3 ms·

bah humbug, How much muscle memory did Zuckerberg have? Couldn't have been that much as he was so young. I think this post is missing a larger point. You don'

bah humbug, How much muscle memory did Zuckerberg have? Couldn't have been that much as he was so young. I think this post is missing a larger point. You don't need to get to the point that "creating and shipping products is muscle memory". You just need to ship products. We've all seen the examples of Rovio (60+ products before a hit) or Id (4 products before hit?). And there's probably also plenty of examples of first product hits as well. Seems like important part is shipping. Not being a master of your craft. Of course maybe that's not what people want to hear and I certainly would like to know tips that would make it more likely that the things I ship, write, create will be well received and popular but I can certainly name many products, libraries, app that are not the product of "someone with a finely honed craft." And so that's the true story. It's not that people who do great things don't have an interesting story because to them it's just a normal day and they're so awesome they don't recognize it. It's that greatness comes from doing. The more you do the more chances for greatness.

mcav 14y ago
It's more about shipping good things than just shipping. Honing your craft helps you better distinguish good from bad.
larrys 14y ago
"It's not that people who do great things don't have an interesting story because to them it's just a normal day and they're so awesome they don't recognize it." "Great" things also depends on your timing and what the competition is doing. (Remember Job's Newton?) Bad timing could be having the right product at the wrong time. Good timing a little earlier than the competition in some cases. As well as luck. And also honesty and how you deal with people you work with, suppliers. And this only scratches the surface. I mean even with respect to sports the winner in any given year is dependent on the quality of the other teams or individuals playing, right? The second fastest man would be the fastest if the fastest didn't run that race. "It's that greatness comes from doing. The more you do the more chances for greatness." And in a sense the key to the VC business. If you put your money behind enough possibilities (with some reasonable vetting) some of those ideas will succeed. I mean if they could predict better the ideas that would hit (even assuming the timing was right and there was nobody else trying the same idea) they would have a much better success rate than what the currently have, right? The success rate is not great actually. "I certainly would like to know tips that would make it more likely that the things I ship, write, create will be well received and popular" One of the problems with reading to much about what others say (on HN or elsewhere) is that you get a watered down version of the world since there are always different points of view. (Horse by committee is a camel?) No single vision directing things. To many points of view. Something that I am able to achieve given my skills, knowledge the way I was raised and a million other variables might not be the right approach for you. Just like you may be able to walk up to a random woman in a bar and pick her up with a line and an approach that wouldn't work for me. Just like Jobs could make people do things by his words and his presence, his looks, his voice that (insert smart but dull person here) can't.
scott_s 14y ago
I don't think you're contradicting the essay. I absolutely agree that the more you produce, the more likely you are to produce something great. But it's also true that the more you produce, the individual likelihood that each particular work will be great increases - assuming, of course, that you are mastering your craft and approaching the "muscle memory" level of ability.
paul 14y ago
You picked the perfect example to be wrong about :) Facebook ships every day, and in the early days they shipped continually because they were editing the code on the live servers (no revision control even). I doubt that anyone would have called the very first version of facebook "great", but they've shipped thousands of times since then, and now they have product with a billion users. And of course Facebook wasn't his first product either -- remember the Facemash story?
- qq66 14y ago
  And Synapse before that...
chipsy 14y ago
Id (as a team) shipped literally hundreds of times before even becoming Id. For one example: http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,817/ http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,81... In general, I find that a close inspection of these success stories only uncovers a hidden backstory where, in fact, the protagonists are developing "muscle memory." And this doesn't necessarily mean that they were building a startup, were the best in their field, or even went through the commercial marketplace! It means only that they accumulated the right mix of skills and experience to see - and then reach - success. Clearly Zuckerberg was, at the bare minimum, used to whipping up CRUD-style web sites - and had even started taking on contract work - before he decided to start on Facebook. He didn't wake up one day, say "social networks, what a great idea," and learn PHP and MySQL all at once. He arrived at a position where it was natural to work on one as an extrapolation from his existing experience, an incremental leap out of the comfort zone. Just "doing" is not equivalent; lots of people "do" every day, but don't grow or challenge themselves.

mcav 14y ago

It's more about shipping good things than just shipping. Honing your craft helps you better distinguish good from bad.

larrys 14y ago

"It's not that people who do great things don't have an interesting story because to them it's just a normal day and they're so awesome they don't recognize it." "Great" things also depends on your timing and what the competition is doing. (Remember Job's Newton?) Bad timing could be having the right product at the wrong time. Good timing a little earlier than the competition in some cases. As well as luck. And also honesty and how you deal with people you work with, suppliers. And this only scratches the surface. I mean even with respect to sports the winner in any given year is dependent on the quality of the other teams or individuals playing, right? The second fastest man would be the fastest if the fastest didn't run that race. "It's that greatness comes from doing. The more you do the more chances for greatness." And in a sense the key to the VC business. If you put your money behind enough possibilities (with some reasonable vetting) some of those ideas will succeed. I mean if they could predict better the ideas that would hit (even assuming the timing was right and there was nobody else trying the same idea) they would have a much better success rate than what the currently have, right? The success rate is not great actually. "I certainly would like to know tips that would make it more likely that the things I ship, write, create will be well received and popular" One of the problems with reading to much about what others say (on HN or elsewhere) is that you get a watered down version of the world since there are always different points of view. (Horse by committee is a camel?) No single vision directing things. To many points of view. Something that I am able to achieve given my skills, knowledge the way I was raised and a million other variables might not be the right approach for you. Just like you may be able to walk up to a random woman in a bar and pick her up with a line and an approach that wouldn't work for me. Just like Jobs could make people do things by his words and his presence, his looks, his voice that (insert smart but dull person here) can't.

scott_s 14y ago

I don't think you're contradicting the essay. I absolutely agree that the more you produce, the more likely you are to produce something great. But it's also true that the more you produce, the individual likelihood that each particular work will be great increases - assuming, of course, that you are mastering your craft and approaching the "muscle memory" level of ability.

paul 14y ago

You picked the perfect example to be wrong about :) Facebook ships every day, and in the early days they shipped continually because they were editing the code on the live servers (no revision control even). I doubt that anyone would have called the very first version of facebook "great", but they've shipped thousands of times since then, and now they have product with a billion users. And of course Facebook wasn't his first product either -- remember the Facemash story?

qq66 14y ago
And Synapse before that...

chipsy 14y ago

Id (as a team) shipped literally hundreds of times before even becoming Id. For one example: http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,817/ http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,81... In general, I find that a close inspection of these success stories only uncovers a hidden backstory where, in fact, the protagonists are developing "muscle memory." And this doesn't necessarily mean that they were building a startup, were the best in their field, or even went through the commercial marketplace! It means only that they accumulated the right mix of skills and experience to see - and then reach - success. Clearly Zuckerberg was, at the bare minimum, used to whipping up CRUD-style web sites - and had even started taking on contract work - before he decided to start on Facebook. He didn't wake up one day, say "social networks, what a great idea," and learn PHP and MySQL all at once. He arrived at a position where it was natural to work on one as an extrapolation from his existing experience, an incremental leap out of the comfort zone. Just "doing" is not equivalent; lots of people "do" every day, but don't grow or challenge themselves.