When Paul Graham uses a phrase like "great work" I can't help but only consider it as being synonymous to "work that generates a big return for the investor" in his context of Y Combinator
I didn’t read the whole essay, but it seems to be more like: find something you are interested in, interested enough to work very hard at it, and don’t worry about what others think too much. It seems basically true (and legitimately good advice), if a bit generic. It doesn’t seem particularly tied to start-ups or whatever.
I didn’t get much from it, but I’ve gotten that sort of advice my whole life, so it was a little boring. As a result of being bored, I skimmed it. As I skimmed it, it started to feel repetitive. It is possible that a deeper reading would reveal some non-repetitive aspect to the parts I found repetitive. It seems like a good blog post to give to a smart teenager.
Edit: I think we’ll get some dismissive responses here because most of the posters here are at least somewhat mid-career, so they’ve already gotten and acted on this kind of advice. Imagine reading it before college, though. I’d have enjoyed it.
> didn’t read the whole essay .... work very hard at it, and don’t worry about what others think too much....
I did read the whole essay. It is typical boomer VC bs: ignore read flags, destroy your health, take tons of loans, and live in super expensive world i own. Maybe you win lottery and get the same money as a plumber.
Maybe but i consider other things in that as well.
One thing is art. I was in new orleans once and heard a kid play jazz saxaphone out on a street corner in the middle of the night. It was legitimately the most beautiful music ive ever heard in my life. I think that man put all his life into that solo and hit the frontier of how music can affect a listener's soul. I think he was doing great by paul grahams definition
What do you want it to be synonymous to? The people who've managed to do great work without generating large investment returns not that large. Compared to the number of ambitious people presently looking for advice it is small.
I disagree. There are millions of local activists that are improving the immediate lives of their communities in real impactful ways that never see the light of day. Starting after school programs or setting up mutual aid stations or community gardens or creating tenant unions, are all things any one of us can do to improve the lives of those around us.
If you're great work only consists of work that generates money, then you're neglecting the entire spectrum of the human experience.
> There are millions of local activists that are improving the immediate lives of their communities in real impactful ways...
Most people manage this. It is hard to earn a paycheck if someone isn't improving the immediate lives of their communities in real impactful ways. Great work has to be something a bit more. There are a lot of thresholds for that which could be reasonable, but if we aren't going to go with solid investor returns someone is going to have to come up with a rough standard that can be talked about.
> Starting after school programs or setting up mutual aid stations or community gardens or creating tenant unions, are all things any one of us can do to improve the lives of those around us.
I mean, sure. But my mind automatically drifts to China and the millions of people being dragged out of poverty by sweatshops and investors making out like bandits. Industrial improvements to living standards, driven by profits, are a lot faster and larger than people setting up mutual aid stations. The scales are just different once people figure out a way to improve the world profitably.
There are examples of people who managed to scale up their work to do amazing things without making a profit along the way (major religious figures spring to mind), but generally it is just easier to have a sustainable impact if the returns are good too.
I agree. Though the article mentions work from people like Einstein, Copernicus, Darwin, etc. A far cry from the kind of work Y Combinator funds. It gives the post a comedic air to it. Perhaps if had given some more grounded examples that feel more relevant to the work he's done himself then the article would land more for me.
'Great' is subjective. If you care about the same things as he does, a lot of his work is great. If you care about totally different things, none of his work is great.
Whatever you feel about it, it would be inaccurate to say that he has not found success. Clearly he has. So it is up to each person to decide whether or not any products of that success, including his writings, matches their own definition for 'great'.
Every invention is made of other inventions all the way back to big rock and sharp stick.
So yes Bayesian spam filtering was impressive for its time. I remember it being done locally in mail clients.
It’s also one of the early popular deployments of a form of “AI” but that was still during the hangover from the first AI bubble when you had to call it “machine learning.”
He wrote a lot about this. For example he built an e-commerce meta platform in Lisp that would allow anyone to build and customise their own shops that was far ahead of anything that existed at the time.
Per Graham's own definition, the founding to Y Combinator. Setting aside critiques, some of his influential essays ("Ramen profitable", "Do things that don't scale", "Founder mode", "Beating the averages", "Schelp blindness", etc) also fit the bill.
> At 7 it may seem excitingly ambitious to build huge things out of Lego, then at 14 to teach yourself calculus, till at 21 you're starting to explore unanswered questions in physics.
I don't think PG posts are aimed at us normies. I do read his blogposts when they are published, and for all these years I've always thought that they were aimed at ambitious students and professionals alike, but with a certain pedigree/background.
When Ivy League educated VC billionaires tell people that they can do great things and change the world if they want, one assumption is that you already have to be pretty close to the in-group.
Either A) he used a rhetorical device, or B) he tried to be relatable and failed (for you, assuming you represent the typical intended audience) or C) he tried to be relatable and succeeded, but you are not part of the intended audience he aimed the piece at. Which is 100%, absolutely, perfectly fine; there is nothing wrong in being in that "very ambitious" group of people Paul Graham is likely refering too. I am not even sure if doing great work is great life advice for the target group, depends on how measures "success at life" or however one would call it.
In any case; I think you will get the most out of the article if you do not pay the relatility too much thought: Even if C) would be true and you (or me or others) are indeed not part of the intended audience, I am sure there are still interesting thoughts in the essay on can think about and potentially apply to ones own life.
It's a nice post, with a lot of valuable insights. There is one that I disagree with though: "Never abandon the root node".
There are plenty of instances that show that in reality this is not what happens, and in fact this is often a necessary step of reinventing yourself if things really aren't working for you. The mid-life crisis is a famous example of this, or even the quarter-life crisis. In some specific psychological circles this is referred to as "disintegration". Sometimes carefully backtracking is simply not enough, and growth needs this kind large shock to the system.
If you let a manager, accountant, or politician decide what 'unnecessary', 'wrong', and 'bad' are. Then I would agree. But if you let an artist decide those things, then I think it would be fine.
this is one of the common conundrums of life. but for someone living in the grey, this stuff might push them over the edge to be great. that is the point of this article
I generally dislike PG's articles as very tone-deaf and billionaire-having-all-the-time-in-the-world centric, but this one was okay. Figured I'll give it a chance and I don't regret it (this time; a pleasant exception, usually I feel like I wasted my time reading his essays).
Things I do appreciate that are good-ish nuggets:
- Don't try to work on something "prestigious". I agree with that; a lot of people became poor out of ego, myself included a few times in the past.
- Working on something that interests you deeply is a great way to become a super specialist which is honestly a coin toss; it can make you a highly-sought-after expert commanding serious rates... or yet another burned out nerd who knows something very deeply that nobody wants to pay for. I mean OK, I love being satisfied and fulfilled but I can't be like that if I can't pay bills. So that passion is never the #1 priority and that's a fact of life for 99.9999%+ of humanity.
- Investing in something on the side a few hours a week sounds great until you wake up 10 years later _still_ not having the side hustle doing you $2000 a month. As above: coin toss. But I agree that's the right and the pragmatic strategy for working people. Success is not guaranteed and that's of course not a reason NOT to try. Still: work-life balance!
- Getting to the frontier and then filling the gaps is a solid strategy, yep. As per above: make sure you work on something people would pay for, though.
- When to be earnest and when to be [faux] sophisticated is generally not clear and cut. There are events during which you have to be a bit posh or nobody would take you seriously, and sadly those are often the events that might be life or death sentence for your new business idea. I think us the tech nerds are earnest way too much and too often, and don't know when to be "sophisticated". Me putting a formal shirt and pants and pretending to know more about a field than I really did, did net me money that my impostor syndrome screamed that I didn't deserve (but years later, with the objectivity that a brutal hindsight can give you, I absolutely did).
- Ownership of one's work is a great advice, probably the best one in the article... until you realize most startup CEOs understand this and will give you +30% more salary than everyone else because they love having somebody on a stable wage who does 80% of their work and does not ask for percentages of the Series A/B/C/D tranches. Nah, thanks. As we say on the Balkans (butchered translation): "The quality of the music depends on the quantity of the tip". I'm done taking your cause so seriously that I don't have time for my wife. Dangle $25k+ a month in front of my face and we'll talk.
---
So my TL;DR is: yes, compound knowledge and work on what you like and try to make it a side hustle, absolutely. Put on some suit when you get to events. Don't always be super humble, that by itself can be a turn off and no you cannot afford to gamble your future on this so yes, sometimes be posh and sophisticated. It frakkin helps with some people! And I don't care if you don't want to be associated with them; many of them are gatekeepers of wealth so, deal with it.
I'll agree: passion shines through and wins people over. It's not enough, though. "Making it" requires making good decisions on multiple lanes.
It's not like I wanted to play it in the background. In this particular case, I rather watch the talk than reading the essay if it's available. It's just interesting to have this option now which wasn't possible before.
Actually try it, it's pretty good. Especially when the alternative doesn't exist. And mind you, I am not pro-AI at all, it might not come off that way under this thread. Despite that I did appreciate whoever made it. File it under personal preference.
I didn’t get much from it, but I’ve gotten that sort of advice my whole life, so it was a little boring. As a result of being bored, I skimmed it. As I skimmed it, it started to feel repetitive. It is possible that a deeper reading would reveal some non-repetitive aspect to the parts I found repetitive. It seems like a good blog post to give to a smart teenager.
Edit: I think we’ll get some dismissive responses here because most of the posters here are at least somewhat mid-career, so they’ve already gotten and acted on this kind of advice. Imagine reading it before college, though. I’d have enjoyed it.
I did read the whole essay. It is typical boomer VC bs: ignore read flags, destroy your health, take tons of loans, and live in super expensive world i own. Maybe you win lottery and get the same money as a plumber.
The same bs as university loans.
I will leave immortal essay from one of JWZ here:
http://www.jwz.org/blog/2011/11/watch-a-vc-use-my-name-to-se...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3288671&utm_source=chat...
One thing is art. I was in new orleans once and heard a kid play jazz saxaphone out on a street corner in the middle of the night. It was legitimately the most beautiful music ive ever heard in my life. I think that man put all his life into that solo and hit the frontier of how music can affect a listener's soul. I think he was doing great by paul grahams definition
If you're great work only consists of work that generates money, then you're neglecting the entire spectrum of the human experience.
Most people manage this. It is hard to earn a paycheck if someone isn't improving the immediate lives of their communities in real impactful ways. Great work has to be something a bit more. There are a lot of thresholds for that which could be reasonable, but if we aren't going to go with solid investor returns someone is going to have to come up with a rough standard that can be talked about.
> Starting after school programs or setting up mutual aid stations or community gardens or creating tenant unions, are all things any one of us can do to improve the lives of those around us.
I mean, sure. But my mind automatically drifts to China and the millions of people being dragged out of poverty by sweatshops and investors making out like bandits. Industrial improvements to living standards, driven by profits, are a lot faster and larger than people setting up mutual aid stations. The scales are just different once people figure out a way to improve the world profitably.
There are examples of people who managed to scale up their work to do amazing things without making a profit along the way (major religious figures spring to mind), but generally it is just easier to have a sustainable impact if the returns are good too.
Whatever you feel about it, it would be inaccurate to say that he has not found success. Clearly he has. So it is up to each person to decide whether or not any products of that success, including his writings, matches their own definition for 'great'.
I think all the parts were invented by other people, but he got the right mix to make it work.
It's also like the wheel. Before it was a huge problem and no one know how to solve it. Now it's invisible.
Note that all modern versions use enhanced variants with a lot or trick to make it better.
So yes Bayesian spam filtering was impressive for its time. I remember it being done locally in mail clients.
It’s also one of the early popular deployments of a form of “AI” but that was still during the hangover from the first AI bubble when you had to call it “machine learning.”
Is this supposed to be relatable?
When Ivy League educated VC billionaires tell people that they can do great things and change the world if they want, one assumption is that you already have to be pretty close to the in-group.
- William James Sidis
In any case; I think you will get the most out of the article if you do not pay the relatility too much thought: Even if C) would be true and you (or me or others) are indeed not part of the intended audience, I am sure there are still interesting thoughts in the essay on can think about and potentially apply to ones own life.
and there is more to great work than being a child prodigy, except for those that have peaked at 21.
There are plenty of instances that show that in reality this is not what happens, and in fact this is often a necessary step of reinventing yourself if things really aren't working for you. The mid-life crisis is a famous example of this, or even the quarter-life crisis. In some specific psychological circles this is referred to as "disintegration". Sometimes carefully backtracking is simply not enough, and growth needs this kind large shock to the system.
https://www.paulgraham.com/hamming.html
That's actually my own problem too - I often use AI to summarize / shorten my own texts. (Opposite of what most who seem to use it for generation?)
The people who would benefit from the advice (resourceful people full of free time that are doing nothing meaningful) will likely ignore it anyway.
Things I do appreciate that are good-ish nuggets:
- Don't try to work on something "prestigious". I agree with that; a lot of people became poor out of ego, myself included a few times in the past.
- Working on something that interests you deeply is a great way to become a super specialist which is honestly a coin toss; it can make you a highly-sought-after expert commanding serious rates... or yet another burned out nerd who knows something very deeply that nobody wants to pay for. I mean OK, I love being satisfied and fulfilled but I can't be like that if I can't pay bills. So that passion is never the #1 priority and that's a fact of life for 99.9999%+ of humanity.
- Investing in something on the side a few hours a week sounds great until you wake up 10 years later _still_ not having the side hustle doing you $2000 a month. As above: coin toss. But I agree that's the right and the pragmatic strategy for working people. Success is not guaranteed and that's of course not a reason NOT to try. Still: work-life balance!
- Getting to the frontier and then filling the gaps is a solid strategy, yep. As per above: make sure you work on something people would pay for, though.
- When to be earnest and when to be [faux] sophisticated is generally not clear and cut. There are events during which you have to be a bit posh or nobody would take you seriously, and sadly those are often the events that might be life or death sentence for your new business idea. I think us the tech nerds are earnest way too much and too often, and don't know when to be "sophisticated". Me putting a formal shirt and pants and pretending to know more about a field than I really did, did net me money that my impostor syndrome screamed that I didn't deserve (but years later, with the objectivity that a brutal hindsight can give you, I absolutely did).
- Ownership of one's work is a great advice, probably the best one in the article... until you realize most startup CEOs understand this and will give you +30% more salary than everyone else because they love having somebody on a stable wage who does 80% of their work and does not ask for percentages of the Series A/B/C/D tranches. Nah, thanks. As we say on the Balkans (butchered translation): "The quality of the music depends on the quantity of the tip". I'm done taking your cause so seriously that I don't have time for my wife. Dangle $25k+ a month in front of my face and we'll talk.
---
So my TL;DR is: yes, compound knowledge and work on what you like and try to make it a side hustle, absolutely. Put on some suit when you get to events. Don't always be super humble, that by itself can be a turn off and no you cannot afford to gamble your future on this so yes, sometimes be posh and sophisticated. It frakkin helps with some people! And I don't care if you don't want to be associated with them; many of them are gatekeepers of wealth so, deal with it.
I'll agree: passion shines through and wins people over. It's not enough, though. "Making it" requires making good decisions on multiple lanes.