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

How to Be Successful

blog.samaltman.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 326 posts

Re: How to Be Successful

#261

Post by swagasaurus-rex »

muse900 wrote: post #197
telesilla wrote: post #10

It's also very successful, if you have built a stable business and a way of supporting yourself and a few others around you. Being successful doesn't always mean having a 1BN valuation. But sure, it's nice to think that one day, it could happen. I'm just grateful every day that what I've got now - stability and plenty of resources - was a result of pretty much what Sam said. Believing in ourselves and not giving up,…

Yep I agree, the meaning of success is very subjective. Imho success shouldn't be numbered in $ or PhDs. I've met simple people, with not much money or education, although they are successful to me cause they managed to create a nice family and have a happy life. Something that usually its hard for people working towards their careers 24/7. Hesiod once wrote 'Moderation in all things'. That personally is my moto. I d…

Simply living a stable family life is father along than most people ever achieve.

Re: How to Be Successful

#262

Post by [deleted] »

sama wrote: post #114
davebryand wrote: post #25

A more accurate title for this is "How to Be Financially Successful". I'd love for Sam to write a post called "How to Be a Successful Human" or "How to Live a Successful Life". This more important topic has little-to-nothing to do with financial success.

I also wrote this, which I think counting reprints is my most-read blog post ever: https://blog.samaltman.com/the-days-are-long-but-the-decades...

[deleted]

Re: How to Be Successful

#263

Post by fyfy18 »

avip wrote: post #35
telesilla wrote: post #10

It's also very successful, if you have built a stable business and a way of supporting yourself and a few others around you. Being successful doesn't always mean having a 1BN valuation. But sure, it's nice to think that one day, it could happen. I'm just grateful every day that what I've got now - stability and plenty of resources - was a result of pretty much what Sam said. Believing in ourselves and not giving up,…

It's also very successful if you were a stay home parent and your kids were able to succeed thanks to your efforts.

Given how many marriages end up in divorce, and how many more must stick together but create a hostile environment for children, avoiding that should be seen as an achievement too.

Re: How to Be Successful

#264

Post by martin1975 »

telesilla wrote: post #10

It's also very successful, if you have built a stable business and a way of supporting yourself and a few others around you. Being successful doesn't always mean having a 1BN valuation. But sure, it's nice to think that one day, it could happen. I'm just grateful every day that what I've got now - stability and plenty of resources - was a result of pretty much what Sam said. Believing in ourselves and not giving up,…

You hit the nail on the head. Success is most definitely not measured by how many steaks you've in the freezer as opposed to the next "less" or "more" successful guy. From what I can glean about your post, your aim was to be -content- more than -successful-, and from what you've said, it seems like you are (e.g. you speak of more life balance)

Notorious B.I.G. - may he rest in peace, has a great song which IMHO is pure wisdom when it comes to money - "Mo' money, mo' problems"

So be -content- with what you have. And being content is an art form - easier said than done.

Re: How to Be Successful

#265

Post by atomical »

sama wrote: post #114
davebryand wrote: post #25

A more accurate title for this is "How to Be Financially Successful". I'd love for Sam to write a post called "How to Be a Successful Human" or "How to Live a Successful Life". This more important topic has little-to-nothing to do with financial success.

I also wrote this, which I think counting reprints is my most-read blog post ever: https://blog.samaltman.com/the-days-are-long-but-the-decades...

It reads like a BuzzFeed article. Every generation has their "gurus" and judging by the comments in this thread HN has found one to hero worship.

Re: How to Be Successful

#266

Post by ruang »

A negative article "How Not to Be Successful" would be interesting, with unobvious observations. It could also include the top reasons why people get rejected from YC.

Re: How to Be Successful

#268

Post by tonyarkles »

MetalGuru wrote: post #71

You don't want to be in a career where people who have been doing it for two years can be as effective as people who have been doing it for twenty—your rate of learning should always be high. I'm having trouble reconciling this point. How can you continuously increase your effectiveness exponentially in a particular role? Take being a developer for example. Seems like the progression of skill is usually linear (with…

I'd probably argue that in the majority of cases, technical abilities tend to grow exponentially at the start, and sub-linearly after a point. I've worked with a whole lot of people who have been software developers for a long time, but a given a fresh grad and a couple years experience, the fresh grad would be caught up.

For me, I've put a lot of effort into both breadth and depth, and that's where, for me, a (maybe not exponential but) super-linear growth comes from. When you dive deep on a broad set of topics, you start seeing relationships between them that others don't see. But that takes a lot of dedication to diving into a diverse set of things, and go deep on it.

Re: How to Be Successful

#269

Post by fyfy18 »

mindcrime wrote: post #54
throwaway000021 wrote: post #21

I'm not successful, but my strategy for getting there is specific.... -- never put yourself in the position to go bankrupt -- stay in the game - keep your overheads down to the minimum practical for you -- learn to program so you can implement your own ideas without need for a cofounder or need to pay for anything more than hosting and a domain -- just keep banging out your ideas into products until one catches on. -…

By and large, this is the same algorithm I use. I've really only deviated on one point. That said, I'd add to this the idea of thinking in terms of "Return on Capital Invested" where your time and effort are a from of Capital. IOW, it's important (IMO) to figure out how to direct your attention towards the efforts that are most likely to yield the outcomes (whether financial or otherwise) that you seek. The problem,…

One thing worth bearing in mind when bootstrapping a company is that to be successful you just need to earn enough to cover costs and pay yourself something at the end of the day. Which is completely different to 95% of the companies you read about on here.

If you are building it on the side even just making a few hundred dollars per month is going to completely change things for you, and give you the freedom to explore more risky ideas. We may not have a universal income, but with hard work and dedication ("showing up is half the battle"), I believe anybody here could build a side business to supplement their income in a meaningful way.

Re: How to Be Successful

#270

Post by benohear »

The bit I struggle with is the contradiction between "try ideas out cheaply and fail many times until you hit on the right one" and "believe in what you do and keep going come what may". How do you pick between the two?
Post reply on HN