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To Get Rich, Just Follow the Instructions
- icey 19y agoIt's decent enough advice, but I have a hard time taking any scientific advice from someone who doesn't even believe in evolution.
- deleted 19y ago[deleted]
- yan 19y agoI share your sentiment. I like what Ben Stein says and he is definitely a very intelligent guy, but it's getting harder and harder to take him seriously in recent times.
- donw 19y agoMany brilliant minds throughout history have been mistaken about things which today we take for granted; Einstein effectively waged war against probabilistic quantum theory for his entire academic career. Being passionately wrong about something doesn't make Einstein, or Ben Stein, any less brilliant.
- icey 19y agoI don't think that Ben Stein is not intelligent; he has shown to be a very smart guy. What I take issue with is that he appears to be intellectually dishonest (n.b. the whole debacle with his pro-creationist movie). I take issue with your comparison of Einstein to Ben Stein though; Einstein took issue with Quantum Mechanics because of lack of proof. Ben Stein's position appears to occur incongruous to the face of proof.
- donw 19y agoAll analogies have limits; I'm not saying that they were mistaken for the same reason, merely that smart people can (and often do) support dumb ideas. This doesn't make their good ideas any less good. Creationism is almost by definition dishonest, as it a thinly veiled attempt to replace science with dogma, and so any pursuit in support of creationism-as-science is guaranteed to be intellectually bankrupt. That said, in the modern world, being deeply religious often comes with a great deal of cognitive dissonance, and it is not uncommon for people, like Ben Stein, to genuinely believe that what they are doing is not only correct, but honest and good, no matter how much their efforts fly in the face of logic, common sense, or good taste. Doesn't mean that said people are fundamentally dishonest; just that their view of the world doesn't entirely coincide with reality.
- icey 19y agoHmm, I think we don't really disagree that much. I think that I just have a stronger reaction to his stances on basic things than you do.
- Prrometheus 19y agoWhile I do agree that Mr. Stein's consorting with creationist and cheerleading Bush administration policies have lessened my opinion of his powers of judgment, this is not "scientific advice".
- yters 19y agoIn terms of a minimal theoretic definition, ID is used by many professional disciplines today, since all it says is that intelligence can be detected. This comes up in any discipline that deals with human intent, such as forensics and law, signal processing, web search, spam filters, etc. ID as a scientific methodology merely says we shouldn't arbitrarily limit where we can look for intelligence. The only reason we currently have this limit is because of purposeful cultural transformations (see "Closing of the American Mind") and not because of any rigorous arguments or evidence. Also, it needs to be said that ID vs evolution is a false dichotomy.
- yters 19y agoDownmodder, could you point out where I am wrong, along with support? It'd be a help for me, since the above makes the most sense to me.
- strlen 19y agoIt's definitely true, but most important is the last paragraph at the end. The best example is building enterprise vs. consumer applications. If you'd like a safe way to get rich off a start-up, creating a consulting gig doing something "enterprisey" and then morph it into a start-up. In 5-7 years that could mean wealth. But this also means you'll be coding Java/.NET all of that time and are never going to build the next google. What you would build is something like the next Siebel: worse than what the open source community provides, but some suit somewhere will justify spending $1 mill on it as a "business decision".
- donw 19y agoI would advocate against going against the 'Enterprise' route, unless you already have contacts that can feed you your first few clients. Getting contracts at the sorts of companies that buy 'enterprise' systems is much more a matter of being connected than software quality. This should not come as a surprise. Taking a million-dollar wager on an unknown is corporate suicide. A million-dollar contract with an established partner that goes tango-uniform is just a 'bad call'.
- strlen 19y agoYou need contacts, but you don't need to market your business (or hope your business becomes viral). You can get contacts by starting off doing consulting work. You'd only need to hire (or have as a co-founder) a business/sales person, you won't need to hire a marketing person. Nor do you begin with million dollar deals, first customers can be cheaper, just to establish a clientèle base/relationships. The fact you said it's a matter of contacts vs. software quality is a point I forgot to mention: as Ben Stein said, you don't need to be great to do this. You just need to follow directions. pg makes the same recommendation (go into enterprise) for those who do not think they are smart or driven enough to build consumer web applications.
- donw 19y agoAll very good points. I also think we're using different definitions for the word 'enterprise'. 'Enterprise' software is, to me, a behemoth application constructed by committee, designed to Do Everything All At Once, but which in reality does Very Little. Not all business software is enterprise software.
- Flemlord 19y ago"Read the instructions." I'll add this to my other helpful HN startup advice like "only work four days a week" and "take more vacations".
- jkush 19y agoWell, that's great advice...when you have instructions to read.
- henning 19y agoEver since Ben Stein got into the business of spewing creationist claptrap in phony "documentaries", my respect for him and willingness to consider his opinions has dropped tremendously.
- tom_rath 19y agoNice people can be idiots and assholes can be wise. Sometimes it pays to listen to those you dislike. It's a shame Ben Stein turns his brain off when his faith is questioned, but if blind belief in the sky elf is enough to turn you off someone's writing you'll miss out on a lot of good stuff.
- henning 19y agoThere is more good writing than there is time to read, so I have the luxury of choosing not to listen to people like him.
- tom_rath 19y agoThat you do, but you're missing out on some pretty sound financial and business advice when you pass his columns by.
- pepeto 19y agoI don't see 1 thing I would have missed if I never stumbled on this article. This guy is so far from being rich it just pity looking at guys making fun of themselves.
- Harkins 19y agoOK, so let's say Yanik has no costs at all -- he gets to take that entire $300,000 and put it right in his own pocket. Maybe lumber and concrete just fall out of the sky for him, and people work for him free because he's such a nice guy who'll help you with his stereo. But Yanik is selling his time, he's getting $300k for the time it takes him to manage a building's construction. Stein says he's "well on his way to being in the top 1 percent and, after that, the top one-tenth of 1 percent." Absolutely false. Let's say Yanik can put up not one but three $300k buildings a year, because he's so talented. Great, he'll be a billionaire in just 1,111 years. The wealthiest 1% of America isn't just a little ahead of the rest of us; as Stein correctly notes they're hugely ahead. It doesn't happen by trying harder at your job but by redefining the work, putting capital to work for you instead of going to work yourself.
- nazgulnarsil 19y agobingo. renting your labor has always been the least efficient way to make money. more efficient is renting your land, more efficient than that is renting your capital.