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> "Famous people are famous because they do things. There's nothing more to it, and nothing less." I agree with the "they do things" part but wholeheartedly di
by chime 16y ago
> "Famous people are famous because they do things. There's nothing more to it, and nothing less."
I agree with the "they do things" part but wholeheartedly disagree with "There's nothing more to it." There's a LOT more to it. I have a really good friend who ran a social network between 2003-2006 and had millions of users. He is a brilliant coder and worked really really hard to grow the site. He "did things".
He had a vision, built the foundations himself, assembled a capable team, delegated appropriately, and oversaw the operations as needed. But he's not famous today. Why not? Because his social network didn't make it big. It was successful enough to give him a good middle-class lifestyle (better than ramen profitable) but it didn't make him millions. And today nobody knows of his brilliance or leadership skills. You could say he's not famous because he didn't push through harder but then you better hold that criteria for everyone else who is famous too.
- staktrace 16y agoYour definition of fame is different from hers. I'm sure that to his team and all those who know him, he is "famous". When people think of him, they think of him with respect and generally think better of him than they do of their other friends/acquaintances. She's not talking about world-famous - Zuck may be world-famous, but Knuth is not; he's only famous amongst the programmer/computer science community.
- guylhem 16y agoIIRC the american dream doesn't come with any warranty. There's no entitlement to success. He did his best but failed. Kudos to him, but he'll have to try again.
- MicahWedemeyer 16y agoSince when does "comfortable middle-class lifestyle" equal failure? I think most people would love to make a decent income off their own project as opposed to getting a paycheck to be subservient to a boss.
- ebaysucks 16y agoWould love to see a Mixergy interview with your friend.
- mattm 16y agoJust because "famous people are famous because they do things" doesn't mean that doing things will lead one to become famous.