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There is a connection in his last paragraph to entrepreneurship - I can't place a finger on the exact phasing but I've seen before on HN an essay about the need

There is a connection in his last paragraph to entrepreneurship - I can't place a finger on the exact phasing but I've seen before on HN an essay about the need for an entrepreneur to be "all in" and genuinely swayed by their own arguments. I've definitely observed that in successful business people around me, and observed that I can't seem to do that to myself. While I'm not an entrepreneur, I've often thought to start businesses, but I can't ever seem to summon the self-certainty to commit to any ideas that I suspect are good and would generate value. Put other way, if you are susceptible to argument, you must be willing to accept the risks, or unaware that there are risks in committing fully to an argument and a premise. This seems particularly suitable to startups where oftentimes evidence of demand, market size, or growth is conspicuously absent at the moment of inception.

maxerbubba 7y ago
See also: FYRE Festival, Elizabeth Holmes
- paultopia 7y ago
  But also see Steve Jobs's reality distortion field?
thrower123 7y ago
Just about everyone who ever did anything significant or groundbreaking had a whole passel of people nay-saying and saying they were crazy, trying to drag them back like crabs clutching at each other. Of course, there's survivor bias there, where the cranks who are right are remembered, but the legions of cranks who are wrong largely fade into oblivion.
yingw787 7y ago
I like the notion of "strong opinions, weakly held": https://bobsutton.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/07/strong_opinions.html https://bobsutton.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/07/strong_opini... """ Bob explained that weak opinions are problematic because people aren’t inspired to develop the best arguments possible for them, or to put forth the energy required to test them. Bob explained that it was just as important, however, to not be too attached to what you believe because, otherwise, it undermines your ability to “see” and “hear” evidence that clashes with your opinions. """ I think these strong opinions change when there is information to do so, and that's probably where the whole "stay focused and keep shipping" idea comes from: collect soft feedback, hard metrics, and otherwise information by providing a product-as-a-hypothesis. The more often you ship and measure, the better your direction and your alignment with what people will pay for.
- clairity 7y ago
  or to put it another way, the entrepreneur believes the conclusion as if it's the premise and then tries to find the appropriate rationalization to support it. just like, say, a theist or an atheist, in-between which fits the agnostic (the epistemically helpless person in this case).

maxerbubba 7y ago

See also: FYRE Festival, Elizabeth Holmes

paultopia 7y ago
But also see Steve Jobs's reality distortion field?

thrower123 7y ago

Just about everyone who ever did anything significant or groundbreaking had a whole passel of people nay-saying and saying they were crazy, trying to drag them back like crabs clutching at each other. Of course, there's survivor bias there, where the cranks who are right are remembered, but the legions of cranks who are wrong largely fade into oblivion.

yingw787 7y ago

I like the notion of "strong opinions, weakly held": https://bobsutton.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/07/strong_opinions.html https://bobsutton.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/07/strong_opini... """ Bob explained that weak opinions are problematic because people aren’t inspired to develop the best arguments possible for them, or to put forth the energy required to test them. Bob explained that it was just as important, however, to not be too attached to what you believe because, otherwise, it undermines your ability to “see” and “hear” evidence that clashes with your opinions. """ I think these strong opinions change when there is information to do so, and that's probably where the whole "stay focused and keep shipping" idea comes from: collect soft feedback, hard metrics, and otherwise information by providing a product-as-a-hypothesis. The more often you ship and measure, the better your direction and your alignment with what people will pay for.

clairity 7y ago
or to put it another way, the entrepreneur believes the conclusion as if it's the premise and then tries to find the appropriate rationalization to support it. just like, say, a theist or an atheist, in-between which fits the agnostic (the epistemically helpless person in this case).