8 ms·

Learning how to think

176 points by nedwin 13y ago

aboodman 13y ago
Why does the fucking kudos dot auto-kudo on mouseover!? Dustin seems like a smart guy, and the article makes sense and everything, but then my mouse casually tracks across that dot and it starts-a-throbbing, and I'm like "oh crap oh crap, what is this? do i want it?, omigod, I don't know, oh no, move fast before something happens!" and then I don't remember what the number was before and I'm not sure if I kudo'd or not, and my heart is racing, and I've lost a few hours off my lifespan... And this is all before I realize it's a fucking counter on a webpage, and it doesn't matter whether I increment it or not. I hate you auto-kudo, I hate you so much.
- tcdowney 13y ago
  Sorry, bro. Life is so hard right now.
  - aboodman 13y ago
    I will try to carry on somehow.
- misframer 13y ago
  I've also noticed that you can't undo it now.
- aioprisan 13y ago
  it's part of the svbtle platform, the autokudos if you stay over it for 5 seconds. move your pointer away and it won't give any kudos. just don't fall asleep on it.
- aroman 13y ago
  So it's clever and quirky. Yeah, it's not a scientific poll. I used to get pretty annoyed with that because your gut reaction is, "hey! I didn't know that would happen! I didn't give your consent to count my vote!". But really, when you take a step back, you realize that internet karma means absolutely, positively, nothing. It's really all meaningless Internet points. The auto-voting karma button reminds me of that, and I now appreciate the digital "up yours!" every once in a while ;)
  - wahnfrieden 13y ago
    I think we're trained to feel anxious about it because of services like Facebook where clicking an upvote button not only delivers a point but puts your name behind it and potentially broadcasts that to your friends and followers.
    - sliverstorm 13y ago
      Nah. Humans have been susceptible to meaningless points since the dawn of time.
      - wahnfrieden 13y ago
        I'm not addressing proclivity, only the anxiety expressed by the OP.
  - md224 13y ago
    I think calling it meaningless, while helpfully putting it in context (first world problems, etc.) is still a bit inaccurate. Sure, the kudos number on a Svbtle blog is basically meaningless, but more generally, karma points on a post can serve two important purposes: 1) Social signaling. Others approve of the post, which factors into your own judgment heuristics when encountering it. 2) Upvotes and downvotes are the basis of vote-ranked message board systems like HN and Reddit, and they result in very interesting dynamics (whether or not these dynamics are optimal is another question altogether). So no, I'd say internet karma points aren't exactly meaningless in certain contexts.
- Kronopath 13y ago
  This is deliberate: http://dcurt.is/unkudo http://dcurt.is/unkudo
  - SilliMon 13y ago
    seems like it, why not just invent a big number?
    - jarek 13y ago
      But inventing a big number is exactly what this "functionality" is doing. Think of it as a crowdsourced RNG.
  - Ygg2 13y ago
    If you as a designer, ignore how your system makes user feels, you're doing UX wrong. System should bring joy to user, not cause annoyance. That post is just a rationalization. "People feel like part of their soul by a CSS animation.. I think it’s kind of funny.", is no different than "People feel like a part of their soul is extracted by a single eval statement... I think it's kind of funny" Granted there are some requests that might be ignored with ease, like someone hating on something because of your opinion, but feelings of users should be appealed to. The Kudo is either: A) deliberate ploy to seem more interesting than it is B) a badly designed +1 button
- mcantelon 13y ago
  UI trolling.
- raldu 13y ago
  It is a very clever feature that allows lazy people to appreciate the content with no effort (zero clicks). We got used to seeing upvote links everywhere and tend to ignore it over time, and thus become lazy to click it. Plus there are even websites that ask you for a new "user account" just for the upvote which, further decreases the chances of clicking. With all that, dcurtis increases the chances by actually "making" you upvote, not even with any "clicks". practical.
- VMG 13y ago
  > I hate you auto-kudo, I hate you so much. The fact that you hate it makes me love it, and I even can't explain why.
eshvk 13y ago
I wonder if the distinction between working for a startup and founding one should be emphasized more clearly when such an article pops up?
cjbarber 13y ago
I think this is an important point, however it can be applied to many more roles than just founding a startup. When an engineer (of any type) can consider the how and why they are building, they learn to question some of the tasks they have been assigned, potentially resulting in a more efficient execution. If a programmer is told to build a search function into a website, and he builds that, great. If a programmer is told to build this, and he considers why, and realizes that certain things on the website aren't as clear as they could be, and decides to not only build a search function but also suggests certain usability and discoverability improvements to the website, then much better results will be had.
rgsteele 13y ago
I wonder whether this article by Dustin is the same one referenced in this tweet: https://twitter.com/dcurtis/status/373243436331069440 https://twitter.com/dcurtis/status/373243436331069440
- wahnfrieden 13y ago
  I find it ironic that he feels he's subverting HN when HN has become absolutely fixated on divisive opinions and exploring all subtrees of viewpoints to completion. Polarizing articles give everyone an outlet here.
  - ballard 13y ago
    LOL, true. Pedantic haters gonna hate pedantically. Also: http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2205-there-is-an-inverse-relationship-between-level-of-anonymity-and-quality-of-conversation http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2205-there-is-an-inverse-rela...
slig 13y ago
(English student here) The title should be "Startups ruins you" because it can be rewritten as "it ruins you", or I'm missing something here? Thanks!
- anaphor 13y ago
  Do you know what my name means? Also, as others have pointed out, the particular anaphor you'd use here is "they" which is (generally) plural. Edit: sidenote, this is why linguists dislike many people in the humanities who blindly follow "rules" and end up writing badly as a result because they make hypercorrections all over the place.
  - coldtea 13y ago
    >Do you know what my name means? Well, I do. In simple terms, a word refering to another one in the same sentense/text (e.g. "My Xbox arrived and it was great" -- it being an anaphor for the Xbox). It's a shortened version of the greek word "anaphora", which means "reference" / relation etc. It comes from the words ana (which roughly means "again" or "anew") and phora (pherein) which means "carries" (connotes, etc). In the example case, "it" "carries again" the banana (in the sense that it refers to it again from another place).
- bri3d 13y ago
  "Startups" is a plural noun. The appropriate replacement pronoun as the subject is "they," giving "they ruin you," which is a proper English clause to the best of my knowledge.
- eterm 13y ago
  The word Startups is plural, and plural subjects have verbs with out the 's'. So while "it ruins you" is correct for singular, the title comes from "They ruin you".
- pmichaud 13y ago
  "Startups" is plural, so "Startups ruin you" is correct. If it were singular it would be "[A] startup ruins you."
ww3 13y ago
> Privacy is a relic of the past, so we’re going to push people to open up their lives and share, connecting them together. Privacy is not a relic of the past, but a lot more that you intend to be private is and/or could be made public. Information is like an infectious agent. Even if you want to keep it to yourself, if you are around others, it will likely spread, though you can control it to some extent. Even when you think it is eradicated, it may still be lurking, like smallpox and polio, to come back with force later. If you live in a cave in a large forest alone, the chance of it spreading is much lower. If you live close to others in a village, there is still a chance of infection. Few really want to live totally alone, so infection is almost impossible to avoid. But, no one can stop you from moving to the forest, or at least wearing a surgical mask.
- 001sky 13y ago
  Information is like an infectious agent. Even if you want to keep it to yourself, if you are around others, it will likely spread digital gossip.
- 001sky 13y ago
  Information is like an infectious agent. Even if you want to keep it to yourself, if you are around others, it will likely spread digital gossip.
at-fates-hands 13y ago
>>> it’s knowing how to think. Most people don’t know how to strategize. Most people don’t know how to take what they see in the world and use it to invent something new. I learned how to think critically in college. I had a few exceptional professors I gravitated towards and they really pushed me to learn this on my own. Through a few very involved research papers, I learned some of the key tenets of doing this. I kept waiting for that grain of knowledge he was about to bestow on his readers on what exactly critical thinking is - but it never came. Just in case you needed it. . . http://ctb.ku.edu/en/tablecontents/sub_section_main_1120.aspx http://ctb.ku.edu/en/tablecontents/sub_section_main_1120.asp...
nostromo 13y ago
This reminds me of "the designer's curse." I often find myself getting pissed when something is designed poorly. It used to be poorly designed software and websites, but now it's anything. Like, for example, when I buy something, pull the sticker off, and it leaves a thick residue that won't come off. Or, when I'm in a car without any indication of which side the gas tank is on. My significant other makes fun of me for this. "Who thought doing THIS was a good idea? Do they buy their own f*ing products?" I'll say. Meanwhile, he has a non-founder view of life, "Meh, it's like that because it's like that." He's clearly more zen than I am.
- spditner 13y ago
  There's a little arrow which points left or right on the fuel gauge.
  - pmahoney 13y ago
    But not every car has that. I've been in a ~6-8 year old Honda Civic that lacked any indication as far as I could see.
- billforsternz 13y ago
  I don't understand. You want an indication of which side the gas tank is on ?! Wouldn't it be the side where there's a flap/cover thing that you pop open prior to unscrewing the cap and pouring the gas ? Edit: I had to leave the office, go downstairs, get in my car and check. Whatddya know, a little arrow next to the gauge, you learn something every day.
  - tadfisher 13y ago
    Yes, and it's helpful to know that before you park the car next to the pump on the wrong side.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
  - 13y ago
zainny 13y ago
I can personally relate to the part about no going back to just being a worker bee once you've tasted blood. For me I did my "startup" at a pretty early age (I didn't call it a startup then - it was just me building software and selling it online) and it has forever changed my perception of the workplace. I've tried slotting back in to some regular jobs since then and it hasn't really worked out all that well - I get anxious, frustrated with the slow pace, second guess too many decisions, wonder why everyone around me doesn't have that same passion/enthusiasm, etc. Short of doing another startup, I've found contracting to be a good middle ground for me (for the time being).
- mgkimsal 13y ago
  > I get anxious, frustrated with the slow pace, second guess too many decisions, wonder why everyone around me doesn't have that same passion/enthusiasm, etc. Same here, and the frustration is compounded when you get slogans like "take ownership" thrown at you, but then find out you're not allowed to own the project, just the problems.
  - solistice 13y ago
    I think a lot of things like "take ownership" are working ideas lost in translation, applied by people that don't properly understand how to apply them. For example, it works well where employees are given the responsibility to take ownership of things. Some guy who runs a business that runs well on that premise writes a blog post about, or an article that's printed on page 23 of Inc. Magazine. Some middle manager reads that article and thinks "yeah, that could help me get to this quarters target" and tries to implement it in a company that isn't structured that way. Since he doesn't want to restructure, he simply tells his employees "yeah, you should take ownership now, that's an order", and the inevitable happens.
redschell 13y ago
The implications of this have always fascinated me. It's hard to go back to being a worker when you've spent time as a boss, but we also know that 75% of venture-backed startups fail. What happens to the failures? Can they go back to work and fall back in line? Or are we going to have "Professional Founders" or "Business Engineers" down the line that have a decade or two of experience starting and running companies, none of which survived past infancy. It's hard to imagine in the very positive atmosphere that most young entrepreneurs live in. What are you supposed to do when you want to keep building companies, but they just keep failing? Are you prepared to say "I can't do this very well" and move on? Where will you go? I personally don't think startups are the tech equivalent of starting a band or going Hollywood, but I can understand why some would employ the analogy.
jusben1369 13y ago
I think the most profound thought I had from reading that article was "Animal Farm"
- dmoney 13y ago
  Care to elaborate?
ForrestN 13y ago
I'm sorry but this vision of a "thinker" who is always imagining the future so he can "out-innovate" his competition is a little ridiculous. PG's point is a psychological one: many of the founders he encounters are lack the self esteem to thrive when they have control. The startups that win do so only very rarely because a visionary founder innovatively guessed the future trajectory of culture. In my opinion being good at running a company mostly requires the usual mix of soft skills plus a strong, unconflicted motive to succeed.
- groundCode 13y ago
  Agreed. It's all too easy, in hindsight, to claim that a happenstance was because of some great vision of "Privacy is a relic of the past" but more often than not, serendipity wins.
a_bonobo 13y ago
Reminds me a lot of the PhD-student experience; for years you sit in courses in a relatively strict environment to finally get your BSc (or your MSc or whatever), and you start your PhD - and suddenly you're on your own, you have to plan your own time, outline your own research, you have to make sure that your program stays on track, deliver results on time etc. Not many people can handle this sudden shift which is why a PhD is not something for everyone.
- jrkelly 13y ago
  Yes, exactly. I think PhDs are actually an undertapped pool for startup founders. There are major overlaps in the skill set, IMO.
gfodor 13y ago
As someone who worked at startups, started my own, and had a great time and good outcome, I'm considering going back into a large company for some time just to see what it's like. I think this article is true in the sense that startups cause you to lose any sense of being satisfied as a mindless "worker bee", but I'm not willing to rule out the idea that in some larger companies non-"worker bee" types who are driven individuals who want to make a dent can actually get a lot done with the resources of a large organization at their disposal. If you're in a good position mentally and financially, you have the luxury to just walk if the place is a dysfunctional mess or isn't letting you accomplish your larger goals quickly enough. I think there's a certain point where you do need to step into the pool of ideas again: startup culture is pretty insular and at the end of the day if you are always working with a small team of like-minded people you are likely to not make the connections necessary to produce real innovation. Startups are certainly challenging in many ways. But there's a certain type of challenge you get when given a specific task by a mentor in a large company that seems impossible at first that really levels-up your skills. I've found that a lot of the type of learning in startups I've had has been rising to challenges that materialize out of the need to ensure the survivability of the product and business. These challenges are of a completely different flavor than those crafted by older and wiser mentors who have an interest in passing on their skills and throw you curve balls intentionally to make progress towards a larger goal while pushing the limits of your technical skill.
- eudemo 13y ago
  > mindless worker bee A little bit respect could be nice
  - gfodor 13y ago
    I was using the words used by the article, not my own. i'll put quotes around it (since I generally disagree with this analogy anyway)
reedlaw 13y ago
I find the part about Facebook ominous: > There is an insanely huge difference between, “We’re making a site for connecting to your friends” and, “Privacy is a relic of the past, so we’re going to push people to open up their lives and share, connecting them together.” This is "learning how to think"? If so, then I'm afraid the NSA, Google, and Facebook are far ahead of those of us who just want to connect privately with friends. I would say that Facebook has learned how to think about ways to exploit the human impulse to connect. Hopefully there is a business opportunity in platforms for private connections as well. It may take years for public awareness of privacy issues to reach that level, but I hope someday people will look back at Facebook as a relic of the past when personal privacy was exploited for corporate gain.
deerpig 13y ago
This post articulates a problem that is an order of magnitude worse in East Asia. We are working in Cambodia and Laos (we gave up on Thailand, they're a basket case) to encourage tech startups and develop talent that can think on their own in the workplace. People here are not just willing to learn but enthusiastic. But they are like Paul Graham's baby birds, they don't even know what to learn or how to begin. The Chinese education model is based on the idea that a student is an open vessel that the teacher pours their wisdom into. More often than not, that pouring consists of little more than route memorization of lists and facts. Computer education is little more than teaching how to operate GUI applications without any understanding of what they are doing. Save a document? I asked my staff last year why you save documents and what happened when you clicked on "save" (no one had heard of C-c). No one had a clue. Digging deeper I found that half of them didn't have a clear idea what a file or file system was. And these were people who had graduated from technical schools! This wasn't the case even five years ago before Android and the iPhone became ubiquitous. And that is part of the problem, mobile devices are little more than consumer electronics rather than general purpose computers. Everything is abstracted away from the user so there is less chance for people to learn how things work. Last night my partner who is on a business trip in Tokyo, asked me to check his girlfriend's android phone because he hadn't been able to get through to her on Viber for a couple of days. When I checked her phone, it turned out that she had tried to install a new game, did a factory reset to free up memory, installed the game and then wondered why she had no email, facebook or viber on the phone... When I get new staff, the most difficult thing to teach them is that if they have completed a task that had been given to them, that they have to hand in the work and ask for a new task. But it gets even worse. Many times, if they run into a problem in the task they just give up and don't tell anyone. When you ask them what happened, they give you a blank look and say something like, I couldn't open the file. So instead of asking someone for help they spent the next three hours on facebook until a manager noticed. Very frustrating. The problem is that they have never been allowed to take responsibility for trying to solve a problem on their own. Traditional management and education systems here reward blind, literal obedience which is coupled with an abject fear of failure. It's not enough to teach people how to think for themselves. They must have the freedom to fail, and be given the responsibility that goes along with it. We have our work cut out for us....
- 13y ago
jarek 13y ago
lol
- jarek 13y ago
  tldr: we are special snowflakes
alightergreen 13y ago
"...for yourself.' would be a great subtitle to this article. Of those who do survive 18 years of public education and still mentally check-in on a daily basis, many they aren't capable of creating something outside of what they are given. That's the most troubling aspect of what he (and PG) are discussing. These people can understand and execute complex instructions, but can't come up with their own instruction manual that actually fits their situation. Lots of successful people could be 100x more successful if they would stop trying to figure our how to make 200-page management fads work in their situation. Instead, if they would look at that situation, and engage their own brain and gut instinct to come up with solutions, they would be so much more efficient and effective. If "so-so said to do it," or "I read it in a book," is your TOP reason for doing something--to me that's a 99% accurate sign that's its not the most effective thing you could be doing right now. Engage your brain.
capex 13y ago
This post has an interesting url: http://dcurt.is/startups-ruin-you http://dcurt.is/startups-ruin-you
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
ojbyrne 13y ago
In most of the world, and in most of the United States, your thoughts are owned by your employer. If you want to eat, have a roof over your head, raise a family, you almost always sign away the rights to your thoughts. The exception is California. And that's why Silicon Valley is in Silicon Valley.
- anonymousDan 13y ago
  Amen! For the last few years I've bleated about this to any one who will listen. A few years ago I moved from academia to industry and I was shocked by how restrictive the employment contracts are (I'm in the UK). I reckon it's also a major contributor to wages being so much lower over here. How can we change it though? I'd love it if we could get legislation introduced similar to that in California. What practical steps could we take?
indubitably 13y ago
this evening's hagiography
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
derefr 13y ago
Related is the concept of "agency": • http://lesswrong.com/lw/id2/to_what_degree_do_you_model_people_as_agents/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/id2/to_what_degree_do_you_model_peop... • http://lesswrong.com/lw/5i8/the_power_of_agency/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/5i8/the_power_of_agency/
nadam 13y ago
About pg's observation that founders don’t realize how independent they can be: It may be a selection bias: Probably a founder wants to participate in the YC program partly because they want advices, feedback and maybe just psychological 'confirmation' (social confirmation) more than people with the same talent/knowledge who do not apply to YC. I do not say that it is bad. Overconfidence in one's capabilities can be also dangerous. And needing social confirmation is a very natural thing. I just say that there is probably a small selection bias in play here.
Vecrios 13y ago
I have a questions that is irrelevant to the article per se, but rather the design of the web page. Is blog organized by a CMS or the design is entirely of Dustin's creation (I'm pretty sure I've seen it before?) I'm specially interested in the blog design, I like it.
bambax 13y ago
> discovering (...) that you have wings and can fly. And once you discover it, there is no going back. It’s addictive and powerful. It ruins your ability to be a worker bee, because you’ve tasted blood... (etc.) And then: > You should follow me on twitter Isn't the whole point, to not follow but rather, lead?
normloman 13y ago
This guy acts like he knows exactly why Facebook succeeded and MySpace failed. And sure, it all seems so predictable in retrospect. But nobody could have predicted the rise of Facebook. Furthermore, attributing the rise to one cause (Facebook is about sharing) is simplistic and naive. Early Facebook wasn't too different from MySpace. Could have just been luck.

176 points by nedwin 13y ago

Why does the fucking kudos dot auto-kudo on mouseover!? Dustin seems like a smart guy, and the article makes sense and everything, but then my mouse casually tracks across that dot and it starts-a-throbbing, and I'm like "oh crap oh crap, what is this? do i want it?, omigod, I don't know, oh no, move fast before something happens!" and then I don't remember what the number was before and I'm not sure if I kudo'd or not, and my heart is racing, and I've lost a few hours off my lifespan... And this is all before I realize it's a fucking counter on a webpage, and it doesn't matter whether I increment it or not. I hate you auto-kudo, I hate you so much.

tcdowney 13y ago
Sorry, bro. Life is so hard right now.
- aboodman 13y ago
  I will try to carry on somehow.
misframer 13y ago
I've also noticed that you can't undo it now.
aioprisan 13y ago
it's part of the svbtle platform, the autokudos if you stay over it for 5 seconds. move your pointer away and it won't give any kudos. just don't fall asleep on it.
aroman 13y ago
So it's clever and quirky. Yeah, it's not a scientific poll. I used to get pretty annoyed with that because your gut reaction is, "hey! I didn't know that would happen! I didn't give your consent to count my vote!". But really, when you take a step back, you realize that internet karma means absolutely, positively, nothing. It's really all meaningless Internet points. The auto-voting karma button reminds me of that, and I now appreciate the digital "up yours!" every once in a while ;)
- wahnfrieden 13y ago
  I think we're trained to feel anxious about it because of services like Facebook where clicking an upvote button not only delivers a point but puts your name behind it and potentially broadcasts that to your friends and followers.
  - sliverstorm 13y ago
    Nah. Humans have been susceptible to meaningless points since the dawn of time.
    - wahnfrieden 13y ago
      I'm not addressing proclivity, only the anxiety expressed by the OP.
- md224 13y ago
  I think calling it meaningless, while helpfully putting it in context (first world problems, etc.) is still a bit inaccurate. Sure, the kudos number on a Svbtle blog is basically meaningless, but more generally, karma points on a post can serve two important purposes: 1) Social signaling. Others approve of the post, which factors into your own judgment heuristics when encountering it. 2) Upvotes and downvotes are the basis of vote-ranked message board systems like HN and Reddit, and they result in very interesting dynamics (whether or not these dynamics are optimal is another question altogether). So no, I'd say internet karma points aren't exactly meaningless in certain contexts.
Kronopath 13y ago
This is deliberate: http://dcurt.is/unkudo http://dcurt.is/unkudo
- SilliMon 13y ago
  seems like it, why not just invent a big number?
  - jarek 13y ago
    But inventing a big number is exactly what this "functionality" is doing. Think of it as a crowdsourced RNG.
- Ygg2 13y ago
  If you as a designer, ignore how your system makes user feels, you're doing UX wrong. System should bring joy to user, not cause annoyance. That post is just a rationalization. "People feel like part of their soul by a CSS animation.. I think it’s kind of funny.", is no different than "People feel like a part of their soul is extracted by a single eval statement... I think it's kind of funny" Granted there are some requests that might be ignored with ease, like someone hating on something because of your opinion, but feelings of users should be appealed to. The Kudo is either: A) deliberate ploy to seem more interesting than it is B) a badly designed +1 button
mcantelon 13y ago
UI trolling.
raldu 13y ago
It is a very clever feature that allows lazy people to appreciate the content with no effort (zero clicks). We got used to seeing upvote links everywhere and tend to ignore it over time, and thus become lazy to click it. Plus there are even websites that ask you for a new "user account" just for the upvote which, further decreases the chances of clicking. With all that, dcurtis increases the chances by actually "making" you upvote, not even with any "clicks". practical.
VMG 13y ago
> I hate you auto-kudo, I hate you so much. The fact that you hate it makes me love it, and I even can't explain why.

eshvk 13y ago

I wonder if the distinction between working for a startup and founding one should be emphasized more clearly when such an article pops up?

cjbarber 13y ago

I think this is an important point, however it can be applied to many more roles than just founding a startup. When an engineer (of any type) can consider the how and why they are building, they learn to question some of the tasks they have been assigned, potentially resulting in a more efficient execution. If a programmer is told to build a search function into a website, and he builds that, great. If a programmer is told to build this, and he considers why, and realizes that certain things on the website aren't as clear as they could be, and decides to not only build a search function but also suggests certain usability and discoverability improvements to the website, then much better results will be had.

rgsteele 13y ago

I wonder whether this article by Dustin is the same one referenced in this tweet: https://twitter.com/dcurtis/status/373243436331069440 https://twitter.com/dcurtis/status/373243436331069440

wahnfrieden 13y ago
I find it ironic that he feels he's subverting HN when HN has become absolutely fixated on divisive opinions and exploring all subtrees of viewpoints to completion. Polarizing articles give everyone an outlet here.
- ballard 13y ago
  LOL, true. Pedantic haters gonna hate pedantically. Also: http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2205-there-is-an-inverse-relationship-between-level-of-anonymity-and-quality-of-conversation http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2205-there-is-an-inverse-rela...

slig 13y ago

(English student here) The title should be "Startups ruins you" because it can be rewritten as "it ruins you", or I'm missing something here? Thanks!

anaphor 13y ago
Do you know what my name means? Also, as others have pointed out, the particular anaphor you'd use here is "they" which is (generally) plural. Edit: sidenote, this is why linguists dislike many people in the humanities who blindly follow "rules" and end up writing badly as a result because they make hypercorrections all over the place.
- coldtea 13y ago
  >Do you know what my name means? Well, I do. In simple terms, a word refering to another one in the same sentense/text (e.g. "My Xbox arrived and it was great" -- it being an anaphor for the Xbox). It's a shortened version of the greek word "anaphora", which means "reference" / relation etc. It comes from the words ana (which roughly means "again" or "anew") and phora (pherein) which means "carries" (connotes, etc). In the example case, "it" "carries again" the banana (in the sense that it refers to it again from another place).
bri3d 13y ago
"Startups" is a plural noun. The appropriate replacement pronoun as the subject is "they," giving "they ruin you," which is a proper English clause to the best of my knowledge.
eterm 13y ago
The word Startups is plural, and plural subjects have verbs with out the 's'. So while "it ruins you" is correct for singular, the title comes from "They ruin you".
pmichaud 13y ago
"Startups" is plural, so "Startups ruin you" is correct. If it were singular it would be "[A] startup ruins you."

ww3 13y ago

> Privacy is a relic of the past, so we’re going to push people to open up their lives and share, connecting them together. Privacy is not a relic of the past, but a lot more that you intend to be private is and/or could be made public. Information is like an infectious agent. Even if you want to keep it to yourself, if you are around others, it will likely spread, though you can control it to some extent. Even when you think it is eradicated, it may still be lurking, like smallpox and polio, to come back with force later. If you live in a cave in a large forest alone, the chance of it spreading is much lower. If you live close to others in a village, there is still a chance of infection. Few really want to live totally alone, so infection is almost impossible to avoid. But, no one can stop you from moving to the forest, or at least wearing a surgical mask.

001sky 13y ago
Information is like an infectious agent. Even if you want to keep it to yourself, if you are around others, it will likely spread digital gossip.
001sky 13y ago
Information is like an infectious agent. Even if you want to keep it to yourself, if you are around others, it will likely spread digital gossip.

at-fates-hands 13y ago

>>> it’s knowing how to think. Most people don’t know how to strategize. Most people don’t know how to take what they see in the world and use it to invent something new. I learned how to think critically in college. I had a few exceptional professors I gravitated towards and they really pushed me to learn this on my own. Through a few very involved research papers, I learned some of the key tenets of doing this. I kept waiting for that grain of knowledge he was about to bestow on his readers on what exactly critical thinking is - but it never came. Just in case you needed it. . . http://ctb.ku.edu/en/tablecontents/sub_section_main_1120.aspx http://ctb.ku.edu/en/tablecontents/sub_section_main_1120.asp...

nostromo 13y ago

This reminds me of "the designer's curse." I often find myself getting pissed when something is designed poorly. It used to be poorly designed software and websites, but now it's anything. Like, for example, when I buy something, pull the sticker off, and it leaves a thick residue that won't come off. Or, when I'm in a car without any indication of which side the gas tank is on. My significant other makes fun of me for this. "Who thought doing THIS was a good idea? Do they buy their own f*ing products?" I'll say. Meanwhile, he has a non-founder view of life, "Meh, it's like that because it's like that." He's clearly more zen than I am.

spditner 13y ago
There's a little arrow which points left or right on the fuel gauge.
- pmahoney 13y ago
  But not every car has that. I've been in a ~6-8 year old Honda Civic that lacked any indication as far as I could see.
billforsternz 13y ago
I don't understand. You want an indication of which side the gas tank is on ?! Wouldn't it be the side where there's a flap/cover thing that you pop open prior to unscrewing the cap and pouring the gas ? Edit: I had to leave the office, go downstairs, get in my car and check. Whatddya know, a little arrow next to the gauge, you learn something every day.
- tadfisher 13y ago
  Yes, and it's helpful to know that before you park the car next to the pump on the wrong side.
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zainny 13y ago

I can personally relate to the part about no going back to just being a worker bee once you've tasted blood. For me I did my "startup" at a pretty early age (I didn't call it a startup then - it was just me building software and selling it online) and it has forever changed my perception of the workplace. I've tried slotting back in to some regular jobs since then and it hasn't really worked out all that well - I get anxious, frustrated with the slow pace, second guess too many decisions, wonder why everyone around me doesn't have that same passion/enthusiasm, etc. Short of doing another startup, I've found contracting to be a good middle ground for me (for the time being).

mgkimsal 13y ago
> I get anxious, frustrated with the slow pace, second guess too many decisions, wonder why everyone around me doesn't have that same passion/enthusiasm, etc. Same here, and the frustration is compounded when you get slogans like "take ownership" thrown at you, but then find out you're not allowed to own the project, just the problems.
- solistice 13y ago
  I think a lot of things like "take ownership" are working ideas lost in translation, applied by people that don't properly understand how to apply them. For example, it works well where employees are given the responsibility to take ownership of things. Some guy who runs a business that runs well on that premise writes a blog post about, or an article that's printed on page 23 of Inc. Magazine. Some middle manager reads that article and thinks "yeah, that could help me get to this quarters target" and tries to implement it in a company that isn't structured that way. Since he doesn't want to restructure, he simply tells his employees "yeah, you should take ownership now, that's an order", and the inevitable happens.

redschell 13y ago

The implications of this have always fascinated me. It's hard to go back to being a worker when you've spent time as a boss, but we also know that 75% of venture-backed startups fail. What happens to the failures? Can they go back to work and fall back in line? Or are we going to have "Professional Founders" or "Business Engineers" down the line that have a decade or two of experience starting and running companies, none of which survived past infancy. It's hard to imagine in the very positive atmosphere that most young entrepreneurs live in. What are you supposed to do when you want to keep building companies, but they just keep failing? Are you prepared to say "I can't do this very well" and move on? Where will you go? I personally don't think startups are the tech equivalent of starting a band or going Hollywood, but I can understand why some would employ the analogy.

jusben1369 13y ago

I think the most profound thought I had from reading that article was "Animal Farm"

dmoney 13y ago
Care to elaborate?

ForrestN 13y ago

I'm sorry but this vision of a "thinker" who is always imagining the future so he can "out-innovate" his competition is a little ridiculous. PG's point is a psychological one: many of the founders he encounters are lack the self esteem to thrive when they have control. The startups that win do so only very rarely because a visionary founder innovatively guessed the future trajectory of culture. In my opinion being good at running a company mostly requires the usual mix of soft skills plus a strong, unconflicted motive to succeed.

groundCode 13y ago
Agreed. It's all too easy, in hindsight, to claim that a happenstance was because of some great vision of "Privacy is a relic of the past" but more often than not, serendipity wins.

a_bonobo 13y ago

Reminds me a lot of the PhD-student experience; for years you sit in courses in a relatively strict environment to finally get your BSc (or your MSc or whatever), and you start your PhD - and suddenly you're on your own, you have to plan your own time, outline your own research, you have to make sure that your program stays on track, deliver results on time etc. Not many people can handle this sudden shift which is why a PhD is not something for everyone.

jrkelly 13y ago
Yes, exactly. I think PhDs are actually an undertapped pool for startup founders. There are major overlaps in the skill set, IMO.

gfodor 13y ago

As someone who worked at startups, started my own, and had a great time and good outcome, I'm considering going back into a large company for some time just to see what it's like. I think this article is true in the sense that startups cause you to lose any sense of being satisfied as a mindless "worker bee", but I'm not willing to rule out the idea that in some larger companies non-"worker bee" types who are driven individuals who want to make a dent can actually get a lot done with the resources of a large organization at their disposal. If you're in a good position mentally and financially, you have the luxury to just walk if the place is a dysfunctional mess or isn't letting you accomplish your larger goals quickly enough. I think there's a certain point where you do need to step into the pool of ideas again: startup culture is pretty insular and at the end of the day if you are always working with a small team of like-minded people you are likely to not make the connections necessary to produce real innovation. Startups are certainly challenging in many ways. But there's a certain type of challenge you get when given a specific task by a mentor in a large company that seems impossible at first that really levels-up your skills. I've found that a lot of the type of learning in startups I've had has been rising to challenges that materialize out of the need to ensure the survivability of the product and business. These challenges are of a completely different flavor than those crafted by older and wiser mentors who have an interest in passing on their skills and throw you curve balls intentionally to make progress towards a larger goal while pushing the limits of your technical skill.

eudemo 13y ago
> mindless worker bee A little bit respect could be nice
- gfodor 13y ago
  I was using the words used by the article, not my own. i'll put quotes around it (since I generally disagree with this analogy anyway)

reedlaw 13y ago

I find the part about Facebook ominous: > There is an insanely huge difference between, “We’re making a site for connecting to your friends” and, “Privacy is a relic of the past, so we’re going to push people to open up their lives and share, connecting them together.” This is "learning how to think"? If so, then I'm afraid the NSA, Google, and Facebook are far ahead of those of us who just want to connect privately with friends. I would say that Facebook has learned how to think about ways to exploit the human impulse to connect. Hopefully there is a business opportunity in platforms for private connections as well. It may take years for public awareness of privacy issues to reach that level, but I hope someday people will look back at Facebook as a relic of the past when personal privacy was exploited for corporate gain.

deerpig 13y ago

This post articulates a problem that is an order of magnitude worse in East Asia. We are working in Cambodia and Laos (we gave up on Thailand, they're a basket case) to encourage tech startups and develop talent that can think on their own in the workplace. People here are not just willing to learn but enthusiastic. But they are like Paul Graham's baby birds, they don't even know what to learn or how to begin. The Chinese education model is based on the idea that a student is an open vessel that the teacher pours their wisdom into. More often than not, that pouring consists of little more than route memorization of lists and facts. Computer education is little more than teaching how to operate GUI applications without any understanding of what they are doing. Save a document? I asked my staff last year why you save documents and what happened when you clicked on "save" (no one had heard of C-c). No one had a clue. Digging deeper I found that half of them didn't have a clear idea what a file or file system was. And these were people who had graduated from technical schools! This wasn't the case even five years ago before Android and the iPhone became ubiquitous. And that is part of the problem, mobile devices are little more than consumer electronics rather than general purpose computers. Everything is abstracted away from the user so there is less chance for people to learn how things work. Last night my partner who is on a business trip in Tokyo, asked me to check his girlfriend's android phone because he hadn't been able to get through to her on Viber for a couple of days. When I checked her phone, it turned out that she had tried to install a new game, did a factory reset to free up memory, installed the game and then wondered why she had no email, facebook or viber on the phone... When I get new staff, the most difficult thing to teach them is that if they have completed a task that had been given to them, that they have to hand in the work and ask for a new task. But it gets even worse. Many times, if they run into a problem in the task they just give up and don't tell anyone. When you ask them what happened, they give you a blank look and say something like, I couldn't open the file. So instead of asking someone for help they spent the next three hours on facebook until a manager noticed. Very frustrating. The problem is that they have never been allowed to take responsibility for trying to solve a problem on their own. Traditional management and education systems here reward blind, literal obedience which is coupled with an abject fear of failure. It's not enough to teach people how to think for themselves. They must have the freedom to fail, and be given the responsibility that goes along with it. We have our work cut out for us....

13y ago

jarek 13y ago

lol

jarek 13y ago
tldr: we are special snowflakes

alightergreen 13y ago

"...for yourself.' would be a great subtitle to this article. Of those who do survive 18 years of public education and still mentally check-in on a daily basis, many they aren't capable of creating something outside of what they are given. That's the most troubling aspect of what he (and PG) are discussing. These people can understand and execute complex instructions, but can't come up with their own instruction manual that actually fits their situation. Lots of successful people could be 100x more successful if they would stop trying to figure our how to make 200-page management fads work in their situation. Instead, if they would look at that situation, and engage their own brain and gut instinct to come up with solutions, they would be so much more efficient and effective. If "so-so said to do it," or "I read it in a book," is your TOP reason for doing something--to me that's a 99% accurate sign that's its not the most effective thing you could be doing right now. Engage your brain.

capex 13y ago

This post has an interesting url: http://dcurt.is/startups-ruin-you http://dcurt.is/startups-ruin-you

deleted 13y ago
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ojbyrne 13y ago

In most of the world, and in most of the United States, your thoughts are owned by your employer. If you want to eat, have a roof over your head, raise a family, you almost always sign away the rights to your thoughts. The exception is California. And that's why Silicon Valley is in Silicon Valley.

anonymousDan 13y ago
Amen! For the last few years I've bleated about this to any one who will listen. A few years ago I moved from academia to industry and I was shocked by how restrictive the employment contracts are (I'm in the UK). I reckon it's also a major contributor to wages being so much lower over here. How can we change it though? I'd love it if we could get legislation introduced similar to that in California. What practical steps could we take?

indubitably 13y ago

this evening's hagiography

deleted 13y ago

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derefr 13y ago

Related is the concept of "agency": • http://lesswrong.com/lw/id2/to_what_degree_do_you_model_people_as_agents/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/id2/to_what_degree_do_you_model_peop... • http://lesswrong.com/lw/5i8/the_power_of_agency/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/5i8/the_power_of_agency/

nadam 13y ago

About pg's observation that founders don’t realize how independent they can be: It may be a selection bias: Probably a founder wants to participate in the YC program partly because they want advices, feedback and maybe just psychological 'confirmation' (social confirmation) more than people with the same talent/knowledge who do not apply to YC. I do not say that it is bad. Overconfidence in one's capabilities can be also dangerous. And needing social confirmation is a very natural thing. I just say that there is probably a small selection bias in play here.

Vecrios 13y ago

I have a questions that is irrelevant to the article per se, but rather the design of the web page. Is blog organized by a CMS or the design is entirely of Dustin's creation (I'm pretty sure I've seen it before?) I'm specially interested in the blog design, I like it.

bambax 13y ago

> discovering (...) that you have wings and can fly. And once you discover it, there is no going back. It’s addictive and powerful. It ruins your ability to be a worker bee, because you’ve tasted blood... (etc.) And then: > You should follow me on twitter Isn't the whole point, to not follow but rather, lead?

normloman 13y ago

This guy acts like he knows exactly why Facebook succeeded and MySpace failed. And sure, it all seems so predictable in retrospect. But nobody could have predicted the rise of Facebook. Furthermore, attributing the rise to one cause (Facebook is about sharing) is simplistic and naive. Early Facebook wasn't too different from MySpace. Could have just been luck.