Feed: Paul Buchheit - AggScore: 79.6
I am nothing
On a scale of one to ten, how good of a cog are you? How well
do you function in your assigned role? How much of a man or
woman are you? How do you rate yourself as a son or daughter,
father or mother, wife or husband, heterosexual or homosexual,
liberal or conservative, black or white, winner or loser, shark
or sheep, introvert or extrovert, Christian, Muslim, atheist?
How smart are you? How rational? How emotional? Do people like
you? Are you getting ahead, or falling behind?
How do you know? Are you keeping an eye on the others in your
category, comparing to see how you measure up to your peers? Is
it more important for a man to be tall, or to have good hair?
This is, of course, the path of insanity, and not the good kind
of insanity.
What will you do if you're too tough to be a good woman, too
sensitive to be a good man, too selfish to be a good husband,
too lazy to be a good employee, too shy to be a good friend,
too caring to be rational, too fat to be pretty, too effeminate
to be straight, too introverted to be a good leader, too smart
to be kind, too young to be taken seriously, too old to make a
difference, or too far behind to even get in the race?
These are all false standards and false dichotomies, but they
are so common and so ingrained that we sometimes believe in
them without even realizing it. And this leads to a mountain of
insecurities, because nobody measures up to these crazy
standards (and nobody should). But even if we don't believe in
these things, it still matters what other people think, right?
What will the neighbors think? Or how about our co-workers, or
the people at church? And so everyone works to hide their
insecurities, and they look around at their peers for
comparison, and maybe they feel bad because everyone else seems
to have it easy, to have it all figured out. The truth is,
nobody can see the truth anymore. They are all working to hide
the truth, because the truth is that they are afraid of who or
what they really are. So they all put on a show, and they
pretend to be a good whatever. Or maybe they rebel, and make a
point of being a bad whatever, but then they are still under
the control of that false standard, and they are still not
being themselves.
That is all so exhausting.
I am nothing. It's simple. If I were smart, I might be afraid
of looking stupid. If I were successful, I might be afraid of
failure. If I were a man, I might be afraid of being weak. If I
were a Christian, I might be afraid of losing faith. If I were
an atheist, I might be afraid of believing. If I were rational,
I might be afraid of my emotions. If I were introverted, I
might be afraid of meeting new people. If I were respectable, I
might be afraid of looking foolish. If I were an expert, I
might be afraid of being wrong.
But I am nothing, and so I am finally free to be myself.
This isn't license to stagnate. Change is inevitable. Change is
part of who we are, but if we aren't changing for the better,
then we are just slowly decaying.
By returning to zero expectations, by accepting that I am
nothing, it is easier to see the truth. Fear, jealousy,
insecurity, unfairness, embarrassment -- these
feelings cloud our ability to see what is. The truth is often
threatening, and once our defenses are up, it's difficult to be
completely honest with anyone, even ourselves. But when I am
nothing, when I have no image or identity or ego to protect, I
can begin to see and accept things as they really are. That is
the beginning of positive change, because we can not change
what we do not accept and do not understand. But with
understanding, we can finally see the difference between fixing
problems, and hiding them, the difference between genuine
improvement, and faking it. We discover that many of our
weaknesses are actually strengths once we learn how to use
them, and that our greatest gifts are often buried beneath our
greatest insecurities.
Letting go of your identity can be difficult and takes time,
possibly forever, but as with any change, moving in the
right direction is all that really matters (which is why
you shouldn't compare yourself with others -- you didn't start
in the same place or with the same challenges). Fortunately, we
have a variety of emotions that can help us: pride, anger,
fear, jealousy, insecurity,
unfairness, embarrassment, bitterness, etc. These are
sometimes portrayed as bad emotions, but there's no such thing
as a bad emotion, just bad responses to emotions. (For example,
torturing children is a very harmful
response to fears about your own sexuality) If we instead
use these emotions as a cue to remember, "I am nothing",
let go of our identity, and examine why we are feeling the
emotion (typically because something has threatened our
identity) then these emotions are actually beneficial. They
point us towards the buried truth.
True self improvement requires becoming a better version of our
selves, not a lesser version of someone else. But without self
acceptance and understanding, how can we even know what that
looks like or whether we're headed in the right direction? It
would be like putting the final touches on the Mona Lisa while
picturing some celebrity you saw on the cover of People
magazine -- the result would be a mess. Until we let go of our
mental images of who we are or who we should be, our vision
remains clouded by expectation. But when we let go of
everything, open ourselves to any truth, and see the world
without fear or judgement, then we are finally able to begin
the process of peeling off the shell of false identity that
prevents our true self from growing and shining in to the
world. And it starts with nothing.
Date Published: Aug 20, 2011 - 5:17 pm
The two paths to success
The recent WSJ article on the supposedly Chinese
style of parenting has generated a lot of interesting discussion.
The most amusing commentary comes from The Last Psychiatrist, who also points out
that Amy Chua, the "Chinese" mother, was actually born in
America. There were also claims that the WSJ misrepresented her
views, which may or may not be true, but is ultimately irrelevant
since it's the ideas that are being debated.
Here's the part of the article that interests me:
What Chinese parents understand is that nothing is fun until you're good at it. To get good at anything you have to work, and children on their own never want to work, which is why it is crucial to override their preferences. This often requires fortitude on the part of the parents because the child will resist; things are always hardest at the beginning, which is where Western parents tend to give up. But if done properly, the Chinese strategy produces a virtuous circle. Tenacious practice, practice, practice is crucial for excellence; rote repetition is underrated in America. Once a child starts to excel at something -- whether it's math, piano, pitching or ballet -- he or she gets praise, admiration and satisfaction. This builds confidence and makes the once not-fun activity fun. This in turn makes it easier for the parent to get the child to work even more.
She has two main points here: 1) Learning is not fun and 2)
It's important to make kids dependent on praise and
admiration.
One of the problems I've faced throughout life is that I'm kind
of lazy, or maybe I lack will power or discipline or something.
Either way, it's very difficult for me to do anything that I
don't feel like doing. If I try to force it, my energy
disappears, and I hate life. Furthermore, not only were my
parents not Chinese, but they had five kids, so there wasn't time
for Amy Chua's style of parenting. I kind of had to figure it out
on my own.
My strategy can be reduced to two rules: 1) Find a way to make
it fun and 2) If that fails, find a way to do something else.
For example, I didn't really like school, and I especially hated
homework, so I turned it into a game to see how little time and
effort I could possibly waste on it while still getting "good
enough" grades. I barely made it into the top 10% of my public
high school class, so I probably wouldn't be accepted into
whatever college Amy Chua has picked out for her kids, but I find
that I really don't care. Instead, I went to a "good enough"
college, slept through most of my classes, then got a "good
enough" job after graduation. Meanwhile, I taught myself how to
program and build all kinds of things, which to me was much more
fun than school.
I'm not going to claim that my approach is superior to Amy
Chua's, or that it will work for everyone, but I do think it
provides an interesting contrast.
Amy Chua's approach is based on extrinsic motivation. Children
must do exactly what they are told to do, and they must not be
happy unless an external authority gives them praise and
admiration. They must learn that their own internal motivations
and judgement are worthless and not to be trusted. They are
successful when an external authority, such as an Ivy League
school, tells them that they are successful.
The extrinsic path to success is to focus on being the person
you are told to be, and put all of your energy and drive into
fitting that mold.
The approach I stumbled into is based on intrinsic motivation. To
the greatest extent possible, do whatever is most fun,
interesting, and personally rewarding (and not evil). External
constraints, such as the need to go to school or make money are
simply obstacles to be hacked. Be skeptical of external authorities,
as they are often manipulating you for their own benefit, or for
the benefit of the institutions they represent (often
unknowingly, as they were already captured by the same systems
which are attempted to ensnare you). Your identity comes from
within -- external recognition such as degrees and awards are
only of tactical importance -- don't allow them to define who you
are.
The intrinsic path to success is to focus on being the person
that you are, and put all of your energy and drive into being
the best possible version of yourself.
Of course this leads to the question, "What is success?" Someone
who spent his life working 80 hour weeks, living in hotels, and
fighting his way up the corporate ladder to become VP of toilet
paper marketing would probably consider himself more successful
than a sandwich shop owner who spends his nights and weekends
playing with his kids and working on hobby projects, but maybe
the sandwich shop owner would be happier and healthier.
Ultimately, it is up to each person to decide what success means
to them, but I think it's important that everyone be mindful of
the decision they are making.
It's often said that people become entrepreneurs because they
can't handle a regular job. Perhaps these people are simply too
"defective" to fit into any mold, or maybe they lack the
extrinsic motivation necessary to care about bosses, performance
reviews, and other things which are so important for success in
the corporate environment. However, what they do have is the
creativity and natural sense of direction necessary to run their
own business. I doubt that this is a coincidence.
As explained in this TED talk by Dan Pink, extrinsic motivation is a
great way to get people to do boring and repetitive tasks, but it
actually harms performance on more creative tasks. Creativity is
a surprisingly fragile thing. It comes from deep inside, and
external concerns (most especially, "What will people think?")
seem to scare it away. But that's a topic for another time.
Of course, intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation isn't a completely
black and white distinction, and we probably can't survive
entirely on one or the other (I aim for 90% intrinsic). I also
doubt it's possible to simply "switch" from extrinsic to
intrinsic motivation. It's a skill like anything else. It takes
time to find your internal voice, learn when to trust it, and
stop fearing outside opinion (closely related: ego-fear).
Amy Chua's book was about parenting. Her style is based on
extrinsic motivation. How do we raise successful, intrinsically
motivated children? I'm sure someone will leave book
recommendations in the comments -- Alfie
Kohn comes to mind. However, I suspect that one of the most
important factors is how we live our own lives. If we demonstrate
that work and creativity can actually be fun and enjoyable, that
at least sets an example. If we first solve the puzzle for
ourselves, we have a better chance of helping others to find
their answer.
Date Published: Feb 02, 2011 - 7:31 pm
Angel investing, my first three years
I started investing in startups with the assumption that I don't
know what I'm doing (which is always true), but that the only way
to actually learn anything is through experience. Therefore, my
goal was to invest in a variety of startups, learn from the
experience, help some startups, and hopefully not lose too much
money while doing so. I don't have any single criterion for
investing. Sometimes, the idea seems good, sometimes the people
seem good, and other times I'm just curious to see what will
happen. No matter what though, I want to be helpful and learn
something interesting from the experience.
I've definitely learned a lot, but the recent Heroku acquisition
(for a reported $212 million) made me wonder if I've
also reached the point of "not losing too much money", so I did
the math. From 2006 (when I started investing) through 2008, I
invested about $1.21 million in 32 different companies. About
half of those companies were either acquired or are
dead/mostly-dead. The other half are still alive and seem to be
doing well. The current acquisitions total about $1.34 million,
only about a 10% gain, which isn't great, but at least I'm not
losing too much. Fortunately, the "still alive" category includes
a number of very promising investments, such as Meraki, Weebly, and Wufoo, so I expect the
final return will be much better than 10% (which is all gravy
anyway, since my primary goal was to learn more and be helpful).
Of the current acquisitions, only two have yielded a greater than
10x return: Heroku and Mint. Unfortunately they were also two of the
smaller investments, proving that I don't know what I'm doing, or
at least showing that I need to make a point of investing more
money into the best companies (Mint was oversubscribed, but I
don't remember why I didn't put more into Heroku -- edit:
apparently it was also oversubscribed).
It's worth noting that the highest return was from a Y Combinator company
(Heroku, winter 2008). I've been investing in the YC companies
almost from the start (Wufoo was winter 2006), and they keep
getting better. YC is attracting the best founders, and Heroku is
just the tip of the iceberg. The more great YC companies there
are, the more reasons there are for other smart founders to join
YC, and I find myself asking non-YC companies why they aren't yet
in YC. This trend definitely contributed to my decision to
join YC as a partner.
There were also a couple of medium-sized acquisitions (AppJet/Etherpad and 280North) and several smaller but still nice
(2x-3x) exits such as Auctomatic, Parakey, and Zenter. Sometimes people complain about these deals, but as much
as I'd like to get a nice 10,000x exit, I'm certainly not going
to complain when someone doubles my money!
A few companies (such as ScanScout) were acquired by other private
companies, so I include those in the "still alive and doing well"
category, since it was not an exit from the investor perspective
(no liquidity). Only two companies are officially dead, but there
are at least four "zombies" that still exist, but in a minimal
form and are almost certainly worthless.
The two bits of advice that I always give to people looking to
get started with angel investing are: 1) Assume you'll lose
your money and 2) Plan on investing in a large number of
companies. (my third bit of advice is to attend YC demo day)
I think my experience so far validates this advice. It's
important that investors have the right motivations (helping out
startups and learning how to be a better investor) and the right
expectations. Anyone doing it with the idea that they can simply
find the next Google, invest a bunch of money, and then get
super-rich is going to be very disappointed. That said, finding
the next Google and buying a 1% stake is my current billion
dollar plan :)
Date Published: Jan 03, 2011 - 5:43 pm
Four reasons Google is still Awesome
My recent predictions about which Google products will succeed
(and which won't) are causing people to think that I'm
anti-Google, which makes me sad since Google is probably still
the best company of its size, and I really enjoyed my time
there.
Unfortunately, positive stories are never as popular as negative
ones, but regardless, it's worth highlighting some of the things
that continue to differentiate Google as one of the best
companies in tech.
1 - They take big risks. People often point to projects such as
Wave as evidence that Google has "lost its magic" or something.
To me, it's evidence that they are still willing to take risks on
new ideas and new ways of doing things (Wave was run as a
completely autonomous project in Australia). If everything you do
works, then you're not taking many risks and probably aren't
innovating either. Obviously, if everything you do fails, that's
not good either, but there's a sweet-spot somewhere in the
middle. Google has enough big successes, such as Chrome and
Android, to show that they are somewhere near that sweet-spot.
2 - They are willing to build new technology seemingly unrelated
to the core business. When we started work on Gmail, many people
said it was a distraction and that Google should focus on web
search. Now nobody questions email, but they wonder why Google is
developing self-driving cars. From a market perspective,
this looks like a lack of focus, but that's a rather narrow way
of viewing things. From a broader perspective, it can be seen as
a focus on using technology to improve the world. Did people
criticize Edison or Tesla for inventing too many different
things?
From an employee perspective these non-core projects are also an
opportunity for greater autonomy. Part of what made the Gmail
project so fun was that we had a lot of independence and could
pursue ideas that other people inside Google thought were "the
wrong way to do it". Most other tech companies do not offer that
kind of freedom.
3 - They compete in positive ways. Many companies compete in ways
that actually destroy value, such as using patent lawsuits to
slow down or kill competitors. Google's weapon of choice is more
often open source and open standards. There's no question that
projects such as Android and Chrome have strategic value and work
to weaken Microsoft and others, but they also happen to be good
for the world. Google has managed to keep their interests
surprisingly well aligned with the interests of their users.
4 - They don't seem to mind honest criticism. I'm currently
reading a draft of a forthcoming Google book, and was amused to
find that it includes an email that I sent back in 2000 trashing
our then most recent product launch. It's painful for me to not
tell people what I think, so for the most part I try to find
people who don't mind hearing the truth (or my take on it,
rather). Much of my interaction with startups consists of me
telling them everything that I don't like about their product
(and then they thank me!). I've worked for a lot of different
companies, and Google was the only one where me speaking my mind
never seemed to cause a problem. I'm not claiming that I'm always
right, because obviously I'm not, but systems (or individuals)
that don't welcome negative feedback are doomed. Cultures that
don't laugh at themselves are cults.
Talking about Google is always a little tricky for me given my
background, but they continue to be
a fascinating company and a great source interesting
lessons, so I'm going to keep trying. Hopefully I don't come off
as a hater or a fan boy, but simply an honest observer.
Date Published: Dec 21, 2010 - 4:44 pm
The Cloud OS
My recent remark about the future of ChromeOS
generated a surprisingly passionate response. Some said that my prediction
was obvious and boring, but others disagreed, arguing instead
that I am ugly and "don't get it". I won't disagree with either
side, but I also noticed that my prediction was sometimes
inaccurately characterized as me "hating" ChromeOS, Google, or
The Cloud, all of which is false. Since there seems to be so much
interest in this topic, and because people keep emailing me about
it, I should probably explain my actual thoughts a little better.
First, what is a "cloud OS" and why should I want one? Actually,
I don't even know if anyone calls it a "cloud OS", but I couldn't
find a better generic term for something like ChromeOS. The basic
idea is that apps and data all live on the Internet, which is has
been renamed "The Cloud" since that sounds cooler, and your
laptop or whatever is basically just a window into that cloud. If
your laptop is stolen or catches fire or something, it's not a
big deal, because you can just buy another one and nothing has
been lost (except your money). Many people characterize this
approach as using a "dumb terminal", but that's wrong. Your local
computer can still do all kinds of smart computation and data
manipulation -- it's just no longer the single point of failure.
To me, the defining characteristic of cloud based apps is
"information without location". For example, in the bad old days,
you would install a copy Outlook or other email software on your
PC, it would download all of your email to your computer, and
then the email would live on that computer until Outlook
corrupted its PST file and everything was lost. If you
accidentally left your computer at home, or it was stolen, then
you simply couldn't get to your email. Information behaved much
like a physical object -- it was always in one place. That's an
unnecessary and annoying limitation. By moving my email into "the
cloud", I can escape the limitations of physical location and am
able to reach it from any number of computers, phones,
televisions, or whatever else connects to the Internet. For
performance and coverage reasons, those devices will usually
cache some of my email, but the canonical version always lives
online. The Gmail client on Android phones provides a great
example of this. It stores copies of recent messages so that I
can access them even when there is no Internet access, and also
saves any recent changes (such as new messages or changes to read
state), but as soon as possible it sends those changes to the
Gmail servers so that they can be reflected everywhere else (such
as my home computer). To the greatest extent possible, the
information all "lives" in the cloud, and all other copies are
simply caches which may be discarded at any time. (BTW, Apple is
lame for not allowing a native Gmail app on the iPhone -- email
is the one place where Android really outshines the iPhone
for me)
Continuing with the Gmail example, it's not just your data that
resides in the cloud -- the entire application lives there. This
is the part that causes people to erroneously describe cloud
based apps as a "return to dumb terminals". Just because an
application "lives" in the cloud doesn't mean that your local
computer isn't still doing work. When you use Gmail from your web
browser, it downloads large chunks of Javascript code to run on
your computer doing things such as rendering your inbox, handling
keyboard and mouse events, pre-fetching messages, etc. The
advantage of having this code run on your computer is that it can
respond to your actions within a few milliseconds instead of the
hundreds of milliseconds it could take to reach Google's servers
(thanks to the relatively low speed of light). Which parts of the
application run on your computer and which run on Google's
computers? Ultimately, it does not matter, and can change over
time (and in fact the split is different for different interfaces
-- the basic html interface does not need any Javascript)
As an end-user, you simply use the app, and let Google worry
about making it all work, keeping it up to date, etc.
Because we're now treating the executable code and system
configuration as data that lives in the cloud and is only cached
locally, it also makes sense to do away with the old notions of
installing and administering applications on your computer. And
of course we also need a security and sandboxing system that
prevents the code from breaking your computer (as is so common in
the Windows world). In the web/Javascript world, this happened
somewhat automatically because web apps evolved from simple web
pages, and obviously you don't have to install or uninstall web
pages -- your browser simply fetches what it needs to display,
optionally caches parts of it for improved performance, and
discards resources that it no longer needs (since it can always
re-fetch them later on).
Cloud-based apps don't necessarily have to be written in
Javascript and run in your web browser however. iPhone and
Android apps behave in much the same way. Although they can be
"installed" or "uninstalled", from a user perspective, that
process isn't substantially different from adding or removing a
bookmark, and in fact many of those apps are little more than a
thin wrapper around an embedded web browser. A combination of
technical and review policies prevent those apps from doing
anything dangerous to your computer (unlike a Windows app, which
could install a new device driver, replace a core system library,
install a root-kit, etc).
One way of understanding this new architecture is to view the
entire Internet as a single computer. This computer is a
massively distributed system with billions of processors,
billions of displays, exabytes of storage, and it's
spread across the entire planet. Your phone or laptop
is just one part of this global computer, and its primarily
purpose is to provide a convenient interface. The
actual computation and data storage is distributed in
surprisingly complex and dynamic ways, but that complexity is
mostly hidden from the end user. For example, interacting with
my FriendFeed
page involves the coordination of thousands of individual
processors and disks owned by a dozen different entities,
including you, Facebook, Amazon, Google, your ISP, and many
intermediate ISPs. The same is true of the services provided by
thousands of other web apps.
This global super-computer enables us to do things that would
have been impossible not long ago, such as instantly search
billions of documents, access our email and other info from
almost anywhere, easily share ideas with thousands or millions of
people, collaboratively edit documents with people spread around
the world, leak embarrassing diplomatic cables, etc. It also
makes it easy to launch new services and applications with almost
zero money, which has created a new generation of low-budget
startups and expanded the world of high-tech entrepreneurship to
many more people.
Inevitable, some curmudgeonly types will say this is all bad, and
indeed it is not without some downsides and complications, but
overall I believe the development of this global super-computer
is one of the most important technological advances in history.
And what about ChromeOS? If my laptop is just one part of a much
larger computer, what is the ideal design for my local node? It
should be relatively cheap and reliable, secure (no viruses or
anything), zero-administration (I don't want to be a sys-admin),
easy to use, and fast. I believe this is roughly the design
target of ChromeOS. They are building laptops that run the Chrome
web browser and approximately nothing else.
I actually like the idea of ChromeOS, so why did I predict its
demise? The answer is that we already have millions of devices
that almost meet the same ideal, and they are running iOS and
Android. In the 1.5 years since ChromeOS was announced, Apple
launched the iPad, which quickly became one of the fastest
selling new devices ever. Google will necessarily respond by
building Android tablets, which means Android will be running on
larger, more powerful devices. All of the benefits of ChromeOS
(security, instant-on, etc) should apply to Android as well, and
I expect that any new Chrome features (mostly under the umbrella
of HTML5, but perhaps Native Client as well) will also be added
to the Android browser, since platforms succeed by being as large
as possible. Once Android has all the benefits of ChromeOS, the
most obvious difference will be that ChromeOS lacks the thousands
of native apps which are popular on Android. Android apps are
closer to web apps than Windows apps in terms of security and
manageability, so eliminating them doesn't seem like much of an
advantage for ChromeOS.
The other obvious difference between ChromeOS and Android is that
ChromeOS assumes a mouse/track-pad while Android currently
assumes a touch interface (many Android devices already have a
keyboard). If my prediction is wrong and both OSs stick around,
this will probably be the reason. However, I doubt that's enough
of a difference to justify maintaining two separate OSs, and
ultimately everything may end up with a touch screen anyway.
Perhaps the tablet / laptop convertible will make a comeback.
Put another way, the ChromeOS laptops are awkwardly positioned
between the established Mac/Windows laptop market, which isn't
going away anytime soon, and the rapidly growing Tablet market,
and it has approximately zero users. That's not a great place for
a new platform to get traction and establish itself. But if it
does, I will be happy for it. And even if it doesn't, it may
still be a worthwhile experiment.
Date Published: Dec 18, 2010 - 3:35 pm
Serendipity finds you
Here is an interesting comment from Hacker News, on a
story about someone turning down an early
Google offer:
Similar thing happened to me in 1999. I realized Google was way cooler than alta vista and better at finding unknown things rather than Yahoo's directory. Truly the future, I thought. I sent in a resume to do some kind of work not development related; data center & sys admin stuff. They called me twice but I convinced myself that they would not have hired me anyways so I never called back.
Whether or not ignoring Google's calls was the right decision for
him, his reason for not taking the call (fear of rejection) isn't
great.
I don't have many positive memories from high school, but the one
that has stayed with me more than any other comes from the first
day of my 11th grade English class. My teacher (I believe his
name was "Mr. May") shared a brief anecdote from the prior
evening. He was driving home in the rain, and noticed two people
on bicycles along the side of the road. He stopped to ask if they
needed any help, and ended up driving them back to his house,
where they dried off and had dinner with him and his wife. During
dinner, the couple shared the stories from their ongoing bike
ride across the country.
It's not a very dramatic story, but I loved the serendipitous
nature of it, both on the part of the couple having adventures
biking across the country, and my teacher who saw people along
the road and invited them into his home. None of it was planned
-- they simply allowed it to happen. It was inspirational to me
because it felt like the right way to live, the fun
way to live. I don't think that's how most people operate though.
My own story of how I ended up at Google in 1999 is rather
boring. I was interested both in startups, and Linux (which was
still somewhat fringe at the time), so I sent my resume to a few
companies that I had seen mentioned on Slashdot (a rather lazy
job search, in hindsight). Fortunately, most of them never even
responded, and only one actually offered me a job, Google. I was
skeptical of their business and didn't expect it to last long,
but it seemed like it could be fun and educational, so I
accepted.
Obviously that's an example of rather extreme luck, but I've
noticed that most of the good things that happen to me follow
that general pattern, and aren't part of any "plan". The story of
how I met my wife is remarkably similar. Shortly after moving to
California, I signed up for match.com, read a bunch of profiles, emailed three
of them, and only one responded. I was very much
not looking for someone to marry, but that's what
happened anyway. As they say, "Life is what happens to you while
you're busy making other plans."
My plans rarely work (unless they are boringly simple), but
serendipity has been good to me, so over time I've tried to make
the most of that. My theory of serendipity is still evolving, but
from what I've seen, it's better to think in terms of "allowing"
serendipity rather than "seeking" it or "creating" it.
Opportunity is all around us, but we have beliefs and habits
that block it.
The two biggest blocks to serendipity seem to be ego-fear and
"other plans".
I'm using the term "ego-fear" to describe fears that go beyond
rational concern. For example, you wouldn't run out into the
middle of a freeway thanks to a healthy fear of getting run over
by a car -- that's not ego-fear. However, the fear that often
keeps people from public speaking, talking to strangers,
interviewing for jobs, etc is typically driven by fear of
embarrassment, humiliation, rejection, criticism, etc -- that's
ego-fear. Sometimes it can be difficult to separate the two types
of fear because ego-fear will rationalize itself as healthy fear,
e.g. "I don't want to talk to that stranger because they could
attack me, or waste my time."
The HN commenter quoted above who never accepted Google's calls
because, in his words, "they would not have hired me anyways",
seems to be experiencing quite a bit of ego-fear, fear of
rejection and humiliation. That fear is probably blocking a lot
of great opportunities.
It's tempting to try and think your way out of ego-fear, but I
suspect that only makes the problem worse by generating a more
complex tangle of rationalizations for the fear. Fear is defeated
by confrontation -- avoidance only makes it stronger.
"You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience
in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do
the thing which you think you cannot do." - Eleanor Roosevelt
The program for eliminating ego-fear and unblocking serendipity
is very simple: seek ego-fear. Hunt it down and soak in it. Steal
its energy. This is, by definition, scary. That's good.
The other big serendipity block seems to be "the plan".
Serendipity and luck are by their very nature unpredictable, and
therefore not part of any good plan. When something unexpected
happens, things are no longer "going according to plan", and
there is a tendency to view the unexpected event either as a
distraction, or as a frustrating obstacle to success.
The difference between a life full of frustrating obstacles, and
a life full of serendipity, is largely a matter of
interpretation. It can be difficult, but the most beneficial
response to unexpected events is a sense of gratitude. Even
seemingly adverse events can lead to something great. Accept what
is given. (see Yes
Man for a cute caricature of this mindset)
"Plans are worthless. Planning is essential." - Dwight D. Eisenhower
Planning in itself is not a bad thing, but picking a single plan
and obsessively sticking to it doesn't allow for much
serendipity. The world is very complicated, and we humans are
very stupid, so it's good to be flexible and open minded about
things. Instead of having one plan, have one thousand plans, and
revise them as necessary.
The desire to have "a plan" can also cause "paralysis of analysis" -- we put all of our energy
into formulating the perfect plan, and consequently never
actually do anything. The more effective approach is to simply
pick a plan with the knowledge that it's flawed, set the plan in
action, and then adapt, revise, or switch plans as the world
unfolds.
I suspect the desire to have a definite plan is also partially
rooted in fear. Uncertainty can be scary, and having a plan helps
create the illusion of predictability in a very unpredictable
world. However, if we actually manage to reduce risk and
unpredictability, then we are also reducing serendipity. This is
one reason why large organizations often have trouble producing
innovation -- they want it to be planned and scheduled, but that
just kills it.
The whole notion that plans are something that we should "stick
to" makes them distracting enough that I prefer to call them
"ideas" or "rough sketches" instead. Personally, I try to avoid
having plans for my life, but I have many ideas. Which ones
actually happen will be a surprise to me. It's more fun that way.
Date Published: Oct 24, 2010 - 11:41 am
What to do with your millions
There's another "I
just got a bunch of money, what do I do now?" type post on
Hacker News today, and much of the advice is from people who
clearly don't know, though the current top comment is actually very good. Since
this is a relatively common issue (ha ha) in the startup world, I
think it's worth sharing a little of what I've learned from
observing others who have this "problem" (yeah, cry me a river,
right?). This is somewhat dangerous since money is a very
delicate topic for many people, so if you have any strong
feelings, please skip this post.
Although today's poster only asked, "What do I do with my
money?", there's a second, related question that's also very
important, "What do I do with my life?" In both cases, I think
the right answer is, "start slow, and avoid making any big
decisions now", though as always, there are exceptions.
The money question is the easier of the two to answer: First,
don't lose the money!
Many people will naively tell you to immediately hire a financial
advisor. What those people don't understand is that the only
skill a financial advisor needs in order to be successful is the
ability to sell you things. Their actual financial skills are
almost irrelevant. Unfortunately, this means that you will need
to learn something about money management, and that will take
time. Fortunately, you have plenty of time. Read what Warren Buffett has to say about financial
helpers. Spend a few years getting recommendations and
talking to various advisors before deciding (intermittently, not
full-time, of course). Avoid hiring this guy. Meanwhile, put your money in
a very safe fixed-income investment, such as short-term CDs. You
can circumvent the FDIC insurance limit by having the money
spread accross multiple banks (think of it as "RAID for
money") -- see CDARS for more info. Don't rush to invest it in
the stock market -- that's risky and you could easily lose half
of your money in a matter of months. Avoid long-term or illiquid
investments, though it's fine to put a few percent into random
things such as startups, but understand that you'll probably lose
that money, so consider it an educational expense.
Edit: Many people have incorrectly interpreted my advice as,
"don't hire a financial advisor". My actual advice is, "don't
rush to hire a financial advisor -- just keep things very simple
and take time to decide what is right for you." I personally have
a bunch of advisors.
Longer term, you'll probably want to diversify into other types
of investments. Unfortunately, there's no simple formula for how
to do this, and the right answer will depend on your own
financial particulars, emotional composition (how does losing
money make you feel?), etc. Again though, the most important
thing to understand is that you don't need to decide this now. If
anyone pressures you to do anything right now (especially
financial advisors), tell them that you are not presently
interested in their services, only be less polite about it :)
Now for the hard question: What to do with your life?
First, it's important to understand that once you have the
basics, happiness comes primarily from healthy social connections
and a sense of purpose. If you quit your job and move to a new
city where you don't know anyone or have a clear purpose, there's
a good chance that you'll end up depressed or even suicidal. So
unless your current life is very broken, don't do that. Take it
slow.
Many people with jobs have a fantasy about all the amazing things
they would do if they didn't need to work. In reality, if they
had the drive and commitment to do actually do those things, they
wouldn't let a job get in the way. Unfortunately, if given a lot
of money, they are much more likely to end up addicted to
crack, or even worse, World of Warcraft. (edit, since people are
getting offended: there are, as always, exceptions, but the point
is that actually doing stuff is about a million times harder than
just dreaming about it, which is why 99% of people wouldn't
actually do it even if money weren't an issue) If you've been
institutionalized your entire life (school, work, etc), it can be
very difficult to adjust to life on "the outside".
Again, don't make any drastic changes unless you really need to.
Spend time building up new activities, interests, and social
connections, especially ones that will give your life a sense of
purpose.
Money can also mess with your identity in bad ways. It's
important to remember that we're all made of the same shit --
some people are just a little luckier than others. The nice thing
about money is that it gives you more freedom, but it can also be
a prison if it takes over your identity, makes you fearful, or
causes you to cut off connections with the people around you.
True freedom comes from the inside anyway -- we're all still
slaves to the larger system. (while searching for a story to
illustrate this point, I ended up on Epictetus's Wikipedia page -- he seems to have had
it about right, so I'll go with that, though The
Matrix is also entertaining)
Sometimes, good fortune can also make people feel guilty. But if
you find yourself in this situation, you were probably already
very lucky (reasonably healthy, intelligent, well educated, etc)
-- there's no reason to feel bad about getting slightly more
lucky. Your luck is a gift. It's ungrateful to not make the most
out of it (and also help others become a little more lucky).
Explore the opportunity. Do something remarkable. Go for a walk
in the park. Appreciate the trees.
Date Published: May 27, 2010 - 5:54 pm
Today is my wife's birthday...
For her birthday, she wants as many people as possible to donate to her cause, raising $55,555 for the Intensive Care Nursery (ICN) at UCSF Children's Hospital, where our daughter spent the first several months of her life. Proceeds will go towards funding hospital neonatal supplies and monitoring equipment, family-oriented support programs, and neurodevelopmental programs.
To donate, go to causes.com/ucsfpreemies. You can also contribute by: 1) Donating directly using UCSF's 'Make a Gift' page. 2) Making a contribution offline, by sending a check. Please write your check out to 'UCSF Foundation', indicate on the memo line 'UCSF Preemies', and mail to: UCSF P.O. Box 45339 San Francisco, CA 94145-0339 3) For those of you who are contributing through your Donor Advised Fund, please reference the foundation's EIN/tax ID#: 94-2829914
Date Published: Apr 03, 2010 - 3:41 pm
If your product is Great, it doesn't need to be Good.
By now, everyone is tired of hearing about the iPad, but the
negative responses are so perfectly misguided that it would be
wrong to waste this opportunity. Even better, we can look back at
the 2001 iPod launch and see the exact same mistakes. But this
isn't about the iPad or the iPod -- it's about product
design.
The most famous iPod review was from Slashdot, which simply
declared, "No wireless. Less space than a nomad.
Lame." The iPad reviews are similar in that they focus on
the "missing" features. Those missing features are typically
available in a variety of unsuccessful competing products, which
leads people to erroneously conclude that a successful product
would necessarily have even more features!
I believe this "more features = better" mindset is at the root of
the misjudgment, and is also the reason why so many otherwise
smart people are bad at product design (e.g. most open source
projects). If a MacBook with OSX and no keyboard were really the
right product, then Microsoft would have already succeeded with
their tablet computer years ago. Copying the mistakes of a failed
product isn't a great formula for success.
What's the right approach to new products? Pick three key
attributes or features, get those things very, very right, and
then forget about everything else. Those three attributes
define the fundamental essence and value of the product -- the
rest is noise. For example, the original iPod was: 1) small
enough to fit in your pocket, 2) had enough storage to hold many
hours of music and 3) easy to sync with your Mac (most hardware
companies can't make software, so I bet the others got this
wrong). That's it -- no wireless, no ability to edit playlists on
the device, no support for Ogg -- nothing but the essentials,
well executed.
We took a similar approach when launching Gmail. It was fast,
stored all of your email (back when 4MB quotas were the norm),
and had an innovative interface based on conversations and
search. The secondary and tertiary features were minimal or
absent. There was no "rich text" composer. The original address
book was implemented in two days and did almost nothing (the
engineer doing the work originally wanted to spend five days on
it, but I talked him down to two since I never use that feature
anyway). Of course those other features can be added or improved
later on (and Gmail has certainly improved a lot since launch),
but if the basic product isn't compelling, adding more features
won't save it.
By focusing on only a few core features in the first version,
you are forced to find the true essence and value of the
product. If your product needs "everything" in order to be
good, then it's probably not very innovative (though it might be
a nice upgrade to an existing product). Put another way, if your
product is great, it doesn't need to be good.
So where does this leave the iPad, with it's lack of process
managers, file managers, window managers, and all the other
"missing" junk? I'm not sure, but one thing I've noticed is that
I spend more time browsing the web from my iPhone than from my
laptop. I'm not entirely sure why, but part of it is the
simplicity. My iPhone is ready to use in under 1/2 second, while
my laptop always takes at least a few seconds to wake up, and
then there's a bunch of stuff going on that distracts me. The
iPhone is a simple appliance that I use without a second thought,
but my laptop feels like a complex machine that causes me to
pause and consider if it's worth the effort right now. The
downside of the iPhone is that it's small and slow (though the
smallness is certainly a feature as well). That alone guarantees
that I'll buy one to leave sitting next to the couch, but I'm
kind of atypical.
Ultimately, the real value of this device will be in the new
things that people do once they have a fast, simple, and
sharable internet window sitting around. At home we'll
casually browse the web, share photos (in person), and play board
games (Bret's idea -- very compelling). At the
office, maybe we'll finally have an easy way of chatting with
remote people while discussing a presentation or document (e.g.
audio iChat with a shared display). Of course these things are
theoretically possible with laptops, but it always ends up being
so clumsy and complicated that we don't bother (or give up after
trying once).
Making the iPad successful is Apple's problem though, not yours.
If you're creating a new product, what are the three (or
fewer) key features that will make it so great that you can cut
or half-ass everything else? Are you focusing at least 80% of
your effort on getting those three things right?
Disclaimer: This advice probably only applies to consumer
products (ones where the purchaser is also the user -- this
includes some business products). For markets that have
purchasing processes with long lists of feature requirements, you
should probably just crank out as many features as possible and
not waste time on simplicity or usability.
Date Published: Feb 09, 2010 - 1:53 am
Censorship flamewar
This post is inflammatory and unfair. It argues an extreme position that I don't agree with, but nevertheless find amusing. When writing angry responses, please direct your hate at the straw-man, not at me :)
Agree/Disagree:
When a powerful group forces information to be removed from the internet, that is censorship. Some acts of censorship are more acceptable than others depending on what information is being censored and why.
For example, Disney can force people to take certain information off of the internet because they have exclusive rights, and the free availability of that information threatens to undercut their profits, which would undercut their power to make new movies and also new laws to protect their interests (such as retroactively extending copyright, or increasing penalties for violations). In this case, censorship is good because if Disney lost that power, their profits could disappear entirely and then the world might run out of Princess movies. Perhaps someone else would start making Princess movies, but making Princess movies is difficult, and without the ability to censor the internet, they too might fail.
A second example is the Communist Party of China. They can force people to take certain information off of the internet because they have exclusive rights, and the free availability of that information threatens to undercut their power and profits, and without that power they could lose control of China. In this case, censorship is good because if the Communist party lost that power, their control could disappear entirely and they would no longer be able to preserve the peace, stability, and growth of China. Perhaps someone else would start governing China (after a quick revolution), but governing China is difficult, and without the ability to censor the internet, they too might fail.
Debate.
Date Published: Jan 26, 2010 - 10:33 am
My poorly remembered and partially imagined predictions from Jan 1, 2000
Reviewing old predictions is fun. Unfortunately, I didn't bother to write any down, so I'm working from memory here, and of course human memory is very unreliable and selective, so this is rather bogus.
Predictions for the next 10 years, from Jan 1, 2000 (as remembered on Jan 1, 2010):
Prediction: Linux will continue expanding into new spaces and will eventually make Microsoft irrelevant. Windows 2000 is the last release that anyone will care about.
Result: I was over-optimistic about Linux -- the community is unable to produce anything worthwhile on the desktop, most development has moved to the web anyway (making the desktop OS irrelevant), and OSX popularity among developers took away a lot of energy (I develop in Linux, but use OSX to host my web browser and other apps). Linux is a huge success on the server-side though and continues to grow in more "embedded" contexts, such as Android and Chrome OS. Microsoft made itself irrelevant -- they still make a lot of money, but they are no longer changing the world.
Prediction: Wireless data access (such as that provided by Ricochet) will become fast and practically ubiquitous, meaning that the Internet is always with us.
Result: It took longer than I expected, but we're finally starting to get there, and it is awesome.
Prediction: "Computer Aided Reality" will provide a cool visual overlay by using computer vision to identify objects and then fetching info about them from the Internet.
Result: I was very over-optimistic. There are a few basic "augmented reality" apps around, but nothing major. I still think that this will happen, though the display technology is still very uncertain (I haven't even heard about direct retinal projection lately).
Prediction: All data lives "online" and can be accessed from anywhere. Your computer is a stateless cache which can be replaced without any data-loss or need for reconfiguration or reinstallation.
Result: I was over-optimistic. We made some progress with things like Gmail, but computers still store information (configuration at the very least). Chrome OS may be more like what I had in mind, and the iPhone is too if you set aside the fact that it requires manual syncing.
Prediction: The Java VM will get good enough that people will finally stop using C++.
Result: I was over-optimistic. The JVM got somewhat better (though it still has significant GC problems), but Java got worse due to cultural problems. Fortunately, a lot of other interesting languages became popular, including Javascript, and there are a number of fast virtual machines in the works.
Prediction: Google will be a big success, possibly as big as Yahoo. I'm probably over-optimistic because I work there, but the people are smart and ambitious.
Result: I was under-optimistic. Google is bigger than Yahoo ever was, and is getting close to Microsoft (their market cap is 70% of Microsoft's).
Prediction: Humans will be cloned. After the initial outrage, people will stop caring once they see that the result is just a regular baby (like the "test tube babies" before them), not a "soulless monster".
Result: To my knowledge, that hasn't been any successful human cloning, though I wouldn't be surprised if there has and they are just keeping quiet about it.
Prediction: The stock market will crash, and take Silicon Valley (and other bubble-zone) real estate markets down with it.
Result: The market crash came (sort of), but instead of going down, real estate kept going up! Even when it did finally crash, local prices (especially Palo Alto) remained remarkably high.
Prediction: A meteor strike will destroy all life on Earth on November 5, 2007, so I don't need to waste time writing down my predictions for 2010.
Result: I meant 2012, there was an off-by-5 error in my calculation ;)
Date Published: Jan 01, 2010 - 11:49 pm
Visitor Rating: 8.3 (3) (Rate)
 |
|
Story Clicks: 83
Feed Views: 321
Lenses (Add|?)
Comments (Log in to add)
Feed Details
Date Added: 04/17/2009
Date Approved: 04/17/2009
By: Anonymous
Date Approved: 04/17/2009
By: Anonymous
Search FeedAgg.com
3600 mp9034 serv 1.6509 seconds to generate.