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> One of the most interesting things we've discovered from working on Y Combinator is that founders are more motivated by the fear of looking bad than by the ho

> One of the most interesting things we've discovered from working on Y Combinator is that founders are more motivated by the fear of looking bad than by the hope of getting millions of dollars. So if you want to get millions of dollars, put yourself in a position where failure will be public and humiliating. Oh, boy. Why can't we have a world where I can pursue my interests without the fear of loosing something. I guess if people read Bertrand Russell [0] instead of Paul Graham, the world would be a better place. [0] http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html

tlb 7y ago
I find that when pursuing purely personal interests, publicly committing to a deliverable helps me get it done. I say I'm going do something by a given date as a way of putting myself in a position where failure will be public and humiliating. People's motivation systems vary a lot, but it works for me.
- shawnz 7y ago
  I feel the same way, but apparently there's some research to the contrary: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21080132 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21080132
  - tlb 7y ago
    The conclusion there is that "People who talk about their intentions are less likely to make them happen." But that's not a claim about causality. It can be explained by there being two kinds of people in the world: doers and blowhards.
    - shawnz 7y ago
      True, but still, I think there's an important point in that talking more won't necessarily make someone more of a doer. It could just make them more of a blowhard.
burtonator 7y ago
Commitment device... they're really interesting but they can also cause you to do stupid things. One example of a commitment device is to tell your friend something like "I'm going to write a book and get it published in six months and if I don't I'll give you $5k" ... the problem is, what if you legitimately decide that writing a book is just not for you?
- capitol_ 7y ago
  Then you accept that and pay your friend the $5k. No need to loose a friend just because you don't want to write a book.
- samatman 7y ago
  $5k is a high strike price, but this is the point of a commitment device. By putting a cost on failure, you can sort between "I genuinely no longer want to do this" and "I'm getting akrasia because doing things is hard and quitting is easy". If you've made the cost of walking away higher than the expected value of the commitment (five grand would be a lot of money to make on many books), you should have some strong, intrinsic reason for it.
  - philwelch 7y ago
    Thanks for introducing me to the word “akrasia”!
    - kian 7y ago
      Read "Breakdown of Will" by George Ainslie, if this is your first introduction to that word.
- philwelch 7y ago
  Maybe its so awful that it’s worth $5000 not to have to do it anymore—but at least you won’t quit over anything smaller than that, and the number of times you will regret losing $5000 and your self-respect will probably be outweighed by the number of times you accomplish something you might not have otherwise and at least take a little bit of lasting pride in it.
graeme 7y ago
This is a bad faith read. He was specifically talking about startup founders. The cliche idea is that one of startup startup founders’ main motives is getting rich. PG said this wasn’t the case in practice, and that fear of failure was more important. This has no bearing on what motivates people to do things generally in their spare time.
- throwaway35784 7y ago
  Or startups in general, rather those who survive the yc interview. Perhaps he selects for those who prepare well to not fail to get his approval.
nexuist 7y ago
>Oh, boy. Why can't we have a world where I can pursue my interests without the fear of loosing something A startup is not about "pursuing interests," that's a side project. A startup is about making money by eating market share. Every product or service that comes out of it is intrinsically connected to that goal. You are free to pursue whatever interest you want on your own time, especially in this field. Every cloud provider gives you a free tier; most major database server software are free; all the major Git providers give you free private repos; every major library is free and open source; as is every major operating system and IDE, compiler, linker, interpreter, syntax checker... In fact, as an individual, you will be hard pressed to actually find paywalls stopping you from using new technologies. Of course it would be nicer if we all got free stuff without having to work for it. But this isn't about that, this is about business.
tim333 7y ago
I'm guessing your interests you want to pursue without fear are not the "if you want to get millions of dollars" mentioned? I don't think "In Praise of Idleness" would help much with that one.
bitL 7y ago
That could work only in certain parts of the US; in Europe or Asia a single failure is often terminal.
philwelch 7y ago
Firstly, pg isn’t addressing the overall question of living a good life, he’s addressing how to start a startup that doesn’t fail. Which may or may not be a good life decision even by pg’s standards. Secondly, a lot of people have conflicting desires and actually want one of those desires to win out. For instance, some people want to be in good shape, but they also want to lay around on the couch all day reading novels or watching TV or playing video games. If you do that every day for a few months, you will not be in good shape. You want to be in good shape but you don’t want to go to the gym, so you are unhappy. The solution may very well be to trick yourself into doing things you don’t want to do, by making yourself want to do them, because you want to reap the benefits of having done the thing. And yeah, people are motivated more by fear than by hope. It sucks but it’s true. Our evolutionary environment led us to prioritize not losing things like social status or safety over trying to attain our wildest dreams, because most of the mammals before us who ignored risks to their safety and social status didn’t reproduce.
bryanmgreen 7y ago
The technical term is called "loss aversion" and is very well documented.

tlb 7y ago

I find that when pursuing purely personal interests, publicly committing to a deliverable helps me get it done. I say I'm going do something by a given date as a way of putting myself in a position where failure will be public and humiliating. People's motivation systems vary a lot, but it works for me.

shawnz 7y ago
I feel the same way, but apparently there's some research to the contrary: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21080132 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21080132
- tlb 7y ago
  The conclusion there is that "People who talk about their intentions are less likely to make them happen." But that's not a claim about causality. It can be explained by there being two kinds of people in the world: doers and blowhards.
  - shawnz 7y ago
    True, but still, I think there's an important point in that talking more won't necessarily make someone more of a doer. It could just make them more of a blowhard.

burtonator 7y ago

Commitment device... they're really interesting but they can also cause you to do stupid things. One example of a commitment device is to tell your friend something like "I'm going to write a book and get it published in six months and if I don't I'll give you $5k" ... the problem is, what if you legitimately decide that writing a book is just not for you?

capitol_ 7y ago
Then you accept that and pay your friend the $5k. No need to loose a friend just because you don't want to write a book.
samatman 7y ago
$5k is a high strike price, but this is the point of a commitment device. By putting a cost on failure, you can sort between "I genuinely no longer want to do this" and "I'm getting akrasia because doing things is hard and quitting is easy". If you've made the cost of walking away higher than the expected value of the commitment (five grand would be a lot of money to make on many books), you should have some strong, intrinsic reason for it.
- philwelch 7y ago
  Thanks for introducing me to the word “akrasia”!
  - kian 7y ago
    Read "Breakdown of Will" by George Ainslie, if this is your first introduction to that word.
philwelch 7y ago
Maybe its so awful that it’s worth $5000 not to have to do it anymore—but at least you won’t quit over anything smaller than that, and the number of times you will regret losing $5000 and your self-respect will probably be outweighed by the number of times you accomplish something you might not have otherwise and at least take a little bit of lasting pride in it.

graeme 7y ago

This is a bad faith read. He was specifically talking about startup founders. The cliche idea is that one of startup startup founders’ main motives is getting rich. PG said this wasn’t the case in practice, and that fear of failure was more important. This has no bearing on what motivates people to do things generally in their spare time.

throwaway35784 7y ago
Or startups in general, rather those who survive the yc interview. Perhaps he selects for those who prepare well to not fail to get his approval.

nexuist 7y ago

>Oh, boy. Why can't we have a world where I can pursue my interests without the fear of loosing something A startup is not about "pursuing interests," that's a side project. A startup is about making money by eating market share. Every product or service that comes out of it is intrinsically connected to that goal. You are free to pursue whatever interest you want on your own time, especially in this field. Every cloud provider gives you a free tier; most major database server software are free; all the major Git providers give you free private repos; every major library is free and open source; as is every major operating system and IDE, compiler, linker, interpreter, syntax checker... In fact, as an individual, you will be hard pressed to actually find paywalls stopping you from using new technologies. Of course it would be nicer if we all got free stuff without having to work for it. But this isn't about that, this is about business.

tim333 7y ago

I'm guessing your interests you want to pursue without fear are not the "if you want to get millions of dollars" mentioned? I don't think "In Praise of Idleness" would help much with that one.

bitL 7y ago

That could work only in certain parts of the US; in Europe or Asia a single failure is often terminal.

philwelch 7y ago

Firstly, pg isn’t addressing the overall question of living a good life, he’s addressing how to start a startup that doesn’t fail. Which may or may not be a good life decision even by pg’s standards. Secondly, a lot of people have conflicting desires and actually want one of those desires to win out. For instance, some people want to be in good shape, but they also want to lay around on the couch all day reading novels or watching TV or playing video games. If you do that every day for a few months, you will not be in good shape. You want to be in good shape but you don’t want to go to the gym, so you are unhappy. The solution may very well be to trick yourself into doing things you don’t want to do, by making yourself want to do them, because you want to reap the benefits of having done the thing. And yeah, people are motivated more by fear than by hope. It sucks but it’s true. Our evolutionary environment led us to prioritize not losing things like social status or safety over trying to attain our wildest dreams, because most of the mammals before us who ignored risks to their safety and social status didn’t reproduce.

bryanmgreen 7y ago

The technical term is called "loss aversion" and is very well documented.