How to Do Great Work (2023)

(paulgraham.com)

29 points | by tosh 3 hours ago

6 comments

  • tosh 3 minutes ago
    good related read: You and Your Research (Hamming)

    https://www.paulgraham.com/hamming.html

  • dtj1123 34 minutes ago
    Genuine question, what work has Paul Graham done that can be classified as 'great'?
    • durdn 9 minutes ago
      He wrote a lot about this. For example he built an e-commerce meta platform in Lisp that would allow anyone to build and customise their own shops that was far ahead of anything that existed at the time.
    • baconbkr 17 minutes ago
      Creating YCombinator
    • ignoramous 8 minutes ago
      Per Graham's own definition, the founding to Y Combinator. Setting aside critiques, some of his influential essays ("Ramen profitable", "Do things that don't scale", "Founder mode", "Beating the averages", "Schelp blindness", etc) also fit the bill.
  • gaigalas 36 minutes ago
    The people qualified to do great work probably don't need the advice. They most likely lack resources (like money or free time), not guidance.

    The people who would benefit from the advice (resourceful people full of free time that are doing nothing meaningful) will likely ignore it anyway.

    • screamingninja 2 minutes ago
      You assume that people are rigid in their habits. Inspiration goes a long way. Habits can be shaped greatly with the right motivation and mentorship.
    • subygan 17 minutes ago
      this is one of the common conundrums of life. but for someone living in the grey, this stuff might push them over the edge to be great. that is the point of this article
  • user3939382 56 minutes ago
    There’s something cringey about having a zillion dollars and then using your cash soapbox to bloviate to everyone about how to be great-like-me.
    • condenser 52 minutes ago
      There's nothing "cringey" about sharing your own ideas in your own blog. What's cringey is this kind of pointless ankle-biting.
  • wseqyrku 1 hour ago
    You can listen to this on youtube with pg's own voice which I find a pretty neat use of AI.
    • staplar 18 minutes ago
      I mostly use Safari Listen feature, on my phone, to listen to it while walking. Pretty neat and doesn’t clutter my YouTube history.
    • conartist6 29 minutes ago
      Why? What's neat? To hear his thoughts the way he would voice them? But you're only pretending to...
    • iammjm 55 minutes ago
      Why not just read it out loud himself and record it?