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How to Be Successful

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: How to Be Successful

#171

Post by simplyluke »

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…

> At the end of the day, hard work, contacts and luck leads to success

Did you read the blog? This is essentially the tl;dr without a defeatist attitude.

Re: How to Be Successful

#172

Post by jaredtn »

Really well-written. I especially agree with two points - "focus" and "learn to work hard without burning out". Those two skills will take you far, no matter your field.

Re: How to Be Successful

#173

Post by azangru »

avip wrote: post #63
azangru wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Financial success can at least be measured. Being a successful human, on the other hand? Is it measured by one’s own satisfaction with life? By one’s impact on the society? By the number of offspring one produces? It’s all very confusing.

We can also measure people's height, yet we usually don't use it as a metric for success in life (you also don't see that many how to be tall posts).

The only difference is, the metrics I listed are all metrics of success in life (according to different viewpoints). The personal feeling of satisfaction is a metric from the viewpoint of an individualist. The impact on society is a metric from the viewpoint of a socialist (or possibly a historian). The number of offspring is reproductive success, which is all what counts from the viewpoint of an evolutionary biologist. (And of course I completely forgot to account for the viewpoint of a theologian.)

I am not sure these viewpoints are reconcilable.

As opposed to financial success.

Re: How to Be Successful

#174

Post by hoaw »

peterkshultz wrote: post #139
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 . Wea…

I always found the whole idea to be contradictory. They say that the pie isn't fixed, then go on to explain all the risky things you need to do get a larger piece of the expanding pie. Which does in fact mean the pie is finite, just not definite. Because outside of these texts online, success rate is a real limiting factor.

Re: How to Be Successful

#175

Post by [deleted] »

TrackerFF wrote: post #84
aphextron wrote: post #11

1. Be born to a wealthy middle class family and go to an elite school.

I have to admit, I was going to post this - but it's probably a very polarized opinion. The thing is, people do love the idealistic idea of every man creating his own luck - or that if you just work hard and smart enough, the sky is the limit. When I went a top business school for my MBA, I'd say that 70% of my peers had the same upper middle-class upbringing. Back then, the vast majority went into consulting or bank…

[deleted]

Re: How to Be Successful

#176

Post by jnbiche »

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…

> At the end of the day, hard work, contacts and luck leads to success. The older I get, the more I realize that the latter two is far more important than the first criteria.

Extremely well-said. Skill and hard work are (typically) necessary, but not sufficient conditions for major financial success. You also need a strong network or luck, and usually both.

As I grow older, this becomes more and more evident. I wish that I had spent more time as I was younger expanding my network. As for luck, well, that's out of my hands...

Re: How to Be Successful

#177

Post by Tade0 »

peterkshultz wrote: post #139
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 . Wea…

Wealth is finite at any given moment and it so happens that growth does not affect everyone equally.

On top of that developed economies tend to grow slower - we may all be millionaires by early 70s standards with our fast cars and air travel, but I don't think in 50 years we will be millionaires by today's standards - there simply won't be that much growth in the future.

Re: How to Be Successful

#178

Post by rabidrat »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #144
rabidrat wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know that UBI won't create more of them? It's a common refrain, like with legalization ("anyone who wants to smoke weed is already doing it"), and I know several people who didn't smoke before it became legal, and are now smoking regularly. It seems reasonable to think that UBI would enable some class of people who would otherwise exert themselves, to no longer bother.

Because there's already social safety nets those people can use. And yes, absolutely, there are probably going to be groups of people who are barely working now that will stop, but given there's already means to not work, I can't see this being a huge group, and really, this is an optimist / pessimist face-off, which is sad, because that's how we probably see the possible outcomes too. The only way we can know if it'…

Not sure if you've ever used those social safety nets, but they are not easy to qualify for and/or sign up for, so only the stubborn and/or desperate actually take advantage of them. There are also disincentives, like misinformation, run-arounds, and social shaming. From what I've heard, these reasons are exactly why UBI is a better strategy than those social safety nets--and why we can expect more people to take advantage of them.

Re: How to Be Successful

#179

Post by dwaltrip »

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…

"Limited" means something very different than "fixed".

> we have to frame money within the zero-sum context of power.

You can't just throw this out there. Why? In what way is power is zero-sum?

I don't really find your example of homeless people with smart phones all that convincing. Everyone knows being homeless is horrible.

It's not even that I entirely disagree with what your saying. I'm somewhat firmly planted in the vague middle area right now. But I would like to see the arguments better supported.

Re: How to Be Successful

#180

Post by ngngngng »

distant_hat wrote: post #70

All such articles should be preceded by huge blink tags with 'Warning: survivorship bias ahead'.

I think 99% of the time bringing up survivorship bias adds nothing to the conversation. If I tell you how I ran a marathon, you could shout "survivorship bias!" But that fact still stands that I hadn't successfully run a marathon before I did those things.
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