3 ms·
What bothers me about Sam Altman's writing is the following: 1) He talks about X, X being an observation with survivorship bias painted all over it, but Sam Al
by spectramax 7y ago
What bothers me about Sam Altman's writing is the following:
1) He talks about X, X being an observation with survivorship bias painted all over it, but Sam Altman asserts as if it is true. Stop writing with authority over unsubstantiated claims - you can only be humble and say "Perhaps X is true because of my observations, take it with a grain salt".
2) Statements like "Easy startups are easy to start but hard to make successful." are fluffy with no real substance. I might as well read "How to become a millionaire" books.
3) Completely obvious observations: "Then talk about that big vision and work relentlessly towards it, but always have a reasonable next step." You might as well say "When you are embarking on a startup endeavor, make sure it is successful". I can't help but exclaim "No shit!".
IMO these articles and blog posts offer zero advice of substance. I despise them very much. There is nothing to learn from it, this is like grocery store aisle tabloid version of the Silicon Valley.
- qchris 7y agoThe first point on your list is something that I come back fairly frequently when reading through blog posts like this, or (for example) listening to things like TED talks. I understand that there's a need to stand behind any given thesis, but it seems to me that there is often a lack of distinction between "I'm claiming this to be true primarily based on my experience" and "I'm claiming this to be true based on widely-accepted external factors, like peer-reviewed papers, industry standards, statistically-significant trends, etc.". When people don't meaningfully differentiate between those two positions while communicating, it passes the burden of deciding which claims fall into which category onto the reader. And since I'm then unable to distinguish if the writer themself recognizes that difference, I find myself less easily able to give any of their claims the benefit of the doubt. That isn't a recipe for taking their advice or conclusions to heart.
- spectramax 7y agoI think you summarized it better than I could. When stating facts, be assertive and provide source. When stating opinions, state them as opinions, not facts. As a reader, I wanna chuck the whole thing out of the window. This is pretty common place - Harari's Sapiens suffers from this behavior excessively - I cannot read it and I don't understand why people like this book so much. Full of unsubstantiated claims.
- qchris 7y agoI appreciate you saying that. I haven't read Sapiens, but since we're on HN, I figure it's worth mentioning that I think Paul Graham's writing wanders into this territory a lot. Hackers and Painters has been sitting only half-read on my shelf for a long time because I got too frustrated with it to continue for that exact reason.
- 100-xyz 7y agoAgreed. I thought the article was of poor quality.
- choonway 7y agoYou know, I take most articles like this as a signal to say, “hey I’m still alive”, rather than to dispense some secret knowledge. There’s no need to take it too seriously.
- Axsuul 7y agoBut "reasonable next step" isn't so obvious! Often one can toil away at their hard startup for years without a product with customers. The "reasonable next step" here would be to first build a related product in the space that doesn't yet solve the hard problem but helps establish your brand and revenue streams.