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

How to Work Hard

paulgraham.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

341–350 of 1001 posts

Re: How to Work Hard

#341

Post by reader_mode »

luffapi wrote: post #293
reader_mode wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you tell people that if they work 12+ hours a day in their 20s that they would be millionaires In software development this is a realistic goal if you play your cards right. Plenty of other careers too. I think there's also statistical data to support this as well (hours worked early on increasing your income and net worth down the line). Working hard early on in your career does pay off.

As someone who has gone from being poor to being upper middle class via the tech industry, I can say without exception hard work had nothing to do with it. Every quantum leap in my career came from convincing some rich guy to allow me to bask in the mist of the cash firehose being directed at them. I would say working hard is actually negatively associated with success. Once you get branded a “worker bee”, your chanc…

That's not what I'm getting at. You can accumulate >1M net worth just by being an engineer/contractor - no need to get into upper management or socialise with rich people.

Working on acquiring experience early on in your career will accelerate the point where you're making decent money where you're able to save/invest a decent portion of your income.

Your path doesn't sound widely reproducible.

Re: How to Work Hard

#342

Post by dragonwriter »

johnwheeler wrote: post #335
dragonwriter wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People who’ve succeeded at achieving ambitious goals are able to look at success from both vantage points: from having yet to succeed and succeeding. You’ll hardly ever, if ever, hear them say it’s solely the consequence of having the right networks and being lucky. Yes, people tend to adopt a personal narrative that maximizes their own moral status, so successful people artificially minimizes the effect of circums…

> Yes, people tend to adopt a personal narrative that maximizes their own moral status Exactly, that's what I'm saying about rationalizing. The only thing those who've yet to succeed lack is the vantage point of the successful. So I'd argue the successful are operating with an information advantage.

> The only thing those who've yet to succeed lack is the vantage point of the successful.

No, that's a pre-Enlightment (or maybe postmodernist, it can be hard to tell the difference at times) attitude.

What both most who have succeeded and most who have not succeeded lack who don’t actively seek it out is the perspective of structured, broad information gathering, analysis, and hypothesis testing beyond self-justifying rationalization of personal experience.

But no one needs to lack that, because plenty of that has been done, so there is no need to rely on duelling self-justifying constructed narratives to understand the world.

Re: How to Work Hard

#343

Post by bosie »

ericmay wrote: post #137
sidlls wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I think it's common when compared to other industries, though maybe not generally common. Admittedly I have no data to back up this hunch. If I'm wrong, please correct me, but my interpretation of what the person you're replying to was trying to get at was that modest savings from a 23+ year old software engineer, to the tune of $800/month or $10,000/year (this could be 401k match and contributions) will get you pret…

In that time period the cost of your house went from 100k to 700k. You aren’t a millionaire anymore. You are poor. Getting to a million dollars with the same purchasing power (make sure your inflation basked is properly chosen) as of today outside of metro area (as a million in sf isn’t much)

Re: How to Work Hard

#344

Post by MetaWhirledPeas »

nineplay wrote: post #317

One of my greatest regrets is how much time I wasted on 'work' in my 20s and 30s. I was an engineer, I made a comfortable salary, but I rarely took a vacation, I never traveled outside the UI, I took days off reluctantly with a vague feeling that I was letting someone down. "Later", I told myself. When I'm successful, when I'm stable, when I have the money to travel in style and not backpack around and stay at hostel…

Did you read the whole essay? He writes about finding out what's important. That doesn't have to mean (and probably doesn't mean) some mindless job. He also talks about constantly re-evaluating what the correct time commitment is for the given work, and that it's not the same for everyone nor for every task. Bill Gates not taking a vacation day wasn't trying to communicate that we all should be this way; it was evidence of the fact that big success requires hard work.

True he doesn't talk much about leisure and retirement, because that's not what this essay is about.

Re: How to Work Hard

#345

Post by r0s »

WhompingWindows wrote: post #234

Yet another Paul Graham stream of consciousness. He presents a thesis but forgets to support it as he streams out another essay. I take issue with this fundamental thesis: "There are three ingredients in great work: natural ability, practice, and effort." He doesn't distinguish between practice and effort. In my view, practice takes effort and effort occurs during practice, they are two dimensions of the same thing,…

> Yet another Paul Graham stream of consciousness.

Absurd to expect anything else. I missed the part of the essay where it pretended to be... whatever you seem to think it should.

You're not sure why it's popular and here you are responding to it, attaching to it and reacting, building on it. It sounds like you did in fact get a lot out of the essay, just like the rest of the peanut gallery.

Re: How to Work Hard

#346

Post by samstave »

nineplay wrote: post #317

One of my greatest regrets is how much time I wasted on 'work' in my 20s and 30s. I was an engineer, I made a comfortable salary, but I rarely took a vacation, I never traveled outside the UI, I took days off reluctantly with a vague feeling that I was letting someone down. "Later", I told myself. When I'm successful, when I'm stable, when I have the money to travel in style and not backpack around and stay at hostel…

SAME exact experience. I wish I wouldnt have been so driven in my 20s/30s.

I made many millions *for other people* -- and as luck would have it, I left several companies a month or so before big aquisitions.

SI spent years as a consultant, where I was brought in to focus on a specific project and get-it-built - so I never got stock in those companies - just had a high paying hourly rate... which obviously life happens, and all the material bullshit I acquired meant nothing and is now all gone and I am pretty minimalist.

I worked with a guy once who would work for six months, then take six month off to travel - every single year. That was a good model...

Also, I became a manager WAY too early in my career - so I had to focus on people/people-skills, which actually took time away from me going deeper on some of my technical skills/creative interests.

Re: How to Work Hard

#347

Post by tidydata »

bhupy wrote: post #325
nineplay wrote: post #317

One of my greatest regrets is how much time I wasted on 'work' in my 20s and 30s. I was an engineer, I made a comfortable salary, but I rarely took a vacation, I never traveled outside the UI, I took days off reluctantly with a vague feeling that I was letting someone down. "Later", I told myself. When I'm successful, when I'm stable, when I have the money to travel in style and not backpack around and stay at hostel…

> Don't listen to PG, kids. Live the life you want to have now, not the life you think you'll want to have several decades out. Isn't there an in-between? My wife and I both delay a little bit of gratification with the expectation that we'll have a better life in our mid-30's or early 40's. In other words, we're choosing not to live the life we want to have right now , because we're trading that off for a potentially…

Having children means sharing your marshmallows. It’s also a lot easier to chase a kid in your 20s than your 30s. It’s also maturing, enjoyable, and spending time with them is the best part of the day.

Not something many people say about work! Maybe when the work is truly meaningful (I wouldn’t know).

The notion that people need to work through their 20s for this unknown future prize is silly and wasteful. Spending the prime years of your life slaving to a computer is something I think a lot of people will regret.

So, no, I won’t listen to PG. My most fulfilling work is being a dad.

Re: How to Work Hard

#348

Post by criddell »

extraduder_ire wrote: post #337
jedberg wrote: post #292

> The one precisely dateable landmark I have is when I stopped watching TV, at age 13. It frustrates me when people brag about this like it's a universally good thing. Imagine 100 years ago someone bragging that they stopped wasting time reading books. It's especially frustrating to see PG do it given that he's an artist (or at least used to be), basically putting down another art form. TV has good and bad things. TV…

TV sucks, I don't think anybody should watch it when a better alternative is available. Radio too. There might be good things shown on it occasionally, but there are better ways to get at them nowadays. Ways that don't require you to synchronize your watching with availability. Main appeal I see in TV/radio is the constant live-ish stream of content, and more access to hard-to-license content than competing livestrea…

These days I think watching TV means includes streaming and other types of on-demand services. I watch TV whenever I can and it's never synchronized with a broadcaster's schedule, except for sports.

Re: How to Work Hard

#349

Post by lovecg »

cm2012 wrote: post #289

Eh, I don't know. I came from a lower middle class background, but am now top 1% for my age and income + I probably have more wealth at this stage of my life than PG did. I love idleness and leisure. I only work to get more of it in the future. I do have a drive to do a job well, but not for the sake of achievement itself shudder . The idea of saying at age 13 "I hate leisure activities, its not productive" is really…

It’s just not written for you. There’s a small percentage of people with whom this attitude resonates. This essay is advice on how to harness these personal tendencies in an effective manner, so it’s natural that it seems foreign to you if you don’t have this deep seated need to not be idle.

Re: How to Work Hard

#350

Post by colanderman »

nineplay wrote: post #317

One of my greatest regrets is how much time I wasted on 'work' in my 20s and 30s. I was an engineer, I made a comfortable salary, but I rarely took a vacation, I never traveled outside the UI, I took days off reluctantly with a vague feeling that I was letting someone down. "Later", I told myself. When I'm successful, when I'm stable, when I have the money to travel in style and not backpack around and stay at hostel…

I'd love to, but...

All my friends are like this too.

Time off from work is no fun when all your friends have glued themselves to a monitor. It's impossible to even convince my most sun-loving friends with secure jobs to take a beach day.

I don't find meaning in traveling alone so... drown myself in work it is.

Post reply on HN