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How to Be Successful

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: How to Be Successful

#271

Post by woolvalley »

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,…

I agree, some of the advice feels more like ‘How to be a better high risk vc startup founder’ vs ‘How to be a better 1M/yr “lifestyle” business founder’.

Eventually if you want to scale yourself in the exponentiation formula you become a vc, vs grist for the founder mill.

You only have so many 1% 5 year adventure chances to do a startup before you find your 50 and dont have much to show for your life.

Re: How to Be Successful

#272

Post by ajankovic »

avip wrote: post #38
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.

"A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do."

"Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value." - Albert Einstein

Re: How to Be Successful

#273

Post by lazyjones »

ruang wrote: post #254

Why don't more employees from Google and Facebook start successful companies? They seem to exhibit all of these traits.

Do they exhibit the risk-taking trait?

Also, such companies offer alternative roads to personal success, like climbing up the corporate ladder and getting wealthy with stock options. Probably not all bad, especially if you can identify with the corporation's vision and feel you're doing something useful.

Re: How to Be Successful

#274

Post by johan_larson »

I have to wonder who the target audience for this article is. The advice just doesn't seem particularly actionable. A statement like, "I think the biggest competitive advantage in business—either for a company or for an individual’s career—is long-term thinking with a broad view of how different systems in the world are going to come together," sounds great in a TED talk, but what the heck is anyone supposed to do about it? It's shallow.

I think the article could be improved by considering more carefully who the advice is intended for, and tailoring the advice to them. The advice for a bright young college graduate should be different from the advice for a five-time failed entrepreneur or someone who has plateaued in middle management at 50.

Re: How to Be Successful

#275

Post by rwz »

I find it hard to read those kind of posts because they all boil down to "have a bunch of variables you have very little control over in the correct state and you're pretty much set"

If you're lucky enough to be born with a good wetware and an advantageous set of mental characteristics, you can tweak something here and there, build on top of it and become "successful". If you're nowhere near, there's very little you can do to change it.

Take "be internally driven" for example. This shit is almost impossible to intentionally cultivate unless you're just lucky enough to be born this way.

You can call it "loser mentality", but even that is ultimately defined by your genes.

Re: How to Be Successful

#276

Post by robfitz »

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 think the "career" you're talking about is entrepreneur, built upon the "skill" of programmer. On the other hand, if your "career" is programmer, you're limited by salary, and competing (largely) on skill, which a talented recent graduate could beat you at. If your "career" is entrepreneur, then you get a bunch of multipliers (as Sam calls them) which make your core skills more valuable.

For example, 10 years into your career as an entrepreneur, you'll have a network (and possibly financial assets, and possibly an existing successful business, plus vague intangibles like 'wisdom' and industry insight) which all lets you be vastly more effective than someone who is equally skilled but still in their first couple years.

I don't think Sam is telling you not to build any particular skill, but rather to put yourself on a path where, 10 years down the line, you'll be able to use those skills in a way that other folks can't compete with, thanks to the other assets/resources/multipliers you've built up for yourself, and the fact that you're playing in an area where there is a) the potential for scale and b) you own the upside if it works.

Caveat: I have no idea, just my interpretation of the article.

Re: How to Be Successful

#277

Post by raz32dust »

eanzenberg wrote: post #37
sama wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest reason I'm excited about basic income is the amount of human potential it will unleash by freeing more people to take risks. Until then, if you aren't born lucky, you have to claw your way up for awhile before you can take big swings. If you are born in extreme poverty, then this is super difficult :( It is obviously an incredible shame and waste that opportunity is so unevenly distributed. But I've witne…

What basic income will most likely do is send vast swaths of average people to entertainment and drugs. It's already happening, as social nets get bigger and wider.

I think it can be balanced by the amount of UBI. UBI should just be enough to make sure no one goes hungry or has to sleep out in the cold. That, in addition to public health care and education and access to libraries and opportunities for self-growth. Anything more can and will be misused. Anything less makes it too risky for people to experiment and fail. At least that's the theory I have in my head. How exactly to determine this amount fairly? I don't know.

Re: How to Be Successful

#278

Post by locklock »

I oftentimes find it difficult to balance actually attempting to be successful with finding time for the backlog of Medium posts and other blog articles about "How To Be Successful" that I assume I have to read in order to be successful in the first place

Re: How to Be Successful

#279

Post by bhntr3 »

kochikame wrote: post #244
CPLX wrote: post #125

I clicked on this expecting to hate-read it and then post something snarky, but it's actually pretty reasonable, assuming you read the title as "How To Be Sucessful In Business" With that said I think it's missing a hugely important area -- which is mental and emotional health. One of the things I've noticed in friends who have incredible business success, and have noticed in myself during periods of greatest product…

I think you're right. The first big step in Emotional Intelligence is being able to understand and regulate your own emotions, and it's the first step for a reason. Kids who passed the famous marshmallow test (were able to resist the impulse to eat the marshmallow when unsupervised) were far more successful in later life I have two brothers who occasionally get very angry, cut off relationships on whims and sabotage…

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/jun/01/famed-impu...

Unfortunately the marshmallow test as a predictor of later success is debunked. It's part of the replication crisis in psychology. Half of the psychology we learned may be wrong. People just aren't that straightforward.

https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/576223

Re: How to Be Successful

#280

Post by fastbmk »

lordCarbonFiber wrote: post #103
beatpanda wrote: post #65

> It’s not entirely clear to me why working hard has become a Bad Thing in certain parts of the US Most people don't have any real access to capital, and most people's labor is totally alienated from its actual value. For most people, advice to "Work Hard" amounts to "Sacrifice More So Your Boss Can Get Richer". Also, as far as "working hard", Americans are an extreme outlier: https://20somethingfinance.com/american-…

Because he'd love for more fools to work hard and make him richer.

Yes, it's true.

1. Write articles about huge success. 2. Inspire people to loose their lives trying to get rich. 3. If some of them start getting lucky by pure chance, convince them to share a large part of their business for small amount of money. ... 5. PROFIT!

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