
Something I've noticed about the rich and powerful - rms
http://www.dustincurtis.com/1.html
======
pg
"They all seem to be extremely (in some cases obsessively) curious about why
they, in particular, have been successful. It seems almost as though they feel
undeserving, as if the rest of their lives have been an attempt to prove their
first success had a reason or formula."

You find the same thing if you talk to successful people in any field, once
they get to talking shop. E.g. a successful playwright will be very curious
about what drove his first big success. Not (necessarily) because he feels
unworthy, but because he wants to write more successful plays.

The curiosity of the successful about success at whatever they've been working
on is practically universal. It's partly cause and partly effect.

~~~
dcurtis
That's interesting. The reason I wrote a post about it, though, is because it
seems somewhat disturbing/alarming to me. I think many first time startup
founders have a very visceral, almost animal-like feeling that if they make it
big and become a multimillionaire, their problems will be solved and they will
have won the game.

It doesn't appear this is the case though. In fact, some of the people I have
met have told me they felt _worse_ after succeeding the first time. To quote
one of them, who said he got bored:

"I actually learned this lesson even before I had any disposable income by
playing the Sims. I cheated and had loads of cash. Made my house amazing, etc.
But everybody was still unhappy and there was nothing left to do in the game."

It's good to see the post below by lionhearted, but I get the feeling that
isn't a common occurrence.

~~~
iamelgringo
(Solving the money problem) != (solving all my problems)

Successful startups generally solve the money problem. That's all, nothing
else.

Solving the money problem doesn't solve loneliness. It doesn't keep you warm
at night or fix problems with a messed up family situation, etc...

But, once you've solved the money problem, you tend to have more time on your
hands to focus on other problems.

~~~
jjs
Solving the money problem _will_ keep you warm at night, assuming you pay your
heating bill...

(And if you've got a messed-up family situation, money can put some serious
(geographical) distance between you. :)

~~~
papersmith
Maybe he was referring to a bed warmer (wink wink).

------
dilanj
They talk like that because you want them to.

These people are defined by their success. Audiences want to hear about it,
often looking for insights. For obvious reasons nobody knows exactly what they
did right and thus end up sounding as if in doubt, not least because they
don't want to sound pompous.

So when you listen to tech millionaire turned hacker Ben Bitdiddle, unless (A)
you insist he talk about his surfboarding experiences or (B) Ben doesn't mind
coming through to you as an egomaniac, the observation described here is very
much expected.

~~~
qqq
> nobody knows exactly what they did right

I think pg knows pretty much what he did right, and has explained it to us.

~~~
glazz
but tell me why failure rate still so high?

~~~
byrneseyeview
Because 'doing it right' means going from a 90% failure rate to a 60% failure
rate.

------
mrkurt
This is why modeling your behavior after a particularly successful figurehead
is of dubious value. It's very, very difficult to go back and explain why
things worked out the way they did. Bill Gates made some brilliantly forward-
thinking strategy decisions for his OS, did it at exactly the right time, and
became a billionaire. Had a butterfly farted in an IBM exec's ear early in the
process, things could have turned out completely differently.

------
bd
_"Regardless of what level of success they may have achieved in their chosen
field of work or study or what external proof they may have of their
competence, those with the syndrome remain convinced internally they do not
deserve the success they have achieved and are actually frauds. Proof of
success is dismissed as luck, timing, or as a result of deceiving others into
thinking they were more intelligent and competent than they believe themselves
to be."_

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome>

~~~
fallentimes
But most of success (especially at the upper echelon) is due to luck & timing;
I don't know if that's a true syndrome.

~~~
angstrom
It's even worse when the person who had the luck/timing in a previous success
sets out to recreate that success and doesn't adjust to the changes that have
occurred since. At least one such startup I've worked at the CEO had what we
referred to as "Delusional Rich Guy Syndrome". Many of the investors he teamed
up with also shared the same disease.

It's the idea that somehow, all the other people that failed lacked their
special innate abilities so this time it will be different.

------
jderick
I think the problem is that these people are not willing to accept that luck
had a great deal to do with their success. Instead of worrying that they are
not truly the master of their own universe, they should accept the fact and be
thankful for what they have. I think they should feel an obligation to 'give
back' to those who are less fortunate, because there are others out there who
have worked just as hard and just didn't get lucky. The truly classy rich
people all seem to get this.

------
jbjohns
I think this is part of a theme mentioned in one of pg's talks, namely that
people still have it ingrained in their psychic that getting lots of money can
only be done via fraudulent means (since for such a long time that was more or
less the case).

------
puzzle-out
Is there a link between high achievers and boredom? I get a rush when
something comes together, but afterwards comes the inevitable deflation - what
then?

~~~
randallsquared
I actually get bored well before something comes together... as soon as I can
_see_ the solution, it takes quite a bit of discipline to actually execute it.
Since I haven't yet highly achieved, I'd say that if there's such a link, it's
to a sweet spot rather than "more easily bored -> more acheivement".

~~~
brl
Are you by any chance an INTP? What you describe is a strong indicator for
that personality type.

<http://www.intp.org/intprofile.html>

"The drive to understand things that are not yet understood is a very powerful
force in the life of an INTP. Where the Ti preference is strong, this drive
can override the experiential element so strongly that the INTP will become
quickly bored with anything that he has successfully analysed to the point of
understanding it. Once understood, it has nothing left to offer, once the
satisfaction which comes with achieving the goal of understanding diminishes."

~~~
jrbedard
INTJs are like that too, but they see the whole picture and still want to push
the product to completion. Contrary to INTPs, they are not satisfied with just
solving the technical problem, they want some elegant closure as a whole
through deployment. But they still have a hard time completing those last
little tasks to cross the finish line, because it's already crossed in their
head through their vision.

~~~
DaniFong
Incidentally, readers might think that this is psychobabble, but as an ENFP
with ENTP/INTP tendencies, I've continually struggled with starting projects
that I never finished. Then I met my cofounder. He's INTJ/ENTJ. In our working
relationship, he's continually pushing towards completion. The amazing thing
is that then completion _actually happens!_ It's wonderful!

------
lionhearted
Very true for me personally. I built a small company with a partner that was
doing low-six figures annually. I bought him out and was running the show. And
on a weekly basis, I was scared to death that it was luck, a fluke, that I
couldn't replicate it if it all fell apart.

It made me shake in my boots, be overly cautious. What if it was just dumb
luck? What if the wheels came off? When I set down to put my second company
together, and it succeeded, it was like a huge weight off my shoulders. It's
like - okay, you drop me in a foreign country without speaking the local
language, clothes on my back, and $20 in my pocket, and I'll be back within a
couple years.

I can't say exactly what it is, but I think the idea of having something you
don't "deserve" (or couldn't get back) is fundamentally really scary to
people. You see the same pattern with people dating someone they perceive out
of their league, and you especially see it with corrupt political leaders. For
me, not knowing if I'd made it or gotten lucky would haunt me on perhaps a
weekly basis until I did it again.

And now? If everything melted down, I'd go hang out on the beach and read some
books for a bit, then jump back in the saddle after I got sick of reading or
beachlaying. It's a much better feeling than wondering if it was dumb luck.

~~~
yan
I never understood this. I mean it's a beautiful outlook, but every time I
hear people "jumping back into starting companies," it's totally confusing. To
me, making that statement is akin to I'm going to walk across the room and
figure out why when I get there.

I probably just don't "get" it. Maybe one day. Hopefully.

------
Shamiq
Off-Topic:

I like the way his articles are setup. Definitely one of the most
aesthetically pleasing websites I've visited in a long time. And each page is
customized...

------
fizx
Mildly off-topic, but nice typography.

~~~
DaniFong
The page design is both inspirational, and raises the bar frighteningly high.

------
Eliezer
When, after many attempts, I wrote the first SF&F story that I thought might
be saleable, I decided that I wasn't going to try publishing it until I could
write what I thought were good stories on a routine basis. I didn't ever want
to be a one-hit wonder, even to the extent of only having one published SF&F
story.

------
nazgulnarsil
you ever notice how people who save others and are interviewed afterward are
so humble? "oh no, I'm not a hero. I just did what anyone would do" after
pulling babies from a house fire or something. Now I know they do this partly
because it is expected. But screw that. If I ever do something that is widely
recognized I will be just like Mike Tyson on the subject. "Thank you for the
acclaim that I've always known I deserve! You should all feel grateful to be
in the same room of someone as awesome as me!"

This might be part of the reason that I won't be successful. My personality
type does not often become successful (at least not wildly so).

------
jgilliam
Go read Gladwell's Outliers. It explains all this.

