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

How to Do Great Work

paulgraham.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 464 posts

Re: How to Do Great Work

#311

Post by mkoubaa »

culopatin wrote: post #93

Ive been conflicted for 12 years now on what field to pursue. I’m between mechanical engineering because of my interest in materials and aerodynamics (I’d love to do research in this field), and software engineering (I don’t know what I’d do research in, but I like the idea of making tools people use). I work in IT/light software dev, and I think I’m inclined towards software because that’s where I’ve been building m…

Similar background. I write software for mechanical engineers and enjoy it very much

Re: How to Do Great Work

#312

Post by mkoubaa »

grumpy_coder wrote: post #83

You really shouldn't write a long post on doing great work without mentioning teamwork. He seems to say great work is done in the garage or garden shed, which has been false for centuries at this point.

Teamwork was mentioned in the post

Re: How to Do Great Work

#313

Post by cdelsolar »

v64 wrote: post #287
jamiek88 wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you got a Patreon?

@cdelsolar, definitely consider Patreon. I mentioned in this comment [1] recently about how so many coders are doing exactly what you wanna be doing, working on awesome projects full time, funded by people who want to see you succeed and to get the opportunity to get a behind the scenes glimpse of how you work, get updates about new things you're working on before anyone else, and getting access to beta testing and n…

We have a Patreon for Woogles, we make on the order of $100 a month from it. Mostly to keep our servers running along with other random donations. Not sure if we need to do more “fundraising”.

Re: How to Do Great Work

#314

Post by edandersen »

thimkerbell wrote: post #300
neilv wrote: post #296

> There are a lot of forces that will lead you astray when you're trying to figure out what to work on. Pretentiousness, fashion, fear, money, politics, other people's wishes, eminent frauds. But if you stick to what you find genuinely interesting, you'll be proof against all of them. If you're interested, you're not astray. Money is an insurmountable objective barrier for most people, and seems it's just slipped int…

No, he addresses that. Get a day job. Then do your project on nights and weekends, or else manage your manager into making it part of your job.

The problem with moonlighting a meaningful side project is that any marketing you do will alert HR to the fact you are moonlighting (HR in large corps pay to have employees' social media scanned).

In most cases you'll either be told to stop or in the worst case your employer will claim they own it.

Re: How to Do Great Work

#315

Post by cdelsolar »

isc_lover wrote: post #248
cdelsolar wrote: post #199

My problem is that I’ve already chosen what to work on long ago - Scrabble. I’ve built a popular (within the community) study tool, I’ve also been working on an open source AI that I believe is finally better than the state of the art one - I’m going to set up a match between them sometime soon (but need a bot interface, etc). This is without ML, too, which I fully intend to explore soon. And finally I’ve been workin…

Good effort, but ISC is still better. Sorry not sorry.

Nice trolling :) ISC still saves all passwords in plain text (!), they’re unchangeable, and probably running a very ancient and vulnerable version of Java. Apparently someone on the FB group claimed their password which they only use for that site was found in a data breach.

Oh yeah and you can change your tiles at will and draw RETINAS 7 times in a row if you want :)

Re: How to Do Great Work

#316

Post by mkoubaa »

andrewstuart wrote: post #64

I feel like I’m doing my greatest project at the moment. I enjoy PGs work but I’m not a fanboy. However in this case it’s uncanny that the path of this work I am doing is precisely as he has described here. I kinda knew already I was making something special but it’s almost like PG has been leaning over my shoulder watching my thinking and watching my work process over years. In fact this article is “great work” beca…

I feel the same way, and I think it's really nice read for someone who's a decade or so into their career and has been head down chasing their interests im obscurity. The privelege of doing that is its own reward but it's easy to see why this approach leads to great outcomes.

P.S.Why do you feel the need to say you're not a fanboy? Are you assuming that a positive statement about his work implies that you are and that you afraid of that impression ?

Re: How to Do Great Work

#317

Post by keyle »

neilv wrote: post #296

> There are a lot of forces that will lead you astray when you're trying to figure out what to work on. Pretentiousness, fashion, fear, money, politics, other people's wishes, eminent frauds. But if you stick to what you find genuinely interesting, you'll be proof against all of them. If you're interested, you're not astray. Money is an insurmountable objective barrier for most people, and seems it's just slipped int…

Program what makes you happy, everyone else is already programming the rest.

Re: How to Do Great Work

#318

Post by sheepscreek »

movedx wrote: post #286
artisanspam wrote: post #255

As I've gotten older, I believe more and more that having a desire for great work has more negatives than it does positives. This post really demonstrates why I believe this – mainly because PG doesn't touch at all on why someone would want to do great work while romanticizing how great it is to have that desire. I don't think the question that ambitious people should be asking themselves is "what is work that I can…

I've been studying a lot of Buddhism as of late. One thing it has taught me in the Middle Way. In short, it means do nothing in excess, which includes doing nothing at all. This balanced view leads to me to believe you, Paul, and "hustle culture" that's all over YouTube are both right and wrong. I've come to live by a simple system... Try to do fulfilling work that's meaningful to future generations, whilst also putt…

Reading this, I had an epiphany just now.

What you’ve shared is essentially Dharma. Or giving back from a sense of duty, or as a matter of principle.

Interestingly, Karma preaches: if you give to those in need, you will receive in return when you’re in need.

Although the motivations are different in both teachings (Buddhism vs. Hinduism, with carrot vs. stick if you will), they have the same effect - to reach an equilibrium in society.

Edited: For clarity

Re: How to Do Great Work

#319

Post by mkoubaa »

fnord77 wrote: post #9

also: - Don't have any chronic diseases or pain that will distract or dull your attention - Have a stable source of income or enough wealth to let you try and fail at a lot of things - Have stable family and friends - Don't have optimism beaten out of you at a young age etc

If 1000 people read this and only 100 of them meet your criteria, and it's good advice, than he would have helped 100 people.

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here

Post reply on HN