is about starting today though, so it's not about going back in time with knowledge of future events.
Still, the knowledge and experience you gained via circumstance are important.
Re: Ask PG: Can you do it again?
#17The whole point of entrepreneurship is persistence, you don't need anything else. If you have persistence, then IQ, upbringing, social environment, education dwarf in importance. If you simply never stop, try things that no one else has tried before, it's impossible to not become successful. :)
"If you have persistence, then IQ, upbringing, social environment, education dwarf in importance."
Politely disagree here. Most people who succeed in business are usually (but not in all cases) brought up in good homes, in stable social environments and receive good educations. Pull beneath the curtain and even the 'high school/college drop out' is usually from a middle class home or has received private education. There are many other things that play a role as well including race. Remember all the kerfuffle a year or two ago about the lack of entrepreneurs from ethnic minority groups namely black groups who weren't being funded. Its not part of the 'VC Pattern Recognition'. Believe me it also pained me to write about race because I've v low tolerance for it.
Furthermore, there is clear evidence across the most wildly successful companies you will see many entrepreneurs do look very similar. Many have similar upbringings, many have good educations/come from good homes, many are from specific sections in the class hierarchy and many are from specific races. Just look at most of the top venture investors most are white or jewish.
Persistence yes i agree is unbelievably important. By default telling many people you'll start a business will likely result in a mix bag of congrats but many people telling you why it is a bad idea or why it won't work.
However, please do not be so dismissive of IQ or social environment or education. All of these things play a key role.
Look at the S&P 500. The CEOs education is as follows 97% have a college degree and 67% have a further degree. Most common degrees are engineering. Stanford and Harvard have 4% of the CEO population in the 500. I will also include Zuckerburg/Gates in this stat even if he dropped out he still went!
Please do not be so dismissive of other factors it is just myopic and extremely ignorant.
Re: Ask PG: Can you do it again?
#18You are confident that you can repeat "doing nothing significant in life" again and again? Whoa, you're really setting the bar high, aren't you? :P
I have not improved the world, but I still consider myself successful in personal life.
Being successful in personal life is an achievement in my books.
Re: Ask PG: Can you do it again?
#19[deleted]
Re: Ask PG: Can you do it again?
#20Sorry, but what kind of fluff question is this? Have you even thought about your own question? Your question implies time travel and it comes with all sorts of paradoxes. It's like asking "Can you rewind the tape?". Yes, you can. But, can you watch the movie again in the exact same manner you did earlier?
Given he gets warped back in time and he looses all awareness of his situation, he will probably do it again (there is no "can" because he didn't do it in the future, yet). If he's warped back in time with his knowledge right now, he cannot possibly relive his same life because his state will not be the same as it was back then.
Which brings me to my question and remark: what exactly is the point of this question other than pg-backpatting?