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How to Work Hard

paulgraham.com

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Re: How to Work Hard

#871

Post by koonsolo »

ZephyrBlu wrote: post #779
eloff wrote: post #638

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Without luck, you will not get to the level of Messi. I would add that as a fourth requirement to compete at the very top level along with the other three. A degree of luck is also necessary. > Without living in the right environment, you will not get to the level of Messi. A fifth requirement. None of that means hard work is NOT a requirement too - and one of the most important. Without hard work Messi gets nowher…

The issue is that you can't know if you meet the other requirements, so it's easy to think "I'll get lucky by just being persistent" and you never go anywhere.

That is true. If you want more certainty, get a job.

But if you want to shoot for the stars, you might end up in a situation where your hard work doesn't pay out.

Re: How to Work Hard

#872

Post by soheil »

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.

What difference does it make if there were factors they had control over? I suspect grit or tendency to work hard is primarily inherited just like intelligence. So you could also say anyone who works hard is not really doing so by their own doing.

I’m not sure what exactly you feel victim of.

Re: How to Work Hard

#873

Post by ookdatnog »

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.

I think this 12-minute video by Veritasium provides one of the most concise and nuanced takes on the role of luck in success I have encountered.

https://youtu.be/3LopI4YeC4I

Re: How to Work Hard

#874

Post by horns4lyfe »

RhodoGSA wrote: post #406
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…

He's got an audience that he is writting too. He's talking about building great things, not how to live a full and happy life. While working at Tesla, we definitely all built great things but that's all we did. I left, took a 70% paycut to start my own consulting business and work 4-5 hours a week while being a 'Digital Nomad'. I've never been happier and guess what, that nagging feeling of 'I'm not doing real work'…

How many of those founders will actually do something great, and how many will do the supposedly “great work” of building something designed to siphon off as much of people’s money and attention as possible in the pursuit of getting rich?

Re: How to Work Hard

#875

Post by ookdatnog »

jakemal wrote: post #670
bachmeier wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the article explicitly agrees with you that just hard work isn't enough It does not in any way agree with me. I am saying luck is important. If that's anywhere in there, I missed it. > Why would they promote hard work if hard work didn't matter? Hard work is not the distinguishing characteristic. Luck is. Why promote hard work? Because someone else is working hard for your benefit.

Hard work is necessary but not sufficient. I agree that the essay glosses over the element of luck that is involved, but I don't think that makes the rest of what Paul is saying wrong. Even if hard work alone doesn't always lead to success, not working hard guarantees that you won't be exceptional.

Hard work is not even really necessary. You can inherit wealth, get a good position somewhere through connections/nepotism, ...

To be clear, I think most successful people are hard working. But hard work is not a necessary condition for success.

Re: How to Work Hard

#876

Post by leokennis »

sbierwagen wrote: post #805
leokennis wrote: post #19

> There are three ingredients in great work: natural ability, practice, and effort. You can do pretty well with just two, but to do the best work you need all three: you need great natural ability and to have practiced a lot and to be trying very hard. I'd like to add that it is more than fine to not do great work. If you like to spend a lot of time with your kids and tend to your vegetable patch, by all means only t…

PG essays are written for an audience of startup founders and prospective startup founders. When he says "doing your best work" he doesn't exactly have a guy pouring concrete sidewalks in mind. Theoretically, a founder who works harder can make 10,000 as much as if they slacked off. That will never be true for basically any other profession.

I wasn’t really aware of PG’s audience and goals for writing…so thanks for this insightful comment!

Re: How to Work Hard

#877

Post by ookdatnog »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #861
emodendroket wrote: post #841

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the criticism is not so illogical. Let's just assume your company has a 5% chance of wild success and you can double it by working insanely hard (I think these numbers are likely generous, but easier to take round numbers for the sake of argument). It is in this case simultaneously true that it's in VCs' interest to convince you to work very hard and also that it's probably not in your interest. It only makes…

Then hard work increases your chances. What is controversial about this?

I don't think the point is "hard work has no effect on outcome", but rather "for nearly all people who end up successful, luck played a very significant role which is often minimized", and as a corollary "hard work is not a sufficient condition for success, but successful people tend to portray it as such".

For a good summary of this argument, I recommend the (fairly short) Veritasium video that has been posted several times already in this discussion: https://youtu.be/3LopI4YeC4I

Re: How to Work Hard

#878

Post by sergiomattei »

magicloop wrote: post #230

"I never took a day off in my twenties" (Bill Gates) quote is a misnomer because what Bill Gates considers a day-off is something where you are just lying around doing nothing, such as lying on the beach. A two week sojourn into a set of books that interested him were not considered "days off". He did such activities yearly. Bill Gates wasn't in the office working a 7 day schedule for his entire 20s. So that is not t…

As someone in their early twenties struggling with burnout post startup failure, these bullshit hustle tropes NEED to end (like the Bill Gates quote).

I'm going to go against everything I was told and say: don't work hard in your early twenties, don't kill yourself over your work, don't fill your life with anxiety.

Phrases like "I wish I was like you in my youth" or keeping young people rolling in their hamster wheels just encourage the worst kind of personality damage in these developing years.

It is bullshit, it is harmful. Stop encouraging the young towards handing away their lives in a silver platter.

Re: How to Work Hard

#879

Post by ceilingcorner »

ookdatnog wrote: post #877
ceilingcorner wrote: post #861

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then hard work increases your chances. What is controversial about this?

I don't think the point is "hard work has no effect on outcome", but rather "for nearly all people who end up successful, luck played a very significant role which is often minimized", and as a corollary "hard work is not a sufficient condition for success, but successful people tend to portray it as such". For a good summary of this argument, I recommend the (fairly short) Veritasium video that has been posted sever…

"hard work is not a sufficient condition for success, but successful people tend to portray it as such".

I don't agree with that at all. Most successful people say that some degree of luck was involved.

Re: How to Work Hard

#880

Post by ookdatnog »

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…

The claim is not that all wealth and success is determined at birth, just that most of it is. This claim can't be disproven by counterexamples.

It's more productive to look at broader trends. The average Chinese factory worker works more hours than the average westerner, yet tends to end up less successful. The difference is that they had the bad luck to be born in a poorer country.

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