The Right Kind of Stubborn

I have a shorthand: I respect people who are looking for the right answer, rather than trying to be right. Ignores intelligence etc.

A confident person who is trying to be right. Like kryptonite for your company.

I try to build up my confidence from experience and data. Always happy to change tack but the incoming input needs to be more credible than what I’ve gone through. Vs my (excellent) ex boss who was confident always, but if you wanted to convince him you needed to do it quietly out of earshot so no egos were harmed. I proposed and we agreed it was a good version of “strong opinions weakly held”, but I’d have appreciated a little more openness without all the dancing. And he was streets ahead of a feral exec who was seemingly confident, defensive and who would rather burn the building down than change his mind.

Nay-sayers exist too, but I think they are out of scope for what PG is talking about. He's talking about the people actually working on solving a problem, not someone on the sidelines.

I wish this article hit on an important point: when should the persistent quit? We all know we should know when to hold and when to fold, but in practice that's a hard decision to make especially when we're invested. And someone who is "persistent" vs "obstinate" should be able to do this: quit when it's right to do so.

The closest thing he mentions is this, "persistence often requires that one change one's mind. That's where good judgement comes in. The persistent are quite rational. They focus on expected value."

Following that, if I'm working on x thing, and the expected value is But there should be a "grass is always greener on the other side" counter weight - some other thing may LOOK like higher expected value, but that's because you don't know the shit under the hood.

I would've liked him to have touched on this, as I don't think you can truly call someone persistent but not obstinate unless they can actually walk away from something if necessary.

Of course concepts are important and esp where they deviate from each other.

As a concept, it is important to understand human behavior and what motivates it, but I try and not brand people with a permanent attribute.

Fine artists who are known in the international art market do not take commissions. They also do not give buyers of a piece copyright (obviously both of these things are even more true if they are dead).

You also wouldn't be able to distinguish a fake painted for a few thousand dollars, much less so with a print or digital art, so the physical artifact is somewhat meaningless as well, at least as far as value goes. Collectors buy pieces and keep them in storage. They might buy a piece without ever laying eyes on the physical artifact.

The art market has always run on provenance and certificates of authenticity. You could argue that fine art is bullshit, and you can also that a blockchain is not necessary to keep track of certificates of authenticity, but arguing that the entire concept of art ownership without copyright is bullshit is to ignore what the reality of the art market has always been.