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Your high IQ might kill your startup (2010)

jamiebegin.com

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Re: Your high IQ might kill your startup (2010)

#31

Post by bestdaytostart »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #29
conroe64 wrote: post #20

IMHO, to continually put "success" above everything else in your life and slave away towards that goal as the ultimate redemption in everything is a waste of your time and therefore your life. It can be such as easy sell, especially to people with low self-esteem... if only you were rich, had a great body, had success with the opposite sex, etc., etc. And always underlying it, but never spoken of, is the vain and sel…

Being poor completely sucks. Watching your cat die from cancer that you can't afford to treat sucks. The point of getting rich is so that your life doesn't suck. Not to compare yourself to others. Getting rich is necessarily hard, otherwise everyone would be on the road to becoming rich. People are unlikely to get rich by doing work which satisfies. But if they make it, then at least life won't suck anymore.

Being poor does suck. However, being rich does not prevent your life from sucking. All the money in the world won't prevent you or a loved one from passing due to an untreatable illness. All the money in the world won't buy you friends or genuine respect. It can't buy you love (though it can buy you sex).

Furthermore, you don't need to be rich to avoid the hardship of being poor, you just have to make a sufficient amount to afford quality housing, food, health insurance, and minor luxuries.

Re: Your high IQ might kill your startup (2010)

#32

Post by ChuckMcM »

One of the things a good University program does is take someone to past the limits of their natural intelligence. Running into the wall is one of the rites of passage of figuring out how to work. For me it was electromagnetic field theory, that crap kicked my butt! But getting through the class on additional study and work was pretty important for me.

Re: Your high IQ might kill your startup (2010)

#33

Post by sergiotapia »

underwater wrote: post #17

I take issue with the assumption that you're not a success unless you're a VP at a consulting firm. In particularly the assertion that the other engineers in the story -- who for all we know may have preferred to remain in their roles -- have suffered some terrible fate that we need to be warned against.

It's funny because my dad's idea of success is owning a company and making a lot of money.

I have different goals. I'd rather earn 80 a year and work 9-to-5 than slave away at work.

Re: Your high IQ might kill your startup (2010)

#34

Post by hyp0 »

aka the tortoise and the hare (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tortoise_and_the_Hare), or, for a more topical treatment determination beats intelligence (http://www.paulgraham.com/determination.html, http://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html)

It's universal.

e.g. I'm not supersmart, but maybe halfway between supersmart and average - enough to have glimpses; to know what I'm missing; that my reach exceeds my grasp. I breezed though school, undergrad, honours, masters. The game was how little work I could do. But at PhD level I wanted to do world-class work, and so glimpsed ideas I couldn't effortlessly "just grasp". I kept trying to "just grasp" them in different ways...

Now, finally, I'm attempting to build up my skills, one higher-level at a time. It's ughhh because it makes me feel really stupid... but that's just because I am. At least, relative to the task. I'm making progress. So I've got that going for me, which is nice.

The common wisdom is that less intelligent people hit this barrier earlier, and (if they want to) learn the skills to overcome it when younger. They are net better off.

Re: Your high IQ might kill your startup (2010)

#35

Post by [deleted] »

marcosscriven wrote: post #24
conroe64 wrote: post #20

IMHO, to continually put "success" above everything else in your life and slave away towards that goal as the ultimate redemption in everything is a waste of your time and therefore your life. It can be such as easy sell, especially to people with low self-esteem... if only you were rich, had a great body, had success with the opposite sex, etc., etc. And always underlying it, but never spoken of, is the vain and sel…

Couldn't have said it better myself.

[deleted]

Re: Your high IQ might kill your startup (2010)

#37

Post by jordanthoms »

sergiotapia wrote: post #33
underwater wrote: post #17

I take issue with the assumption that you're not a success unless you're a VP at a consulting firm. In particularly the assertion that the other engineers in the story -- who for all we know may have preferred to remain in their roles -- have suffered some terrible fate that we need to be warned against.

It's funny because my dad's idea of success is owning a company and making a lot of money. I have different goals. I'd rather earn 80 a year and work 9-to-5 than slave away at work.

Or own a company / work harder and save the additional cash, then retire at 40?

Re: Your high IQ might kill your startup (2010)

#38

Post by TeMPOraL »

I took an important lesson from that article, completely unrelated to startups, when first reading it few years ago.

> The man with the knife did not know how to use that knife. If he had been as trained in knife fighting as I was in hand combat, he would have been able to destroy me. But he had a tool that he felt gave him an advantage (...)

You can have a false sense of confidence that because you possess a particular tool, you're safe, even though you have no idea how to use it. If the first time you discover how the tool works is in a dangerous situation, you'd likely be much better of if you didn't have that tool in the first place.

I applied this lesson many times in my life. For example, after a theoretical worplace safety course at my job I realized I have no clue how fire extinguishers actually work, so I bought one and fired it outside in an area where it wouldn't disturb anybody. And now I know how extinguishers behave and what to expect from them. Another time, a friend of mine was planning to buy pepper spray, because she was often returning late at night from university. I told her to buy two cans, because just having a spray will instill a false sense of confidence in her. We used up the second spray for "training", for her to see how it actually works, so that in case of real danger, she wouldn't have to worry about how to use the gas and how it actually works.

Re: Your high IQ might kill your startup (2010)

#39

Post by mtdewcmu »

ScottBurson wrote: post #30
conroe64 wrote: post #20

IMHO, to continually put "success" above everything else in your life and slave away towards that goal as the ultimate redemption in everything is a waste of your time and therefore your life. It can be such as easy sell, especially to people with low self-esteem... if only you were rich, had a great body, had success with the opposite sex, etc., etc. And always underlying it, but never spoken of, is the vain and sel…

The Israeli soldier may not have been taking as much of a risk as you think. I'm sure he was well trained in assessing the competence of an adversary.

The conclusion I drew from what was described was that the soldier knew exactly what to do and dispatched the situation the most efficient possible way. He sounded so much more skilled than the highwayman that the effort to disarm the man was worth less than what he had in his pocket.

He was probably kicking himself afterward for not being that skilled at something more lucrative. lol

Re: Your high IQ might kill your startup (2010)

#40

Post by JackFr »

ScottBurson wrote: post #30
conroe64 wrote: post #20

IMHO, to continually put "success" above everything else in your life and slave away towards that goal as the ultimate redemption in everything is a waste of your time and therefore your life. It can be such as easy sell, especially to people with low self-esteem... if only you were rich, had a great body, had success with the opposite sex, etc., etc. And always underlying it, but never spoken of, is the vain and sel…

The Israeli soldier may not have been taking as much of a risk as you think. I'm sure he was well trained in assessing the competence of an adversary.

Beyond that it sounds as if he were compassionately trying to get the guy to do the right thing.
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