5 ms·

Why three years? IMHO, you're focussing on the wrong part of it all.

by slater 16y ago

mkramlich 16y ago
I imagine it's simply to put a stake in the ground. The exact number (2 or 4 or 5, etc.) is not important. Three years is long enough that it can probably include ramping up time, pivots, mistakes, tuning, etc. while not being so long that he's going to be an old man and/or unable to enjoy it, or have follow-on goals be pushed out too far. Regardless, one year is unrealistically too short. Twenty years is depressing. So pick something in between.
babyboy808 16y ago
Good question. But why not 3 years? As we all know, let's say if we are given an assignment for college to do and we are given a week to complete it, almost always, I will start the assignment about 3/4 days into the week and then as the deadline looms closer, the real work happens! So in answer to your question, if I said 10 years, I would be focused on 10 years :) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_Law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_Law
- nostrademons 16y ago
  I've found this doesn't apply if you remove the deadline entirely. If given a task and a week to complete it, I will start the task on the night of the 6th day. However, if just given a task, I'll start the task immediately - or at the very least, as soon as I finish what I'm currently working on. Whether I complete it within the week depends on whether it's a week's worth of work, but I can be fairly sure that I'll end up putting in more work than if I had the original deadline, and I'll probably have something equivalent in quality to the deadline-work after about a day or two.
- nandemo 16y ago
  The analogy doesn't hold. The problem is not so much that your school assignment is 1 million times easier. There's also: 1) There's not such a huge variation in the time necessary to complete an assignment. Your professor knows that some people can finish it in a couple of days but others need a whole week. But it's much harder to estimate the time to get $1M. 2) You can finish a school assignment on your own. Assuming you have access to the necessary resources (books, net, etc) it depends only on you. You don't need any luck to finish it. But to get rich you need favorable market conditions, meeting the right investors, hiring the right people, the government not screwing you up, etc, i.e. "luck".
zxcvlight 16y ago
sorry, what is wrong with a given measurable short frame of time?

Why three years? IMHO, you're focussing on the wrong part of it all.

by slater 16y ago

Why three years? IMHO, you're focussing on the wrong part of it all.

I imagine it's simply to put a stake in the ground. The exact number (2 or 4 or 5, etc.) is not important. Three years is long enough that it can probably include ramping up time, pivots, mistakes, tuning, etc. while not being so long that he's going to be an old man and/or unable to enjoy it, or have follow-on goals be pushed out too far. Regardless, one year is unrealistically too short. Twenty years is depressing. So pick something in between.

babyboy808 16y ago

Good question. But why not 3 years? As we all know, let's say if we are given an assignment for college to do and we are given a week to complete it, almost always, I will start the assignment about 3/4 days into the week and then as the deadline looms closer, the real work happens! So in answer to your question, if I said 10 years, I would be focused on 10 years :) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_Law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_Law

nostrademons 16y ago
I've found this doesn't apply if you remove the deadline entirely. If given a task and a week to complete it, I will start the task on the night of the 6th day. However, if just given a task, I'll start the task immediately - or at the very least, as soon as I finish what I'm currently working on. Whether I complete it within the week depends on whether it's a week's worth of work, but I can be fairly sure that I'll end up putting in more work than if I had the original deadline, and I'll probably have something equivalent in quality to the deadline-work after about a day or two.
nandemo 16y ago
The analogy doesn't hold. The problem is not so much that your school assignment is 1 million times easier. There's also: 1) There's not such a huge variation in the time necessary to complete an assignment. Your professor knows that some people can finish it in a couple of days but others need a whole week. But it's much harder to estimate the time to get $1M. 2) You can finish a school assignment on your own. Assuming you have access to the necessary resources (books, net, etc) it depends only on you. You don't need any luck to finish it. But to get rich you need favorable market conditions, meeting the right investors, hiring the right people, the government not screwing you up, etc, i.e. "luck".

zxcvlight 16y ago

sorry, what is wrong with a given measurable short frame of time?