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How to Work Hard

paulgraham.com

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Re: How to Work Hard

#221

Post by minikites »

lupire wrote: post #209
minikites wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

Jeff Bezos could bankrupt himself giving each of his current employees $200K (one time only, after 25+ years of work, not per year). And that's by far the most extremely case. You can argue that it's exploitative or that no one should be as rich as he is, but you can't say that working hard to do better for yourself as an employee is useless just because that small amount gets skimmed off.

>you can't say that working hard to do better for yourself as an employee is useless just because that small amount gets skimmed off.

I like this argument, but for higher taxes on the wealthy instead. Taxes benefit everybody, but my surplus labor value goes only to Jeff Bezos and his substantial money hoard.

Re: How to Work Hard

#222

Post by s5300 »

jjice wrote: post #23

> ...because even in college a lot of the work is pointless; there are entire departments that are pointless. I loved all of my CS courses in college. They were my bread and butter. I also liked a lot of my math courses and even an English class or two. I just wish I didn't take 5 history courses (three as part of an elective set that had to be liberal arts), three unrelated sciences (bio 1+2, and astronomy - imaging…

You chose to go to this University/College though. For whatever reason, you chose to attend studies there, knowing this was how the institution operated.

If you went not knowing how the institution operated, well, that's completely your issue.

You could have chose to seek your studies at any institution that caters to the ideals you've stated in your post. Yet you didn't, and you have the audacity to complain, about how the place you chose to attend operates, while they fully and publicly disclose how they operate

I'm simply baffled by this thought process.

Re: How to Work Hard

#223

Post by bradlys »

helen___keller wrote: post #162

When I was an undergrad at CMU, I learned how to work hard. Really hard. After having coasted through too-easy high school, I spent all day every day at CMU either programming, doing mathematics, or thinking about one of those things (to great effect: often the trick to prove a theorem would pop into my head while showering or while taking a walk). I would fall asleep while programming in the middle of the night, dre…

I’ve heard this same mentality from many people who went to rigorous colleges or had a rigorous college experience. (It isn’t just prestigious schools that are like this - choose the wrong major at particular public schools and your life can be just as difficult)

I’m of the same opinion. I still don’t know how to enjoy just existing - even small pleasures can be hard to do unless I think there is some kind of “work” aspect to it. Video games need progression or bragging rights, hobbies need skills that will make me better at something, and simple pleasures must be only to get me back onto the progression track. Recharging must be to get me back in the game and working hard again. Etc… I was overtuned in college to always be working on something because if I didn’t, I was going to flunk out. (Yay for bad professors and academia that cherishes weeding people out than growing what they have)

I despise the way college trains people. Feels like capitalism training 101.

Re: How to Work Hard

#224

Post by ericmay »

darksaints wrote: post #201
SonicScrub wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Millionaire Next Door concepts are still as relevant as ever, albeit the specifics are a bit dated. Millionaire status is reasonably achievable for someone whose income and cost of basics allow for modest discretionary income. This is certainly the case for the majority of software developers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Millionaire_Next_Door

The Millionaire Next Door is about as misleading as it gets, at least for today. Let's not forget that $1M in the mid 1990's is about the same as $2M today, at least in terms of terms of CPI. Even then, that is after 20+ years of housing prices outpacing inflation by 2x or more. In the mid 1990's, the top 20% could get to $1M with some good financial discipline and hard work. Today? Maybe the top 1% could save $1M, a…

I can't speak to the book, but I would say that you should examine your thinking regarding the top 1% saving $1mm. While it might be that only the top 1% can save an actual million dollars in cash, saving about $10,000/year with somewhat conservative estimates will get somebody to around $900,000 over 30 years. Granted, that's still not most people, but it's a much larger group than the top 1%. I made a separate comment here with the same OP if you'd like to run some numbers yourself. Compound interest is crazy.

> The fact that $1M is still some kind of mental benchmark that we hold up for being "rich" tells us everything we need to know about today's economic conditions.

This is a very interesting comment. I wonder why the mentality of this benchmark amount hasn't changed. Economic conditions certainly have, $1mm isn't the same now as it would have been in 1970. Maybe it's a financial independence thing? At $1mm you really are independently wealthy in most cases.

Re: How to Work Hard

#225

Post by s5300 »

newacct583 wrote: post #81
wantsanagent wrote: post #40

"Natural ability" is a cop-out and PG should know better. It'd be fine if this came with a disclaimer, "we don't know what natural ability is and the more we learn the more complex and diverse this umbrella term becomes." But taking it at face value is fuzzy thinking. It feels like this was included to hedge his bets. The Polgar sisters(1) serve as evidence that while "natural ability" may be a thing it's even less i…

Is anyone else distressed by pg's sudden turn to these sorts of para-culture-war issues? He's gotten increasingly anti-woke over the past year or two and it's starting to leak into sloppy argumentation like this. In decades past, he'd discuss similar issues ("how to identify a good hacker", stuff like that), but the focus was on the talent and what it meant and how it worked. Now... suddenly this kind of genetic stra…

Appears that he's having some sort of internal struggle/identity crisis the past few years that he can't come to terms with.

Re: How to Work Hard

#226

Post by Zababa »

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.

That would actually explains non-profit-seeking organizations that degenerate and focus just on surviving and getting bigger and bigger. The unnecessary costs are the original intent, the necessary costs are feeding the bureaucratic machine.

Re: How to Work Hard

#227

Post by packetlost »

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…

No, it is. If you don't retire (at 65~) with 2+ million in the bank you did something wrong (or had a rare cataclysmic event that drains your financial resource). I have a modest salary in the Midwest and should retire with $3m+ making reasonable contributions to a 401k, and that's if I don't change anything.

Re: How to Work Hard

#228

Post by wtetzner »

tgtweak wrote: post #188

This rhetoric furthered by Elon, Jack Ma and several others where working 7 days a week for 18 hours is "ideal" and that rest and relaxation are had at the expense of productivity/success is a real dangerous position. You know what happens to the majority of people when they get to a state of anxiety when relaxing and not working? Stress and burnout. Let's acknowledge that it may have been the path to success for SOM…

Yeah, that's the thing. It can be good to work hard, but not necessarily long hours, or long stretches without breaks. I never feel more productive than when I just got back from a vacation.

Re: How to Work Hard

#229

Post by greenie_beans »

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.

Curious to hear your opinion on why gender studies is a pointless degree? Other than you thinking it's "pointless", what is it about a gender studies degree that is pointless?

Re: How to Work Hard

#230

Post by magicloop »

"I never took a day off in my twenties" (Bill Gates) quote is a misnomer because what Bill Gates considers a day-off is something where you are just lying around doing nothing, such as lying on the beach. A two week sojourn into a set of books that interested him were not considered "days off". He did such activities yearly.

Bill Gates wasn't in the office working a 7 day schedule for his entire 20s. So that is not the impression we should get from the quote at all. His productive time away has merit, and I have followed that attitude to reading myself, and recommend it to others.

It would have been better if he had said "I never wasted a day in my twenties" which I think would be more accurate.

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