6 ms·

The author makes some thoughtful points, but I'd like to address part of the quote from Sam Altman: > It's not entirely clear to me why working hard has become

by czep 6y ago

The author makes some thoughtful points, but I'd like to address part of the quote from Sam Altman: > It's not entirely clear to me why working hard has become a Bad Thing in certain parts of the US. I am shocked because this sentiment is entirely clear to me: most people must work hard to survive and their work will likely never be rewarding, financially or personally. Meanwhile, inherited wealth allows a class of people to "work hard" with zero downside risk, all the while claiming they have earned their due. The fact that someone as wise and reflective as Sam Altman cannot understand this is puzzling. He says earlier "I have yet to meet a slow-moving person who is very successful." Again, I cannot fathom how one can fail to observe how class privilege bestows automatic success to certain people regardless of the speed at which they move. Trust funds accumulate, there is never concern over making rent or providing food, and they can easily take low-paying internships or found a startup without any personal risk whatsoever. People without this kind of leverage do not have the luxury of seeking "alignment" in their jobs. They do the actual hard work at the firms owned by the warrior class of inherited wealth, and are then admonished for not working hard enough to enrich the owners further.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
dasil003 6y ago
I don't think Sam Altman would consider such a person successful. We all know the stereotype of the trust fund kid who is lazy and ineffectual. There's a lot of emotional baggage around rich people, but if you strip it down to individual situations it's pretty simple. I've worked for people ranging from small business owners scraping out $50k a year all the way up to billionaires. How hard they work has no correlation to the money they have. I don't resent a boss with money, I resent a boss who isn't working as hard as me, and most founders/business owners I've worked for have worked harder than everyone else.
- djrobstep 6y ago
  > I resent a boss who isn't working as hard as me In a modern economy most "business owners" are passive shareholders who literally do nothing for that money. I am a partial business owner of many enormous corporations via my retirement account. I don't do any work for any of them, and yet, they continually send me money. Strange!
  - Taylor_OD 6y ago
    You are pretty far off with "most business owners". Maybe you could claim "most" of the passive shareholders of public companies do nothing for that money but that is a very small minority of "business owners". Most businesses are small businesses and most small business owners bust their ass to make a decent living.
    - djrobstep 6y ago
      Small business mythology is pretty far from reality. Most of the economy is run by large firms, owned by people who receive revenue by virtue of ownership rather than work.
  - inglor_cz 6y ago
    So, how many bad investments did you have? When investing in a corporation, there is no guarantee that you will gain profit from it, you can even lose your entire investment. If you were a long-term Nokia shareholder, you would have lost a lot of money since, say, 2005. When you invest, you put the value of your previous work at stake. You can retroactively sink your work (= money that you earned from it) into a black hole.
    - djrobstep 6y ago
      The retirement account managers make the decisions on the investments, not me. > When you invest, you put the value of your previous work at stake. What was the "previous work" I did when I inherited my father's Walmart stock?
      - inglor_cz 6y ago
        > The retirement account managers make the decisions on the investments, not me. Let us hope that they won't get sucked into plots of the next Bernie Madoff, who will likely come one day. > What was the "previous work" I did when I inherited my father's Walmart stock? True, I was thinking about investments of surpluses from your salary.
    - 6y ago
- xapata 6y ago
  > I don't think Sam Altman would consider such a person successful. Then we should first define "success" before continuing the conversation. I worry there might be a bit of a No True Scotsman problem, working backwards from the conclusion of laziness preventing success. The typical definition of "successful" is almost synonymous with "wealthy" except for popular artists (broadly defined) who for some reason aren't able to earn from their work or achieved popularity posthumously.
  - inglor_cz 6y ago
    In my personal bubble, people whose wealth was inherited from previous generations, are not considered successful. The very word "success" implies the previous effort to reach something, gain something etc. Do you anecdotally know someone who said "John is a son of a magnate who does nothing all day, he is so successful"? There is a different situation when the successor generation multiplies the wealth, but that already takes some effort and good judgment.
    - xapata 6y ago
      > Do you anecdotally know someone who said "John is a son of a magnate who does nothing all day, he is so successful"? Yes, though they don't emphasize the doing-nothing. Further, it's easy for a wealthy person to mask doing nothing with appearing busy yet effectively being a socialite. > There is a different situation when the successor generation multiplies the wealth, but that already takes some effort and good judgment. It may take good judgement, but not much effort. VTSAX and chill, as the kids say. I grew up around the kids of very wealthy people, often multi-generational wealth. Most decided to have jobs. Some had very impressive careers, but when you realize that first opportunity was only because of a parental connection, suddenly it seems a bit hollow. It's not hard to appear wise and smart when you're wealthy, and then you can simply not fuck up and the rest of the pyramid keeps chugging along. Case in point, Trump. He is a lazy fuck-up, but somehow managed to appear "successful" to a large portion of America.
      - inglor_cz 6y ago
sgroppino 6y ago
The safety net you describe is probably the last missing hurdle on Bill Gates' infographic on inequality: https://www.gatesfoundation.org/goalkeepers/assets/2019-report/starting-out-ahead@3x.png https://www.gatesfoundation.org/goalkeepers/assets/2019-repo... / full link https://www.gatesfoundation.org/goalkeepers/report/2019-report/#ClimateAdaptation https://www.gatesfoundation.org/goalkeepers/report/2019-repo...
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
redelbee 6y ago
I agree with everything you wrote, and struggle with how to come to grips with my own privilege that allows me to take more risks than others because of a safety net (I do not have a trust fund and could definitely be wiped out if things went downhill, but I trust that my family could help me with a roof over my head and food in my belly). That said, I think the quote was taken somewhat out of context. Here’s the original paragraph from Altman: > It’s not entirely clear to me why working hard has become a Bad Thing in certain parts of the US, but this is certainly not the case in other parts of the world—the amount of energy and drive exhibited by entrepreneurs outside of the US is quickly becoming the new benchmark. The preceding paragraph talks about finding your joy/purpose and working hard at it as well. He also has an entire section about how to make it easy to take risks (cover your basics first) so you can take advantage of any lucky breaks where you could work hard and reap the potential gains. I agree that it is presumptuous to assume that everyone can “cover the basics” and still not have time to work hard on other things and I do think that our society and culture of individualism are to blame. At the end of the article there’s an HN comment amended that advocates for universal basic income and laments the fact that opportunity is “unevenly distributed.” So there is an acknowledgment of the true problem, even though it’s almost negated by the assertion that since Altman has seen people go from rags to riches it’s definitely “possible.” I hope for more than the “possibility” of success for anyone when they are working hard, and I would hope that everyone else shares that sentiment. Anyway, it’s a slightly more nuanced take than what was quoted for this article, and it’s probably worth a read in its entirety: https://blog.samaltman.com/how-to-be-successful https://blog.samaltman.com/how-to-be-successful
- yuy910616 6y ago
  that's a really good point too!
yuy910616 6y ago
That's a really good point. `Working hard` is a privileged position.
dionidium 6y ago
I’ve re-read that Altman quote a dozen times now and I can’t figure out what are these “certain parts of the US” he thinks believe working hard is bad? From rural Missouri to Manhattan to New England where I live now, I’ve never along the way encountered a (dominant) culture that thinks it’s bad to work hard.
vlunkr 6y ago
I don't think that's a very fair interpretation of what he's saying. Basically anyone can advance in their field by working harder or smarter. How does wealth inequality play into that? I used to do manual labor, then I got an education and much better pay. A venture capitalist made a crap ton of money, then made smart investments, now they make a crap ton + some more. Don't get me wrong, I know wealth inequality exists and it's incredibly unfair, but I don't think it makes sense as a counterpoint to what he's saying.
lordnacho 6y ago
The acoup guy, Bret Devereux, says this a few times in his writing: The peasants were poor, not stupid. That's what drove them to follow their own interests, not the lords'. For context it made sense for the lord to have peasants work more than they wanted. But the peasants often preferred not to for a number of econmic reasons, among them not being able to capture the gain, and risk minimization.
leetcrew 6y ago
there's nothing inherently bad about working hard. I do think the default american perspective on hard work is a toxic one; it seems to be an intrinsic value unto itself. a visibly hard worker commands respect irrespective of what that work is. I find that people are often baffled by the idea that someone be genuinely satisfied with their current material wealth.
- UncleOxidant 6y ago
  Our brand of Capitalism relies on people being dissatisfied.
- Damogran6 6y ago
  I don't see an issue with hard work, I see an issue with unsustainable-work-for-the-company-to-the-detriment-of-everything-else. IT is rife with examples and it trickles out to other disciplines.
- SyzygistSix 6y ago
  >a visibly hard worker commands respect irrespective of what that work is In a good scenario. Many hard workers are just seen to be suckers and exhorted to work harder. In my experience only about 50% of companies promote or give raises primarily based on merit.
Reedx 6y ago
America: Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations China: Wealth does not survive three generations Japan: The third generation ruins the house Italy: From stables to stars to stables Australia: From goon to Grange to goon England: Clogs to clogs is only three generations Scotland: The father buys, the son builds, the grandchild sells, and his son begs
- gens 6y ago
  "My grandfather rode a camel, my father rode a camel, I drive a Mercedes, my son drives a Land Rover, his son will drive a Land Rover, but his son will ride a camel" - Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum
dcolkitt 6y ago
> Again, I cannot fathom how one can fail to observe how class privilege bestows automatic success to certain people regardless of the speed at which they move. Economist Gregory Clarke has found that social mobility is/was about the same in modern America, modern Sweden, medieval Europe, ancient Rome, and the Communist bloc.[1] If the specifics of a society's class structure had a substantial effect on most or even many people's ability to pursue economic opportunities, then we wouldn't expect Clarke's findings to uphold. Instead there's hardly any variance in long-term social mobility between human societies. Certainly modern democratic socialist Scandinavia must impose less overt class privilege than 16th century aristocratic Scandinavia. Yet the two have nearly identically low mobility. (Note that social mobility and inequality are two different things. A country like the Soviet Union, may have the rich be only slightly richer than the poor, but still makes it hard to move from the latter into the former.) [1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/04/social-mobility-equality-class-society https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/04/social...
borroka 6y ago
Because Sam Altman—who I have yet to find which tangible contribution has provided, sounds likes he knows little from a technical point of view, and who during a Tyler Cowen's interviews he answered the question "So what becomes the most important work of humans?", with: "Love, creativity, how we treat each other" (please listen to the interview and get the ridiculousness of the tone, in addition to the words)—fails to understand, like many others in his position, the importance of agency for human fulfillment. Working hard for yourself, for money, for the love of your craft or something you believe in, it is fine and dandy. But thinking about working day and night for the dreams of others, dedicating the vast majority of your time and energy to a faceless corporation who can dump you like a bored boyfriend, or doing menial, pedestrian jobs that pay little to nothing and would be unbearable for even the most flat-lined brained person living today, well, it gives a different vibe, doesn't it?
- sershe 6y ago
  Working "for money" and "for the dreams of others" are not mutually exclusive. Every canonical non-tech immigrant success story involves either working crappy jobs, or starting a boring low-margin business like a grocery store or a dry-cleaner in order to provide better future for your family. It also applies in tech, although it's easier to find a job that still pays ok where you don't have to work too hard.
  - borroka 6y ago
    Altman was referring to people being not willing to work long hours in tech; I am confident he was not referring to movers, janitors, immigrants who come from dire living conditions et similia, since I doubt he ever interacted with any of them for more than 5 minutes in his life. I remember when reading the Away drama that I was stunned reading that customer service representative were making less than 50k in NYC and had to tolerate the verbal and emotional abuse of a power-tripping clueless executive for 12-14 hours a day. That's hard work for the dreams of others. And it is never the hard work, it is lack of agency and feeling one's fate depending on the mood of (often) lunatics.
castlecrasher2 6y ago
As someone who grew up lower-middle income and had nothing given to me to start, I disagree entirely and quite frankly believe your attitude to be poison to those who might otherwise be able to improve their station. My father passed away when I was 12 and my mother did little-to-nothing to teach me after, and while I've been blessed with problem-solving skills and a good foundation of ethics from my father, none of that would matter without hard work, including self-reflection and learning on what I need to improve. I think it's safe to say I had a rough start, and it's hard for me to see my peers get handed things by their well-off parents, but jealousy didn't allow me to buy a house or move up in my career. Sure, I'm no founder, nor am I by any means wealthy, but I am grateful for what I have, given I had nothing before. For those who find themselves in a similar situation, I highly recommend the book "The Richest Man in Babylon"; for me, the most important lessons were 1) humility, 2) save money for yourself and make it earn you money, and 3) seek to improve your earning potential. I know it's easy to be upset others are given what you need to earn, but frustration won't help you retire or achieve your goals.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- mobattah 6y ago
  I think you can have your experience while understanding the massive disparity. I am the same as you. Purely self-made. Handed nothing. Here's a situation I saw which changed my view from yours to the person you're replying to: My friend is successful. He did not go to college since he couldn't afford it. Rather he worked after graduating high school and attained a senior engineering role before his peers had graduated college. Well...the company he was working for folded. He desperately took whatever the next job was because he was young and did not have much savings to fall back on nor a college degree. That next job was across the country and in his words "was a waste of two years". He stayed at that dead end job for resume purposes in a city he hated but had to relocate to. Now I have another friend. That friend graduated college, moved to a new city. His parents paid for the first year of rent in the new city while he looked for the best possible job in software. He got a great job. You see the massive disparity? The first guy essentially threw away two years of his youth working a cubicle farm job because he did not have inherited wealth to fall back on. Today, he's doing very well but that does not change what happened to him. Seeing that first hand changed my "boot straps" thinking. The world isn't fair although I agree, you can make it more fair.
aerosmile 6y ago
The author of the article didn't seem to come from a privileged background, and yet they achieved alignment (defined by the author as "started their own startup"). The same is true for the vast majority of YC founders - all the ones I met come from less privileged background than the average Bay Area resident. This trend has accelerated recently with YC's increased effort to recruit from countries like India, Nigeria, etc (36% of the S20 companies were based outside the U.S.). You would think that by now, YC knows where to look for good startup founders. So if they are increasingly going to Africa to recruit founders, it tells you that at least in their experience, privilege is not a good metric to optimize for. Perhaps it's easier to succeed in finance or some other industry if you come from a privileged background, but in startups grit matters, and the privileged kids don't have it in the same amount as immigrants and anyone else who had to fight for survival.
groktor 6y ago
I think he's referring to the "4 hour work week" type culture...
eloff 6y ago
"Should you work hard" is not aimed at people with lots of inherited wealth (unless they want to grow that wealth.) Hard work is part of the equation of success, a necessary part I would argue. There's not a lot of successful lazy people - inherited wealth is not success, it's just a higher baseline. Success to me is something you achieve, not something you can inherit. The money quote is: > You can get to about the 90th percentile in your field by working either smart or hard, which is still a great accomplishment. But getting to the 99th percentile requires both.... That seems beyond debate to me. Being at the 99th percentile is a relative measure and you don't get there unless you work smarter and harder than most everyone else. Once you get in a position of leadership (that is you have leverage) I'd argue working smart is far more important because that is a force multiplier on everyone working for you. If you somehow do both then you're Elon Musk.
happy-go-lucky 6y ago
Reading this I cannot help thinking of the aphorism: To him that hath, more shall be given; and from him that hath not, the little that he hath shall be taken away.
naveen99 6y ago
It’s better to focus on exponential growth rather than some absolute numbers. A 200% return is more rewarding than a 4% return, even if absolutely a smaller amount.

by czep 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

dasil003 6y ago

I don't think Sam Altman would consider such a person successful. We all know the stereotype of the trust fund kid who is lazy and ineffectual. There's a lot of emotional baggage around rich people, but if you strip it down to individual situations it's pretty simple. I've worked for people ranging from small business owners scraping out $50k a year all the way up to billionaires. How hard they work has no correlation to the money they have. I don't resent a boss with money, I resent a boss who isn't working as hard as me, and most founders/business owners I've worked for have worked harder than everyone else.

djrobstep 6y ago
> I resent a boss who isn't working as hard as me In a modern economy most "business owners" are passive shareholders who literally do nothing for that money. I am a partial business owner of many enormous corporations via my retirement account. I don't do any work for any of them, and yet, they continually send me money. Strange!
- Taylor_OD 6y ago
  You are pretty far off with "most business owners". Maybe you could claim "most" of the passive shareholders of public companies do nothing for that money but that is a very small minority of "business owners". Most businesses are small businesses and most small business owners bust their ass to make a decent living.
  - djrobstep 6y ago
    Small business mythology is pretty far from reality. Most of the economy is run by large firms, owned by people who receive revenue by virtue of ownership rather than work.
- inglor_cz 6y ago
  So, how many bad investments did you have? When investing in a corporation, there is no guarantee that you will gain profit from it, you can even lose your entire investment. If you were a long-term Nokia shareholder, you would have lost a lot of money since, say, 2005. When you invest, you put the value of your previous work at stake. You can retroactively sink your work (= money that you earned from it) into a black hole.
  - djrobstep 6y ago
    The retirement account managers make the decisions on the investments, not me. > When you invest, you put the value of your previous work at stake. What was the "previous work" I did when I inherited my father's Walmart stock?
    - inglor_cz 6y ago
      > The retirement account managers make the decisions on the investments, not me. Let us hope that they won't get sucked into plots of the next Bernie Madoff, who will likely come one day. > What was the "previous work" I did when I inherited my father's Walmart stock? True, I was thinking about investments of surpluses from your salary.
  - 6y ago
xapata 6y ago
> I don't think Sam Altman would consider such a person successful. Then we should first define "success" before continuing the conversation. I worry there might be a bit of a No True Scotsman problem, working backwards from the conclusion of laziness preventing success. The typical definition of "successful" is almost synonymous with "wealthy" except for popular artists (broadly defined) who for some reason aren't able to earn from their work or achieved popularity posthumously.
- inglor_cz 6y ago
  In my personal bubble, people whose wealth was inherited from previous generations, are not considered successful. The very word "success" implies the previous effort to reach something, gain something etc. Do you anecdotally know someone who said "John is a son of a magnate who does nothing all day, he is so successful"? There is a different situation when the successor generation multiplies the wealth, but that already takes some effort and good judgment.
  - xapata 6y ago
    > Do you anecdotally know someone who said "John is a son of a magnate who does nothing all day, he is so successful"? Yes, though they don't emphasize the doing-nothing. Further, it's easy for a wealthy person to mask doing nothing with appearing busy yet effectively being a socialite. > There is a different situation when the successor generation multiplies the wealth, but that already takes some effort and good judgment. It may take good judgement, but not much effort. VTSAX and chill, as the kids say. I grew up around the kids of very wealthy people, often multi-generational wealth. Most decided to have jobs. Some had very impressive careers, but when you realize that first opportunity was only because of a parental connection, suddenly it seems a bit hollow. It's not hard to appear wise and smart when you're wealthy, and then you can simply not fuck up and the rest of the pyramid keeps chugging along. Case in point, Trump. He is a lazy fuck-up, but somehow managed to appear "successful" to a large portion of America.
    - inglor_cz 6y ago

sgroppino 6y ago

The safety net you describe is probably the last missing hurdle on Bill Gates' infographic on inequality: https://www.gatesfoundation.org/goalkeepers/assets/2019-report/starting-out-ahead@3x.png https://www.gatesfoundation.org/goalkeepers/assets/2019-repo... / full link https://www.gatesfoundation.org/goalkeepers/report/2019-report/#ClimateAdaptation https://www.gatesfoundation.org/goalkeepers/report/2019-repo...

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

redelbee 6y ago

I agree with everything you wrote, and struggle with how to come to grips with my own privilege that allows me to take more risks than others because of a safety net (I do not have a trust fund and could definitely be wiped out if things went downhill, but I trust that my family could help me with a roof over my head and food in my belly). That said, I think the quote was taken somewhat out of context. Here’s the original paragraph from Altman: > It’s not entirely clear to me why working hard has become a Bad Thing in certain parts of the US, but this is certainly not the case in other parts of the world—the amount of energy and drive exhibited by entrepreneurs outside of the US is quickly becoming the new benchmark. The preceding paragraph talks about finding your joy/purpose and working hard at it as well. He also has an entire section about how to make it easy to take risks (cover your basics first) so you can take advantage of any lucky breaks where you could work hard and reap the potential gains. I agree that it is presumptuous to assume that everyone can “cover the basics” and still not have time to work hard on other things and I do think that our society and culture of individualism are to blame. At the end of the article there’s an HN comment amended that advocates for universal basic income and laments the fact that opportunity is “unevenly distributed.” So there is an acknowledgment of the true problem, even though it’s almost negated by the assertion that since Altman has seen people go from rags to riches it’s definitely “possible.” I hope for more than the “possibility” of success for anyone when they are working hard, and I would hope that everyone else shares that sentiment. Anyway, it’s a slightly more nuanced take than what was quoted for this article, and it’s probably worth a read in its entirety: https://blog.samaltman.com/how-to-be-successful https://blog.samaltman.com/how-to-be-successful

yuy910616 6y ago
that's a really good point too!

yuy910616 6y ago

That's a really good point. `Working hard` is a privileged position.

dionidium 6y ago

I’ve re-read that Altman quote a dozen times now and I can’t figure out what are these “certain parts of the US” he thinks believe working hard is bad? From rural Missouri to Manhattan to New England where I live now, I’ve never along the way encountered a (dominant) culture that thinks it’s bad to work hard.

vlunkr 6y ago

I don't think that's a very fair interpretation of what he's saying. Basically anyone can advance in their field by working harder or smarter. How does wealth inequality play into that? I used to do manual labor, then I got an education and much better pay. A venture capitalist made a crap ton of money, then made smart investments, now they make a crap ton + some more. Don't get me wrong, I know wealth inequality exists and it's incredibly unfair, but I don't think it makes sense as a counterpoint to what he's saying.

lordnacho 6y ago

The acoup guy, Bret Devereux, says this a few times in his writing: The peasants were poor, not stupid. That's what drove them to follow their own interests, not the lords'. For context it made sense for the lord to have peasants work more than they wanted. But the peasants often preferred not to for a number of econmic reasons, among them not being able to capture the gain, and risk minimization.

leetcrew 6y ago

there's nothing inherently bad about working hard. I do think the default american perspective on hard work is a toxic one; it seems to be an intrinsic value unto itself. a visibly hard worker commands respect irrespective of what that work is. I find that people are often baffled by the idea that someone be genuinely satisfied with their current material wealth.

UncleOxidant 6y ago
Our brand of Capitalism relies on people being dissatisfied.
Damogran6 6y ago
I don't see an issue with hard work, I see an issue with unsustainable-work-for-the-company-to-the-detriment-of-everything-else. IT is rife with examples and it trickles out to other disciplines.
SyzygistSix 6y ago
>a visibly hard worker commands respect irrespective of what that work is In a good scenario. Many hard workers are just seen to be suckers and exhorted to work harder. In my experience only about 50% of companies promote or give raises primarily based on merit.

Reedx 6y ago

America: Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations China: Wealth does not survive three generations Japan: The third generation ruins the house Italy: From stables to stars to stables Australia: From goon to Grange to goon England: Clogs to clogs is only three generations Scotland: The father buys, the son builds, the grandchild sells, and his son begs

gens 6y ago
"My grandfather rode a camel, my father rode a camel, I drive a Mercedes, my son drives a Land Rover, his son will drive a Land Rover, but his son will ride a camel" - Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum

dcolkitt 6y ago

> Again, I cannot fathom how one can fail to observe how class privilege bestows automatic success to certain people regardless of the speed at which they move. Economist Gregory Clarke has found that social mobility is/was about the same in modern America, modern Sweden, medieval Europe, ancient Rome, and the Communist bloc.[1] If the specifics of a society's class structure had a substantial effect on most or even many people's ability to pursue economic opportunities, then we wouldn't expect Clarke's findings to uphold. Instead there's hardly any variance in long-term social mobility between human societies. Certainly modern democratic socialist Scandinavia must impose less overt class privilege than 16th century aristocratic Scandinavia. Yet the two have nearly identically low mobility. (Note that social mobility and inequality are two different things. A country like the Soviet Union, may have the rich be only slightly richer than the poor, but still makes it hard to move from the latter into the former.) [1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/04/social-mobility-equality-class-society https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/04/social...

borroka 6y ago

Because Sam Altman—who I have yet to find which tangible contribution has provided, sounds likes he knows little from a technical point of view, and who during a Tyler Cowen's interviews he answered the question "So what becomes the most important work of humans?", with: "Love, creativity, how we treat each other" (please listen to the interview and get the ridiculousness of the tone, in addition to the words)—fails to understand, like many others in his position, the importance of agency for human fulfillment. Working hard for yourself, for money, for the love of your craft or something you believe in, it is fine and dandy. But thinking about working day and night for the dreams of others, dedicating the vast majority of your time and energy to a faceless corporation who can dump you like a bored boyfriend, or doing menial, pedestrian jobs that pay little to nothing and would be unbearable for even the most flat-lined brained person living today, well, it gives a different vibe, doesn't it?

sershe 6y ago
Working "for money" and "for the dreams of others" are not mutually exclusive. Every canonical non-tech immigrant success story involves either working crappy jobs, or starting a boring low-margin business like a grocery store or a dry-cleaner in order to provide better future for your family. It also applies in tech, although it's easier to find a job that still pays ok where you don't have to work too hard.
- borroka 6y ago
  Altman was referring to people being not willing to work long hours in tech; I am confident he was not referring to movers, janitors, immigrants who come from dire living conditions et similia, since I doubt he ever interacted with any of them for more than 5 minutes in his life. I remember when reading the Away drama that I was stunned reading that customer service representative were making less than 50k in NYC and had to tolerate the verbal and emotional abuse of a power-tripping clueless executive for 12-14 hours a day. That's hard work for the dreams of others. And it is never the hard work, it is lack of agency and feeling one's fate depending on the mood of (often) lunatics.

castlecrasher2 6y ago

As someone who grew up lower-middle income and had nothing given to me to start, I disagree entirely and quite frankly believe your attitude to be poison to those who might otherwise be able to improve their station. My father passed away when I was 12 and my mother did little-to-nothing to teach me after, and while I've been blessed with problem-solving skills and a good foundation of ethics from my father, none of that would matter without hard work, including self-reflection and learning on what I need to improve. I think it's safe to say I had a rough start, and it's hard for me to see my peers get handed things by their well-off parents, but jealousy didn't allow me to buy a house or move up in my career. Sure, I'm no founder, nor am I by any means wealthy, but I am grateful for what I have, given I had nothing before. For those who find themselves in a similar situation, I highly recommend the book "The Richest Man in Babylon"; for me, the most important lessons were 1) humility, 2) save money for yourself and make it earn you money, and 3) seek to improve your earning potential. I know it's easy to be upset others are given what you need to earn, but frustration won't help you retire or achieve your goals.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
mobattah 6y ago
I think you can have your experience while understanding the massive disparity. I am the same as you. Purely self-made. Handed nothing. Here's a situation I saw which changed my view from yours to the person you're replying to: My friend is successful. He did not go to college since he couldn't afford it. Rather he worked after graduating high school and attained a senior engineering role before his peers had graduated college. Well...the company he was working for folded. He desperately took whatever the next job was because he was young and did not have much savings to fall back on nor a college degree. That next job was across the country and in his words "was a waste of two years". He stayed at that dead end job for resume purposes in a city he hated but had to relocate to. Now I have another friend. That friend graduated college, moved to a new city. His parents paid for the first year of rent in the new city while he looked for the best possible job in software. He got a great job. You see the massive disparity? The first guy essentially threw away two years of his youth working a cubicle farm job because he did not have inherited wealth to fall back on. Today, he's doing very well but that does not change what happened to him. Seeing that first hand changed my "boot straps" thinking. The world isn't fair although I agree, you can make it more fair.

aerosmile 6y ago

The author of the article didn't seem to come from a privileged background, and yet they achieved alignment (defined by the author as "started their own startup"). The same is true for the vast majority of YC founders - all the ones I met come from less privileged background than the average Bay Area resident. This trend has accelerated recently with YC's increased effort to recruit from countries like India, Nigeria, etc (36% of the S20 companies were based outside the U.S.). You would think that by now, YC knows where to look for good startup founders. So if they are increasingly going to Africa to recruit founders, it tells you that at least in their experience, privilege is not a good metric to optimize for. Perhaps it's easier to succeed in finance or some other industry if you come from a privileged background, but in startups grit matters, and the privileged kids don't have it in the same amount as immigrants and anyone else who had to fight for survival.

groktor 6y ago

I think he's referring to the "4 hour work week" type culture...

eloff 6y ago

"Should you work hard" is not aimed at people with lots of inherited wealth (unless they want to grow that wealth.) Hard work is part of the equation of success, a necessary part I would argue. There's not a lot of successful lazy people - inherited wealth is not success, it's just a higher baseline. Success to me is something you achieve, not something you can inherit. The money quote is: > You can get to about the 90th percentile in your field by working either smart or hard, which is still a great accomplishment. But getting to the 99th percentile requires both.... That seems beyond debate to me. Being at the 99th percentile is a relative measure and you don't get there unless you work smarter and harder than most everyone else. Once you get in a position of leadership (that is you have leverage) I'd argue working smart is far more important because that is a force multiplier on everyone working for you. If you somehow do both then you're Elon Musk.

happy-go-lucky 6y ago

Reading this I cannot help thinking of the aphorism: To him that hath, more shall be given; and from him that hath not, the little that he hath shall be taken away.

naveen99 6y ago

It’s better to focus on exponential growth rather than some absolute numbers. A 200% return is more rewarding than a 4% return, even if absolutely a smaller amount.