> I think that's the essence of being a real game developer.
I think that's the eseence of being a real X, X = insert whatever you claim to be in.
In my mind I divide companies (and professionals) by whether their occupation is an instrumental or terminal goal. As an example, advancing rocketry and electrifying transport to advance humanity is a terminal goal for Elon Musk. I.e he cares about that and works on Tesla and SpaceX to achieve that. Contrast with most of companies, that do what they do as an instrument to get money. Such company, for which i.e. making cars is an instrumental goal would gladly switch to producing toilet paper if it was a more profitable sector. I like to refer to such a company as "toilet-paper company".
For an example that would likely appeal to the audience here, toilet-paper companies are common in start-up world nowadays. That new SaaS business that tells you (i.e. lies) how it cares about users and solving their problems, while the founders are planning on getting acquired by Google/Amazon/etc. and dumping the product (aka. exit) - that is a paper-toilet startup. Whatever sells.
What's the value I find by dividing companies by whether their work is terminal or instrumental for them? For one, I tend to trust former much more than the latter, because I expect that they'll optimize their product primarily for solving the stated problems and not primarily for selling ability.
So basically, Notch doesn't want to be a paper-toilet game developer; he wants to make games.
> In my mind I divide companies (and professionals) by whether their occupation is an instrumental or terminal goal.
That's a super good observation, thank you. It instantly explains why I have such a loathing for some companies and people and others I feel only pride. Wow. Never ever thought about it that way.
I suspect this may also help you to pick out good founders from an investors point of view and good co-founders from a founders point of view.
> It instantly explains why I have such a loathing for some companies and people and others I feel only pride.
I completely agree with this. It's basically optimizing for getting rich instead of optimizing for happiness. Many entrepreneurs make decisions (i.e. run their businesses) with the main focus being amassing money and getting rich. These are the ones that we find ourselves loathing so much. Whereas other founders make decisions with the main focus being happiness and passion for their work. These are the ones we admire.
I'm reminded of the _Nicomachean Ethics_, which, if I recall accurately, begins with an analysis of what you're calling instrumental activities vs terminal, in order to show that the end goal of any activity is happiness, which is not instrumental for any other purpose.
I'm not trying to go too deep into philosophy with this concept. I guess one could present a convincing argument that there are no real terminal goals, or that the real terminal goal is happiness, or something like that.
From the practical perspective though, people seem to have a limited capability for introspection. Maybe for Musk solving the big problems/retiring on Mars is only instrumental to feeling righteous, which is only instrumental to being happy, etc. but humans don't usually introspect that deep. The recursion stops somewhere around the moment where you feel you care about something for the sake of that something. That's what I meant by terminal goals here.
It's a good insight, but the repeated typo "paper-toilet" (incorrect, but interesting image) instead of "toilet-paper" (correct) made it difficult for me to understand on the first read. It's both here and in the post that links to this.
Thanks for pointing this out. I'm past the edit window, so I can't fix that :(.
It must have come out from the fact that in my native tongue toilet paper is "papier toaletowy"; the same two things but in different order. Therefore my mind didn't spot it on re-reading. I'll be more careful in the future.
I think that's the eseence of being a real X, X = insert whatever you claim to be in.
In my mind I divide companies (and professionals) by whether their occupation is an instrumental or terminal goal. As an example, advancing rocketry and electrifying transport to advance humanity is a terminal goal for Elon Musk. I.e he cares about that and works on Tesla and SpaceX to achieve that. Contrast with most of companies, that do what they do as an instrument to get money. Such company, for which i.e. making cars is an instrumental goal would gladly switch to producing toilet paper if it was a more profitable sector. I like to refer to such a company as "toilet-paper company".
For an example that would likely appeal to the audience here, toilet-paper companies are common in start-up world nowadays. That new SaaS business that tells you (i.e. lies) how it cares about users and solving their problems, while the founders are planning on getting acquired by Google/Amazon/etc. and dumping the product (aka. exit) - that is a paper-toilet startup. Whatever sells.
What's the value I find by dividing companies by whether their work is terminal or instrumental for them? For one, I tend to trust former much more than the latter, because I expect that they'll optimize their product primarily for solving the stated problems and not primarily for selling ability.
So basically, Notch doesn't want to be a paper-toilet game developer; he wants to make games.