I'd read an article that said that for most people - their income will be very close to the average income of their 5 closest friends. Create the environment - and discipline will come on its own.
3.
Ambition either comes from having kickass heroes or from facing strong problems. England started becoming a super power only when King Henry read the book of King Arthur and his Knights of the round table. (King Arthur's story was a false story written by Thomas Malory - while in prison. A convict changed the fortunes of England which was until then a land of misfits and barbarians - by giving them a hero!)
When there is a lack of heroes, you need strong problems to build that burning ambition. Eg: how Chandragupta and Chanakya went on to unite India 2300 years ago - because Alexander threatened their existence. Up until Alexander showed up in India - no one even dreamt of uniting India...
England started becoming a super power only when King Henry read the book of King Arthur and his Knights of the round table. (King Arthur's story was a false story written by Thomas Malory - while in prison. A convict changed the fortunes of England which was until then a land of misfits and barbarians - by giving them a hero!)
I don't know much English history, but this is surely nonsense. Malory was a late compiler of the Arthurian legends, in no way their originator, and Henry V (whom I assume you have in mind?) was a generation earlier. Besides, history doesn't work this (fairy-tale) way.
About point 3, I think you have cause and effect backwards, most likely your 5 best friends are either friends from college or work, or maybe neighbors.
So it's not like having wealthier friends will make you earn more money, but rather earning more money will probably lead you to have wealthier friends.
In highschool there was this guy who used to study a lot. Everybody said he was studying too much, and that he needed to study that much because he wasn't that smart. Finally he graduated with one of the best averages in our class. Then he got into the best engineering school in Chile, and I remember thinking that maybe he wouldn't be able to make it, or that he wouldn't have such good grades. Well, I was wrong. He graduated from engineering with a great average.
Now I don't know where this guy is working or what he's doing, but I have no doubt he will achieve whatever he sets himself to accomplish. For me, he is an incredible example of how will and discipline got him to achieve the things he wanted.
2 other stories about this guy:
1. Until he was around 12 he was fat. Then one day, after summer vacation he came back to school thin. He stayed like that at least until he finished engineering.
2. Junior year in highschool he had the best average in the advanced math class. There was a math competition and he was not chosen to go. When he asked the teacher about this, the teacher said: "for this competition we need talent, not effort"
"Everybody said ... that he needed to study that much because he wasn't that smart."
That's a dead giveaway for a "fixed mindset" about intelligence. Studies show that people that think that effort is an indication of lack of ability will avoid effort to not look stupid, leading them to perform less well over time than those that don't have this mindset. See research by Carol Dweck et al.
Reminds me of one of my classmates from undergrad. We were in the same hall in the first year, then we were housemates for the next two (in the final year he went back to halls and I, ermm, dropped out). Anyway, dude was a machine. He was smart, too, mind, but he put the hours in, working late into the night studying. And during the day he dominated every class, and make it look effortless.
His elder brother was a total slacker, cared only about smoking dope, doing yoga and getting laid. So there's some nature vs nurture there.
> A good deal of willfulness must be inborn, because it's common to see families where one sibling has much more of it than another.
This is a non-sequitur. The hidden assumption seems to be that siblings in the observed families are treated exactly the same and have exactly the same environment, in every way, which is blatantly false.
Furthermore, if willfulness is purely inborn (or genetic) wouldn't siblings be more likely to exhibit similar strengths of will, since they have such similar DNA?
In a family, nature and nurture are mixed together. The only way to separate the two components are with twin studies where the twins are raised separately.
I have a feeling that "discipline", that is, getting yourself to do things by sheer force of will, only works in short bursts. For long periods, you need create a system for yourself that takes your own weakness into account. For example, for a long time I tended to exercise in intermittent bursts. I would do it for a few weeks, then catch a cold or something and fail to pick it up again afterword. The solution to this problem was to create a schedule for myself. I wake up, eat breakfast, check the internet, work for two hours, exercise, eat lunch, etc.
Another important thing is strong principles. That is, you have to have clear, logical reasons for making the sacrifices necessary to achieve your goals. Every time you're tempted to do something other than pursue your goal you're going to have to argue with yourself. If you aren't completely convinced that what you're doing is truly worthwhile, temptation is eventually going to win.
I don't know where you got that definition of "discipline". Discipline is the development of or training intended to produce a habitual and specific pattern of behavior. There are several slight variations in the meaning of discipline, but none that comes close to its being used as a synonym for will-power.
It's interesting that Paul believes willfulness is primarily inborn, especially since he now has a child. How would he react if his child were to exhibit lack of willfulness (a trait he clearly admires)?
I agree that among siblings in the same family, one often observes a wide range of willfulness. However, the same family may not be as homogeneous an environment as Paul assumes. It's been shown that elite universities disproportionately admit eldest children and only children. It would seem that the differential upbringing that only and eldest children receive (in undivided parental time and attention, etc.) does result in increased willfulness, discipline, and/or intelligence.
Ambitious people often hope that their children will exceed their own levels of achievement. Empirically, it seems that there is a strong regression-toward-the-mean effect among the children of parents who have done great things. I wonder how much of this is nature versus nurture - could there be a negative effect of growing up in too rich of an environment that diminishes one's chances of becoming a Steve Jobs or Paul Graham? How do you train willfulness and ambition in a child?
Now, PG argues that discipline is an important component of determination. For startups, determination is called "the most important predictor of success."
In the earlier essay, these comments were made:
Now I know a number of people who do great work, and it's the same with all of them. They have little discipline. They're all terrible procrastinators and find it almost impossible to make themselves do anything they're not interested in. One still hasn't sent out his half of the thank-you notes from his wedding, four years ago. Another has 26,000 emails in her inbox.
I'm not saying you can get away with zero self-discipline. You probably need about the amount you need to go running.
PG, does this difference in opinion represent increased wisdom due to the experience gained from doing YC rounds? Or is it simply a nuanced or superficial difference?
I talk about this in the last two paragraphs. You need more discipline in a startup, because you have to work on what other people need rather than what you want.
As a grad student in math, i would say that determination still plays a important role. For me, there have often been periods where you lose motivation and dont see why you are doing what you are doing, and then sometimes there are moments of clarity. (someone aptly compared this to mountain climbing). I imagine this happens in lots of other fields,(music, to pick a random example) where there is a prequisite of learning lots of arbitary things before understanding/creativity happens. Determination, is what you might need to to go through these phases.
I agree. I had a problem with this specific claim by PG:
"Most people would agree it's more admirable to be good at math than memorizing long strings of digits, even though the latter depends more on natural ability."
Surely determination plus the right mnemonics can help anyone memorise long sequences of digits. I would have thought that reasoning creatively, carefully, and abstractly - i.e., mathematics - requires more natural talent, or at least a predisposition, than wanting to memorise digits.
I certainly hope you are right. I am just starting my own graduate studies in math, but having limited apparant innate abilities in mathematics I am counting on practice and study to correct that deficiency.
This has got to be, in my opinion, my 2nd favorite PG essay, right after the 'How Not to Die' essay.
So here in sum is how determination seems to work: it consists of willfulness balanced with discipline, aimed by ambition.
The essay is probably meant to help investors pick good investments. But I say that founders can use it to help pick good co-founders, as well as improve themselves. I would love to read more on things/characteristics about a person that might give evidence of a person's willfulness, discipline and ambition, or lack thereof.
Like most essays of philosophy, this seems to stop at the formation of the hypothesis. And while the model is interesting, it's still important to ask "does it reflect reality?". To answer that, we need to quantify "discipline", "determination" and its sub-components. And then, see if they really are good predictors of successful founders?
It's hard; that's our biggest problem. It's straightforward to tell in a 10 minute conversation how smart someone is, but very hard to tell how determined they are. When we pick wrong it's almost always by misjudging determination.
determination is a tricky thing. but i think there's also the ability to 'program yourself' to be determined. this usually means figuring out how to make whatever project you're working on fun -- and figuring out how to make sure the projects you're working on now and in the future are at least related to some long-term interest.
great discussion though. there is probably a 'language' of determination. and more efficient ways of being determined than others. i mean determination etymologically is related to a terminus or boundary. it is literally the ability or quality of getting to a boundary.
so if we infuse the meaning of determination with the idea of getting to a successful terminus -- we're referring to the ability to get the transaction done. in the case of startup space, one has to analyze what are the common set of obstacles that prevent getting the transaction done.
well (1) the manner in which the final terminus needs to be renegotiated as the project changes and competing views about the desired end result are brought into view -- so negotiation of the final result is key. (2) taking advantage of previous solutions, not reinventing the wheel but (3) not using any wheels which are limited or limiting and (4) spending maximum time and energy on the specific product.
but i think the most important thing is to regularly analyze whether or not one is on the optimal path to one's goal (first-round funding, e.g.) and also whether one can make the process of the development so bloody fun that one wants to spend as much time on the project as literally possible.
the most undervalued link in the whole network of the problem space is between the founders and their problem space. i.e., figuring out how to spend as much time as possible in your REPL, with your design diagrams, or otherwise amongst your code.
and now, i am just going to press 'add comment'. but yeah, nice article.
An interesting second-derivation of this is with co-founders. Two (or more) people who share a goal can spur each other on via internal competitiveness & a symbiotic pattern of compensating for dips in the other's discipline or willpower. For example I'm sure neither Lennon or McCartney would have achieved half of their combined output.
Determination is great for investors because it increases the chance that they'll get a return. But the number of great ideas is x, and having a bunch of companies bound and determined to do something with x * 100 is relegating them to living under a horrible opportunity cost -- eating ramen for a subsistence profitability level when they could be doing something more interesting and profitable.
A company needs to eventually have an idea that's both unique and compelling. It should optimize on having a sustainable competitive advantage. Determination is incredibly important because few companies start out with the right mix and usually have to experiment to get it right, but let's not over-idealize it. All the determination in the world won't let you make a cake with sand and olive oil. A founder has to know "when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em."
"When you take people like this and put them together with other ambitious people, they bloom like dying plants given water. Probably most ambitious people are starved for the sort of encouragement they'd get from ambitious peers, whatever their age."
I've had the opposite experience, depending on what kinds of personalities are involved. Sometimes when you put several ambitious people together, they all destructively interfere with each other with the strength they radiate, particularly if they're young and inexperienced.
Ambitious people are almost always more granular and more preoccupied control freaks than people who are less ambitious. That can be a problem unless they are also diplomatic, pragmatic and wise.
I think if you read the article again with categorizing all things into symptoms and cause, you'll get better understanding. Most people confuse between two and try to instill symptoms into themselves and mostly end-up at wrong end. You cannot simply say that from tomorrow I'll be more determined on my goals. There has to be passion, love and solid drive for what you do, as mentioned at the end of article. I think veterans and people who have been constantly successful at what they are doing would agree that love for what you do is an important component to success otherwise you will simply run out of your breathe by constant push without any passion.
[+] [-] ankeshk|16 years ago|reply
Easy way to become better at controlling will power is controlling your diet. Yep - glucose increases will power. http://psr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/short/11/4/303
2.
"Environment trumps discipline"
I'd read an article that said that for most people - their income will be very close to the average income of their 5 closest friends. Create the environment - and discipline will come on its own.
3.
Ambition either comes from having kickass heroes or from facing strong problems. England started becoming a super power only when King Henry read the book of King Arthur and his Knights of the round table. (King Arthur's story was a false story written by Thomas Malory - while in prison. A convict changed the fortunes of England which was until then a land of misfits and barbarians - by giving them a hero!)
When there is a lack of heroes, you need strong problems to build that burning ambition. Eg: how Chandragupta and Chanakya went on to unite India 2300 years ago - because Alexander threatened their existence. Up until Alexander showed up in India - no one even dreamt of uniting India...
4.
I think what is missing is luck - which can also be hacked somewhat. Book: The Luck Factor: The 4 Essential Principles: http://www.amazon.com/Luck-Factor-Four-Essential-Principles/...
[+] [-] gruseom|16 years ago|reply
I don't know much English history, but this is surely nonsense. Malory was a late compiler of the Arthurian legends, in no way their originator, and Henry V (whom I assume you have in mind?) was a generation earlier. Besides, history doesn't work this (fairy-tale) way.
[+] [-] nico|16 years ago|reply
So it's not like having wealthier friends will make you earn more money, but rather earning more money will probably lead you to have wealthier friends.
[+] [-] radu_floricica|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jamesbritt|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] davidw|16 years ago|reply
Getting into land wars with Russia with winter approaching.
[+] [-] sharpn|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nico|16 years ago|reply
Now I don't know where this guy is working or what he's doing, but I have no doubt he will achieve whatever he sets himself to accomplish. For me, he is an incredible example of how will and discipline got him to achieve the things he wanted.
2 other stories about this guy:
1. Until he was around 12 he was fat. Then one day, after summer vacation he came back to school thin. He stayed like that at least until he finished engineering.
2. Junior year in highschool he had the best average in the advanced math class. There was a math competition and he was not chosen to go. When he asked the teacher about this, the teacher said: "for this competition we need talent, not effort"
[+] [-] lutorm|16 years ago|reply
That's a dead giveaway for a "fixed mindset" about intelligence. Studies show that people that think that effort is an indication of lack of ability will avoid effort to not look stupid, leading them to perform less well over time than those that don't have this mindset. See research by Carol Dweck et al.
[+] [-] gaius|16 years ago|reply
His elder brother was a total slacker, cared only about smoking dope, doing yoga and getting laid. So there's some nature vs nurture there.
[+] [-] xenophanes|16 years ago|reply
This is a non-sequitur. The hidden assumption seems to be that siblings in the observed families are treated exactly the same and have exactly the same environment, in every way, which is blatantly false.
[+] [-] trunnell|16 years ago|reply
In a family, nature and nurture are mixed together. The only way to separate the two components are with twin studies where the twins are raised separately.
[+] [-] pg|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JesseAldridge|16 years ago|reply
Another important thing is strong principles. That is, you have to have clear, logical reasons for making the sacrifices necessary to achieve your goals. Every time you're tempted to do something other than pursue your goal you're going to have to argue with yourself. If you aren't completely convinced that what you're doing is truly worthwhile, temptation is eventually going to win.
[+] [-] billswift|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] epkann|16 years ago|reply
I agree that among siblings in the same family, one often observes a wide range of willfulness. However, the same family may not be as homogeneous an environment as Paul assumes. It's been shown that elite universities disproportionately admit eldest children and only children. It would seem that the differential upbringing that only and eldest children receive (in undivided parental time and attention, etc.) does result in increased willfulness, discipline, and/or intelligence.
Ambitious people often hope that their children will exceed their own levels of achievement. Empirically, it seems that there is a strong regression-toward-the-mean effect among the children of parents who have done great things. I wonder how much of this is nature versus nurture - could there be a negative effect of growing up in too rich of an environment that diminishes one's chances of becoming a Steve Jobs or Paul Graham? How do you train willfulness and ambition in a child?
[+] [-] bigmac|16 years ago|reply
Now, PG argues that discipline is an important component of determination. For startups, determination is called "the most important predictor of success."
In the earlier essay, these comments were made:
Now I know a number of people who do great work, and it's the same with all of them. They have little discipline. They're all terrible procrastinators and find it almost impossible to make themselves do anything they're not interested in. One still hasn't sent out his half of the thank-you notes from his wedding, four years ago. Another has 26,000 emails in her inbox. I'm not saying you can get away with zero self-discipline. You probably need about the amount you need to go running.
PG, does this difference in opinion represent increased wisdom due to the experience gained from doing YC rounds? Or is it simply a nuanced or superficial difference?
[+] [-] pg|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ananthrk|16 years ago|reply
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=179201
[+] [-] harshavr|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mreid|16 years ago|reply
Surely determination plus the right mnemonics can help anyone memorise long sequences of digits. I would have thought that reasoning creatively, carefully, and abstractly - i.e., mathematics - requires more natural talent, or at least a predisposition, than wanting to memorise digits.
[+] [-] timwiseman|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] trunnell|16 years ago|reply
The basic research referenced in the Globe article was done at Penn: http://www.gritstudy.com/
I wonder what the original researcher, Angela Duckworth, would have to say about PG's ideas.
[+] [-] edawerd|16 years ago|reply
So here in sum is how determination seems to work: it consists of willfulness balanced with discipline, aimed by ambition.
The essay is probably meant to help investors pick good investments. But I say that founders can use it to help pick good co-founders, as well as improve themselves. I would love to read more on things/characteristics about a person that might give evidence of a person's willfulness, discipline and ambition, or lack thereof.
[+] [-] andreyf|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jack7890|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pg|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tmsh|16 years ago|reply
great discussion though. there is probably a 'language' of determination. and more efficient ways of being determined than others. i mean determination etymologically is related to a terminus or boundary. it is literally the ability or quality of getting to a boundary.
so if we infuse the meaning of determination with the idea of getting to a successful terminus -- we're referring to the ability to get the transaction done. in the case of startup space, one has to analyze what are the common set of obstacles that prevent getting the transaction done.
well (1) the manner in which the final terminus needs to be renegotiated as the project changes and competing views about the desired end result are brought into view -- so negotiation of the final result is key. (2) taking advantage of previous solutions, not reinventing the wheel but (3) not using any wheels which are limited or limiting and (4) spending maximum time and energy on the specific product.
but i think the most important thing is to regularly analyze whether or not one is on the optimal path to one's goal (first-round funding, e.g.) and also whether one can make the process of the development so bloody fun that one wants to spend as much time on the project as literally possible.
the most undervalued link in the whole network of the problem space is between the founders and their problem space. i.e., figuring out how to spend as much time as possible in your REPL, with your design diagrams, or otherwise amongst your code.
and now, i am just going to press 'add comment'. but yeah, nice article.
[+] [-] sharpn|16 years ago|reply
An interesting second-derivation of this is with co-founders. Two (or more) people who share a goal can spur each other on via internal competitiveness & a symbiotic pattern of compensating for dips in the other's discipline or willpower. For example I'm sure neither Lennon or McCartney would have achieved half of their combined output.
[+] [-] stevenj|16 years ago|reply
On a separate note, I think there's a typo in the 14th paragraph, second sentence: "There seem to be plenty of examples <of> confirm that."
[+] [-] jacoblyles|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gaius|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pfedor|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] david927|16 years ago|reply
A company needs to eventually have an idea that's both unique and compelling. It should optimize on having a sustainable competitive advantage. Determination is incredibly important because few companies start out with the right mix and usually have to experiment to get it right, but let's not over-idealize it. All the determination in the world won't let you make a cake with sand and olive oil. A founder has to know "when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em."
[+] [-] rw|16 years ago|reply
"When you take people like this and put them together with other ambitious people, they bloom like dying plants given water. Probably most ambitious people are starved for the sort of encouragement they'd get from ambitious peers, whatever their age."
[+] [-] abalashov|16 years ago|reply
Ambitious people are almost always more granular and more preoccupied control freaks than people who are less ambitious. That can be a problem unless they are also diplomatic, pragmatic and wise.
[+] [-] c3o|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|16 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] kuldeep_kap|16 years ago|reply
I think if you read the article again with categorizing all things into symptoms and cause, you'll get better understanding. Most people confuse between two and try to instill symptoms into themselves and mostly end-up at wrong end. You cannot simply say that from tomorrow I'll be more determined on my goals. There has to be passion, love and solid drive for what you do, as mentioned at the end of article. I think veterans and people who have been constantly successful at what they are doing would agree that love for what you do is an important component to success otherwise you will simply run out of your breathe by constant push without any passion.