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How to Work Hard

paulgraham.com

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Re: How to Work Hard

#131

Post by leokennis »

temp8964 wrote: post #65
leokennis wrote: post #19

> There are three ingredients in great work: natural ability, practice, and effort. You can do pretty well with just two, but to do the best work you need all three: you need great natural ability and to have practiced a lot and to be trying very hard. I'd like to add that it is more than fine to not do great work. If you like to spend a lot of time with your kids and tend to your vegetable patch, by all means only t…

PG never said you should maximize for great work. The essay is about "how to work hard", not "work hard is the only purpose of your life". You are missing the point here. In addition, you mistakenly exclude great work / achievement from happiness. Spending time with your kids is great, tending your vegetable patch is great, doing great work is also great. Life is not a single purpose process. Happiness is not a singl…

My reply was based on the interpretation that the author defined work as "doing your job". That interpretation was mainly based on him mentioning Bill Gates not taking a day off from Microsoft (his company and job) in his twenties, and the writer Wodehouse spending so much effort on his livelihood, writing. So I think my interpretation is correct.

The article strongly correlates this interpretation of "working" with "being happy". Two quotes:

> When I asked Patrick Collison when he started to find idleness distasteful, he said

>> I think around age 13 or 14. I have a clear memory from around then of sitting in the sitting room, staring outside, and wondering why I was wasting my summer holiday.

And

> Now, when I'm not working hard, alarm bells go off. I can't be sure I'm getting anywhere when I'm working hard, but I can be sure I'm getting nowhere when I'm not, and it feels awful.

My point to the above is: if you feel awful when you don't work hard on a job, by all means work hard on a job.

But if you feel fine only working moderately hard, and that is enough to fund your true passions, pleasures and happiness, do not feel bad for not wanting to work hard on a job.

And the reason I felt the need to say that, is that "hustle culture" [1], which this essay is not far away from in my opinion, might make people believe (incorrectly) that only people who work hard at a job are valuable and worthy human beings.

[1] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=hustle+culture

Re: How to Work Hard

#132

Post by bko »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #84
giantg2 wrote: post #44

Hard work can be good, but only if you own a substantial capital interest in the company/result. But if you can hire people to do it for you, then you can reap the benefits and live a life worth living. If you are just part of the labor and not the capital, then there really isn't an incentive to work harder than necessary to keep you job or earn a measly raise. If you tell people that if they work 12+ hours a day in…

> If you tell people that if they work 12+ hours a day in their 20s that they would be millionaires or billionaires Billionaire isn’t a realistic goal, but millionaire is a common outcome for software developers who work hard through their 20s and 30s now. It doesn’t even require a FAANG job or living in a super expensive city any more, just wise job selection, a reasonable amount of financial savvy and budget adhere…

> Working hard in the mailroom or stocking shelves at a grocery store isn’t going to translate into a successful software career

Right, but it might lead to satisfaction regardless. Even the most menial positions are often rewarded. I have worked a few menial jobs, and effort is even more important. When I worked hard and went the extra mile when required, I got rewarded with better shifts, more flexibility and more respect. It also personally felt good.

I find that people who don't work hard and are apathetic about the work they do are often deeply unhappy, while people that take pride in their work and work hard are satisfied. The best feeling I get in the day is after a grueling workout. There are health benefits sure, but its not worth the amount of discomfort and suffering I have to endure. If there were a pill that gave me the same benefits, I would be less satisfied than putting in the work. But maybe that's just me.

People who work hard often have better personal circumstances as well. Who would want to be with a partner that just spends their life going through the motions with no real purpose or drive?

Re: How to Work Hard

#133

Post by borski »

dahart wrote: post #103

This only barely glances the number one way I’ve found to work hard: to work for yourself. Working on things other people want is, for me, more difficult than working on things I want. Working at someone else’s company is more difficult than working at my company. With my own company, when things were going relatively well, it was easy to spend every waking minute working. At other companies, putting in overtime is m…

I echo this completely. One is invigorating, even when it’s tiring, and the other feels like slow death.

Re: How to Work Hard

#134

Post by BoxOfRain »

krustyburger wrote: post #28

>>There wasn't a single point when I learned this. Like most little kids, I enjoyed the feeling of achievement when I learned or did something new. As I grew older, this morphed into a feeling of disgust when I wasn't achieving anything. The one precisely dateable landmark I have is when I stopped watching TV, at age 13. I wouldn’t dare question Paul Graham’s accomplishments, but I’ve always found it odd that some pe…

I stopped watching broadcast TV out of sheer spite towards the TV licensing system and the slack-jawed oafs that enforce it, but that's a uniquely British reason!

Re: How to Work Hard

#135

Post by denimnerd42 »

sidlls wrote: post #116
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you tell people that if they work 12+ hours a day in their 20s that they would be millionaires or billionaires Billionaire isn’t a realistic goal, but millionaire is a common outcome for software developers who work hard through their 20s and 30s now. It doesn’t even require a FAANG job or living in a super expensive city any more, just wise job selection, a reasonable amount of financial savvy and budget adhere…

> millionaire is a common outcome for software developers who work hard through their 20s and 30s now. No, it's not. It's common for some FAANG engineers. It's not common at all for the industry as a whole. Look at all these comments doubling-down on the "7%/$10k-per-year" arithmetic, as if the only thing that affects savings rates is knowledge of this basic math. For a data driven community there sure are a lot of p…

Anyone making high 5 or low 6 figures will be a millionaire at the start retirement if they can save a modest amount from a reasonably early start, say 30 years old.

Re: How to Work Hard

#136

Post by endisneigh »

I hate the whole "hard work," but not "long hours" sort of discussion. Basically, if you work hard, but not long and succeed, then your hard work was "valid", if you work "long hours", which by some definition is "hard work" but don't succeed then it was just "long hours" and not "hard work."

In other words, as long as you succeed whatever work you did is considered "hard work" or "working smart", etc. etc.

Re: How to Work Hard

#137

Post by ericmay »

sidlls wrote: post #116
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you tell people that if they work 12+ hours a day in their 20s that they would be millionaires or billionaires Billionaire isn’t a realistic goal, but millionaire is a common outcome for software developers who work hard through their 20s and 30s now. It doesn’t even require a FAANG job or living in a super expensive city any more, just wise job selection, a reasonable amount of financial savvy and budget adhere…

> millionaire is a common outcome for software developers who work hard through their 20s and 30s now. No, it's not. It's common for some FAANG engineers. It's not common at all for the industry as a whole. Look at all these comments doubling-down on the "7%/$10k-per-year" arithmetic, as if the only thing that affects savings rates is knowledge of this basic math. For a data driven community there sure are a lot of p…

I think it's common when compared to other industries, though maybe not generally common. Admittedly I have no data to back up this hunch.

If I'm wrong, please correct me, but my interpretation of what the person you're replying to was trying to get at was that modest savings from a 23+ year old software engineer, to the tune of $800/month or $10,000/year (this could be 401k match and contributions) will get you pretty close to a million.

Using this calculator[1] with an assumed rate of 6.7%, $0 initial investment, $800/month, compounded semi-annually and a variance of 1 netted $891,000 within 30 years.

I think $800/month for nearly all software engineers is doable.

[1] https://www.investor.gov/financial-tools-calculators/calcula...

Re: How to Work Hard

#138

Post by nickelcitymario »

bumby wrote: post #51
nickelcitymario wrote: post #34

> I had to learn what real work was before I could wholeheartedly desire to do it. That took a while, because even in college a lot of the work is pointless; there are entire departments that are pointless. The arrogance! This is one of my pet peeves at work: When someone looks at another person's work and judges its value or difficulty. "That's easy." "That's pointless." Ugh. Everyone else's job looks easy and/or po…

I agree with the main parts of your post but how does the quote below fit into non-profit-seeking organizations? (E.g., govt, schools, charities etc.) > the profit motive is very good at weeding out truly unnecessary costs.

Every organization has to be cost-aware. It catches up to you eventually.

For context, in my home town of Sudbury, Ontario, our leading university (Laurentian U) kept growing and investing in new things. There's lots of debate around the merits of what they were spending on. But it caught up to them in the form of bankruptcy.

One of the few things I like about capitalism (there aren't many, but that's just me) is that it gives a laser-clear focus. Just because an organization is a non-profit doesn't change that. At some point, you either bring in more revenue than you spend, or you fail.

Governments that continuously overspend eventually have their debts catch up to them, too. (See: Every empire in history.)

Re: How to Work Hard

#139

Post by Aunche »

giantg2 wrote: post #44

Hard work can be good, but only if you own a substantial capital interest in the company/result. But if you can hire people to do it for you, then you can reap the benefits and live a life worth living. If you are just part of the labor and not the capital, then there really isn't an incentive to work harder than necessary to keep you job or earn a measly raise. If you tell people that if they work 12+ hours a day in…

Working 12+ hours a day isn't necessarily working hard. It may be physically and mentally draining, but people can do that by just grinding rather than challenging yourself. Working hard is more about the relentless drive towards self improvement rather than your economic output.

Re: How to Work Hard

#140

Post by jschulenklopper »

ARandomerDude wrote: post #57
nickelcitymario wrote: post #34

> I had to learn what real work was before I could wholeheartedly desire to do it. That took a while, because even in college a lot of the work is pointless; there are entire departments that are pointless. The arrogance! This is one of my pet peeves at work: When someone looks at another person's work and judges its value or difficulty. "That's easy." "That's pointless." Ugh. Everyone else's job looks easy and/or po…

The author is right. Gender studies, for example, is a pointless degree. You certainly have a point about not being quick to judge, or overly dismissive, but there are certain things in life that are genuinely pointless, even in education.

According to which criteria are some studies apparently “pointless”?

Who’s to determine these criteria? And aren’t they just opinions instead of real facts?

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