4 ms·

It doesn't seem very consistent to go out, canvas the opinion of all your celebrity mates and write an article and publish it about haters with the key take-awa

It doesn't seem very consistent to go out, canvas the opinion of all your celebrity mates and write an article and publish it about haters with the key take-away being "ignore the haters". I also think there are some pretty dumb assertions here - successful people aren't mean for example. I would say there are good examples of mean successful people that PG got to read this draft, they're just not mean to Paul, so it doesn't count, they're not mean in a disney villain sense of the word. To me the far more interesting question isn't what to do about haters, it's how do you distinguish between haters and people who have a genuine point to make. Elon Musk attracts a lot of attention, he has a lot of haters, he also does a lot of things that are worthy of real criticism and he should listen to that criticism. It's a question PG just completely fails to address, there's a certain kind of motivated reasoning here - I'm great and all the people who criticise me are just haters and they're bad and they're mean and they'll never amount to anything in life etc. My suspicion is that Paul doesn't actually know many haters, and he hasn't put much effort into getting to know what's actually going on, it comes across very much like this is just a nice way for him to think about the world - the nasty people are bad people and through some cosmic justice they're all unsuccessful. In reality, the world is far more complex, and the framework of thinking about this that PG is putting forward probably doesn't do much to actually reflect that complexity.

meowface 5y ago
This is one of pg's most-criticized essays (each time I've seen it posted here or on reddit), but I actually really like it. This is an essay intended for a specific audience and narrow purpose. I think he intentionally doesn't add any caveats about how to deal with criticism in general. I think he knew there'd be a deluge of responses like yours; you're not the intended audience. It's not about criticism or critique. It's about a model of haters. It'd be a waste of space to waffle on about ways to handle feedback and how to distinguish valid and invalid criticism, etc. He's talking past and above all of that. I'd find it condescending and tiring if he did do that; obviously he agrees with what you're saying here. He doesn't need to state the obvious. If you've ever been a public figure or spent a lot of time seeing how public figures are discussed (especially online), the "fanboy" and the "hater" are very real archetypes. These aren't people praising or criticizing you. It's a certain kind of pathological personality type. And if you're the kind of person who's not used to having either, this is just a little guide to let you know it's very normal. It's just some advice he's giving out to people who've found themselves becoming public figures. Also, at the end, he does address your point to an extent: >The mistake here is to think of the hater as someone you have a dispute with. When you have a dispute with someone, it's usually a good idea to try to understand why they're upset and then fix things if you can. Disputes are distracting. But it's a false analogy to think of a hater as someone you have a dispute with. It's an understandable mistake, if you've never encountered haters before. He's trying to help people not think they're doing something wrong by refusing to engage with this particular kind of individual, because their natural tendency will probably be to get bogged down trying to understand and address what they think is a dispute. And he additionally includes some of the should-be-obvious stuff in the footnotes (where I think they more naturally belong).
- Traster 5y ago
  The thing is that this advice is not good advice for most startup founders. Founders already have to have a huge amount of self-belief before they have any chance of succcess. That's not a problem silicon valley has. Silicon Valley has the opposite problem - a failure to take criticism seriously, and PG's advice here is just another part of that unhealthy culture.
  - meowface 5y ago
    I understand your point, but, again, I think this is an essay with a narrow purpose intended for a very specific audience. It's not advice about how to think about oneself or how to respond to criticism. If someone reads this essay and takes away from it "I need to be more arrogant and self-confident in all instances", then that's their own problem.

meowface 5y ago

This is one of pg's most-criticized essays (each time I've seen it posted here or on reddit), but I actually really like it. This is an essay intended for a specific audience and narrow purpose. I think he intentionally doesn't add any caveats about how to deal with criticism in general. I think he knew there'd be a deluge of responses like yours; you're not the intended audience. It's not about criticism or critique. It's about a model of haters. It'd be a waste of space to waffle on about ways to handle feedback and how to distinguish valid and invalid criticism, etc. He's talking past and above all of that. I'd find it condescending and tiring if he did do that; obviously he agrees with what you're saying here. He doesn't need to state the obvious. If you've ever been a public figure or spent a lot of time seeing how public figures are discussed (especially online), the "fanboy" and the "hater" are very real archetypes. These aren't people praising or criticizing you. It's a certain kind of pathological personality type. And if you're the kind of person who's not used to having either, this is just a little guide to let you know it's very normal. It's just some advice he's giving out to people who've found themselves becoming public figures. Also, at the end, he does address your point to an extent: >The mistake here is to think of the hater as someone you have a dispute with. When you have a dispute with someone, it's usually a good idea to try to understand why they're upset and then fix things if you can. Disputes are distracting. But it's a false analogy to think of a hater as someone you have a dispute with. It's an understandable mistake, if you've never encountered haters before. He's trying to help people not think they're doing something wrong by refusing to engage with this particular kind of individual, because their natural tendency will probably be to get bogged down trying to understand and address what they think is a dispute. And he additionally includes some of the should-be-obvious stuff in the footnotes (where I think they more naturally belong).

Traster 5y ago
The thing is that this advice is not good advice for most startup founders. Founders already have to have a huge amount of self-belief before they have any chance of succcess. That's not a problem silicon valley has. Silicon Valley has the opposite problem - a failure to take criticism seriously, and PG's advice here is just another part of that unhealthy culture.
- meowface 5y ago
  I understand your point, but, again, I think this is an essay with a narrow purpose intended for a very specific audience. It's not advice about how to think about oneself or how to respond to criticism. If someone reads this essay and takes away from it "I need to be more arrogant and self-confident in all instances", then that's their own problem.