13 ms·

Be Relentlessly Resourceful

• aitoehigie 18y ago
  i am a web developer & startup founder based in Nigeria, West Africa, a place where there is hardly any electricity, so my startup is run on generators & inverters, broadband isnt available, dialup is the norm here. the computers we use are 5 years old, the list goes on. but i & my team still get stuff done, because of the passion we have and i guess its because we are 'relentlessly resourcefull'. Thanks pg for another excellent write up.
  • seunosewa 18y ago
    Interesting, I'm also from Nigeria. What's the name of your Startup?
  • c00p3r 18y ago
    I'm not sure whether it possible to get them in Nigeria, but devices like Nokia N810 or Google G1 Dev. Phone can be very useful. They can stand by for almost a week. At least for me, here, in Nepal, these devices are very good solutions for electrisity outages. There are only 8 hours per day with power in Kathmandu (4 at morning and 4 at evening), but of course, mobile towers works 24/7. Some cheap netbooks with a 6-cell battaries is also reasonable. They could be used as linux-based test servers (without running X11.)
  • Rod 18y ago
    If your startup's core competence is online 419 scams then I wish you guys were a bit less resourceful ;-)) (sorry dude, but I couldn't help it... though distasteful this joke might seem)
    • medianama 18y ago
      Wish I could down vote you
      • Rod 18y ago
        Kind of PC, aren't we? Lower bound is -8. Knock yourself out.
        • ajju 18y ago
          Your being down voted has little to do with political correctness. You insulted the OP and the comment wasn't even funny.
          • Rod 18y ago
            There's no accounting for taste, so I won't discuss whether the comment was humorous or not. However, I respectfully disagree that I have offended the original poster. Please allow me to explain: As an engineer, I appreciate the original poster's resourcefulness and can-do attitude. Getting things done with minimum means is something admirable. However, it wouldn't be too far-fetched to claim that anyone who reads the words "Nigeria" and "internet" in the same sentence will think of 419 scams. That is not the OP's fault, of course, but it would be naive to think that such a prejudice does not work against him. Countries have reputations, sometimes good, sometimes bad. Sometimes your country's reputation helps, sometimes it hinders. I am sure some people think I am being racist. Just so you know, I am no bigot. Moreover, if the OP was offended, he can defend himself, and I am here to apologize if my joke was offensive. I conjecture that if the OP were Russian and I made a stupid joke about vodka bottles and stuff, I wouldn't have been down-voted as fast. Not all bigotry is created equal, I guess.
            • colinplamondon 18y ago
              Nah, it would have- and that's why HN is awesome. Dumb jokes get downmodded into oblivion, which keeps the quality of conversation high. If shit like that flew, the site would devolve into Reddit levels of lolcats. It doesn't contribute to the conversation and it leads into detours like this thread. It's also beyond ridiculous to mock someone who's busting his ass to build a company when he has to transcend things like, you know, regular access to electricity, but that's a matter of personal taste. I'm not saying show blind admiration because the cool kids are upmodding, I'm saying be respectful... especially when the OP is as badass as the OP in question!
  • mattm 18y ago
    When I lived in Kenya for two months, this is one of the things I found fascinating. People would face immense daily challenges (compared to what is faced in the "West") and yet they would still go about their business without a hint of anger or complaint. It's sad though because you just have to wonder what bigger things could be accomplished if infrastructure was more stable so people could put their focus towards bigger issues rather than smaller ones.
• kragen 18y ago
  I'm curious what pg's thoughts are about whether "relentless resourcefulness" is what it takes to be good at programming, independent of making a startup. I value his insights on programming, business, and persuasion much more than I value his insights on writing and painting. It's sort of reassuring to think that living in Argentina is helping me develop some kind of important skill.
  • pg 18y ago
    Probably some kinds of programming, but not others. It depends how much of the effort is devoted to overcoming external constraints. Sometimes programming is like math, in which case the recipe may be more to be actively curious. But writing an app for end users on a buggy platform might require one to be relentlessly resourceful.
• gojomo 18y ago
  Sounds like "Be Relentlessly Resourceful" is version 2.0 of "Be An Animal". http://www.paulgraham.com/start.html#People http://www.paulgraham.com/start.html#People
  • pg 18y ago
    Not so much version 2.0 as what happens when you apply that rule to the job of startup founder.
• chris11 18y ago
  PG, I would be really interested in your experiences teaching people to relentlessly resourceful. How have you brought out resourcefulness in your startup founders?
  • pg 18y ago
    Me: Why don't you just do x? Founders: Could we really do x? Me: Sure, why not? Can't hurt to try. How hard can it be to do at least version 1 of x? Founders: Ok [dubiously] we'll try it. A few days later: Founders: Pg, check out this demo of x. It was a lot harder than we expected, but we just got it working. While we were working on it, we thought "what if we did y..."
    • chris11 18y ago
      Thanks for replying. I guess I usually see someone accomplish some really hard task I assume they have some high level of innate ability or other advantage, when what really happens is that that they just started it and then dealt with any problems as they came up. Hopefully I'll keep this in mind when ever I'm tempted to think that I need some big break or big idea to accomplish a goal.
      • pg 18y ago
        We may help out with the occasional idea too. I don't mean to suggest that the preceding conversation is the only one. There so many different types of conversations about so many different problems. It's not just me, either. There are also the other three YC partners, plus a constant stream of outside experts who meet with all the startups and talk to them about what they're working on.
    • mrbuwch 18y ago
      It sounds like you're saying that these particular founders don't have confidence in their ability to do x and are pleasantly surprised when, after a little push, they achieve it (even if it did turn out to be harder than they thought). From achieving x, they uncover the virgin territory of y. So: is gaining greater confidence in one's ability to achieve stuff part of becoming relentlessly resourceful?
• Eliezer 18y ago
  "Anyone who can muster their willpower for thirty seconds, can make a desperate effort to lift more weight than they usually could. But what if the weight that needs lifting is a truck? Then desperate efforts won't suffice; you'll have to do something out of the ordinary to succeed. You may have to do something that you weren't taught to do in school. Something that others aren't expecting you to do, and might not understand. You may have to go outside your comfortable routine, take on difficulties you don't have an existing mental program for handling, and bypass the System. So then let us distinguish between the virtues 'make a desperate effort' and 'make an extraordinary effort'. And I will even say: The second virtue is higher than the first." -- http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/10/isshokenmei.html http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/10/isshokenmei.html
  • chris11 18y ago
    You mentioned on your blog that you tested out of your bachelor's degree. So what's your experience getting your degree from a non-traditional university? You seem somewhat of an autodidact, so did you find that the coursework was an acceptable study plan, or did you end up supplementing the coursework to learn the material? The school you mentioned seems to be credible, it even has a couple engineering technology programs accredited by TAC of ABET. But I haven't had great experiences with getting college credit through standardized tests. I took several CLEP tests before entering college. And while it was definitely worth it to get rid of some general ed requirements, the tests were extremely easy. All I ended up doing was reading the study books once or twice before the tests. I don't think I learned a significant from preparing for those tests.
    • lionhearted 18y ago
      I Clepped basically an entire year of university. Higher education serves two purposes: Learning, and credentialing. And there's certainly faster ways to learn - so that leaves you with the credential. The cheaper and faster you can get it if you want that one, the faster you can get out into the world and do cool things.
      • 18y ago
• collint 18y ago
  This is my favorite essay of yours so far. I usually enjoy your ideas, but this one hit me like a freight train of: "Are you being resourceful enough?" Sadly the answer is "not enough." Fortunately I feel the right question has be found.
• nostrademons 18y ago
  I'm curious about contextual dependence in this... For example, I can often be relentlessly resourceful in technical matters. If an approach doesn't work, then there's some other combination of code that may get us there, it just won't be as easy or elegant. But then we can usually simplify it after the fact to make it reasonably maintainable. But when it comes to social matters, I'm far more likely to just give up than to keep pushing people or trying different approaches. A lot of that is simply because I know that code has no feelings: I won't be burning any bridges because I think that function definition deserves to die. But it's hard to tell when you've pushed a person too far, or when they'll get offended because you went behind their back, and if that'll bite you later. Is there a way to apply resourcefulness in one situation to another, and basically "cross-train" to become more persistent in different domains?
  • jfornear 18y ago
    > I'm far more likely to just give up than to keep pushing people or trying different approaches That's how I feel about marketing and self-promotion
    • donniefitz2 18y ago
      I feel your pain, but that's what has to be done to make it all work.
      • nostrademons 18y ago
        I know, but the question is "How?" Particularly because if you just do it naively - like calling the same prospect over and over again and begging them to buy - you tend not to get very good results. Relentlessly resourceful, not just relentless.
        • donniefitz2 18y ago
          I'm faced with similar issues, but I find that by reaching out to the people and other resources around me, things arise that I would have never otherwise considered. When you face a dead end, that's exactly when you need to tap into the relentless (never giving up) resourcefulness (looking in places you have not yet considered). Sounds great in theory, but it's much harder in practice. It's like starring up a 70 foot wall and wondering how to get over it.
• anuraggoel 18y ago
  I guess the (surprisingly) restrained reception to 'How to be an angel investor' forced pg to explicitly point out its key takeaway for founders and write a whole new essay for it. He just doesn't stop trying to do good - a different kind of relentless resourcefulness.
  • pg 18y ago
    I was going to do this anyway. I decided to as soon as I wrote that paragraph in the angel essay. (I would never decide what to write based on how many points a previous essay got, either high or low. It only works to write about what I'm currently interested in.)
    • anuraggoel 18y ago
      And I was beginning to think reading your essays and HN comments was sufficient to authoritatively reason about your motives.
  • ajju 18y ago
    If you read the angel investing article as an entrepreneur, it is hard to miss pg's one recommendation to potential investors on how to pick good entrepreneurs: it is to pick those who are the opposite of hapless. I have been thinking about what being the "opposite of hapless" means very specifically for me at this time ever since I read the article. It was one of the things that drove me yesterday to just sit down and start hacking away at a hard problem I have after dithering on it for a couple of weeks. I almost expected this essay.
• donniefitz2 18y ago
  This summary has struck me. I couldn't agree more about what it says and requires. Every day founders have to face the doubt inherent in what they are trying to accomplish. But I think the hurdles are as much internal as they are external and the summary applies to both. Founders have to overcome the internal issues by being relentlessly resourceful as well as the external. "Why am I doing this?" is a question every founder is asking themselves daily because we are all sacrificing something to start our product. Getting over the internal hurdles requires a great deal of resourcefulness merely to justify continuing the pursuit another day. "Should I quit now? Have I done everything I can to make this work?" "I can't quit yet because I haven't tried X." You have to be resourceful to prove to yourself that you shouldn't quit just yet. Relentless resourcefulness applies to internal factors as much as it does external factors because you have to be resourceful enough to provide yourself the impetus to continue, to keep sacrificing. "I can't quit this thing because I know there is a possibility that something I'm not thinking of will make it work. I have to find that thing."
• unalone 18y ago
  Very succinct definition of a very common lesson in getting ahead. I've heard it phrased before as "use anything you see and everything you've got to reach your goal," which has a nice ring to it, but "be relentlessly resourceful" is beautifully simple. I like the mini-essays almost more than I like the larger essays. They feel like long footnotes. It's fun reading a long essay, then a few days later getting an extra supplement.
• joechung 18y ago
  Isn't the antonym of hapless opportunistic (without its negative connotation)?
  • pg 18y ago
    Opportunistic (without its negative connotation) = resourceful. That gets you the direction of the vector, then you add relentlessly as the magnitude.
  • dfranke 18y ago
    Obviously, the opposite of hapless is hapful.
    • Hexstream 18y ago
      I sometimes get annoyed at English's lack of symmetry. The opposite of... is not... worthless worthful senseless senseful wasteful wasteless handful handless moreover lessover (moreunder?)
      • KayEss 18y ago
        flammable/inflammable?
      • dfranke 18y ago
        'wasteless' seems cromulent to me.
    • vlad 18y ago
      Or, hapmore.
  • cosmo7 18y ago
    Hap is a middle English word meaning luck or fate. Things happen, mishaps occur. Perhaps. Hapless means being in a situation with no logical way out, such as being stuck in quicksand, or being good at Ruby on Rails.
• aristus 18y ago
  In spanish you might say "un barbaro". It's literally "a barbarian" but with the implication of native cunning, resourcefulness, drive, and few inhibitions. It's someone who always wins because he figures out a way.
  • herdrick 18y ago
    And Spanish unlike Italian has the exact word PG was looking for to say 'a success', and it's is perfect for startup founders: 'exito'. Of course it's derived from the same Latin word as English's 'exit'.
• triplefox 18y ago
  I can bring it down to one word: MacGyver.
  • indiejade 18y ago
    Precisely. Being "relentlessly resourceful" essentially boils down to a highly advanced game of Make Vs. Buy. MacGyver would almost invariably always answer "Make!" PG's article also reminded me of a comment I posted on here awhile go regarding a question somebody asked about "skimping" on certain things: Assuming that by "skimp on" you mean "spend sparingly on a necessity," I'll preemptively refrain from rambling about what's probably not necessary for a tech startup. Of course, one of my new hobbies, since making the voyage out here, has been to practice the wonderfully fun and interesting "make vs buy" comparison game. You can, and probably will have many opportunities to play this game as a startup founder. This game involves simply asking yourself and/or your team numerous questions of a basic logistical nature: A) How much does X cost to make, if I get to (or have to, depending on the day) make it myself? B) How much does X cost to buy? C) What are the costs, inclusive of shipping/assembly, for scenarios A and B? D) Do I have anything that can be improvised or are there any possible substitutes that can serve the ultimate purpose of X (i.e. using a door as a desk) in the mean-time? E) How long can I "live" with the improvised substitute or the idea of an improvised substitute? F) How much of the actual value of X is imagined; that is, how much have my perceptions been influenced by hype or advertising? Questions E and F can get complicated, as they relate quite a bit back to the original posit about "necessities" and such. Probably I'm too tired to go into them at the moment, so perhaps in the morning. I therefore recommend being pretty weary of anything involving hidden "lock-in" costs resultant from usurping alternatives; for example, anything involving a contract probably fits into this category. Regarding brand loyalty. . . remember that there's a big difference between purchasing actual quality and purchasing advertised "quality." When factoring in costs associated with advertising, the make vs. buy comparison game really can take a person full circle. Original post: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=167896 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=167896
    • ericwaller 18y ago
      I think the kind of resourcefulness being discussed is less about "make v. buy" and more about "make/buy v. get for free." By "get for free" I mean using personal connections, creativity, or whatever else you have at your disposal (maybe university affiliation) to avoid paying at all, either with real money out of your pocket or development and maintenance effort (in the case of software).
• swombat 18y ago
  Just a small niggle, but don't you mean "helpless" as opposed to "hapless"? Helpless: "unable to help oneself; weak or dependent" Hapless: "unlucky; luckless; unfortunate." It seems to me that helpless has exactly the definition you seek. "Relentlessly resourceful" founders are able to help themselves, strong, and independent. I know you disagree with the dictionary definition, but could it be that the two meanings merged in your mind? They're not really merged in mine... I see "hapless" as relating to luck, whereas helpless is relating to ability. It seems unnecessary to propose a new meaning for "hapless" when "helpless" fits the bill perfectly. Handily enough, the antonyms of "helpless" are: ( http://thesaurus.reference.com/browse/helpless http://thesaurus.reference.com/browse/helpless ) able, capable, competent, enterprising, independent, resourceful, skilled, strong Which seems to be exactly what you're aiming for. On the other hand, the antonyms of "hapless" are: " fortuitous, fortunate, lucky, well-off", which is not really what you mean, I imagine. </niggle>
  • pg 18y ago
    No, I meant hapless, but as it's really used, not the obsolete definitions in most dictionaries. Hapless means bad stuff is happening to you. Helpless just means you couldn't defend yourself if it did.
    • axod 18y ago
      Bear in mind some countries still use those 'obsolete' definitions ;) Maybe it's a US/UK thing.
      • swombat 18y ago
        That's a very good point. Might be a US/UK thing. I definitely tend to use "hapless" as "unlucky"... "hapless souls" != "helpless souls".
        • xenophanes 18y ago
          I'm from the US, and thought hapless meant, roughly, wandering about with no clear purpose, and consequently not achieving a good outcome. I find the dictionary definition very surprising.
• netcan 18y ago
  There is not, as some people seem to think, any economic upper bound on this number. I know that this is a side issue, but it keeps cropping up as a side issue in pg's essays. I would be interested in a more thorough discussion of this point.
  • chadgeidel 18y ago
    I too, would like to see this discussed. There certainly is a PHYSICAL upper bound - that is the number of people living on the planet. What would the world be like if every man, woman, and child were an entrepreneur (maybe better put - a free agent)? It is certainly something to think about. Would we move to a barter system?
    • eru 18y ago
      Why should we? Why should free agents be incompatible with money? [Perhaps we'd get private money, though.]
• deleted 18y ago
  [deleted]
• critic 18y ago
  I think more specific advice and tips would be useful.
  • qaexl 18y ago
    That was my initial thought too. Then I realized, going forth and digging up said advice and tips would be a good way to exercise resourcefulness, heh.
• Alex3917 18y ago
  "Unfortunately there's no antonym of hapless" Or at least there's no common antonym of hapless. If we're counting wank words, my dictionary memorizing friend informs me that agented is the antonym of hapless. It means a forceful person who causes change; literally a James Bond-like agent.
• c00p3r 18y ago
  There is a second useful meaning if you take a look at the french translation of the word 'relent'. =) Good sign.
• grinich 18y ago
  I wonder if you can shorten it down even further to just relentless. When all of the employees quit, when rent is due, and when the ramen runs out, it takes a certain kind of person to continue working. And I think it's more than just being resourceful, although that's a big part. It takes relentless dedication to keep pushing forward and innovating, when all the tides are pulling the wrong way. Edison had it this drive. I think Einstein did as well. And if you look at the few dozen founders of successful startups, I think you'll find they have it too. They're relentless. They don't take weekends off and they don't quit at five. But they're not a workaholic, because it isn't work. It's their life.
  • jibiki 18y ago
    I know for many things, being relentless is a necessary condition, but not sufficient. It is very easy to get stuck banging your head against a wall instead of finding a saving resource.
• ajju 18y ago
  Regarding: "I'm pathologically optimistic about people's ability to change." I am very interested in finding out if this optimism is based (somewhat empirically) on your experiences or is more of an intuitive belief based on your general outlook in life.
  • pg 18y ago
    It seems to be wired in. It causes some inconvenience in everyday life, but it's very helpful in YC. It's as if I was made to to this.
    • ajju 18y ago
      Fair enough. I too am optimistic about people's ability to change (and mine as well) but I have found that it is usually very gradual, in the order of years. Once in a while though, some major catalyst materializes in life and changes one radically in some aspects. I have reason to believe that diving into a startup is one such catalyst. From personal experience, starting a startup on the side is not. Most likely because it violates PG10 [1] guaranteeing that you never gain enough momentum to break free from your old mindset. [1] Startups in 13 Sentences. Sentence 10: No distractions.
• fleaflicker 18y ago
  Recent PG quotes: 1. So probably the limiting factor on the number of startups is the the pool of potential founders. 2. ...and they think "anyone could have done it." But that isn't true; they are not ordinary people. 3. Angels are the limiting reagent in startup formation. #1 & #2 don't necessarily contradict #3. But it's interesting. I like to think relentlessly resourceful/animal/not dead founders are limiting reagent.
  • pg 18y ago
    They're not quite contradictory. Number 1 is talking about the theoretical case where the economy reaches the maximum number of startups it can have, and number 3 is talking about the state of affairs now. At the moment, angels are the ingredient in shortest supply, but we are very early in the process.
• juampe 18y ago
  Is meeting people one of those things that fall outside of the being relentlessly resourceful category?
  • HeyLaughingBoy 18y ago
    Not if you consider the people you meet as being possible resources. A good friend once told me that a big barrier to my success would be that I tended to be a loner. He was right and it's a reason I force myself to be more social and outgoing. People are interesting in their own right, and at some time in the future, someone you met briefly a long time ago might be just the person you need to break through a barrier.
    • juampe 18y ago
      I thought maybe being relentelessly resourceful was kind of a nerd trait, at least in the sense PG uses it. He talks about building alliances as something apart from being resourceful in the essay. Does someone who can't do a thing, but knows people that are relentlessly resourceful become an relentelessly resourceful person too?
• plieb 18y ago
  Being relentlessly resourceful is the ONLY way to get things done in large companies. The external restrictions in a large company are much harder to overcome than in a small business. They are institutionalized.
• juampe 18y ago
  I don't know much Italian, but I think you can say "succeso" instead of "fortuna".
• nemoniac 18y ago
  > I think the reason the dictionaries are wrong is that the meaning of the word has shifted. No one writing a dictionary from scratch today would say that hapless meant unlucky. But a couple hundred years ago they might have. See... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemism#The_.22euphemism_treadmill.22 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemism#The_.22euphemism_trea...
• silvershox 18y ago
  "[2] There are aspects of startups where the recipe is to be actively curious. There can be times when what you're doing is almost pure discovery. Unfortunately these times are a small proportion of the whole. On the other hand, they are in research too." Paul can you please elaborate on the last sentence in the above footnote. The wording is a bit confusing. Thanks!
  • brlewis 18y ago
    I read that as "Times of pure discovery are a small proportion of research too."
• time_management 18y ago
  I think the key is to avoid a certain set of developed traits that might be called "horsemen of the mediocralypse"-- learned laziness, learned helplessness, deference to authority, and discouraged distraction. I'm sure that many others that could be added to the list. The world is a very dumb place-- full of social injustices and inefficiencies, and run by the wrong people since the dawn of time. But there are always some people able to succeed in spite of these problems on account of having a very high level of resilience, and thus an innate resistance against the "horsemen".
• ralph 18y ago
  Does anyone else look at the web page's source to see what bits of an essay are there but commented out?
• xenophanes 18y ago
  What constructive purpose does this sentence have? > I doubt it ["relentlessly resourceful"] could be made more precise.
• dbul 18y ago
  Might I suggest an antonym: Machiavellian. At least in the traditional sense. The Prince is a good start. Those who are looking for "resources" may want to read this -- front cover to back cover. Indiana University sometimes offers a good course called Machiavelli, Marketing, and Management whose seminar leader is a Machiavellian scholar.
  • gord 18y ago
    Hmm... I guess theres that line between getting things done, co-opting people, selling your idea to them on the one hand and on the other hand theres being a manipulative jerk. 'Michiavellian' has some pretty harsh manipulative connotations for me - surely he was resourceful.. but maybe resourceful without 'being good'...
    • dbul 18y ago
      "At least in the traditional sense." It was subtle, but if you have looked at Machiavelli's original political theory, you notice it has been grossly mischaracterized in today's society. If I were to sum up what Machiavellian means, in the traditional sense, I would say it is prudence, ability, effort, and fortunate circumstance. In a previous post, pg revealed a situation where applying ideas created more ideas and this is perfect because it has nothing to do with theory, it has everything to do with authentic experience. Great ideas are easy, applying them is a whole different animal.
• kkocis 18y ago
  What I love about the term "relentlessly resourceful" is that it celebrates that it's OK to not have all the answers yourself. It also really plays into the fact that everyone is moving their lives online and we are all become resources to one another. In that one is "relentlessly resourceful" is that they have a network that they can tap into when they do not have the answers, but know where they can go to get the answers. Whether you are starting up or breaking through in a large corporation, resourcefulness is always going to be your best bet. Thanks for putting it so eloquently!
• chiffonade 18y ago
  The antonym of hapless is shrewd.
• msort 18y ago
  I think Being Resourceful probably means: Do not give up easily; Courage to try; Be positive; Be adaptive via iteration; Be good.
• jodrellblank 18y ago
  If you want to know whether you're the right sort of person to start a startup, ask yourself whether you're relentlessly resourceful. What if I'm not, but want to be? You say it can be taught "surprisingly often", but then in the same paragraph say people either are (latently) or are not. This seems exactly the opposite of being able to teach it...
  • NewWorldOrder 18y ago
    One strategy for becoming relentlessly resourceful is to refuse to accept conditions you find undesirable. And as someone who has taken the oath to become relentlessly resourceful, you illustrate your refusal of external circumstances by finding a resolution that ultimately solves the issue or works around the issue (a.k.a. a hack).
• rfrankel 18y ago
  I'm not sure I agree totally with Paul Graham's antonym choice -- the opposite of hapless when dealing with things might be named "resourcefulness", but when dealing with people "steadfast" might be closer to the feeling you want. Things need to be moved around, but when dealing with people often the most important action is to stand still -- to find a position and refuse to be knocked over or pushed around. This might be part of the reason it is so hard to find a proper antonym. It might also be why it is so hard to do. Anyway, my fiancee asked me "of all the people you've ever met, who would best fit the 'not hapless' description the best?" I answered without hesitation "Sergey Brin." Oh, he said, disappointed. "I mean someone who might be available to start a company with." This observation would tend to support Paul Graham's thesis about the qualities you want in a founder, though.
  • dhbradshaw 18y ago
    "Things need to be moved around, but when dealing with people often the most important action is to stand still -- to find a position and refuse to be knocked over or pushed around. This might be part of the reason it is so hard to find a proper antonym. It might also be why it is so hard to do." This idea sounds really interesting. Would you be willing to expand on it? A couple of examples might help me understand what you mean.
    • rfrankel 18y ago
      Examples of what? Why it is that standing up to people is one of the components of the "opposite of haplessness"? Or of the assertion that quality of leadership has two components is a large part of why it is so difficult to do and difficult to find? Looking at the Google guys gives you a couple of examples of the first assertion. They were ultra-careful when hunting for a CEO, and chose one who didn't try to dominate them. They played off their VC's against each other, making sure that the both of the two top venture capitol firms invested in them. That's the kind of thing I mean.
• gord 18y ago
  I guess "Relentlessly Resourceful" is the same thing as "Get sh*t done". (PGs 'being an animal' is the internal version, while GSD is external.) I'm not sure it can be taught, after the age of five. In my experience, it can be latent or simply turned off, usually by social norms [or schooling]. I've seen two cases where people really took off when they were simply given permission to 'GSD'. We managed to bypass a lot of organizational crud by effectively building a startup within a parent company, that was largely independent for the course of the project. We used guerrilla tactics like stealing, ahem 'co-opting', people who we thought might be good if given a chance. I cringe to admit it, but we also used the unfortunate but necessary contrapositive of inventing nul sub-projects to keep non GSD people busy - those whom we had to have on board for political reasons, but who chose to basically just clock hours - so they wouldn't kill off other good work being done. I guess in a startup, you publicly give yourselves permission to GSD [the whole S, and nothing but the S! :]
• sid 18y ago
  Hi Paul, let me just start by saying your essays are great and a true inspiration. My team and i are from australia and we have all been working in a 9-5 and also doing our startup which after 1.5 years is almost complete (just a FEW more months). It isnt totally my choice to do a 9-5 but certain things happen in life that require that you have a stable income. Im still relatively young (27 and so is my co-founder.) To do a 9-5 and working on a startup at the same time takes alot of resourceful-ness. Juggling responsibilities, making deals with the boss such as working from home agreements ;) occasionally telling white lies because of a major release require testing all takes fast talking. Also getting since money isnt in abundance in our startup, as the money is being used to support family (parents and sister) we have had to come up with alternatives and do alot of our reading to understand the best company structures both for the future and for now from a company structure and taxation point of view. Finally the coding after work until the weee hours of the morning and then getting up at 8:30 to get ready for work again. There is the relentless drive that you need to have and the resourcefulness to make the best of the money and the situation. Reading your articles just highlights that currently we have been doing things the right way, and its good to know. We are almost done, company structure, code/application (final stages of testing), business plan, monetization plans ... cant wait to release her out into the wild.
• adrianscottcom 18y ago
  It's relevant to note that "don't be x" and "be y" are not equivalent even if x more or les = not y... keith johnstone writes nicely about this as it relates to education in the introduction to the book impro. hence be relentlessly resourceful is dramatically more useful than don't be x...
• swagner2 18y ago
  Before I become a software CEO I used to race cars. Racing cars is exactly like running a tech company. It takes a lot of gumption (and some money) to stay competitive. To quote Malcolm X, "By any Means Necessary."
• akothari 18y ago
  great essay! here's another good read: what makes entrepreneurs entrepreneurial?
• omaniblog 18y ago
  What a great piece. Thank you very much. I found you by signing on to FriendFeed and looking at popular people. I picked you because your name appealed to me, and then I was excited to see you'd written about something I'm working on over in Cork, Ireland. "Relentlessly Resourceful" describes me well. Thank you for coming up with such a powerful descriptor.
• omaniblog 18y ago
  What a great piece. Thank you very much. I found you by signing on to FriendFeed and looking at popular people. I picked you because your name appealed to me, and then I was excited to see you'd written about something I'm working on over in Cork, Ireland. "Relentlessly Resourceful" describes me well. Thank you for coming up with such a powerful descriptor.
• jimmurphy 18y ago
  Opposite of hapless: happy? :) Jim
• m1rose28 18y ago
  Great piece. I am going to suggest a simplification of relentlessly resourceful to simply "relentless." Startups all share that they some sort of end vision of meeting some unmet market need - e,g, the destination. But to get to the destination you have to navigate through an infinately complex obstacle course. The obstacles takes the names of: resource constraints, technology limitations, getting distribution, competitors, alternatives, usability, [add 1,000 more items here]. Any one of these obstacles can stop a start-up dead on it's wheels. DOA. Thanks for playing. So you're right - an entrepreneur does need to be relentlessly resourceful to solve many of these obstacles, and you only get a prize completing the obstacle course and reaching the destination. Second prize gets the set of Ginsu knives. However, these aren't really all resource problems. Many of them are business design problems, strategy problems or partnership problems (and more). Don't get me wrong - I love being resourceful, I love being scrappy and am a huge subscriber to the simply economics of a penny saved is a penny earned (note: you also can't save your way to greatness). I think of the journey like water flowing down a river. It goes around obstacles, it dissolves obstacles, It changes course. When it gets dammed, it find tiny cracks naked to the eye, wedges in, and gets through. It never sleeps, it never debates, it never gives up. It simply seeks the path to the destination. In a word: relentless. Cheers, Mark Rose Co-Founder Spare Change
• flashgordon 18y ago
  Really appreciate the comment regarding foot note [3] - "Now that we know what we're looking for, that leads to other questions. For example, can this quality be taught? After four years of trying to teach it to people, I'd say that yes, surprisingly often it can. Not to everyone, but to many people. [3] Some people are just constitutionally passive, but others have a latent ability to be relentlessly resourceful that only needs to be brought out." Thank god. I dont know about your environment, but I am sick of coming across people who cite genius and "natural abilities" as factors of people's success... hate it when people cant acknowledge hardwork!
  • connellybarnes 18y ago
    "There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who, when presented with a glass that is exactly half full, say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty. The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What's up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass!" - Pratchett
• dreeves 18y ago
  The economist Steven Landsburg tried to come up with a word for this and decided to co-opt the word "gumption", redefining it as consisting of the following: 1. Sensitivity to know what needs doing. 2. Inventiveness to figure out how to do it. 3. Single-minded perseverance to make it happen. I think for this audience, 1 and 2 are no-brainers and 3 is exactly what PG is talking about.
• lake2k 18y ago
  I like those choice of words! I am in the process of a start up and I have no programming experience and not techincal but starting a company that requires one to be. So being Relentlessy Resourceful is a key factor in my sucess of finding the key components to achieve success.
• nazgulnarsil 18y ago
  the way I think of it is that you want people who are bullets. They are sitting on a powder charge and all they need is a sharp tap to explode in a rush of F=ma. This also falls in line with the fact that the initial idea isn't that important. Often the initial idea is useful only because it leads you to discover a tough problem. The tough problem is the sharp tap. Some people fall down bleeding, other people explode. Of course sometimes all that energy gets misdirected (wall street sucking up intelligent college grads anyone?) and we quite literally shoot ourselves in the foot. Creative, productive people have a lot of energy inside them. How that energy is directed can be perverted.
• honam 18y ago
  Two words I'd use - stubbornly persistent.
• juwo 18y ago
  To PG: Jesus said it all before you did. He told the first evangelists to be resourceful in spreading the new gospel. see http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2016:%201-14%20;&version=31 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2016:%201-1...; Note that he is commending the resourcefulness of the manager, not his dishonesty. Also he is asking them to invest in eternity and not things that perish. Unfortunately, you consider Jesus to be irrelevant as you wrote in an essay: "bronze age shepherds wandering about in Palestine". On the contrary. Read Jesus. Your world will be shaken.
• radha 18y ago
  Being a Fox rather than a Hedgehog would nicely summarize relentlessly resourceful Vs relentless mentioned in the essay.
• eddivze 18y ago
  This work is inspiring given the large number of relentlessly fearful people claiming we're in a new Great Depression, particularly those who speculate in the financial markets. If only these people would focus on creating wealth and making something people want!
• LeBleu 18y ago
  "There's no reason to believe there is any limit on the amount of newly created wealth consumers can absorb" I think Michael H. Goldhaber's work on the "Attention Economy" gives reason to believe there may be a limit. When there is enough traditional wealth (goods and services), then time to enjoy it becomes the new scarcity. Of course, if the limit is every consumer being ecstatically happy every waking moment, we have a loooooong way to go before we reach the limit.
  • RPatershuk 18y ago
    It's thought that eventually everything will be commoditized. If there is innovation all thie time in everything; will innovation be commoditized because of a limit to rapidly changing expectations and information overload? Check it out with your local philosphy professor Otherwise I did like the premise of the essay
• Ennis 18y ago
  This is right on the money. A question though, what does being relentlessly resourceful to others reflect? Personally, I think that's where the challenge in life is. It's a challenge before and after the money or success comes.
• firnas 18y ago
  Its a very good essay. Thank You
• firnas 18y ago
  its avery fgfdgiop
• firnas 18y ago
  its avery fgfdgiop
• firnas 18y ago
  its avery fgfdgiop
• firnas 18y ago
  its avery fgfdgiop
• firnas 18y ago
  its avery fgfdgiop
• dcinnjx 17y ago
  What, she didn't say, "O Fortuna"?
• ludmil 17y ago
  I could not agree more with the thesis on the article. Corporate world is all about survival, while the startup world is about success.
• bigfan 17y ago
  Paul, Please place links in your footnotes that take the reader back to the corresponding text. After reading nearly thirty of your essays, this is one of the only few negative comments I have.
  • pg 17y ago
    Just use the Back button.
• pigmata 17y ago
  I _am_ relentlessly resourceful_ always have been since I was a kid. I'm now trying to mentor our admin asst to have more initiative and be responsible for small projects so I won't have to itemize her to-do's. I always had a hard time dealing with team members who aren't proactive from previous organizations, at least to the level I expect, but I _know_ it can be 'acquired' with proper guidance.
• tjlynn 17y ago
  Does anyone have any thoughts on the ethics of being "relentlessly resourceful"? Its rumored that Bill Gates was in deep trouble with Harvard for draining university resources in order to launch Microsoft. If we imagine for a second that its actually true, is what he did okay from an ethical standpoint?
  • pg 17y ago
    Harvard would certainly say so.