11 ms·

Value is created by doing

237 points by lpolovets 13y ago

cynusx 13y ago
I have not have noticed that Sam Altman was bad at writing, most of the posts that made it to HN are pretty solid. :)
iterable 13y ago
Couldn't agree with you more. And I think the effervescence of the Silicon Valley tech scene creates tons of events, roles and initiatives that are a complete waste of time (For example: some meetups, happy hours and incubators of incubators of incubators). The value is created by making and selling things!
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
jmathai 13y ago
I realize this is pointed out in the original post but it's important to state for those of us who only read comments and headlines. The longer I do this the more I believe that value isn't created by doing. It's created by selling. As hackers and engineers the idea of "creating value by doing" resonates with us. We're happy to hole up in a dark room and create. It feels great. Wish I could do that for the rest of my life. The reality is if you're selling something then that's the only validation you should be looking at to know if you're creating value. I say this from the perspective of starting up where the point is more easily defined as creating direct economical value.
- webwright 13y ago
  Selling is a subset of doing. That said, I like your point.
  - thomasluce 13y ago
    But it's closer to the act of exchange, divorcing it from the act of production. I commented further down on it, but it could be fun to read up on the labor theory of value vs. the subjective theory.
  - jmathai 13y ago
    It absolutely should be.
- skybrian 13y ago
  The way I'd put it is that software only matters when someone is using it and getting something they want out of it. Its value starts at zero on release and increases when you get more customers to use it. (Assuming it's not a complete misfeature.)
- a-priori 13y ago
  The longer I do this the more I believe that value isn't created by doing. It's created by selling. You can't sell something that doesn't have value to the buyer. Therefore, if someone buys a thing from you, it already had value before you sold it. But don't get me wrong here, effective sales is an essential part of the value-creation process. It's the other side of the coin. Like the old tree-in-a-forest adage, if someone made a valuable thing and no one bought it, did it really have value? It's hard to say. Selling something may not create value, but it does realize it: it quantifies the value -- value that already existed -- and turns it into money.
  - jmathai 13y ago
    Selling something may not create value, but it does realize it Well put. What we have to be careful of is being fooled into thinking we're creating value if in the end that value can never be realized. Essentially, not having value.
  - freigeist 13y ago
    Selling something may not create value, but it does realize it. I like PG's distinction of wealth (i.e. value) and money: http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html So, while selling realizes a monetary gain, it does not necessarily create wealth also. Here is why I still think it does create wealth: * there is economic value in allocating resources efficiently * (non-monetary) user acquisition increases the value of network effect driven products * money goes to work when infused into a productive company (instead of being idle, money is invested in wealth creating assets)
- Noxchi 13y ago
  Creating value is how many people you effect and how strongly you effect them (positively). Getting money is multiplying value by business.
minimax 13y ago
Writing software no one wants does not create value—that’s called a class project. My corollary to that is that if you write software that does create value, it doesn't matter what editor or language you use. So if you're super duper productive in Perl (or whatever) don't worry too much about chasing after whatever language HN is fetishizing at the moment. It will change in a few months anyway.
- discreteevent 13y ago
  A while ago I met an older friend for lunch. I used to work with him years ago in my first job (failed startup). He was out on his own again building out an innovative idea he had in Smalltalk, (which is what he knew). I was talking to him about FP and type theory about all the debates that were going on about it. He just said that its a waste of time listening to most of the people on these kinds of sites because you can tell straight away that most of them don't build anything. Of course that's not quite true, but there was enough truth in it for me to feel like it was a friendly kick in the ass.
  - rpedela 13y ago
    FP? floating-point? functional programming? firepower?
    - AnimalMuppet 13y ago
      On this site, in this context? Functional programming.
- squintychino 13y ago
  I think you misunderstood that comment. I don't think he was referring to writing IN A software no one wants, as in a specific programming language. I think he meant that if there's no demand for the software itself then it doesn't create value for anyone because, well, no one wants it.
  - minimax 13y ago
flyosity 13y ago
This reminds me of when I see friends in the industry go mostly radio silent for weeks on Twitter or Facebook, only posting once or twice in a timespan they used to post 20 times or more. It usually means they're busy doing and that I need to get busy doing as well, not surfing and reading.
keithba 13y ago
>> you should try to work on what you really care about So Good They Can't Ignore You[1] calls this the Passion Hypothesis[2], and argues (very well) that this is the wrong way to think about finding a career. Instead, create a craftsman-like mentality and work ethic, and then use deliberate practice to get very, very good skills. With great skills, you will enjoy your work much more. I believe this advice aligns with the rest of the blog entry very well. Creating value (and doing it well) requires an advanced skill set. [1] http://www.amazon.com/Good-They-Cant-Ignore-You/dp/1455509124 http://www.amazon.com/Good-They-Cant-Ignore-You/dp/145550912... [2] This is an arguable point, since caring about something could be different than being passionate about it.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
mmsimanga 13y ago
Trouble is not much publicity is given to the boring "doing" stuff that successful people go through. We are shown the successful people having Q&A sessions on Slashdot or being the keynote speaker at a conference. So you have to constantly remind yourself that, it is the result of the work they put before they "made it". So you need to put in your work. Thanks for this timely reminder
tomasien 13y ago
I was hoping there would be 0 comments on this - that would have been people paying attention!
natural219 13y ago
All advice is a two-way street. I think at this point, the proverbial "advice market" is saturated with this idea that "doing" is far superior to "thinking". This is because, traditionally, hackers tend to lie squarely on the "thinking too much" end of the spectrum. I'm interested to read at least one post on the opposite advice -- what happens when you're too heavy on the "doing" end of the spectrum? Are there examples of startups failing because of too much emphasis of execution? At the very least, the "ideas are nothing, execution is everything" meme is clearly logically flawed. You can execute as fast as possible while creating zero customer value.
- arvinjoar 13y ago
  I found out my mother was replacing thousands of duplicate rows in excel by hand, had she thought about it and googled the problem she would have been done in a few seconds, instead of a few days.
- chris_mahan 13y ago
  This morning I talked about working as a dishwasher in a restaurant with a coworker. I last did that when I was 18, more than 25 years ago, but I remember how hard it was (busy Chili's on University Drive in Fort Worth TX, next to TCU). There was a lot of working, but not a lot of thinking. And you get wet too.
  - erusev 13y ago
    Did you find a better job by just thinking?
    - chris_mahan 13y ago
      Thinking I needed to get a better job was the first step.
- prawks 13y ago
  Not enough thinking leads to less consideration of alternatives and vaguer goals. That being said, it's very, very difficult to dismiss mistakes, as wastes of time, as everything is a learning opportunity in the end. Of course mistakes have consequences related to resources (time, money, etc.), so it depends on how long your game is (and therefore how large of a margin for error you have).
jason_wang 13y ago
set noprocrast = yes;
thomasluce 13y ago
You're talking about the labor theory of value. Communist. But in seriousness, you should read Marx's and Smith's thoughts on the labor theory. In a service industry (and by service, here I mean, "does not hand you a physical thing") it gets really interesting to think about. Great post!
film42 13y ago
Value is created by caring.
- ctdonath 13y ago
  Caring isn't if you don't do something about it.
beersigns 13y ago
This was a pretty thought provoking read for me; it put into words some of the beliefs I have operated by. However it's also important to remember that to be 'doing' you need to have a clear picture of why you're doing what you're doing. A lot of people I've met(and myself at times) do not know what they want to do; they've only learned about things they don't want to do in their experiences. I do agree it's best to gravitate towards projects that truly interest you though; if you don't believe in what you're doing you risk drifting into complacency.
j_baker 13y ago
You know, coffee and chat and conferences and whatnot are to the startup world as meetings and hierarchy and process are to big companies. They're both excuses not to get anything done.
beat 13y ago
A minor quibble here... while value is created by doing, value doesn't necessarily reflect in something that can be sold to other people for money. "Writing software no one wants" can create value if the person writing it wants it. Just not monetary value.
mkramlich 13y ago
> Another example of not-quite-work is every night in San Francisco, there are dinner parties where people get together and talk about the future. It’s always fun and usually not very contentious—most people agree we need to go to space, for example. But at the end of it, everyone goes home and works on something else. except for Elon Musk and team at SpaceX
zoba 13y ago
I agree, although this makes me think of the great number of people who have the potential to create value but cannot, because their ability to "do" is blocked. Most people I know who cannot create value have an issue of time. Most everyone is locked into their job with rent payments, student loans, and other debts. Its frustrating to see that those with wealth can also purchase time for themselves to use to get more wealth, while the majority of people are strapped in for the ride. Of course non-wealthy people can build things in the evenings and weekends, but, then they begin dealing with issues of stress and burnout. I'm glad YC helps to give folks a chance. I do think one of the less talked about benefits of a strong middle class and even wealth distribution is people have time/ability to innovate on their own.
- natural219 13y ago
  This is an incredibly important point. I think when people talk about "universal basic income", the traditional narrative concerns the social injustice of poverty, hunger, etc. For me, all I really want is the space to work on the projects I care about and learn the skills to let me accomplish my goals. For now, it looks like I'm going to be working for a while to pay off my student debt and save money before I can even dip my toes into working on something interesting.
  - chii 13y ago
    I think the aristocratic wealthy (i.e., wealthy people who are wealthy because they use their wealth to make more wealth, not create value themselves) have created a societal structure where it's difficult to create a basic income scheme, both politically and logistically. The idea that people should be allowed to work on their own projects but is funded by "others" (say, via taxes) is made to look like leeching off the group. The benefits are, while still theoretical, never talked about. The value i see in a BI scheme is that the natural geniuses of the world gets to do what they are a genius at doing (e.g., somebody might be a really genius teacher), instead of doing the thing that earns maximal amount of money. I know somebody who is a great teacher, and he, at a great financial sacrifice, quit his job to be a teacher instead. He raised so many good students, which go on to bring priceless value to society, and yet the money he recieves is a pittance. He would've made at least a 6 figure income easily, working less hours had he remained in industry. some people might call me a communist, but i really do believe they had some good ideas about equality (just that i don't see a way of governing such that corruption and inequality doesn't proliferate...). Imagine a world where necessities of life is produced enmass by the government, in such a way that the cost is so low as to allow it to be provided to each citizen for free. Then BI would become possible. But i don't see it comeing any time soon.
lquist 13y ago
Value gets created when a company does things like build widgets and sell them to customers. As a rough guideline, it’s good to stay in roles where you’re close to the doing. It’s easier to sit around and talk about building a startup than it is to actually start a startup. And it’s fun to talk about. But over time, the difference between fun and fulfilling becomes clear. Doing things is really hard—it’s why, for example, you can generally tell people what you’re working on without NDAs, and most patents never matter. The value, and the difficulty, comes from execution. A corollary of this seems to be that investors (such as YC) provide little value because they don't execute. This seems incorrect on its face; most YC founders find the experience to be very beneficial. Maybe I'm missing your point, Sam?
- TheSOB888 13y ago
  But they are close to the doing. They are only one step away from a person who is doing. Actually, hundreds of people who are doing.
- nswanberg 13y ago
  YC is itself a startup that produces startups, so its employees/partners are certainly executing.
rhizome 13y ago
OT: can someone explain why some bloggers do not include (or as here, minimize) the date of writing the post? It strikes me as a conceit that their writing will remain timeless.
CapitalistCartr 13y ago
In business, money is how we keep score. Like in a game, the score doesn't lie. i do not mean to imply that money is the ultimate why: money is rarely why we do what we do. But in this game of business, it is the score. If you're not making money by doing it, its a hobby. There is nothing wrong with hobbies, but they aren't business. Want to know if you are heading in the right direction? Are you headed towards money positive? That's your answer.
- commanda 13y ago
  I don't believe money is 1:1 with value. Consider for example a "Craigslist Flipper" - someone who finds items for sale on Craigslist, buys them, and turns around and sells them for a profit. Did this person create value? Not at all; I would argue they created negative wealth in the world. See also: people who run window installation companies and go around breaking people's windows at night.
  - sireat 13y ago
    I agree with you on the breaking windows guy but not with the Craigslist Flipper in the pure form(just buy and sell locally with no shipping or repairing which would add value besides flipping). Why does the Craiglist Flipper add value? The Flipper takes away the random luck factor and distributes goods to those who can best utilize them. Consider an iPad 1 listed for $10 on Craigslist by someone who just wants it gone. Almost anyone would buy just for the heck of it and take it away from the market even if they already have iPad Air and 3 other Android tablets gathering dust at home. However, if the Flipper buys it and puts it back on the market at say $100, the person buying from the Flipper will actually have to think before making such a purchase. So a reasonable Flipper adds liquidity and stability to the market. Unreasonable Flipper (one either putting prices too high or too low) does not stay in business for too long.
theoh 13y ago
Seriously, this _is_ the labor theory of value. Don't know why the other comment to point this out is dead. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value It's completely inadequate. See, for example http://www.ted.com/talks/rory_sutherland_life_lessons_from_an_ad_man.html http://www.ted.com/talks/rory_sutherland_life_lessons_from_a...
- gboudrias 13y ago
  I've always been fascinated by people's propensity to write about things they don't know, with the excuse that it's just humanistic sciences. There's a huge body of work that's largely ignored on the Internet, because while the average geek knows a lot about hard sciences, they're very ignorant on humanities (maybe because it's not taken as seriously). (As a side note, it's ironically hard to find out what this guy actually does!)
  - smacktoward 13y ago
    In this particular case it may also have something to do with the LTOV's association with Marxist economics. The only thing Americans are expected to know about anything even vaguely associated with Marxism is that it's bad (mmmkay?), so U.S. educational institutions tend to avoid teaching things in that category to students who aren't specializing in economics. Which leads to Americans coming up with their own labels and descriptions for things that Marx observed and labeled long ago. All of which is too bad, because Marx had a lot of interesting and valuable things to say about the problems of industrial economies (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOP2V_np2c0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOP2V_np2c0 for a good introduction), even if the solutions that were tried in his name didn't work out. It just wastes people's time and energy having them spin their wheels re-discovering things he discovered 150 years ago.
  - zeidrich 13y ago
    The average geek doesn't know a lot about hard sciences. The average geek is self taught and knows how to impress other people with scientific language. Rarely do I run into "geeks" that make me think, "Wow, this guy could write a novel paper on this". More often it's more a matter of "Wow, this guy knows just enough to completely misunderstand the subject but speaks like he has all the answers."
toddh 13y ago
Value is never created, it is a human construct assigned by humans to something for a variety of reasons. It isn't tied to work or any type of currency. So "commenting on HN, tweeting, reading about other companies" can indeed have value if humans deem it having a value.
Q_E_D 13y ago
There seems to be an optimal mix between "work" eg:designing and "pseudo-work" like having meetings to discuss ideas. Which of those activities will lead to a better design is unclear, since much of the "deep thinking" which is the basis of coming up with something original happens outside of consciously focused thought eg: many writers only write 4 hours a day and do something else the rest of the day, or the common belief that many problems are solved in your sleep and "realized" in the shower. So, lets not go in either direction for any one person; and let everyone optimize towards their own mix of work and pseudo-work to come to their own original ideas about X. Some people will not have any original ideas and will therefore advocate work as a method to "focus" on derivative outcomes that make money. Other people will "find inspiration" while taking a bath and run out of the bathroom to write down the genuinely valuable result and advise everyone to do the same. These two groups are very different and most of us are somewhere in between.
ffrryuu 13y ago
But the Fed can just prints money and out compete you.
abiekatz 13y ago
What work is for an investor and an entrepreneur are quite different. As PG says entrepreneurs should "Live in the future, then build what’s missing." Investors allocate capital to what will be more valuable in the future: whether it is something that is missing now or whether it is something that will simply continue to grow in value. Venture Capital is an interesting middle ground because not only do you allocate capital but you also assist the companies in creating value and you have to compete to be able to invest in the most promising companies. By blogging well you are building your brand and this will help you meet great entrepreneurs and increase your ability to have access to invest in their companies. Of course your reputation will mainly be based on the track record of your investments and how much you help the founders you work with but writing well and having it consistently on top of hacker news helps. Plus, your writing helps clarify your thoughts and provides you with useful feedback which can help you refine your investment thesis. Warren Buffett has said he spends 80% of his days reading and 20% talking on the phone. He only has needed one good idea per year to be the best investor of all time. His schedule doesn't sound like work to most people but it clearly has worked well.
- pa5tabear 13y ago
  I don't know much about his origins, but surely that's not how he used his time when he was getting started, is it? I'm guessing his work activities were far more conventional (though still well selected) and only after building wealth did his time allocation change.
ForHackernews 13y ago
> As a rough guideline, it’s good to stay in roles where you’re close to the doing. Why? It seems to me like the further you are from the doing, the more likely your role is to be prestigious and highly paid.
- dclara 13y ago
  It sounds so true. The it's the other way round. They have the prestige to talk and if you don't, you have to do it. At the end of the day, no doing, no talking. As a startup, we have to do both.
erikpukinskis 13y ago
The fact that the notion that "we need to go to space" is a foregone conclusion at the dinner parties this person goes to is exactly the reason I avoid San Francisco.
Patrick_Devine 13y ago
I think there is a little bit of "black and white" fallacy happening here. There isn't an "either/or" when it comes to an idea and executing. An idea without execution is nothing, but executing without an idea is also nothing. Successful people have an idea, and they execute.
commanda 13y ago
This definition of value ignores ancillary departments such as marketing, office management, HR, and legal. These are sometimes known as "cost centers" in a business organization, but in that they support the engineers/artists/makers, they most definitely are creating value. Sometimes the chain can be long, but it's usually present.
codingtheone 13y ago
I feel there are two kinds of people, those who have the ability to sit down and talk about things without feeling the guilt of not doing it and those who feel I posters for just talking all the time. There are people I know who are talking about the same ideas for more than a decade without doing anything about it, yet they can come back the next day and talk with all the excitement and ambition in the world as if they're oblivious to the fact that they won't do squat about it
jqm 13y ago
I've never agreed with the idea that labor is the "sole" or even "primary", source of value. For example, I find nothing more valuable than clean air and water. Off topic, but I believe this should be the basis for funding society rather than appropriating a portion of people's productive labor. Land is valuable. But you don't really "own" it because no one made it. Likewise the Aluminum in a can or the steel in your car. You just borrow them for a time. When we are all dead and gone these things will still be here and people will likely use them. Society should charge for the use of what really belongs to everyone instead of this part time modern indentured servant hood called payroll taxes. It seems much more just. As a side benefit... consumption is discouraged and production rewarded. What better for society than that?
- chii 13y ago
  > consumption is discouraged and production rewarded. how can this both be true? if consumption is discouraged, then what would be the reward for production? if it is something that is to be consumed, then by definition consumption is desirable. If the reward is not something that is consumed, the what is that reward?
  - jqm 13y ago
    I'm not sure I understand your point. Or maybe you don't understand mine. Mine is that one should be taxed on the use of land and materials (which, from a larger perspective, belong to society and humankind as a whole) rather than on innovation and labor (which is, from a larger perspective, a form of theft and slavery). By taxing like this, you reward innovation and production while discouraging wanton consumption of resources (leading to more efficient use of resources and more investment in innovation).
arithma 13y ago
It was quite surreal reading this article right after reading Betrand Russel's "In Praise of Idleness." But I agree with the author, the worst idlers are the ones who think are working. http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html
b1daly 13y ago
Why does this truism get endlessly repeated? Is this news to anybody that if you don't make something that people will pay for, your business won't make money? In any case, it's so simple minded that I think it's wrong. It seems obvious to me that a successful enterprise needs the whole system to work: ideas (for a product), all the different kind of makers, sales, marketing, legal, various managers. Or at least these tasks need to be done. Seeing big companies with money to blow on a product that no one wants take it all the way to market is sort of incredible to me. Guess I'm just grumpy right now, but I sometimes feel like these posts are jokes put out there by successful people to see if they can make non-successful people feel stupid.
izietto 13y ago
At first I read "Valve is created by doing" :-$
sarojt 13y ago
I dont really agree with this, there is always value in mentoring the creators rather than being a creator yourself.
mindcrime 13y ago
If you can’t figure out to raise hundreds of millions of dollars, go work for SpaceX (joining a great company is a much better plan than starting a mediocre one). I love Altman's stuff, but I'm not so sure I agree with "joining a great company is a much better plan than starting a mediocre one". Why? Because no matter how great a company is, if you're an employee, you're still just an employee. You have a "boss" (OK, maybe, just maybe Valve aside), somebody who has you "under their thumb" and who can boss you around and redirect your energy and time, and/or fire you at a whim. And it doesn't matter how great your boss is, or how much you like him/her, you still have "a boss". That sucks. It sucks major donkey balls. Well, it does for certain kinds of people anyway. It's a mindset thing. I cannot stand having a "boss" in the traditional sense. I'd much rather be running my own show, no matter how mediocre it is (assuming it gets at least to the point of qualifying as a "lifestyle business" and I can pay myself enough to pay the rent). And yeah, yeah, I know that "you always have a boss" in a sense. Pedants don't bother replying to this. I'm not talking in metaphorical senses or generalities here. A Board of Directors, or "the market" or "your customers" are your "boss" in a metaphorical sense, but that's not the same thing as having one discrete person who can come into the room and go "Sooooo, Peter, you DID get the memo about how we're putting the NEW cover sheets on the TPS reports now, riiiiight? Yeeaaaaaaaaah" and yank your chain.

237 points by lpolovets 13y ago

I have not have noticed that Sam Altman was bad at writing, most of the posts that made it to HN are pretty solid. :)

Couldn't agree with you more. And I think the effervescence of the Silicon Valley tech scene creates tons of events, roles and initiatives that are a complete waste of time (For example: some meetups, happy hours and incubators of incubators of incubators). The value is created by making and selling things!

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

jmathai 13y ago

I realize this is pointed out in the original post but it's important to state for those of us who only read comments and headlines. The longer I do this the more I believe that value isn't created by doing. It's created by selling. As hackers and engineers the idea of "creating value by doing" resonates with us. We're happy to hole up in a dark room and create. It feels great. Wish I could do that for the rest of my life. The reality is if you're selling something then that's the only validation you should be looking at to know if you're creating value. I say this from the perspective of starting up where the point is more easily defined as creating direct economical value.

webwright 13y ago
Selling is a subset of doing. That said, I like your point.
- thomasluce 13y ago
  But it's closer to the act of exchange, divorcing it from the act of production. I commented further down on it, but it could be fun to read up on the labor theory of value vs. the subjective theory.
- jmathai 13y ago
  It absolutely should be.
skybrian 13y ago
The way I'd put it is that software only matters when someone is using it and getting something they want out of it. Its value starts at zero on release and increases when you get more customers to use it. (Assuming it's not a complete misfeature.)
a-priori 13y ago
The longer I do this the more I believe that value isn't created by doing. It's created by selling. You can't sell something that doesn't have value to the buyer. Therefore, if someone buys a thing from you, it already had value before you sold it. But don't get me wrong here, effective sales is an essential part of the value-creation process. It's the other side of the coin. Like the old tree-in-a-forest adage, if someone made a valuable thing and no one bought it, did it really have value? It's hard to say. Selling something may not create value, but it does realize it: it quantifies the value -- value that already existed -- and turns it into money.
- jmathai 13y ago
  Selling something may not create value, but it does realize it Well put. What we have to be careful of is being fooled into thinking we're creating value if in the end that value can never be realized. Essentially, not having value.
- freigeist 13y ago
  Selling something may not create value, but it does realize it. I like PG's distinction of wealth (i.e. value) and money: http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html So, while selling realizes a monetary gain, it does not necessarily create wealth also. Here is why I still think it does create wealth: * there is economic value in allocating resources efficiently * (non-monetary) user acquisition increases the value of network effect driven products * money goes to work when infused into a productive company (instead of being idle, money is invested in wealth creating assets)
Noxchi 13y ago
Creating value is how many people you effect and how strongly you effect them (positively). Getting money is multiplying value by business.

minimax 13y ago

Writing software no one wants does not create value—that’s called a class project. My corollary to that is that if you write software that does create value, it doesn't matter what editor or language you use. So if you're super duper productive in Perl (or whatever) don't worry too much about chasing after whatever language HN is fetishizing at the moment. It will change in a few months anyway.

discreteevent 13y ago
A while ago I met an older friend for lunch. I used to work with him years ago in my first job (failed startup). He was out on his own again building out an innovative idea he had in Smalltalk, (which is what he knew). I was talking to him about FP and type theory about all the debates that were going on about it. He just said that its a waste of time listening to most of the people on these kinds of sites because you can tell straight away that most of them don't build anything. Of course that's not quite true, but there was enough truth in it for me to feel like it was a friendly kick in the ass.
- rpedela 13y ago
  FP? floating-point? functional programming? firepower?
  - AnimalMuppet 13y ago
    On this site, in this context? Functional programming.
squintychino 13y ago
I think you misunderstood that comment. I don't think he was referring to writing IN A software no one wants, as in a specific programming language. I think he meant that if there's no demand for the software itself then it doesn't create value for anyone because, well, no one wants it.
- minimax 13y ago

flyosity 13y ago

This reminds me of when I see friends in the industry go mostly radio silent for weeks on Twitter or Facebook, only posting once or twice in a timespan they used to post 20 times or more. It usually means they're busy doing and that I need to get busy doing as well, not surfing and reading.

keithba 13y ago

>> you should try to work on what you really care about So Good They Can't Ignore You[1] calls this the Passion Hypothesis[2], and argues (very well) that this is the wrong way to think about finding a career. Instead, create a craftsman-like mentality and work ethic, and then use deliberate practice to get very, very good skills. With great skills, you will enjoy your work much more. I believe this advice aligns with the rest of the blog entry very well. Creating value (and doing it well) requires an advanced skill set. [1] http://www.amazon.com/Good-They-Cant-Ignore-You/dp/1455509124 http://www.amazon.com/Good-They-Cant-Ignore-You/dp/145550912... [2] This is an arguable point, since caring about something could be different than being passionate about it.

deleted 13y ago
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mmsimanga 13y ago

Trouble is not much publicity is given to the boring "doing" stuff that successful people go through. We are shown the successful people having Q&A sessions on Slashdot or being the keynote speaker at a conference. So you have to constantly remind yourself that, it is the result of the work they put before they "made it". So you need to put in your work. Thanks for this timely reminder

tomasien 13y ago

I was hoping there would be 0 comments on this - that would have been people paying attention!

natural219 13y ago

All advice is a two-way street. I think at this point, the proverbial "advice market" is saturated with this idea that "doing" is far superior to "thinking". This is because, traditionally, hackers tend to lie squarely on the "thinking too much" end of the spectrum. I'm interested to read at least one post on the opposite advice -- what happens when you're too heavy on the "doing" end of the spectrum? Are there examples of startups failing because of too much emphasis of execution? At the very least, the "ideas are nothing, execution is everything" meme is clearly logically flawed. You can execute as fast as possible while creating zero customer value.

arvinjoar 13y ago
I found out my mother was replacing thousands of duplicate rows in excel by hand, had she thought about it and googled the problem she would have been done in a few seconds, instead of a few days.
chris_mahan 13y ago
This morning I talked about working as a dishwasher in a restaurant with a coworker. I last did that when I was 18, more than 25 years ago, but I remember how hard it was (busy Chili's on University Drive in Fort Worth TX, next to TCU). There was a lot of working, but not a lot of thinking. And you get wet too.
- erusev 13y ago
  Did you find a better job by just thinking?
  - chris_mahan 13y ago
    Thinking I needed to get a better job was the first step.
prawks 13y ago
Not enough thinking leads to less consideration of alternatives and vaguer goals. That being said, it's very, very difficult to dismiss mistakes, as wastes of time, as everything is a learning opportunity in the end. Of course mistakes have consequences related to resources (time, money, etc.), so it depends on how long your game is (and therefore how large of a margin for error you have).

jason_wang 13y ago

set noprocrast = yes;

thomasluce 13y ago

You're talking about the labor theory of value. Communist. But in seriousness, you should read Marx's and Smith's thoughts on the labor theory. In a service industry (and by service, here I mean, "does not hand you a physical thing") it gets really interesting to think about. Great post!

film42 13y ago

Value is created by caring.

ctdonath 13y ago
Caring isn't if you don't do something about it.

beersigns 13y ago

This was a pretty thought provoking read for me; it put into words some of the beliefs I have operated by. However it's also important to remember that to be 'doing' you need to have a clear picture of why you're doing what you're doing. A lot of people I've met(and myself at times) do not know what they want to do; they've only learned about things they don't want to do in their experiences. I do agree it's best to gravitate towards projects that truly interest you though; if you don't believe in what you're doing you risk drifting into complacency.

j_baker 13y ago

You know, coffee and chat and conferences and whatnot are to the startup world as meetings and hierarchy and process are to big companies. They're both excuses not to get anything done.

beat 13y ago

A minor quibble here... while value is created by doing, value doesn't necessarily reflect in something that can be sold to other people for money. "Writing software no one wants" can create value if the person writing it wants it. Just not monetary value.

mkramlich 13y ago

> Another example of not-quite-work is every night in San Francisco, there are dinner parties where people get together and talk about the future. It’s always fun and usually not very contentious—most people agree we need to go to space, for example. But at the end of it, everyone goes home and works on something else. except for Elon Musk and team at SpaceX

zoba 13y ago

I agree, although this makes me think of the great number of people who have the potential to create value but cannot, because their ability to "do" is blocked. Most people I know who cannot create value have an issue of time. Most everyone is locked into their job with rent payments, student loans, and other debts. Its frustrating to see that those with wealth can also purchase time for themselves to use to get more wealth, while the majority of people are strapped in for the ride. Of course non-wealthy people can build things in the evenings and weekends, but, then they begin dealing with issues of stress and burnout. I'm glad YC helps to give folks a chance. I do think one of the less talked about benefits of a strong middle class and even wealth distribution is people have time/ability to innovate on their own.

natural219 13y ago
This is an incredibly important point. I think when people talk about "universal basic income", the traditional narrative concerns the social injustice of poverty, hunger, etc. For me, all I really want is the space to work on the projects I care about and learn the skills to let me accomplish my goals. For now, it looks like I'm going to be working for a while to pay off my student debt and save money before I can even dip my toes into working on something interesting.
- chii 13y ago
  I think the aristocratic wealthy (i.e., wealthy people who are wealthy because they use their wealth to make more wealth, not create value themselves) have created a societal structure where it's difficult to create a basic income scheme, both politically and logistically. The idea that people should be allowed to work on their own projects but is funded by "others" (say, via taxes) is made to look like leeching off the group. The benefits are, while still theoretical, never talked about. The value i see in a BI scheme is that the natural geniuses of the world gets to do what they are a genius at doing (e.g., somebody might be a really genius teacher), instead of doing the thing that earns maximal amount of money. I know somebody who is a great teacher, and he, at a great financial sacrifice, quit his job to be a teacher instead. He raised so many good students, which go on to bring priceless value to society, and yet the money he recieves is a pittance. He would've made at least a 6 figure income easily, working less hours had he remained in industry. some people might call me a communist, but i really do believe they had some good ideas about equality (just that i don't see a way of governing such that corruption and inequality doesn't proliferate...). Imagine a world where necessities of life is produced enmass by the government, in such a way that the cost is so low as to allow it to be provided to each citizen for free. Then BI would become possible. But i don't see it comeing any time soon.

lquist 13y ago

Value gets created when a company does things like build widgets and sell them to customers. As a rough guideline, it’s good to stay in roles where you’re close to the doing. It’s easier to sit around and talk about building a startup than it is to actually start a startup. And it’s fun to talk about. But over time, the difference between fun and fulfilling becomes clear. Doing things is really hard—it’s why, for example, you can generally tell people what you’re working on without NDAs, and most patents never matter. The value, and the difficulty, comes from execution. A corollary of this seems to be that investors (such as YC) provide little value because they don't execute. This seems incorrect on its face; most YC founders find the experience to be very beneficial. Maybe I'm missing your point, Sam?

TheSOB888 13y ago
But they are close to the doing. They are only one step away from a person who is doing. Actually, hundreds of people who are doing.
nswanberg 13y ago
YC is itself a startup that produces startups, so its employees/partners are certainly executing.

rhizome 13y ago

OT: can someone explain why some bloggers do not include (or as here, minimize) the date of writing the post? It strikes me as a conceit that their writing will remain timeless.

CapitalistCartr 13y ago

In business, money is how we keep score. Like in a game, the score doesn't lie. i do not mean to imply that money is the ultimate why: money is rarely why we do what we do. But in this game of business, it is the score. If you're not making money by doing it, its a hobby. There is nothing wrong with hobbies, but they aren't business. Want to know if you are heading in the right direction? Are you headed towards money positive? That's your answer.

commanda 13y ago
I don't believe money is 1:1 with value. Consider for example a "Craigslist Flipper" - someone who finds items for sale on Craigslist, buys them, and turns around and sells them for a profit. Did this person create value? Not at all; I would argue they created negative wealth in the world. See also: people who run window installation companies and go around breaking people's windows at night.
- sireat 13y ago
  I agree with you on the breaking windows guy but not with the Craigslist Flipper in the pure form(just buy and sell locally with no shipping or repairing which would add value besides flipping). Why does the Craiglist Flipper add value? The Flipper takes away the random luck factor and distributes goods to those who can best utilize them. Consider an iPad 1 listed for $10 on Craigslist by someone who just wants it gone. Almost anyone would buy just for the heck of it and take it away from the market even if they already have iPad Air and 3 other Android tablets gathering dust at home. However, if the Flipper buys it and puts it back on the market at say $100, the person buying from the Flipper will actually have to think before making such a purchase. So a reasonable Flipper adds liquidity and stability to the market. Unreasonable Flipper (one either putting prices too high or too low) does not stay in business for too long.

theoh 13y ago

Seriously, this _is_ the labor theory of value. Don't know why the other comment to point this out is dead. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value It's completely inadequate. See, for example http://www.ted.com/talks/rory_sutherland_life_lessons_from_an_ad_man.html http://www.ted.com/talks/rory_sutherland_life_lessons_from_a...

gboudrias 13y ago
I've always been fascinated by people's propensity to write about things they don't know, with the excuse that it's just humanistic sciences. There's a huge body of work that's largely ignored on the Internet, because while the average geek knows a lot about hard sciences, they're very ignorant on humanities (maybe because it's not taken as seriously). (As a side note, it's ironically hard to find out what this guy actually does!)
- smacktoward 13y ago
  In this particular case it may also have something to do with the LTOV's association with Marxist economics. The only thing Americans are expected to know about anything even vaguely associated with Marxism is that it's bad (mmmkay?), so U.S. educational institutions tend to avoid teaching things in that category to students who aren't specializing in economics. Which leads to Americans coming up with their own labels and descriptions for things that Marx observed and labeled long ago. All of which is too bad, because Marx had a lot of interesting and valuable things to say about the problems of industrial economies (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOP2V_np2c0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOP2V_np2c0 for a good introduction), even if the solutions that were tried in his name didn't work out. It just wastes people's time and energy having them spin their wheels re-discovering things he discovered 150 years ago.
- zeidrich 13y ago
  The average geek doesn't know a lot about hard sciences. The average geek is self taught and knows how to impress other people with scientific language. Rarely do I run into "geeks" that make me think, "Wow, this guy could write a novel paper on this". More often it's more a matter of "Wow, this guy knows just enough to completely misunderstand the subject but speaks like he has all the answers."

toddh 13y ago

Value is never created, it is a human construct assigned by humans to something for a variety of reasons. It isn't tied to work or any type of currency. So "commenting on HN, tweeting, reading about other companies" can indeed have value if humans deem it having a value.

Q_E_D 13y ago

There seems to be an optimal mix between "work" eg:designing and "pseudo-work" like having meetings to discuss ideas. Which of those activities will lead to a better design is unclear, since much of the "deep thinking" which is the basis of coming up with something original happens outside of consciously focused thought eg: many writers only write 4 hours a day and do something else the rest of the day, or the common belief that many problems are solved in your sleep and "realized" in the shower. So, lets not go in either direction for any one person; and let everyone optimize towards their own mix of work and pseudo-work to come to their own original ideas about X. Some people will not have any original ideas and will therefore advocate work as a method to "focus" on derivative outcomes that make money. Other people will "find inspiration" while taking a bath and run out of the bathroom to write down the genuinely valuable result and advise everyone to do the same. These two groups are very different and most of us are somewhere in between.

ffrryuu 13y ago

But the Fed can just prints money and out compete you.

abiekatz 13y ago

What work is for an investor and an entrepreneur are quite different. As PG says entrepreneurs should "Live in the future, then build what’s missing." Investors allocate capital to what will be more valuable in the future: whether it is something that is missing now or whether it is something that will simply continue to grow in value. Venture Capital is an interesting middle ground because not only do you allocate capital but you also assist the companies in creating value and you have to compete to be able to invest in the most promising companies. By blogging well you are building your brand and this will help you meet great entrepreneurs and increase your ability to have access to invest in their companies. Of course your reputation will mainly be based on the track record of your investments and how much you help the founders you work with but writing well and having it consistently on top of hacker news helps. Plus, your writing helps clarify your thoughts and provides you with useful feedback which can help you refine your investment thesis. Warren Buffett has said he spends 80% of his days reading and 20% talking on the phone. He only has needed one good idea per year to be the best investor of all time. His schedule doesn't sound like work to most people but it clearly has worked well.

pa5tabear 13y ago
I don't know much about his origins, but surely that's not how he used his time when he was getting started, is it? I'm guessing his work activities were far more conventional (though still well selected) and only after building wealth did his time allocation change.

ForHackernews 13y ago

> As a rough guideline, it’s good to stay in roles where you’re close to the doing. Why? It seems to me like the further you are from the doing, the more likely your role is to be prestigious and highly paid.

dclara 13y ago
It sounds so true. The it's the other way round. They have the prestige to talk and if you don't, you have to do it. At the end of the day, no doing, no talking. As a startup, we have to do both.

erikpukinskis 13y ago

The fact that the notion that "we need to go to space" is a foregone conclusion at the dinner parties this person goes to is exactly the reason I avoid San Francisco.

Patrick_Devine 13y ago

I think there is a little bit of "black and white" fallacy happening here. There isn't an "either/or" when it comes to an idea and executing. An idea without execution is nothing, but executing without an idea is also nothing. Successful people have an idea, and they execute.

commanda 13y ago

This definition of value ignores ancillary departments such as marketing, office management, HR, and legal. These are sometimes known as "cost centers" in a business organization, but in that they support the engineers/artists/makers, they most definitely are creating value. Sometimes the chain can be long, but it's usually present.

codingtheone 13y ago

I feel there are two kinds of people, those who have the ability to sit down and talk about things without feeling the guilt of not doing it and those who feel I posters for just talking all the time. There are people I know who are talking about the same ideas for more than a decade without doing anything about it, yet they can come back the next day and talk with all the excitement and ambition in the world as if they're oblivious to the fact that they won't do squat about it

jqm 13y ago

I've never agreed with the idea that labor is the "sole" or even "primary", source of value. For example, I find nothing more valuable than clean air and water. Off topic, but I believe this should be the basis for funding society rather than appropriating a portion of people's productive labor. Land is valuable. But you don't really "own" it because no one made it. Likewise the Aluminum in a can or the steel in your car. You just borrow them for a time. When we are all dead and gone these things will still be here and people will likely use them. Society should charge for the use of what really belongs to everyone instead of this part time modern indentured servant hood called payroll taxes. It seems much more just. As a side benefit... consumption is discouraged and production rewarded. What better for society than that?

chii 13y ago
> consumption is discouraged and production rewarded. how can this both be true? if consumption is discouraged, then what would be the reward for production? if it is something that is to be consumed, then by definition consumption is desirable. If the reward is not something that is consumed, the what is that reward?
- jqm 13y ago
  I'm not sure I understand your point. Or maybe you don't understand mine. Mine is that one should be taxed on the use of land and materials (which, from a larger perspective, belong to society and humankind as a whole) rather than on innovation and labor (which is, from a larger perspective, a form of theft and slavery). By taxing like this, you reward innovation and production while discouraging wanton consumption of resources (leading to more efficient use of resources and more investment in innovation).

arithma 13y ago

It was quite surreal reading this article right after reading Betrand Russel's "In Praise of Idleness." But I agree with the author, the worst idlers are the ones who think are working. http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html

b1daly 13y ago

Why does this truism get endlessly repeated? Is this news to anybody that if you don't make something that people will pay for, your business won't make money? In any case, it's so simple minded that I think it's wrong. It seems obvious to me that a successful enterprise needs the whole system to work: ideas (for a product), all the different kind of makers, sales, marketing, legal, various managers. Or at least these tasks need to be done. Seeing big companies with money to blow on a product that no one wants take it all the way to market is sort of incredible to me. Guess I'm just grumpy right now, but I sometimes feel like these posts are jokes put out there by successful people to see if they can make non-successful people feel stupid.

izietto 13y ago

At first I read "Valve is created by doing" :-$

sarojt 13y ago

I dont really agree with this, there is always value in mentoring the creators rather than being a creator yourself.

mindcrime 13y ago

If you can’t figure out to raise hundreds of millions of dollars, go work for SpaceX (joining a great company is a much better plan than starting a mediocre one). I love Altman's stuff, but I'm not so sure I agree with "joining a great company is a much better plan than starting a mediocre one". Why? Because no matter how great a company is, if you're an employee, you're still just an employee. You have a "boss" (OK, maybe, just maybe Valve aside), somebody who has you "under their thumb" and who can boss you around and redirect your energy and time, and/or fire you at a whim. And it doesn't matter how great your boss is, or how much you like him/her, you still have "a boss". That sucks. It sucks major donkey balls. Well, it does for certain kinds of people anyway. It's a mindset thing. I cannot stand having a "boss" in the traditional sense. I'd much rather be running my own show, no matter how mediocre it is (assuming it gets at least to the point of qualifying as a "lifestyle business" and I can pay myself enough to pay the rent). And yeah, yeah, I know that "you always have a boss" in a sense. Pedants don't bother replying to this. I'm not talking in metaphorical senses or generalities here. A Board of Directors, or "the market" or "your customers" are your "boss" in a metaphorical sense, but that's not the same thing as having one discrete person who can come into the room and go "Sooooo, Peter, you DID get the memo about how we're putting the NEW cover sheets on the TPS reports now, riiiiight? Yeeaaaaaaaaah" and yank your chain.