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How to Work Hard

paulgraham.com

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Re: How to Work Hard

#171

Post by xyzelement »

minikites wrote: post #101
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…

>The real world doesn't work that way and using statistical outliers like Gates is disingenuous to the discussion about hard work and how it applies to normal people. Exactly. This is the central lie that sustains capitalism. Wealthy C-level executives get rich when the rest of us work hard, which is why they harp on "working hard" so much. There's no reason to work hard when all the benefits go to the already-wealth…

// There's no reason to work hard when all the benefits go to the already-wealthy above you, which is why they try to obscure that fact in as many ways as possible

I have always been an employee and yet I am thrilled and thankful for the financial returns.

Looking around my neighborhood, the same is true for most folks around me.

There are not guarantees in life but if you have the combination of luck, skill and hard work, you can land in a place where you and employer are mutually benefited.

I am lucky enough that this has been the case for my 18 year career so far and not uncommon.

What you are saying on the other hand is a dead end. If you don't believe good employer/employee relationship is possible, you won't do your part and it will be a self fulfilling prophecy. I feel bad for people who think like this.

Honestly it reminds me of the incel movement. Someone somewhere owes you something and you have no agency on how it shapes out. I fundamentally disagree.

Re: How to Work Hard

#172

Post by matakozapanya »

find it hard to take life advice from some dude who got lucky in the dotcom, has done nothing of note since and actively supports sexist, racist people as "he's not a bad guy".

Find it even harder to take seriously a treatise on "work hard" when the underlying message is "make ME wealth, bitch ".

Paul can go fuck himself.

Re: How to Work Hard

#173

Post by Gatsky »

antiterra wrote: post #156

Reading about Bill Gates not taking a day off in his 20s doesn’t inspire me to work harder at all. If anything, it’s a miscalculation on Gates’s part, assuming he’d actually enjoy a day off. Would he have been materially less successful if he took a single day off in his 20s? Probably not. How about a week, or a week a year? Two weeks?

I don't think this is it - he is an obsessive person. He was working that hard because he wanted to. I mean look at him now, he isn't exactly playing golf or swanning about on yachts.

Re: How to Work Hard

#174

Post by lupire »

giantg2 wrote: post #160
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…

I updated to multi-millionaire. The idea was that people would have enough money to quit their job and live very comfortably. I think the network effect is highly overblown for the average person. Sure, networks can be good for the people in the top 10%, but I don't see it really helping most of us because what are the chances our average friends will be in a position to hire us to a high position. I don't see an ave…

> live very comfortably.

The single highest ROI thing you can do for your life is to drop that "very".

Re: How to Work Hard

#175

Post by sidlls »

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…

All these replies with the typical 7% return for 20-30 years calculations are missing the point. I know what the arithmetic is. It is not common to be in a position to do that, even in the software industry.

Re: How to Work Hard

#176

Post by greedo »

johnwheeler wrote: post #82
kstenerud wrote: post #30

The true ah-ha moment comes when you finally realize how much bullshit this is. "Hard work" is the mantra that keeps you a slave. "Success stories" are the tasty carrots that keep you toiling away your best years enriching others in pursuit of the things you're supposed to seek in life: Power, success, status. "Life hacks" are little dopamine hits to keep your eye on the carrot. And the kicker is that those few who a…

This is bullshit. This is what people who’ve failed tell themselves to rationalize that failure. People who’ve succeeded at achieving ambitious goals are able to look at success from both vantage points: from having yet to succeed and succeeding. You’ll hardly ever, if ever, hear them say it’s solely the consequence of having the right networks and being lucky. Sure some luck is involved, but most of it is attitude,…

The amount of luck involved in "success" is almost always underestimated. Whether it's being born into a family with money, or having a great teacher who helps you understand Calculus. To avoiding health issues and accidents. To choosing a spouse that doesn't self-destruct. The list is long.

Luck is the trump card of life. You can be smart, hardworking, all the business traits that are espoused by "successful" people, and still fail. As Lefty Gomez said "I'd rather be lucky than good."

Look at Michael Jordan. He had talent and an incredible work ethic. Yet until the Bulls drafted Scottie Pippen, he didn't have the team required to win a championship. Imagine if the Bulls missed out on drafting Pippen and had drafted Dennis Hopson instead? Would Jordan have still become the GOAT?

Re: How to Work Hard

#177

Post by giantg2 »

pjfin123 wrote: post #143
sidlls wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

With a $100,000 salary, $50,000 expenses, 30% tax rate, and 5% real returns you could put away $20,000 a year and have a million (2021) dollars in 26 years. Hardly easy but not out of the realm of possibility for a persistent and highly paid software developer.

But that still doesn't fit the paradigm presented by using Gates as an example. That you work really hard in your 20s and you're set for life.

Re: How to Work Hard

#178

Post by the_jeremy »

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…

> just wise job selection, a reasonable amount of financial savvy and budget adherence, and a deliberate effort to work on your career path.

None of that requires working 12+ hours a day. I am one employee out of x,000 at my company. The difference between me giving 75% and me giving 150% (hours) seems very unlikely to affect the stock price in any meaningful way.

Re: How to Work Hard

#179

Post by paulpauper »

papito wrote: post #107
temp8964 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you said is simply not true. There are countless people work on different positions in different fields are enjoying hard work as part of their life. If you read the essay through, he never said "hard work == long hours of work". He explicitly wrote "Trying hard doesn't mean constantly pushing yourself to work, though."

Do they enjoy it or do they THINK they enjoy it? Many people realize that they wasted their lives on being in the office after they retire. This TED talk can be a revelation: https://www.ted.com/talks/bj_miller_what_really_matters_at_t... And the Bill Gates thing? PLEASE. Yeah, I agree with the previous comment. A horrible example. Bill Gates was one of the most lucky sons of bitches in the history of the planet. Bor…

also it was his mom's connection with IBM that made him a billionaire, but the rest helped as well. Bill was also able to secure a contract because a competitor Gary Kildall did not show up. Luck is the factor.

Re: How to Work Hard

#180

Post by bloqs »

No PG you are presenting speculative opinion as fact. Conscientiousness is a measured and well documented personality trait, it is also formed around age six. It also happens to be social in its construction.

Software engineers typically report lower than average Conscientiousness, because the more complex the task, the less it has an impact. It's also negatively correlated with IQ.

Suggesting it is a choice is demonstrably wrong. It is environmentally learned by the age of roughly 6.

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