
By endurance we conquer - kogir
http://blog.samaltman.com/by-endurance-we-conquer
======
pm90
OK, so here's the real question: how do you know when what you're doing can be
called 'endurance' and not foolishness?

You work on your product; initially everything's great, there's a feeling of
'nothing is impossible'. As the months go by without any traction, you begin
to have a few doubts. Finally, after you've spent quite a lot of time and got
nowhere, you're really pissed: on the one hand, you 'invested' so much of your
time into it. It might need 5% or even 0.1% more effort to become successful.
But, how do you know when to stop? How do you know that you're not going down
a dead end?

~~~
pg
That is a hard question. Probably the best you can do is ask people who've
seen a lot of similar situations.

~~~
tarr11
I'd imagine that you have some sort of spreadsheet to keep track of your
predictions, both positive and negative.

I'm curious if your educated conclusion beats a random walk (similar to mutual
fund managers for example)

------
btilly
Is this who we want to take inspiration from? Reading
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Shackleton> I see:

 _Away from his expeditions, Shackleton's life was generally restless and
unfulfilled. In his search for rapid pathways to wealth and security, he
launched many business ventures and other money-making schemes, none of which
prospered. His financial affairs were generally muddled; he died heavily in
debt._

Yup! Sounds like he fits right in the startup world! (Not necessarily as a
model to emulate...)

~~~
ajju
People can be inspirational without being perfect. Despite his failings later
in life, Shackleton acted honorably and courageously on the Endurance mission.

On one of his expeditions, after their ship got stuck in the ice, Shackleton
basically saved the lives of every single man on the mission through excellent
decision making. I have read accounts of several 'Heroic' exploration
missions, and in too many of them, the leader sacrifices the lives of his team
mates to "win". Shackleton seems to have been the exact opposite of that.

"Shackleton's concern for his men was such that he gave his mittens to
photographer Frank Hurley, who had lost his during the boat journey.
Shackleton suffered frostbitten fingers as a result."

"Shackleton immediately...set to work to organise the rescue of the Elephant
Island men. His first three attempts were foiled by sea ice, which blocked the
approaches to the island. He appealed to the Chilean government, which offered
the use of Yelcho, a small seagoing tug from its navy. Yelcho reached Elephant
Island on 30 August, at which point the men had been isolated there for four
and a half months, and Shackleton quickly evacuated all 22 men."

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Shackleton#Loss_of_Endur...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Shackleton#Loss_of_Endurance)

~~~
btilly
People are inspirational because we're impressed and gratified that people
like that exist. But we do not necessarily want to be like them.

That said, the characteristics that in one person lead to repeated failure can
in another lead to success. My mother had a book called _Cradles of Eminence_
which was basically a retrospective study of what kind of childhood lead to
great fame later in life. One of their many interesting findings is that the
fathers of many eminent people tend to be failure-prone. But not failure-prone
in any way - failure-prone in that they dared too much and it didn't work out.

The reason why my mother had this book is that she was curious whether
deliberately creating the circumstances that lead others to success would lead
to success for her children. There is no way that I could summarize the result
of her experiment - nor would I suggest that anyone else try her techniques -
but I do have 2 half-sisters with Oscar nominations...

------
dude_abides
I like this other quote by Sam better: _startups: growth solves nearly every
problem, and if you don't have growth nothing will solve your problem._

(Ref: <https://twitter.com/sama/status/289918007151583232> )

Corollary: if you don't have growth, endurance will not solve your problem.

~~~
webwright
Except when it does. Many/most startups experience the trough of sorrow (
[http://andrewchen.co/2012/09/10/after-the-techcrunch-bump-
li...](http://andrewchen.co/2012/09/10/after-the-techcrunch-bump-life-in-the-
trough-of-sorrow/) ). Hard to know when to throw up the white flag... But the
ones that win certainly refused to do so when all/most of their data showed
them that they should.

tl;dr irrational (at the time) perseverance is a necessary but not sufficient
trait for startup success.

