but Hamming (www.paulgraham.com/hamming.html ) in "Your and your research" says exactly opposite thing: "If what you are doing is not important, and if you don

but Hamming (www.paulgraham.com/hamming.html ) in "Your and your research" says exactly opposite thing: "If what you are doing is not important, and if you don't think it is going to lead to something important, why are you at Bell Labs working on it?" Why both appoaches work?