> I looked around me and all the other kids were talking and joking around. I thought that was strange. How could you ever win if you're not in the mindset of winning. If you're not locked in?
I'm generally not a competitive person so this is so strange to me. Even as an introvert on the spectrum, this sounds terrible. It's a game, it's supposed to be fun. I'd rather do my best to study ahead of time, have fun, and see where it takes me during the competition.
>For me, I would stand there and keep reciting difficult words. And although I was slightly dyslexic, I still won every freaking spelling bee. With this simple trick, I dominated it so much to the point that my teachers, who loathed me for being a slacker, once tried to rig it in favor of their obedient A-students (I still won).
>I used to be a pro gamer, and when my friends and I picked up a new video game, everyone would follow the game's instructions and do the obvious thing. On the other hand, I would explore the edges of the game. I'd explore every weird build, every different weapon, and frankly look like a noob for a long time. That's good. They'll underestimate you. But you're compounding. And eventually, you'll go vertical, creating a massive distance between you and the next participant before they know what hit them.
You just put way more effort, that's it. That's the real advice - put effort into things and make consistent progress. Be curious.
>Think of Apple and how taking privacy and security seriously—despite competing against Microsoft, which didn't care about either at the time—created a lasting consumer trust advantage.
This advise against quitting you find everywhere is just wrong. Sure you should give it a fair shake, but if you are on a dead end, never quitting means never winning. If something doesn't work, it's possible you should just stop doing it and try something else.
I donno, I've come across or read about fair number of people who worked on a crazy idea for a very long time, as if they were planning to throw their life away chasing that idea. Some had a breakthrough and ended up being a huge win. But I'm sure there are many many more who just ended up nowhere. So, I guess it's a gamble.
At first glance I thought this was just an extended "Live, Laugh, Love" style post, but it's more of an autobiographical piece about what worked for the author - albeit with examples retrofitted into the chosen categories, and clearly not generally applicable.
Context is everything. Ultimately you have to use your own judgement about what makes sense because no one can see all ends. Generalized advice from someone without skin in the game is at best a weak datapoint for any significant life decision.
That said, let me give mine. Persistence over generally pays more dividends that constantly chasing quick wins. The modern information economy has cheapened success and skewed perceptions of how much effort and luck is behind outlier winners. The success I've had in startups was not quick, was not a straight line, and honestly probably didn't net me as much as if I had joined Google or Facebook early career, but the benefits in terms of broad skills and success that I can credibly claim on a personal level are actually more valuable to me than a larger number in my bank account.
IMHO parallel coding is very unwise to spend resources upon. Humans (and agents) will never code in parallel. Merging and conflict resolution was invented for a good reason.
I found this article to be inspiring in some ways! I feel like I will go back to some of its wisdom to keep me pushing on in some upcoming hard moment. Not sure just which parts yet, but it is there in my brain for me to dig back on when I get there.
These sorts of blog posts existed before LLMs. I don’t understand why every bit of low value content is attributed to AI now. Humans have been generating low value content for millennia.
It's just another CE-bro spouting the same "_success is inevitable if you keep trying, failure is forgiven and survivable_" survivorship bias propaganda. You're not missing much.
This entire article is the dude jerking himself off about how smart he is with amazing anecdotes like a third grade spelling bee.
Just don't play the game have winner and loser. Play the game that both side can win.
> I looked around me and all the other kids were talking and joking around. I thought that was strange. How could you ever win if you're not in the mindset of winning. If you're not locked in?
I'm generally not a competitive person so this is so strange to me. Even as an introvert on the spectrum, this sounds terrible. It's a game, it's supposed to be fun. I'd rather do my best to study ahead of time, have fun, and see where it takes me during the competition.
It reads as if written by teenager...
>For me, I would stand there and keep reciting difficult words. And although I was slightly dyslexic, I still won every freaking spelling bee. With this simple trick, I dominated it so much to the point that my teachers, who loathed me for being a slacker, once tried to rig it in favor of their obedient A-students (I still won).
>I used to be a pro gamer, and when my friends and I picked up a new video game, everyone would follow the game's instructions and do the obvious thing. On the other hand, I would explore the edges of the game. I'd explore every weird build, every different weapon, and frankly look like a noob for a long time. That's good. They'll underestimate you. But you're compounding. And eventually, you'll go vertical, creating a massive distance between you and the next participant before they know what hit them.
You just put way more effort, that's it. That's the real advice - put effort into things and make consistent progress. Be curious.
>Think of Apple and how taking privacy and security seriously—despite competing against Microsoft, which didn't care about either at the time—created a lasting consumer trust advantage.
Yea, because Apple is saint :D
I'm not quite sure if his goal with writing this was to help someone or to brag about how much he wins at life.
Context: the author is the CEO of Replit.
I think this is a very insightful post. On why people made products like Replit.
This advise against quitting you find everywhere is just wrong. Sure you should give it a fair shake, but if you are on a dead end, never quitting means never winning. If something doesn't work, it's possible you should just stop doing it and try something else.
Steve Levitt pushes this point, did some experiments around it: https://bfi.uchicago.edu/news/to-quit-force-a-moment-of-trut...
I donno, I've come across or read about fair number of people who worked on a crazy idea for a very long time, as if they were planning to throw their life away chasing that idea. Some had a breakthrough and ended up being a huge win. But I'm sure there are many many more who just ended up nowhere. So, I guess it's a gamble.
If you persist and win, they'll write good things about you. If you lose, they'll say you were stubborn.
Advice is situational. Some people need to hear "don't give up" and some people need to hear "move on".
This advice seems especially interesting because replit has certainly pivoted, so in that sense they kind of did quit?
you might be taking “quit” a little too literally :)
But how would you know when you've gotten to that point of trying something else?
"Winners never quit and quitters never win, but those who never win and never quit are idiots"
Problem is that you never know if you are on a dead-end. It is something you can only know in retrospect and even then only sometimes
At first glance I thought this was just an extended "Live, Laugh, Love" style post, but it's more of an autobiographical piece about what worked for the author - albeit with examples retrofitted into the chosen categories, and clearly not generally applicable.
Not knowing who the author was until now. I just read some articles from the website. For me, he's like Derek Sivers. I will keep reading his posts.
Half of the founders will say never quit. The other half will say you have to fail fast.
Choose your gurus wisely.
Context is everything. Ultimately you have to use your own judgement about what makes sense because no one can see all ends. Generalized advice from someone without skin in the game is at best a weak datapoint for any significant life decision.
That said, let me give mine. Persistence over generally pays more dividends that constantly chasing quick wins. The modern information economy has cheapened success and skewed perceptions of how much effort and luck is behind outlier winners. The success I've had in startups was not quick, was not a straight line, and honestly probably didn't net me as much as if I had joined Google or Facebook early career, but the benefits in terms of broad skills and success that I can credibly claim on a personal level are actually more valuable to me than a larger number in my bank account.
IMHO parallel coding is very unwise to spend resources upon. Humans (and agents) will never code in parallel. Merging and conflict resolution was invented for a good reason.
Are you really winning when your win is being anxious and working all the time?
I found this article to be inspiring in some ways! I feel like I will go back to some of its wisdom to keep me pushing on in some upcoming hard moment. Not sure just which parts yet, but it is there in my brain for me to dig back on when I get there.
These are the tech bros that people keep taking about.
Is he actually competitive or is he anti-competitive? Read this and find out:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27424195
"Replit used legal threats to kill my open-source project" (2021)
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These sorts of blog posts existed before LLMs. I don’t understand why every bit of low value content is attributed to AI now. Humans have been generating low value content for millennia.
It's just another CE-bro spouting the same "_success is inevitable if you keep trying, failure is forgiven and survivable_" survivorship bias propaganda. You're not missing much.