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How to Work Hard

paulgraham.com

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Re: How to Work Hard

#851

Post by rgifford »

unishark wrote: post #834
rgifford wrote: post #690

I worked my way through college as a mover (and came out the other side with high 5-figure debt). Many of the older guys I worked with had drug habits. I worked 16-hour days with those guys. They'd get on me for not running up stairs, for packing with too little paper around glass, for setting things down more than once. None wrote articles entitled "How to Work Hard." None knew Warren Buffet as a child (see Gates).…

> All their founders came from schools with less than 10% acceptance rates. This says they were overachievers in prior pursuits too. Universities may not do a perfect job of it, but their admissions is primarily based on merit. In fact the kind of person that will make a big impact on society is precisely what they look for in addition to grades and test scores. Perhaps they are just pretty good at it.

Why are they overachievers though? What factors -- over which they had control -- formed their psychology, intellectual capability, access to resources and education?

I'm guessing zip code predicts "overachiever-dom" depressingly well. I'm also guessing it's not everything, life is noisy.

Re: How to Work Hard

#852

Post by graycat »

It appears to me that Graham's essay is missing information and emphasis on one more crucial input to doing "great work" or being successful at all. That input is the importance of and good approaches to

===>>> Good Problem Selection including good initial problem selection.

Re: How to Work Hard

#853

Post by taneq »

Andy_G11 wrote: post #674
WalterSear wrote: post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is me. Though I didn't just learn this in my upbringing - I feel like my entire working life has been one of false promises and dehumanization, that has left me unable to enjoy anything. I'm 47 now, have worked at 6 failed startups in a row, and can't face work, or looking for a job. I used to blame social media and hacker news, but I now recognize that too much delayed gratification and overwork have had a much…

Work is a drug and I seriously think it triggers some sort of endorphin response in the same way that exercise does. Unfortunately, many white collar types of work are insular and while you are sitting on front of a screen getting a buzz about solving little problems, or even quite big ones for specific issues, the world is moving on. It is possible that you may even be compromising your career by being good at the t…

> It is possible that you may even be compromising your career by being good at the technical issues of a job to the extent that some bosses who cannot stay on top of what you are doing may feel they would be more comfortable with a safe, matey colleague than a bit of a strange wizzkid who gets to be known as the oracle of all things.

This is always a possibility... however in my experience things tend to fall more on the side of bosses being all too happy to offload responsibility onto that whizzkid and then tuck them away in a box away from any possibility of career advancement.

After all, if you can't be replaced, you can't be promoted.

Re: How to Work Hard

#854

Post by Aeolun »

rgifford wrote: post #690

I worked my way through college as a mover (and came out the other side with high 5-figure debt). Many of the older guys I worked with had drug habits. I worked 16-hour days with those guys. They'd get on me for not running up stairs, for packing with too little paper around glass, for setting things down more than once. None wrote articles entitled "How to Work Hard." None knew Warren Buffet as a child (see Gates).…

> What if most of serious wealth and success is decided at birth?

You don’t get to decide how much wealth you end up with.

You do however decide how much you do not end up with.

Re: How to Work Hard

#855

Post by jedberg »

_xnmw wrote: post #453
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…

It frustrates me when people bring out the "it depends" card and because then you can't condemn anything. I condemn TV, as it is a waste of time for most people. More importantly, it is a waste of headspace and mental energy. Obviously this doesn't apply if your work is to be a filmmaker. But PG addresses this point well: if that is not your deep interest , then it's a waste of time. Most people don't watch TV out of…

> More importantly, it is a waste of headspace and mental energy.

What do you do for fun? Whatever it is, it is probably a waste of headspace and mental energy.

Furthermore, there are documentaries on TV. They are a great way to learn new information.

Don't be so critical when you've clearly not given it due consideration.

Re: How to Work Hard

#856

Post by hallway_monitor »

emadabdulrahim wrote: post #850
selfmodruntime wrote: post #725

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What if most of serious wealth and success is decided at birth? There is no 'what if'. It's just a fact. You can pretty accurately predict what a child will be able to attain in life by looking at their zip code.

While I'm not naive to not see that life is inherently unequal, I completely disagree with you. I know plenty people, including myself, who not only had the wrong zip code, they didn't even have a zip code. Somehow they made it. You can get lucky after you're born. And if you work hard, you can increase your luck odds. Also, why zip code is the axiom here? I'd say having good parents is more significant than being bo…

Nobody's to say. For some reason some people think that statistics dictate reality when obviously they just take an average. The zip code thingy is silly, but on average more expensive zip codes produce children with higher incomes.

Re: How to Work Hard

#857

Post by hallway_monitor »

rgifford wrote: post #851
unishark wrote: post #834

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All their founders came from schools with less than 10% acceptance rates. This says they were overachievers in prior pursuits too. Universities may not do a perfect job of it, but their admissions is primarily based on merit. In fact the kind of person that will make a big impact on society is precisely what they look for in addition to grades and test scores. Perhaps they are just pretty good at it.

Why are they overachievers though? What factors -- over which they had control -- formed their psychology, intellectual capability, access to resources and education? I'm guessing zip code predicts "overachiever-dom" depressingly well. I'm also guessing it's not everything, life is noisy.

A lot of people had access to those things and were not overachievers. Arguments like this stink of jealousy.

Re: How to Work Hard

#858

Post by rgifford »

hallway_monitor wrote: post #857
rgifford wrote: post #851

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are they overachievers though? What factors -- over which they had control -- formed their psychology, intellectual capability, access to resources and education? I'm guessing zip code predicts "overachiever-dom" depressingly well. I'm also guessing it's not everything, life is noisy.

A lot of people had access to those things and were not overachievers. Arguments like this stink of jealousy.

Alright, Cardi B. This isn't about haters.

Success has been compounding in fundamentally destructive patterns that are causing serious, unintended economic and societal consequences for 100 years now. If you're benefitting from that, great. I'm genuinely happy for you! But when it comes to policy making and interactions with others, holding onto a sense of personal exceptionalism hurts everyone. It also makes you look like an ass.

Re: How to Work Hard

#859

Post by heavyset_go »

SlapperKoala wrote: post #324
tgtweak wrote: post #188

This rhetoric furthered by Elon, Jack Ma and several others where working 7 days a week for 18 hours is "ideal" and that rest and relaxation are had at the expense of productivity/success is a real dangerous position. You know what happens to the majority of people when they get to a state of anxiety when relaxing and not working? Stress and burnout. Let's acknowledge that it may have been the path to success for SOM…

> SOME of the 0.1% who can work 18 hours a day nonstop for a decade with extreme natural ability I'm sceptical of whether they actually exist as described tbh. There's an obvious incentive for rich business people to emphasize the amount of work they put in, and I've not seen any independent verification of their supposedly high output

Yeah, get back to me when someone is willing to put those claims to the most minimal of tests. It should be as simple as verifying claims of breatharianism, and the video evidence should be as entertaining, too.

Re: How to Work Hard

#860

Post by ceilingcorner »

luffapi wrote: post #657
ceilingcorner wrote: post #604

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment about VCs makes no sense. If a VC wants you to work hard because that’s how a VC gets rich, that means that working hard leads to building a successful company. If it were purely luck, why would the VC care if you worked hard or not?

If VCs knew what made companies great, they wouldn’t fail 9 out of 10 times. More than any profession I can think of, VC is almost pure luck + how much wealth you already have, which attracts deal flow, which increases your odds to get lucky. PG blogs because he thinks it increases his deal flow (or he wants attention). Just because he’s saying it, it doesn’t make it true, even if he believes his own story.

That still doesn't answer my question. If hard work had no effect, why would VCs encourage it?
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