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How to Be Successful

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: How to Be Successful

#131

Post by bounded_agent »

porpoisely wrote: post #92

I find these types of articles/blogs to be relatively pointless because the market/economy/country/etc has room for a select few successes. Imagine if Obama wrote "How to Be a Successful Presidential Candidate" and every 2016 candidate read it and adopted it to a tee. We'd still have dozens of failures and only 1 success. If success were really a formula, then we'd all be successful. We can't all get into harvard, we…

I feel like you're arguing there's an efficient market of advice - any advice that can be widely understood has already been turned into money, and also there's a limited supply of money to go around so no advice can raise all boats.

I disagree on both counts. To use an overly relevant analogy, the market is not so efficient that successful startups cannot be built (and planned in advance of becoming successful), and it is possible for everyone in the world to become more competent and skilled and for this to just make everything better (e.g. better products for everyone).

You can have new insights that are generally true, and everything isn't zero sum.

Re: How to Be Successful

#132

Post by anonymous5133 »

porpoisely wrote: post #92

I find these types of articles/blogs to be relatively pointless because the market/economy/country/etc has room for a select few successes. Imagine if Obama wrote "How to Be a Successful Presidential Candidate" and every 2016 candidate read it and adopted it to a tee. We'd still have dozens of failures and only 1 success. If success were really a formula, then we'd all be successful. We can't all get into harvard, we…

Your mentality is the mentality of failure...as in why bother trying because the odds are stacked against you. I see this very common among peers and ultimately...it only leads to failure. So why even bother having this mentality? You are better off having optimism that success can be achieved.

In regards to Sam's advice. His advice is correct but people are interpreting it too strictly. Sam's advice is basically the baseline rules...as in you need to do this stuff AT LEAST to have a chance at being successful. This writing is not "do this stuff exactly and you will be successful 100% guaranteed".

The truth is....execution is the hard part and that's why most people fail. Building an amazing product that people love is hard. It really comes down to that...but if you want to be successful then that's what you need to do.

Re: How to Be Successful

#133

Post by kokokokoko »

porpoisely wrote: post #92

I find these types of articles/blogs to be relatively pointless because the market/economy/country/etc has room for a select few successes. Imagine if Obama wrote "How to Be a Successful Presidential Candidate" and every 2016 candidate read it and adopted it to a tee. We'd still have dozens of failures and only 1 success. If success were really a formula, then we'd all be successful. We can't all get into harvard, we…

I understand your thinking and do agree somewhat. That said, Sam Altman is a bit of a special case. To begin with, in this article he goes out of his way on several occasions to clarify that there are significant tradeoffs. I enjoy his writing in particular because it takes a much more sober approach. In this essay he begins by writing that much of this advice will apply best if one has already reached a certain level of wealth and success. He mentions the value of working hard many times.

I don't read this as a guide on how to be wildly successful as much as sober insight on how to reach a high level in your specific domain.

Re: How to Be Successful

#134

Post by beckler »

apsec112 wrote: post #100
porpoisely wrote: post #92

I find these types of articles/blogs to be relatively pointless because the market/economy/country/etc has room for a select few successes. Imagine if Obama wrote "How to Be a Successful Presidential Candidate" and every 2016 candidate read it and adopted it to a tee. We'd still have dozens of failures and only 1 success. If success were really a formula, then we'd all be successful. We can't all get into harvard, we…

A presidential election is zero-sum, since there can only be one winner. There is no fixed number of millionaires; every middle-class American is very rich compared to what Romans or Persians or Carolingians expected.

hyperinflation can easily make everyone a millionaire!

Re: How to Be Successful

#135

Post by XorNot »

sidlls wrote: post #48
rguzman wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not disputing that privilege is a thing, but don't you think that if this were true, all people who are born into a middle-class wealthy family and go to a nice school would achieve outlier success? it could be that the privilege is a pre-req to outlier success, but there are counter-examples. and then, if you observe that both groups (the counter-examples and the people who satisfy the pre-req and achieve outlier su…

not disputing that privilege is a thing, but don't you think that if this were true, all people who are born into a middle-class wealthy family and go to a nice school would achieve outlier success? No; rather the correct question is "if this were true shouldn't we see a greater fraction of privileged individuals achieve higher success rates than we see in less privileged individuals?" Statistics isn't about all-or-n…

The movie Gattaca covers this concept quite directly - I think ironically because it frames the problem as one the individuals involved had no original say in.

Re: How to Be Successful

#136

Post by randomsearch »

porpoisely wrote: post #130
apsec112 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A presidential election is zero-sum, since there can only be one winner. There is no fixed number of millionaires; every middle-class American is very rich compared to what Romans or Persians or Carolingians expected.

There definitely is a limited number of millionaires that an economy/population can support. Also, comparing across time is rather deceptive. The north korean military is much more powerfully compared to khan or alexander's armies. The comparison is pointless considering the north korean military isn't traveling back in time to fight the mongols or the greeks. Saying middle class americans are rich compared to romans…

Your opening statement is incorrect - wealth can be created, indeed that’s exactly what (good!) entrepreneurs do.

Re: How to Be Successful

#138

Post by folli »

porpoisely wrote: post #130
apsec112 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A presidential election is zero-sum, since there can only be one winner. There is no fixed number of millionaires; every middle-class American is very rich compared to what Romans or Persians or Carolingians expected.

There definitely is a limited number of millionaires that an economy/population can support. Also, comparing across time is rather deceptive. The north korean military is much more powerfully compared to khan or alexander's armies. The comparison is pointless considering the north korean military isn't traveling back in time to fight the mongols or the greeks. Saying middle class americans are rich compared to romans…

I don't agree, because there certainly are some objective measures of well being, such as access to nutrition, clean drinking water, life expectancy, exposure to violence etc. that hold true across any age in time. Most of these measures have in general increased in the course of humankind. So a homeless man im 2018 is most likely still better off than a homeless man during the Roman empire.

Re: How to Be Successful

#139

Post by peterkshultz »

porpoisely wrote: post #92

I find these types of articles/blogs to be relatively pointless because the market/economy/country/etc has room for a select few successes. Imagine if Obama wrote "How to Be a Successful Presidential Candidate" and every 2016 candidate read it and adopted it to a tee. We'd still have dozens of failures and only 1 success. If success were really a formula, then we'd all be successful. We can't all get into harvard, we…

I disagree with the idea that the market has room for a finite number of millionaires.

See Paul Graham's essay on wealth, specifically the subject about the pie fallacy. "...although there may be, in certain specific moments (like your family, this month) a fixed amount of money available to trade with other people for things you want, there is not a fixed amount of wealth in the world. You can make more wealth. Wealth has been getting created and destroyed (but on balance, created) for all of human history." [1]

[1]: http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html

Re: How to Be Successful

#140

Post by porpoisely »

anonymous5133 wrote: post #132
porpoisely wrote: post #92

I find these types of articles/blogs to be relatively pointless because the market/economy/country/etc has room for a select few successes. Imagine if Obama wrote "How to Be a Successful Presidential Candidate" and every 2016 candidate read it and adopted it to a tee. We'd still have dozens of failures and only 1 success. If success were really a formula, then we'd all be successful. We can't all get into harvard, we…

Your mentality is the mentality of failure...as in why bother trying because the odds are stacked against you. I see this very common among peers and ultimately...it only leads to failure. So why even bother having this mentality? You are better off having optimism that success can be achieved. In regards to Sam's advice. His advice is correct but people are interpreting it too strictly. Sam's advice is basically the…

Of course the odds are stacked against you. That's what makes success a wonderful thing.

And I disagree with your sentiment. When people think that X, Y and Z will lead to success and they do X, Y and Z and they fail, that produces a mentality of failure and frustration and why people give up.

Understanding what success really is and how hard work, contacts and luck play a role in it actually frees people to take risks and try again and again. Unbridled and childish optimism is why so many people fail and that leads to a mentality of failure.

And no. Sam's advice isn't necessary nor sufficient for success. There have been plenty of successful people ( extremely successful ) who didn't follow his advice.

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