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I'm not exactly sure what is the grand insight(s) from this essay that warrants it's rather link-baity lavish title. Does below captures all the tips and techni

by sytelus 12y ago

I'm not exactly sure what is the grand insight(s) from this essay that warrants it's rather link-baity lavish title. Does below captures all the tips and techniques pg mentioned? 1. Don't marry to your beliefs. This is always a delicate balancing act because we do have to have some belief to make a decision, we just don't know if it's a right. 2. Don't predict the future. Can be derived from #1 so I suppose redundant. 3. Bet on people instead of ideas. I think this is great advice for VCs but have been covered many times by pg. 4. Make friends/Surround yourself with smart people.: Not extremely practical unless you are a famous VC but even then not trivial. It would have been great essay if pg shared some stories and shared non-trivial insights that makes us better at doing above. BTW, I did got tripped at this line: Another trick I've found to protect myself against obsolete beliefs is to focus initially on people rather than ideas. Ummm... what was the first trick?

Implicated 12y ago
> Ummm... what was the first trick? "...to focus initially on people rather than ideas"
SiVal 12y ago
Yeah, at the risk of being "middle-brow", I didn't really learn much about "How to be an expert" from this. Maybe, it's just a title issue, and "How to be among the first investors to spot an exploitable change" or something similar would have set my expectations properly, but I was hoping to get some useful tips that would apply to a significantly broader definition of "expert".
lyricalpolymath 12y ago
the first trick was a meta-belief > believe in change
varchar 12y ago
With these kinds of advice (entrepreneurial / life), you just take the best lessons and move on. I like your point by point analysis. But I guess you cannot look at such articles solely through the lens of analysis. On an unrelated note - I know a lot of successful professionals and entrepreneurs (mostly non tech and some tech). Surprisingly they are not that analytical as one would expect. They have great drive, self belief, instincts, people skills, adaptability, negotiation skills, ability to bounce back and perhaps several other skills. I realized at some point in my career that great intellectual / analytical ability is just one aspect required for a successful career and there were several other important skills / traits. Warren Buffet famously said (I think in reference to stock analysts who pore through and analyze stocks endlessly) "Wall Street is the only place that people ride to in a Rolls Royce to get advice from those who take the subway."
- patkai 12y ago
  Good aspect! I know lots of mathematicians and excellent, "rational" engineers who are terrible investors and tend to go in dead ends with their excellent analysis. Our gut is smarter than we think!
  - read 12y ago
    Psychology distinguishes rationality and intelligence as two separate concepts. You can be highly intelligent but not very rational.
    - rkrzr 12y ago
      Thanks for pointing this out. Even though I read Kahneman's "Thinking fast and slow", I did not truly understand that intelligence and rationality are orthogonal concepts. I've always implicitly assumed that intelligence is strongly correlated with rationality, but it seems there is a mild correlation at best: " it is a mild predictor at best, and some rational thinking skills are totally dissociated from intelligence"[0] [0]http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/rationality-versus-intelligence http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/rationality-vers...
    - ekm2 12y ago
      Hence the value of meditation.[1] [1]. http://www.alternet.org/story/152011/how_meditation_makes_you_more_rational http://www.alternet.org/story/152011/how_meditation_makes_yo...
read 12y ago
Then what trick is more practical than "surround yourself with smart people" that you could derive without smart people? By the way, the first trick was "The first step is to have an explicit belief in change."
marcosdumay 12y ago
My take is: "The world changes, and when that happens you must change your beliefs accordingly. Yep, you knew that, so now go practice it." What's a great message to receive from time to time. Yep, everybody knew that, that does not mean the message is useless.
davemel37 12y ago
His insight is that the very thing that makes someone an expert (I.e. experience) can also be their biggest disadvantage in that they view the world through a filter that might need recalibration. The title is pretty accurate.If you want to be an expert you need to pay attention to fresh perspectives that might not be colored by the same filter. whereever change happens, experience becomes a handicap. Unless you keep an open mind.
lsc 12y ago
>4. Make friends/Surround yourself with smart people.: Not extremely practical unless you are a famous VC but even then not trivial. I think it's quite practical to surround yourself with smart people without being a famous VC. I've done it. it might even be easier without being famous, unless by smart, you mean "Smart, tall and well-spoken" or "Smart, tall, and able to hold the right kind of conflicting ideas in your head without emotional distress" - which is often what VC seem to mean by smart. I mean, don't get me wrong, a lot of the ycombinater kids I've met really seemed pretty smart, but they also had the social bits you need to be good business people, and if you demand those social bits along with the 'smart' - and you should, if you are looking for business people and not just technical people - those people become dramatically more difficult to find, and when you do find them, they're difficult to be friends with, as you said, unless you are very high status, because they are very high status. If you just want someone with a high G, though, and are okay with people who are short or shy or fat or who have emotional issues, as you should be if you are looking for people who can become good technical people, G alone does not confer much by way of status in this society. I've hired more than one person who tests two standard deviations better than I do by that measure. hell I've dated a few people who test two standard deviations better than I do. Now, PG, I imagine, when talking about making investment decisions, probably is talking about "vc smart" - people who are smart, but also good looking, who have good attitudes and who have the other business person attributes, so in the context of this article, you're probably right. but I'm just saying, smart people usually aren't high status people. It's not hard to get smart friends, if you are willing to skimp on some of the status-granting attributes.
- paul 12y ago
  What makes you think height is so important? I have not noticed any correlation. One of the nice things about startups vs politics is that appearance is much less important for success. (unless you think Bill Gates is some kind of super model :)
  - lsc 12y ago
    The relationship between height and income is very well documented, at least for men. It's not absolute, certainly, we can all come up with the names of successful short men, just like we can come up with the names of successful black men and successful women. It doesn't mean those things don't put you at a serious disadvantage when talking to VC or trying to get a job.
lifeisstillgood 12y ago
I am reminded of a interview with Amy Hoy, where she said she studied successful entrepreneurs in software "but not what they said, which was usually "work hard" but what they did." I think we are expecting a lot of pg here - to be a successful entrepreneur, gain insight into what made him successful, write about it, become a successful VC and now we want a second honest and well written set of searing insights? I think once was impressive enough. It is us who need to do a bit of the insight gathering now.
_navaneethan 12y ago
what I can grasp is like 1. be socialized and 2. be dynamic for the change overall from these essay. How can you be dynamic? you have to be watchman of the society. if anything wrong in my perspective, please correct me

by sytelus 12y ago

Implicated 12y ago

> Ummm... what was the first trick? "...to focus initially on people rather than ideas"

SiVal 12y ago

Yeah, at the risk of being "middle-brow", I didn't really learn much about "How to be an expert" from this. Maybe, it's just a title issue, and "How to be among the first investors to spot an exploitable change" or something similar would have set my expectations properly, but I was hoping to get some useful tips that would apply to a significantly broader definition of "expert".

lyricalpolymath 12y ago

the first trick was a meta-belief > believe in change

varchar 12y ago

With these kinds of advice (entrepreneurial / life), you just take the best lessons and move on. I like your point by point analysis. But I guess you cannot look at such articles solely through the lens of analysis. On an unrelated note - I know a lot of successful professionals and entrepreneurs (mostly non tech and some tech). Surprisingly they are not that analytical as one would expect. They have great drive, self belief, instincts, people skills, adaptability, negotiation skills, ability to bounce back and perhaps several other skills. I realized at some point in my career that great intellectual / analytical ability is just one aspect required for a successful career and there were several other important skills / traits. Warren Buffet famously said (I think in reference to stock analysts who pore through and analyze stocks endlessly) "Wall Street is the only place that people ride to in a Rolls Royce to get advice from those who take the subway."

patkai 12y ago
Good aspect! I know lots of mathematicians and excellent, "rational" engineers who are terrible investors and tend to go in dead ends with their excellent analysis. Our gut is smarter than we think!
- read 12y ago
  Psychology distinguishes rationality and intelligence as two separate concepts. You can be highly intelligent but not very rational.
  - rkrzr 12y ago
    Thanks for pointing this out. Even though I read Kahneman's "Thinking fast and slow", I did not truly understand that intelligence and rationality are orthogonal concepts. I've always implicitly assumed that intelligence is strongly correlated with rationality, but it seems there is a mild correlation at best: " it is a mild predictor at best, and some rational thinking skills are totally dissociated from intelligence"[0] [0]http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/rationality-versus-intelligence http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/rationality-vers...
  - ekm2 12y ago
    Hence the value of meditation.[1] [1]. http://www.alternet.org/story/152011/how_meditation_makes_you_more_rational http://www.alternet.org/story/152011/how_meditation_makes_yo...

read 12y ago

Then what trick is more practical than "surround yourself with smart people" that you could derive without smart people? By the way, the first trick was "The first step is to have an explicit belief in change."

marcosdumay 12y ago

My take is: "The world changes, and when that happens you must change your beliefs accordingly. Yep, you knew that, so now go practice it." What's a great message to receive from time to time. Yep, everybody knew that, that does not mean the message is useless.

davemel37 12y ago

His insight is that the very thing that makes someone an expert (I.e. experience) can also be their biggest disadvantage in that they view the world through a filter that might need recalibration. The title is pretty accurate.If you want to be an expert you need to pay attention to fresh perspectives that might not be colored by the same filter. whereever change happens, experience becomes a handicap. Unless you keep an open mind.

lsc 12y ago

>4. Make friends/Surround yourself with smart people.: Not extremely practical unless you are a famous VC but even then not trivial. I think it's quite practical to surround yourself with smart people without being a famous VC. I've done it. it might even be easier without being famous, unless by smart, you mean "Smart, tall and well-spoken" or "Smart, tall, and able to hold the right kind of conflicting ideas in your head without emotional distress" - which is often what VC seem to mean by smart. I mean, don't get me wrong, a lot of the ycombinater kids I've met really seemed pretty smart, but they also had the social bits you need to be good business people, and if you demand those social bits along with the 'smart' - and you should, if you are looking for business people and not just technical people - those people become dramatically more difficult to find, and when you do find them, they're difficult to be friends with, as you said, unless you are very high status, because they are very high status. If you just want someone with a high G, though, and are okay with people who are short or shy or fat or who have emotional issues, as you should be if you are looking for people who can become good technical people, G alone does not confer much by way of status in this society. I've hired more than one person who tests two standard deviations better than I do by that measure. hell I've dated a few people who test two standard deviations better than I do. Now, PG, I imagine, when talking about making investment decisions, probably is talking about "vc smart" - people who are smart, but also good looking, who have good attitudes and who have the other business person attributes, so in the context of this article, you're probably right. but I'm just saying, smart people usually aren't high status people. It's not hard to get smart friends, if you are willing to skimp on some of the status-granting attributes.

paul 12y ago
What makes you think height is so important? I have not noticed any correlation. One of the nice things about startups vs politics is that appearance is much less important for success. (unless you think Bill Gates is some kind of super model :)
- lsc 12y ago
  The relationship between height and income is very well documented, at least for men. It's not absolute, certainly, we can all come up with the names of successful short men, just like we can come up with the names of successful black men and successful women. It doesn't mean those things don't put you at a serious disadvantage when talking to VC or trying to get a job.

lifeisstillgood 12y ago

I am reminded of a interview with Amy Hoy, where she said she studied successful entrepreneurs in software "but not what they said, which was usually "work hard" but what they did." I think we are expecting a lot of pg here - to be a successful entrepreneur, gain insight into what made him successful, write about it, become a successful VC and now we want a second honest and well written set of searing insights? I think once was impressive enough. It is us who need to do a bit of the insight gathering now.

_navaneethan 12y ago

what I can grasp is like 1. be socialized and 2. be dynamic for the change overall from these essay. How can you be dynamic? you have to be watchman of the society. if anything wrong in my perspective, please correct me