3 ms·

Do it again. Once is luck. Twice is skill.

by brk 18y ago

sebg 18y ago
brilliant. reminds me of the missive: if you are the type of person who would stop working once you obtained a fortune, then you are never going to get a fortune...
- yan 18y ago
  That statement works equally well in its negation :)
- modoc 18y ago
  Define work? Hopefully I'll get to the point where I can live comfortably off the wealth generated by work I've already completed. If I do, at that point, I won't stop using the computer. I won't stop writing software. I will stop setting the alarm clock though, and I'll stop saying "I have to work" to my wife when I'd rather be spending time with her, and I'll stop working with hard deadlines. I won't sit on a beach all day, but a few hours a day would be very nice!
  - alex_c 18y ago
    There are a lot of insightful comments in this thread, but I think this one sums up best (and most succinctly) how I feel.
  - sebg 18y ago
    I work in finance (trading) so from my perspective, I have seen many people come into this field wanting to "get rich." They soon find that the most successful investors/traders are not those who want to get rich, but rather love financial markets. So I am in complete agreement with you. The equivalent, I think, would be me joining a web app startup to "get rich" because I want to be "rich", rather than I am passionate about exploring the problem space that I will solve with the web app. As a side note, the reason this is always the first site I visit when I am on the internet -- because everybody is exploring their chosen problem space passionately for the fun/excitement of it.
kqr2 18y ago
Knowing when to quit is also a skill. Especially applicable to professional sports.
- time_management 18y ago
  Athletes peak in their late 20s and early 30s. In intellectual endeavors (despite prominent counterexamples, half of whom were like Keats or Galois and died on ascent) most people peak in their late 40s or 50s. So there isn't the same call to quit after a few years of success.
  - ph0rque 18y ago
    Interesting... what about endeavors where the biggest factor in the eventual success is commitment to the venture? I think that as one grows older, one is more critical of oneself and thus liable of giving up earlier.
  - gaius 18y ago
    Well, yes and no. Mathematicians for example are notorious for burning out young.
    - jjs 18y ago
      Chalk poisoning. ;)
    - time_management 18y ago
      This is more of a popular myth than reality. It's more common in math than in other fields, and mathematicians peak earlier than, say, writers (35, as opposed to 55, would be my guesses) but it's not actually the norm for a mathematician to do his best work in his 20s. Those stories are cases of the exception proving the rule.
      - rfurmani 18y ago
        Maybe not in eir early- or mid- 20s, since nowadays at that age it is hard to even have enough familiarity to be able to define the major open problems (most of my colleagues focus a lot on devouring book to try to get ahead of this curve). Still, major work is generally done by one in eir late 20s or early 30s. It has long been the case, and still continues to be (Green and Tao proved their famous theorem at the age of 29). Hardy lamented that math is a young person's game. The book "A Beautiful Mind" discusses how Nash's 30th birthday was a gloomy one, since it generally means the end of one's major contributions to the field. You can't even win the Fields medal unless you're under 40. Now, of course there will be counter-examples, but these are not the majority, and generally come in those fields where you have to digest a great amount of material and push your way through for long stretches of time (grad students and post-docs also tend to figure prominently in these cases)
staunch 18y ago
So what if it was luck? I'm not trying to prove anything. I just want a lot more money so I can do what I please with my time. Sure, that'd probably mean spending most of my time doing another startup, but not to prove it wasn't luck the first time.

Do it again. Once is luck. Twice is skill.

by brk 18y ago

Do it again. Once is luck. Twice is skill.

sebg 18y ago

brilliant. reminds me of the missive: if you are the type of person who would stop working once you obtained a fortune, then you are never going to get a fortune...

yan 18y ago
That statement works equally well in its negation :)
modoc 18y ago
Define work? Hopefully I'll get to the point where I can live comfortably off the wealth generated by work I've already completed. If I do, at that point, I won't stop using the computer. I won't stop writing software. I will stop setting the alarm clock though, and I'll stop saying "I have to work" to my wife when I'd rather be spending time with her, and I'll stop working with hard deadlines. I won't sit on a beach all day, but a few hours a day would be very nice!
- alex_c 18y ago
  There are a lot of insightful comments in this thread, but I think this one sums up best (and most succinctly) how I feel.
- sebg 18y ago
  I work in finance (trading) so from my perspective, I have seen many people come into this field wanting to "get rich." They soon find that the most successful investors/traders are not those who want to get rich, but rather love financial markets. So I am in complete agreement with you. The equivalent, I think, would be me joining a web app startup to "get rich" because I want to be "rich", rather than I am passionate about exploring the problem space that I will solve with the web app. As a side note, the reason this is always the first site I visit when I am on the internet -- because everybody is exploring their chosen problem space passionately for the fun/excitement of it.

kqr2 18y ago

Knowing when to quit is also a skill. Especially applicable to professional sports.

time_management 18y ago
Athletes peak in their late 20s and early 30s. In intellectual endeavors (despite prominent counterexamples, half of whom were like Keats or Galois and died on ascent) most people peak in their late 40s or 50s. So there isn't the same call to quit after a few years of success.
- ph0rque 18y ago
  Interesting... what about endeavors where the biggest factor in the eventual success is commitment to the venture? I think that as one grows older, one is more critical of oneself and thus liable of giving up earlier.
- gaius 18y ago
  Well, yes and no. Mathematicians for example are notorious for burning out young.
  - jjs 18y ago
    Chalk poisoning. ;)
  - time_management 18y ago
    This is more of a popular myth than reality. It's more common in math than in other fields, and mathematicians peak earlier than, say, writers (35, as opposed to 55, would be my guesses) but it's not actually the norm for a mathematician to do his best work in his 20s. Those stories are cases of the exception proving the rule.
    - rfurmani 18y ago
      Maybe not in eir early- or mid- 20s, since nowadays at that age it is hard to even have enough familiarity to be able to define the major open problems (most of my colleagues focus a lot on devouring book to try to get ahead of this curve). Still, major work is generally done by one in eir late 20s or early 30s. It has long been the case, and still continues to be (Green and Tao proved their famous theorem at the age of 29). Hardy lamented that math is a young person's game. The book "A Beautiful Mind" discusses how Nash's 30th birthday was a gloomy one, since it generally means the end of one's major contributions to the field. You can't even win the Fields medal unless you're under 40. Now, of course there will be counter-examples, but these are not the majority, and generally come in those fields where you have to digest a great amount of material and push your way through for long stretches of time (grad students and post-docs also tend to figure prominently in these cases)

staunch 18y ago

So what if it was luck? I'm not trying to prove anything. I just want a lot more money so I can do what I please with my time. Sure, that'd probably mean spending most of my time doing another startup, but not to prove it wasn't luck the first time.