4 ms·

...like the time my co-founder and I adopted a dog together, dropped out of law school, and quit a high paying banking job... This sort of definition of "tough

...like the time my co-founder and I adopted a dog together, dropped out of law school, and quit a high paying banking job... This sort of definition of "tough" seems a bit insulting to bouncers, cops and cage fighting champions. Like how the nerd definition of "risk" is an insult to soldiers, parachutists, and Evel Knievel.

garply 16y ago
My definition is different: When I wasn't outside working in the below-freezing weather, I fed a coal stove through this past winter because we didn't have a modern heater in our workplace. The ash turned my snot and phlegm consistently gray. Things are a little cozier now, but I still don't run the air to save on money - and Beijing is hot in the summer. Adopted a dog?
- tomjen3 16y ago
  At least it is less likely to led to black lungs. I don't dispute that you did would take more grit than most people would be willing to put up with, but for heavens sake man a mask is what $0.5? If your phlegm changed color, what do you think happened to your lungs?
ezl 16y ago
Ha yeah right. As if Evel Knievel ever did anything risky...
scott_s 16y ago
I train BJJ and, less often but still regularly, MMA. We call it grit: when the going gets tough, a person's tendency to grit their teeth and keep going. When you get mounted, do you mentally give up and wait for the guy to submit you, or do you look for every opportunity to escape? When you take a knee to the stomach, do you double-over and try to get a break in the sparring session, or do you clinch with the guy and re-double your efforts to pin him against the cage? I've seen many different people train over the years, and I think grit can be acquired. Hard training encourages it. But, on the other hand, I think some people start out grittier than others. I have some training partners who never really acquired much grit. Those without much grit in training tend not to have much grit off the matt. This is a long way of saying that while those examples aren't particularly impressive, I still think grit matters in areas that don't require physical exertion.
- api 16y ago
  "We call it grit: when the going gets tough, a person's tendency to grit their teeth and keep going." Startups (and other intellectual and business ventures) are not sports though. This is a double-edged sword. Sometimes "grit" means that you push through the tough parts. This is good, and absolutely necessary for success in anything. But sometimes it means that you fail repeatedly by making the same mistake repeatedly because you mistake self-reflection and course correction for weakness and refuse to learn anything.
  - scott_s 16y ago
    This is true. Research is similar in that knowing when to cut your losses and start a new project is an important skill.
mburney 16y ago
Not to mention that most startup founders in the western world come from affluent families, so quitting a great job to do a startup isn't particularly risky for them since they normally won't end up on the street if they fail. Bouncers and fighters on the other hand risk their lives. This talk about startup founders having to be "tough" just seems like an ego boost to make the whole startup experience feel heroic and epic, which I think is OK because a little self-aggrandizing is probably good for motivation.
pg 16y ago
Toughness is only a partial order. There are plenty of people who would have no problem being in a fistfight, but would be terrified at the thought of e.g. having to perform surgery, or give a speech in front of a large audience. I've seen plenty of people who are very tough on the axes you mention but were unable to deal with the stress of starting a startup.
- maxawaytoolong 16y ago
  I just didn't think the examples given were very good.
- jules 16y ago
  So you mean that toughness is NOT a partial order.
  - jules 16y ago
    Clarification: One of the properties of partial orders is antisymmetry. This means that for different people Joe and Jack it can not be simultaneously true that Joe is tougher than Jack and that Jack is tougher than Joe. So it seems to me that you explicitly say that this property does not hold.
petercooper 16y ago
It's handy, then, that English allows words to have multiple definitions and different levels of application in context.

garply 16y ago

My definition is different: When I wasn't outside working in the below-freezing weather, I fed a coal stove through this past winter because we didn't have a modern heater in our workplace. The ash turned my snot and phlegm consistently gray. Things are a little cozier now, but I still don't run the air to save on money - and Beijing is hot in the summer. Adopted a dog?

tomjen3 16y ago
At least it is less likely to led to black lungs. I don't dispute that you did would take more grit than most people would be willing to put up with, but for heavens sake man a mask is what $0.5? If your phlegm changed color, what do you think happened to your lungs?

ezl 16y ago

Ha yeah right. As if Evel Knievel ever did anything risky...

scott_s 16y ago

I train BJJ and, less often but still regularly, MMA. We call it grit: when the going gets tough, a person's tendency to grit their teeth and keep going. When you get mounted, do you mentally give up and wait for the guy to submit you, or do you look for every opportunity to escape? When you take a knee to the stomach, do you double-over and try to get a break in the sparring session, or do you clinch with the guy and re-double your efforts to pin him against the cage? I've seen many different people train over the years, and I think grit can be acquired. Hard training encourages it. But, on the other hand, I think some people start out grittier than others. I have some training partners who never really acquired much grit. Those without much grit in training tend not to have much grit off the matt. This is a long way of saying that while those examples aren't particularly impressive, I still think grit matters in areas that don't require physical exertion.

api 16y ago
"We call it grit: when the going gets tough, a person's tendency to grit their teeth and keep going." Startups (and other intellectual and business ventures) are not sports though. This is a double-edged sword. Sometimes "grit" means that you push through the tough parts. This is good, and absolutely necessary for success in anything. But sometimes it means that you fail repeatedly by making the same mistake repeatedly because you mistake self-reflection and course correction for weakness and refuse to learn anything.
- scott_s 16y ago
  This is true. Research is similar in that knowing when to cut your losses and start a new project is an important skill.

mburney 16y ago

Not to mention that most startup founders in the western world come from affluent families, so quitting a great job to do a startup isn't particularly risky for them since they normally won't end up on the street if they fail. Bouncers and fighters on the other hand risk their lives. This talk about startup founders having to be "tough" just seems like an ego boost to make the whole startup experience feel heroic and epic, which I think is OK because a little self-aggrandizing is probably good for motivation.

pg 16y ago

Toughness is only a partial order. There are plenty of people who would have no problem being in a fistfight, but would be terrified at the thought of e.g. having to perform surgery, or give a speech in front of a large audience. I've seen plenty of people who are very tough on the axes you mention but were unable to deal with the stress of starting a startup.

maxawaytoolong 16y ago
I just didn't think the examples given were very good.
jules 16y ago
So you mean that toughness is NOT a partial order.
- jules 16y ago
  Clarification: One of the properties of partial orders is antisymmetry. This means that for different people Joe and Jack it can not be simultaneously true that Joe is tougher than Jack and that Jack is tougher than Joe. So it seems to me that you explicitly say that this property does not hold.

petercooper 16y ago

It's handy, then, that English allows words to have multiple definitions and different levels of application in context.