Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How to Do Great Work

paulgraham.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 464 posts

Re: How to Do Great Work

#141

Post by zug_zug »

ianbutler wrote: post #124
zug_zug wrote: post #55

I haven't finished this yet, will take more than one sitting to digest, but I'm already 90% sure I'm going to disagree with this one a lot. I like to validate people's advice by playing it out in hypotheticals, so let's take some random fields people may think they want to be great at, and apply this advice: chess, piano, philosophy, quantum physics, soccer. I think it's self-evident that his algorithm isn't suited f…

> Don't become a professional writer because "You have something to say," become a writer because "You have something other people want to hear." I think this is terrible advice for doing great work, probably good advice for doing shallow work that gets you paid. Great does not (always) mean wealthy, popular or well liked. Plenty of writers went through life with people telling them they sucked and then eventually pe…

I see what you're saying, but I'm not sure you see what I'm saying.

If you want to maximize your chances of being a great writer, obviously write. But if you want to maximize your chances of being great period, then you need to decide if writing the next great american novel is the course you want to work toward. IMO you are an order of magnitude more likely to become famous/great from youtube than from writing, even if your best skill is novel-writing.

Sure there are people who persevered at writing at made it work, but also probably more people persevered and wasted their lives on writing than most other pursuits.

Re: How to Do Great Work

#142

Post by thisismyswamp »

The thing I try to keep in mind most when dealing with these kinds of blog posts is that something that must be helpful to a majority of its audience will inevitably lose a lot of the value it can provide to each individual.

Re: How to Do Great Work

#143

Post by codethief »

lewisjoe wrote: post #50

"Follow your interest/passion" - is such an easy advice. However in some societies / economies, it's simply not possible. Where I'm from (India), where a majority of my generation has to lift their families from money problems, there's no option of following passion. There's only "learn/do what makes money". It's not entirely a bad thing though. For example people here just jump into doing something and then eventual…

> "Follow your interest/passion" - is such an easy advice.

> For example people here just jump into doing something and then eventually develop a passion for it (setting up a shop, or running a business or producing/distributing boring everyday products, etc).

No one said you first had to sit down, ponder hundreds of life options and then choose your passion. Passion might also come to you as you progress in whatever field you're in. Put differently, you might as well follow your natural inclinations (whatever you find somewhat interesting in the moment) or submit to life/financial constraints (choose a promising career path), and as you become better and better at what you do, develop a passion for it.

Re: How to Do Great Work

#144

Post by svilen_dobrev »

> Obviously the most exciting story to write will be the one you want to read. The reason I mention this case explicitly is that so many people get it wrong. Instead of making what they want, they try to make what some imaginary, more sophisticated audience wants.

somehow, i have almost always made software as for my self if i were the user. And out of 35+ years and 20?30?50?70? projects, only 5 times this aligned. While in most ~~failed cases it was that i wanted much more sophisticated stuff than the eventual audience (if any). Or i was not connected to right audience. All the same.

so.. YMMV

------

another one...

> It's a great thing to be rich in unanswered questions. And this is one of those situations where the rich get richer, because the best way to acquire new questions is to try answering existing ones. Questions don't just lead to answers, but also to more questions.

reminds me of something i told once to my mentees:

"searching answers.. does not make life interesting. Search for questions... then you beCOME interesting. And inconvenient. To the asnwer-producers (whole industries and institutions are only doing this).

which.. is already interesting :)

...Most People are either Answers - and boring ones - or not even Answers, only lay faceless. banal. incredibly predictable and.. like a transparent bag, you see through but can get through..

search for People-that-are-Questions. search. "

have fun

Re: How to Do Great Work

#145

Post by AnimalMuppet »

smokel wrote: post #57

I quite like to read an article like this from time to time, because it can be motivating when your ambitions are low. However, I also believe that it can be detrimental and even lead to burn-out or depression if you actually believe that putting in the work, and putting it in in a good way, will lead you to success. This seems like a recipe for disaster. Is it not more likely that most historically successful people…

I think that it shouldn't lead to burnout if you keep the "play" or "interest" aspect. It's not "I have to find something at the frontier, so I have to pursue this until I get there." It's "I'm interested in this, and so I'm pursuing it because I want to."

> Is it not more likely that most historically successful people just stumbled on the promising gaps almost by accident?

Yes and no. Yes, they stumbled on a promising gap by accident. No, it's not pure chance. Their odds go way up by being out there stumbling around, looking at things they find interesting.

Re: How to Do Great Work

#146

Post by chubot »

thisismyswamp wrote: post #142

The thing I try to keep in mind most when dealing with these kinds of blog posts is that something that must be helpful to a majority of its audience will inevitably lose a lot of the value it can provide to each individual.

It is a bit weirdly generalized

I kept trying to read between the lines for the domain PG is known for and writes most frequently about — startups

But a lot of the writing seems to apply to achievements in math, science, art, and literature

I think the latter four domains have a lot more in common with each other than they have in common with startups

And PG seems to write and claim expertise largely in startups, although certainly he has experience in many areas and is well read

So it would be nice to address that, otherwise it does seem less useful

I’d agree the first part of the essay generalizes, but have my doubts about many points deeper in the essay

Re: How to Do Great Work

#147

Post by the6thwonder »

smokel wrote: post #57

I quite like to read an article like this from time to time, because it can be motivating when your ambitions are low. However, I also believe that it can be detrimental and even lead to burn-out or depression if you actually believe that putting in the work, and putting it in in a good way, will lead you to success. This seems like a recipe for disaster. Is it not more likely that most historically successful people…

> if you actually believe that putting in the work, and putting it in in a good way, will lead you to success.

What's the point of motivation of you don't believe what you do matters? The antitode to these kind of arguments is always to bring it to a closer level. Can you control how clean your house is with work? Would hard work help you tend to a farm better? Where does it stop helping you?

Re: How to Do Great Work

#148

Post by bryanmgreen »

I think it's important to note there are two types of "great work"

1) Where you have work expertise that is objectively higher than your peers or in the top percentile of your industry due to natural skills or experience or both.

2) Where you have do not have top-percentile expertise, but are hitting the limits of your capabilities. Maxing out your performance is the only way to know your limits and get better. Sometimes you just can't improve, but if you're doing your best, that's great work too.

I have my own business and while I think there are people out there who could do it better, everyday I'm putting in my best and learning a lot. What more could I realistically ask for?

Re: How to Do Great Work

#150

Post by shri_krishna »

Not related to the post. I am genuinely curious. Does PG make his own titles? And why is it a gif instead of a regular text? I know the site has remained stuck in the 90s kind of web design and I quite like it. However, I fail to understand why the title has to be a gif instead of text. Is it autogenerating it in the backend or did someone actually write it out in some graphical software, exported the title to a gif and then hardcoded it into the HTML? So many questions LMFAO
Post reply on HN