10 ms·

Nobody Cares (2011)

120 points by prostoalex 7y ago

coffeemug 7y ago
Applies to life too, but easier said than done.
- throwyweather 7y ago
  > Applies to life too That seems somehow wrong. Part of deeply loving someone is really knowing them, and you can't really know someone if they don't share their deepest fears, frustrations, and angers with you. And part of a life is, hopefully, deeply loving someone. (Of course, the advice in the article still holds -- your investors and customers don't and shouldn't deeply love you.)
  - v64 7y ago
    > And part of a life is, hopefully, deeply loving someone. Hopefully is the key word here. One may or may not find a partner in life that shares their aspirations. The only person you're guaranteed is yourself.
  - coffeemug 7y ago
    People who love you care, to a point. In the limit case if you abuse alcohol and can't get your act together, your line of credit with your loved ones will run out (with parents being the one exception)
    - travisjungroth 7y ago
      People have definitely run out their line of credit with their parents.
ronilan 7y ago
“And one time, at Loudcloud” Edit: enjoy - https://youtu.be/MH619vxtNdo https://youtu.be/MH619vxtNdo
CalChris 7y ago
This story is also covered in Hard Thing About Hard Things, chapter 4.
numinary1 7y ago
Right, excuses carry no weight. Got it. Agreed! But fuck football coaches and sports analogies for business. Sports is a zero-sum game. Business sometimes is,sometimes isn’t. Depends on agility, creativity, and the market you’re in. If your boss quotes football coaches just quit on the spot (unless of course you are in sales).
- ronilan 7y ago
  Sport is a zero-sum game only if you ignore all the things that sport is about. Example from this weekend - Shaqueem and Shaquill Griffin sack Aaron Rodgers in the final minutes of a game that ended the Seahawks season with a loss: https://twitter.com/ucf_problems/status/1216547670233358337?s=21 https://twitter.com/ucf_problems/status/1216547670233358337?... That was Shaqueem’s first NFL sack. That’s his second season with the Seahawks.
  - mattnewport 7y ago
    I suspect your example is only meaningful to people who already share your view. Knowing nothing about the NFL I barely know what you're talking about here and have no idea what point it's supposed to be making.
    - aidenn0 7y ago
      Basically: A player on the losing team made a good play. I don't think it's a particularly good example; despite the fact that his team lost, that play significantly improved his team's chance for a win. If he doesn't make that play, then players on the other team would have better numbers.
      - ronilan 7y ago
        Yes that. But basically not that at all, unless you ignore all the things that make those players who they are.
        7y ago
ldp01 7y ago
Reminds me of a famous prayer... I think it's basically the same idea. "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference."
HugoHobling 7y ago
I am not religious whatsoever, but I do like this passage from the book of Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament: I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all.
- ekianjo 7y ago
  Yes but no at the same time. It is much more likely to become wealthy if you are brilliant than not (assuming the starting point is the same) and that is precisely why acquiring skills increases your odds of success, and while on an individual level luck plays a big role on aggregate we can see that trends emerge very clearly.
  - marnett 7y ago
    I heard somewhere, don’t remember where, but the easiest route to wealth, I heard, was simply to be born with it.
    - dahfizz 7y ago
      I mean, how could that possibly not be true? The easiest way to obtain an apple is to have one materialize in your hand.
    - sandoooo 7y ago
      What exactly is a body suppose to do with this revelatory revelation? Wallow, maybe? Is wallowing being suggested here? Maybe with a side of anger at the unjustness of it all? If only somebody would pay me a living wage for my great wallowing ability...
      - speedplane 7y ago
        > What exactly is a body suppose to do with this revelatory revelation? Wallow, maybe? Is wallowing being suggested here? Maybe with a side of anger at the unjustness of it all? There's plenty that can be done to equalize advantages based on inherited wealth. A wealth tax would be simple, an estate tax is another. I don't think anyone would agree that "wallowing" would help.
themodelplumber 7y ago
This falls under what I call "just" philosophies. They are quick summations ("A is just B") that can radically misrepresent the facts on the ground, and easily leave their adherents desperate for tools to solve a problem that they previously defined away with a hand wave. In reality, it is the case that people often care deeply. Many of those hired by or paying for a business are in fact excited to be able to help write its story. Many aren't though, sure. Maybe they're just in it for superficial competitions or comparisons. But you'll never know who's who if you don't start an active dialogue and analysis process. What's super helpful as an outcome of work in this area is to understand who cares about what, which incidentally helps you create a model for getting them to care more about what you care about. If nobody really cares, we're all screwed. But that particular thought model only works on that darwinian level, the one that sadly operates as the kind of unspoken shadow of many who work in tech today. We get together and bash ideas together and somehow when our feelings come to a head we reach for a "just" philosophy. People do care though, and that means we each need to find a way to work in that caring world and explore it just as well as the uncaring one. Consider each one of these as important truths: 1) Nobody cares, 2) Some people care, and 3) All people care.
- davedx 7y ago
  Yeah, some of these VC blogs are terrible. At least Stratechery tries to provide some actual quantitative analysis. A16Z looks like so much blog spam. Disappointing.
- frereubu 7y ago
  I agree that the post is simplistic. A charitable interpretation might be that it's a naive version of the approach advocated by some existential philosophers where you consider that everything that happens to you is "your fault", so you're constantly figuring out ways to make your situation better rather than just giving up, or thinking of ways in which you could have made a situation in the past better so the next time it happens you make a better fist of it. The difficulty is not to think any less of yourself if you fail despite continuing to try. I think the thing that's lacking in this post is that clearly people do care, and if you recognise that you can ask for their help. Even if you approach things as if everything is "your fault", doesn't mean that you can't collaborate with other people to improve your situation.
vonnik 7y ago
I think Ben's advice is really targeting founders and CEOs in order to get them to think in a certain way. Whether or not anybody cares isn't the point. The point is that the person best placed to save a company in trouble should focus on getting the company out of trouble, rather than replaying the reasons why the company is struggling in order to justify its current nadir. They should be thinking about solutions rather than justifications. So really, Ben is saying: find a path to the future that you want, and stop making such a big deal about the past. That's what your investors and employees care about to: where you're going. Seize your own agency.
h99 7y ago
I wonder if it’s always the case where founding a company seems like a mess. How many founders find themselves in the situation where they need to find that one impossible solution that’ll get them out of the mess. Is it always like this?
- speedplane 7y ago
  > How many founders find themselves in the situation where they need to find that one impossible solution that’ll get them out of the mess. Is it always like this? I did found a company, and I feel like the daily job description was "get me out of this impossible mess". Every day it's something different, and very likely something that you've never experienced before. Often, the reasonable answer is that overcoming the issue is impossible, and shutting down is the right course of action. Many startups fail this way, and it's not because they aren't clever enough, just that there really is an impossible obstacle. However, the ones that succeed generally find ways of getting around one obstacle after the next. Maybe they're super clever, maybe it's dumb luck, most of the time, it's impossible to know. However, having the mentality of taking a setback as a challenge can definitely help. Small personal anecdote about this: when I first started my company, I relied heavily on getting Google traffic. Using best practices SEO, it kept building. But one day, Google traffic tanked around 10X. In literally 24 hours, I thought that would spell the end of my company. But then I thought, it's ridiculous that I'm relying on Google (a third-party company that I have no control over) to send me potential customers. I should be more proactive and find them myself any way I can. I built email marketing campaigns, spent days on the phone, went to conferences, advertised... literally anything I could think of. The google traffic tank hurt badly, but I eventually got over it. And as a result, I now have a far more robust company. Google traffic is now a nice plus for leads, but by no means necessary to keep the company growing. The trick is to mentally transform "wholly crap, this is the end" to "okay, how do we get over this".
nathias 7y ago
this isn't really about care but effective responsibility
kresten 7y ago
Same is true of your own personal life. It’s up to you to try to make it better through adversity.
dang 7y ago
A thread from 2016: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11193719 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11193719 Discussed at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3088382 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3088382
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

Nobody Cares (2011)

120 points by prostoalex 7y ago

coffeemug 7y ago

Applies to life too, but easier said than done.

throwyweather 7y ago
> Applies to life too That seems somehow wrong. Part of deeply loving someone is really knowing them, and you can't really know someone if they don't share their deepest fears, frustrations, and angers with you. And part of a life is, hopefully, deeply loving someone. (Of course, the advice in the article still holds -- your investors and customers don't and shouldn't deeply love you.)
- v64 7y ago
  > And part of a life is, hopefully, deeply loving someone. Hopefully is the key word here. One may or may not find a partner in life that shares their aspirations. The only person you're guaranteed is yourself.
- coffeemug 7y ago
  People who love you care, to a point. In the limit case if you abuse alcohol and can't get your act together, your line of credit with your loved ones will run out (with parents being the one exception)
  - travisjungroth 7y ago
    People have definitely run out their line of credit with their parents.

ronilan 7y ago

“And one time, at Loudcloud” Edit: enjoy - https://youtu.be/MH619vxtNdo https://youtu.be/MH619vxtNdo

CalChris 7y ago

This story is also covered in Hard Thing About Hard Things, chapter 4.

numinary1 7y ago

Right, excuses carry no weight. Got it. Agreed! But fuck football coaches and sports analogies for business. Sports is a zero-sum game. Business sometimes is,sometimes isn’t. Depends on agility, creativity, and the market you’re in. If your boss quotes football coaches just quit on the spot (unless of course you are in sales).

ronilan 7y ago
Sport is a zero-sum game only if you ignore all the things that sport is about. Example from this weekend - Shaqueem and Shaquill Griffin sack Aaron Rodgers in the final minutes of a game that ended the Seahawks season with a loss: https://twitter.com/ucf_problems/status/1216547670233358337?s=21 https://twitter.com/ucf_problems/status/1216547670233358337?... That was Shaqueem’s first NFL sack. That’s his second season with the Seahawks.
- mattnewport 7y ago
  I suspect your example is only meaningful to people who already share your view. Knowing nothing about the NFL I barely know what you're talking about here and have no idea what point it's supposed to be making.
  - aidenn0 7y ago
    Basically: A player on the losing team made a good play. I don't think it's a particularly good example; despite the fact that his team lost, that play significantly improved his team's chance for a win. If he doesn't make that play, then players on the other team would have better numbers.
    - ronilan 7y ago
      Yes that. But basically not that at all, unless you ignore all the things that make those players who they are.
      - 7y ago

ldp01 7y ago

Reminds me of a famous prayer... I think it's basically the same idea. "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference."

HugoHobling 7y ago

I am not religious whatsoever, but I do like this passage from the book of Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament: I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all.

ekianjo 7y ago
Yes but no at the same time. It is much more likely to become wealthy if you are brilliant than not (assuming the starting point is the same) and that is precisely why acquiring skills increases your odds of success, and while on an individual level luck plays a big role on aggregate we can see that trends emerge very clearly.
- marnett 7y ago
  I heard somewhere, don’t remember where, but the easiest route to wealth, I heard, was simply to be born with it.
  - dahfizz 7y ago
    I mean, how could that possibly not be true? The easiest way to obtain an apple is to have one materialize in your hand.
  - sandoooo 7y ago
    What exactly is a body suppose to do with this revelatory revelation? Wallow, maybe? Is wallowing being suggested here? Maybe with a side of anger at the unjustness of it all? If only somebody would pay me a living wage for my great wallowing ability...
    - speedplane 7y ago
      > What exactly is a body suppose to do with this revelatory revelation? Wallow, maybe? Is wallowing being suggested here? Maybe with a side of anger at the unjustness of it all? There's plenty that can be done to equalize advantages based on inherited wealth. A wealth tax would be simple, an estate tax is another. I don't think anyone would agree that "wallowing" would help.

themodelplumber 7y ago

This falls under what I call "just" philosophies. They are quick summations ("A is just B") that can radically misrepresent the facts on the ground, and easily leave their adherents desperate for tools to solve a problem that they previously defined away with a hand wave. In reality, it is the case that people often care deeply. Many of those hired by or paying for a business are in fact excited to be able to help write its story. Many aren't though, sure. Maybe they're just in it for superficial competitions or comparisons. But you'll never know who's who if you don't start an active dialogue and analysis process. What's super helpful as an outcome of work in this area is to understand who cares about what, which incidentally helps you create a model for getting them to care more about what you care about. If nobody really cares, we're all screwed. But that particular thought model only works on that darwinian level, the one that sadly operates as the kind of unspoken shadow of many who work in tech today. We get together and bash ideas together and somehow when our feelings come to a head we reach for a "just" philosophy. People do care though, and that means we each need to find a way to work in that caring world and explore it just as well as the uncaring one. Consider each one of these as important truths: 1) Nobody cares, 2) Some people care, and 3) All people care.

davedx 7y ago
Yeah, some of these VC blogs are terrible. At least Stratechery tries to provide some actual quantitative analysis. A16Z looks like so much blog spam. Disappointing.
frereubu 7y ago
I agree that the post is simplistic. A charitable interpretation might be that it's a naive version of the approach advocated by some existential philosophers where you consider that everything that happens to you is "your fault", so you're constantly figuring out ways to make your situation better rather than just giving up, or thinking of ways in which you could have made a situation in the past better so the next time it happens you make a better fist of it. The difficulty is not to think any less of yourself if you fail despite continuing to try. I think the thing that's lacking in this post is that clearly people do care, and if you recognise that you can ask for their help. Even if you approach things as if everything is "your fault", doesn't mean that you can't collaborate with other people to improve your situation.

vonnik 7y ago

I think Ben's advice is really targeting founders and CEOs in order to get them to think in a certain way. Whether or not anybody cares isn't the point. The point is that the person best placed to save a company in trouble should focus on getting the company out of trouble, rather than replaying the reasons why the company is struggling in order to justify its current nadir. They should be thinking about solutions rather than justifications. So really, Ben is saying: find a path to the future that you want, and stop making such a big deal about the past. That's what your investors and employees care about to: where you're going. Seize your own agency.

h99 7y ago

I wonder if it’s always the case where founding a company seems like a mess. How many founders find themselves in the situation where they need to find that one impossible solution that’ll get them out of the mess. Is it always like this?

speedplane 7y ago
> How many founders find themselves in the situation where they need to find that one impossible solution that’ll get them out of the mess. Is it always like this? I did found a company, and I feel like the daily job description was "get me out of this impossible mess". Every day it's something different, and very likely something that you've never experienced before. Often, the reasonable answer is that overcoming the issue is impossible, and shutting down is the right course of action. Many startups fail this way, and it's not because they aren't clever enough, just that there really is an impossible obstacle. However, the ones that succeed generally find ways of getting around one obstacle after the next. Maybe they're super clever, maybe it's dumb luck, most of the time, it's impossible to know. However, having the mentality of taking a setback as a challenge can definitely help. Small personal anecdote about this: when I first started my company, I relied heavily on getting Google traffic. Using best practices SEO, it kept building. But one day, Google traffic tanked around 10X. In literally 24 hours, I thought that would spell the end of my company. But then I thought, it's ridiculous that I'm relying on Google (a third-party company that I have no control over) to send me potential customers. I should be more proactive and find them myself any way I can. I built email marketing campaigns, spent days on the phone, went to conferences, advertised... literally anything I could think of. The google traffic tank hurt badly, but I eventually got over it. And as a result, I now have a far more robust company. Google traffic is now a nice plus for leads, but by no means necessary to keep the company growing. The trick is to mentally transform "wholly crap, this is the end" to "okay, how do we get over this".

nathias 7y ago

this isn't really about care but effective responsibility

kresten 7y ago

Same is true of your own personal life. It’s up to you to try to make it better through adversity.

dang 7y ago

A thread from 2016: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11193719 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11193719 Discussed at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3088382 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3088382

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]