First off I don't think that doing anything with a lava lamp
as referenced in the article qualifies as "high achievement".
But the author does have a point that has been played out in business over and over and that is: Find a niche market and
do it well, become the dominating player in that niche and you
can make a good living.
Smart People should do Stupid Stuff
11–20 of 31 posts
Re: Smart People should do Stupid Stuff
#12First off I don't think that doing anything with a lava lamp as referenced in the article qualifies as "high achievement". But the author does have a point that has been played out in business over and over and that is: Find a niche market and do it well, become the dominating player in that niche and you can make a good living.
I've got to agree with that, myself. I guess my point is, the chemistry that went into the ferrofluid project wasn't trivial. And I could have made many "greeting card companies" in the time it took to develop one ferrofluid company.
Re: Smart People should do Stupid Stuff
#13Question for the author. Why are you working at Google if you are wealthy from selling wall mounts?
Money != happiness. Working at Google is probably significantly more intellectually stimulating and satisfying than selling wall mounts...
For us, yes.
But not everyone cares to be intellectually stimulated to be happy.
Re: Smart People should do Stupid Stuff
#14I don't think this is good advice, and I wouldn't advise anyone to follow in this person's footsteps. Smart people should think about doing stupid stuff, not necessarily follow through and do it. Selling TV wall mounts online is not a very great contribution to human progress from someone who was experimenting with ferromagnetic fluids. This is advice on how to stay alive and make a living, not advice on how to achie…
Stupid does not mean "not worth it". Stupid means "obvious, and often overlooked".
And plenty of "stupid" things do mankind some good. Amazon invested a whole lot in selling books online, and now they contribute significantly to our quality of life.
That said, I acknowledge in the article that there should always be those aiming higher.
Re: Smart People should do Stupid Stuff
#15I don't think this is good advice, and I wouldn't advise anyone to follow in this person's footsteps. Smart people should think about doing stupid stuff, not necessarily follow through and do it. Selling TV wall mounts online is not a very great contribution to human progress from someone who was experimenting with ferromagnetic fluids. This is advice on how to stay alive and make a living, not advice on how to achie…
...however, what is important advice, is that smart people should not do the first thing that associates to "smart people stuff", like string theory. Also don't do the first thing that associates to "altruistic" or "unconventional" or "entrepreneur". Do a smart thing that most smart people aren't doing.
Re: Smart People should do Stupid Stuff
#16I don't think this is good advice, and I wouldn't advise anyone to follow in this person's footsteps. Smart people should think about doing stupid stuff, not necessarily follow through and do it. Selling TV wall mounts online is not a very great contribution to human progress from someone who was experimenting with ferromagnetic fluids. This is advice on how to stay alive and make a living, not advice on how to achie…
Stupid does not mean "not worth it". Stupid means "obvious, and often overlooked". And plenty of "stupid" things do mankind some good. Amazon invested a whole lot in selling books online, and now they contribute significantly to our quality of life. That said, I acknowledge in the article that there should always be those aiming higher.
If you mean "obvious" then you should use "obvious" and not "stupid" - - because they are different words with different meaning... For example, selling books online is an obvious idea, but not "stupid" and it isn't easy either. Selling books online and creating Amazon is far from a simple achievement and something you could do without intellectual power or really hard work.
Re: Smart People should do Stupid Stuff
#17I don't think this is good advice, and I wouldn't advise anyone to follow in this person's footsteps. Smart people should think about doing stupid stuff, not necessarily follow through and do it. Selling TV wall mounts online is not a very great contribution to human progress from someone who was experimenting with ferromagnetic fluids. This is advice on how to stay alive and make a living, not advice on how to achie…
Selling TV wall mounts online is not a very great contribution to human progress
You speak like a person who has never had a grant proposal turned down. Congratulations! May you continue to enjoy your life in the ivory tower until retirement.
However, for better understanding of how other people's lives work you may want to google Maslow's hierarchy of needs, where you will encounter the observation that a person who doesn't have a secure source of food and shelter often has a lot of trouble caring about their contribution to "human progress".
A lot of people will hand you money in exchange for TV wall mounts. There are a lot fewer people who will hand you money in exchange for research data on ferrofluids, and there are a lot of people in line for that money.
Re: Smart People should do Stupid Stuff
#18I don't think this is good advice, and I wouldn't advise anyone to follow in this person's footsteps. Smart people should think about doing stupid stuff, not necessarily follow through and do it. Selling TV wall mounts online is not a very great contribution to human progress from someone who was experimenting with ferromagnetic fluids. This is advice on how to stay alive and make a living, not advice on how to achie…
Unfortunately this is the flaw in western society today. The risk/reward ratio in science is out of wack.
Philip Greenspun says this very succinctly in his article about why there aren't women in science.
Re: Smart People should do Stupid Stuff
#19PG says this in one of his essays, I think the example was basically that the secret to making money is getting someone like Einstein to do something like designing refrigerators.
It works for two reasons:
1) The reward for invention and innovation is basically the same, but the ROI on innovation is 10x better than the ROI on invention. (This is one of the main ideas of Seth Godin's book Free Prize Inside.)
2) The best person in a given industry makes 10x as much as the tenth best person, and 100x as much as the 100th best person.
Thus the best way to make money is by innovating, not inventing, in an area that you are way overqualified for. It took me a long time to really understand this, but it's a lesson that's well worth learning.
Re: Smart People should do Stupid Stuff
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
Money != happiness. Working at Google is probably significantly more intellectually stimulating and satisfying than selling wall mounts...
For us, yes. But not everyone cares to be intellectually stimulated to be happy.
Or for that matter gets their intellectual stimulation of choice at work.