
On doing things other people can't - nancyhua
http://pathsensitive.blogspot.com/2015/08/sources-of-power.html
======
mswen
One thing that the author focuses on is trying to predict what will be big in
the medium to longer time horizon and preparing oneself to be competent in
that while few others realize that "it" even exists.

I am a bit older than the author and have had some experience with this
strategy. One specific example is creating an approach to latent semantic
analysis that worked really well back in 2000. My partner and I couldn't get
people with money to pay attention. We ended up putting it on the shelf and
moving on. Around 2007 semantic gets really hot with VCs but we are each
engaged elsewhere.

My point is that this strategy can suffer from being too early. You may
eventually be shown to be right but you were too early or not persuasive
enough to gain the benefit from the insight and work.

Still, I find myself much more intrigued with creating something new, or
exploring the leading edge of some field than just grinding out the next
iteration of the same old thing.

Maybe one day I will get the timing just right.

~~~
drblast
Young people tend to severely underestimate how much luck and timing play into
success.

When I read, "When I was in 9th grade...and Googled..." I realized why the
article sounded like it did.

~~~
minikites
I had an identical reaction. I'd like to think I'm above simple agism but
someone who is 29-31 years old dropping life lessons seems hollow.

~~~
tbrownaw
Being around 30 gives more-or-less a decade of experience at being an adult.
Which is plenty of time to get your 10k expertise hours in if you haven't been
completely slacking off the whole time.

~~~
minikites
You know the whole 10,000 hours thing is made up bullshit right?

~~~
tbrownaw
Yep. :)

------
frisco
This idea is usually called the "failed simulation effect" in evaluating high
school/college/grad school applications:
[http://calnewport.com/blog/2008/05/28/the-art-of-activity-
in...](http://calnewport.com/blog/2008/05/28/the-art-of-activity-innovation-
how-to-be-impressive-without-an-impressive-amount-of-work/)

The basic idea is that there are a lot of things that are actually a lot more
reasonable than they appear because in reality they build from a simple
beginning that compounds through practice and persistence, just like anything
else, but the reviewer never sees that. It's very effective when you see it.

~~~
rz2k
On one hand it is an interesting statement about the amount of work required
to accomplish something that is impressive to an outsider who doesn't
understand the steps, but really these people really are somewhat unique
merely by being enterprising enough to take advantage of the opportunities
they had.

That is, I think after asking the people about the explicit steps involved, I
would understand better, but I wouldn't be less impressed.

------
zkhalique
A lot of these seem to be about getting accepted into some high-achieving
organizations, which will open up further opportunities. This is clearly very
important. I would suggest one strategy to do this which involves startups:

MAKE A STARTUP THAT YOU ARE GOING TO FLIP

Once you have the mindset that you are going to exit in a few years instead of
building the next google, you'll project many of the attitudes investors are
looking for. Even if you have a huge idea that you're working on, don't bring
it up when you talk about your smaller, flippable idea. Even better if
technology or user base you developed in the "world changing" project can be
used to give the flippable idea a big boost, making it seem to be making
amazing leaps (which is actually true). Give away as much equity as you need
to the most well-connected people who want to get involved. Network your way
using the startup as the reason for everyone to cluster around. In short,
build your own little organization, and attract people by selling to them
exactly what they are looking for. Don't be greedy with the equity because
your goal isn't to make huge amounts of money on the exit (even though you
could every well exit with millions or a golden parachute) but to open doors
and make connections.

Many startups eschew this route because they feel they must focus only on
their world-changing business, and as a result, they miss all the low hanging
fruit they could be getting.

~~~
rewqfdsa
Substitute the tech buzzwords for real estate ones and your terrifying comment
could have come straight out of 2007. You shouldn't be building anything to
"flip". That attitude does not lead to a society full of people doing
productive things. It leads to a shake silo of charlatans doing their best to
dupe VCs until the bubble comes crashing down on all our heads.

~~~
zkhalique
No. The idea is not to dump some bad mortgage on an unsuspecting buyer. It's
to not be hesitant to give away enough equity to make sure the company grows
as fast as it can and reaches influential people as a result. That brings you
connections, a good track record (serial entrepreneur), and money. You can own
90% of your NEXT venture, while the previous one is managed by "not you" since
you've given away equity to lots of people who now say "we'll take it from
here".

After all, if so many people are actively looking for such entrepreneurs and
screening for an "early exit" mindset, why not sell to them what they're
looking for, and use it as a vehicle to get further in life?

------
b_emery
This is a good idea. Cal Newport has a similar suggestion, and often writes
about thus under the heading "the psychology of impressiveness":

[http://calnewport.com/blog/2010/03/26/how-to-get-into-
stanfo...](http://calnewport.com/blog/2010/03/26/how-to-get-into-stanford-
with-bs-on-your-transcript-failed-simulations-the-surprising-psychology-of-
impressiveness/)

I'd be interesting in hearing about other people doing this sort of thing.

------
ChuckMcM
I really like the insight in this article. It really boils down to being
mindful of what you're trying to achieve versus established wisdom on how to
achieve it. My grandfather used to say "There are many roads to your
destination, try to pick one with a good view." Which, to be honest, I didn't
appreciate until I watched the paths my kids chose to get to their
destinations.

That said, people who choose to take short cuts (cheating, plagiarizing, or
other work avoidance strategies) always annoy me, especially when they are
successful at it. So where do you draw the line? Do you try to get into
Harvard on your merits or do you have your Dad's company endow a chair there?
The latter is certainly something not everyone can do.

Really like the outside activity ideas though, I had no idea that becoming a
radio amateur in High School would have looked so favorable on my college
applications. I just did it so that I could talk to people across the country
for free (long distance telephone calls were expensive then :-)

------
Htsthbjig
On Franklin not drinking beer: One interesting thing about drinking water is
that it actually made you weak and sick in the past. Romans knew that and used
wine for this reason. Sider or beer were alternatives.

It was only after water infrastructure improved, specially filters in water,
that people could drink water without issues.

When you travel the world, the most important thing you need is water
purification tablets. I have traveled lots of countries and never got sick,
but I have seen friends almost die because of drinking what they should not.

Things change over time.

------
unabst
#1. There is also doing things other people _won 't_. Entrepreneurs tend to be
willing to do anything. They're willing to survive discomfort, risk, and long
hours, and complete unfamiliar tasks even if it means googling it from
scratch. Leading is something people often won't do also, even though anyone
_can_ do it. Practice begins with doing, and so whether it's a deadline or a
dream, if you have something pushing you to do things (and nothing is beneath
you) you've just become capable of accomplishing what other's _can 't_.

#2. This:

> what you get are communities that collectively have and share the best ways
> of doing things. So the way to get good at something is to simply find the
> right community and join it.

Take HN. If you can keep up with the conversations on here, you're pretty much
guaranteed to be at the bleeding edge of IT. And the further away from SV the
better probably... As HN literacy decreases per capita, you'll be further
ahead of the local curve.

The only minimum is English, an internet connection, and a burning desire to
build/code.

> The problem is the finding: every community wants to seem like them.

My heart goes out to those still stranded on /. (or rather, what has become of
it). Why HN? The sparsity of the comments was misleading at first (though I
was quickly enlightened as to why), but I am still pleasantly surprised every
single day at the rate of which the original authors comment here. Sure, maybe
they see their logs and hop on for the first time, but when we're not talking
about _other_ people, we _are_ the people, and I find that to be a breath of
fresh air. Plus, no ads. HN, I salute you.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
>Take HN. If you can keep up with the conversations on here, you're pretty
much guaranteed to be at the bleeding edge of IT.

That's... disturbing.

~~~
unabst
But it's true. And if you can understand reactions such as yours, you are
really at the bleeding edge... It's not about right or wrong, but rather,
knowing what is up. It's about knowing why people say the things they say.
With an open mind, comments such as this can be just as enlightening.

Back in the day, I remember seeing the Japanese ./ site and being disappointed
by the quality of submissions and comments compared to the English site. Now I
look at HN and feel the same about /. And if anything comes along that makes
me feel that way about HN, that is where I'll be... But until then!

~~~
chipsy
It really isn't. I've wandered onto random IRC channels and found myself
bathed in realms of technical knowledge that simply don't come up here, and
made more genuine connections.

No one community is at the center of things. Ever. It's not how the world
works. The best you can get, as leading edges go, is little glimpses of a new
idea in a limited space, before it's had any chance to diffuse. Media
aggregators come much, much later in the lifecycle. For a certain slice of
tech, HN may be professionally necessary - but otherwise it's not that
advantageous.

~~~
unabst
Not center of course. Just one edge is probably more accurate.

But I don't think you realize just how hard it is for a normal person to
randomly hop on an IRC channel and be bathed and be able to keep up with it
and make friends. If HN feels redundant then consider that serious validation
of your competence and the league you are in. I tip my hat.

------
lotharbot
We've roughly doubled the number of college degrees earned (of all types, from
Associates to Masters) since 1980:
[http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d14/tables/dt14_318.10.as...](http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d14/tables/dt14_318.10.asp)
(the population of the US has only grown by about 40% in that time period,
which means there's also about a 40% increase in per-capita degrees earned.)
Having a degree has become less and less of a "do something other people
can't" prospect, and therefore less of a useful signal to employers.

~~~
chrismarlow9
Be self sufficient. The degree is fantastic, but build something while you're
getting the degree that you can show future employers. Sorry but your thesis
isn't "something". Nobody can make money on your thesis. Build a
tool/product/something. I know this is difficult in most industries, but in
the software (and even IoT) space it's ridiculously easy. I'm not talking
about the thing you built while you interned at "XYZ". I'm talking about an
idea you had (even if there's already 1000's of the same thing out there) that
you planned, implemented, launched, supported, and marketed. It's fine if it
makes $0. You want to show an employer self sufficiency and results. Show them
what you can do to make them money.

------
mettamage
I'll use this comment as a mental exercise for the sources of power that I
found. Disclaimer: I'm no sources of power expert ;) Just a person who's
intrigued.

\- Meditation: nowadays it seems a bit more mainstream, but I still think
doing Vipassana or other body-scan related techniques is a source of power.
The idea of emotional intelligence felt like a concept, but when I actually
felt a tangible improvement, I understood the concept intuitively.

\- Mental simulation: this is more a generalization of meditation. But if
psychology shows you can learn to play piano just by vividly imagining it, it
has merit, since you can now learn it anywhere.

\- Specialized communities: Hacker News is a prime example. It's the first
time I learned so much about tech (despite studying CS). Evaluating a
community is a matter of its own though.

\- Interdisciplinarity: this is more domain specific but it works for me in
uni. I learned my academic writing thanks to psychology classes and learned
LaTeX from CS. Combining the two allowed me to improve my writing in ways I
never imagined. A natural consequence is that I get higher grades during
interdisciplinary courses (e.g. serious games).

\- Geo-arbitrage: we all know this one. Living in a cheap country (e.g.
somewhere in Asia), while working for an expensive country such as the US.

\- Good peer to peer teaching: I owe all most of my dating skills to one
person who taught me after years of small successes and reading a lot on the
topic. Finding the right teacher is the hard part.

\- Six degrees to separation: I tried it once as an experiment. I didn't reach
the person I wanted to reach, I was impatient as well. But I got a lot further
than I thought. The hardest thing is that you don't know the full topology. So
my best guestimate was to contact the hubs (people that know many people), and
Facebook will show you who your hubs are :)

While I've never done this type of thinking before, here it goes. My bets for
new sources of power: \- Machine learning: I think there are enough
applications that haven't been explored yet. I mean small projects. For
example, machine learning algorithms to write awesome music to MIDI and then
you adapt it to your taste as a music producer.

\- Game development for the Rift: it's not massively adopted yet and game-
design approaches need to be reinvented a bit.

Anyone who wants to share or give feedback? :)

------
skybrian
It's funny, based on the title, I was expecting to read an essay about
remembering that other people don't have the same advantages you have and
can't do what you do, even if it seems easy to you. It seems like the author
hasn't had that insight yet?

------
alexvr
It's really sad, but in one way kind of laughable, to see so many ostensibly
bright students wasting their time cramming useless crap into their brains for
AP history and calculus tests, and doing socially acceptable "extracurricular
activities," all so they can get into socially acceptable or "impressive"
universities where they can pay obscene tuitions and try to figure out what
they want to do with life. Compulsory K-12 education is really bad for smart
students who know what they love to do and what they're good at, because it's
a massive, needlessly competitive distraction. Not all smart kids need to
learn the details of calculus or chemistry or history, it turns out, because
not all smart kids want to be math professors or biochemists or historians!
Who woulda thought?!

\-----

Oh, you're a talented young engineer? You can write a program in 3 minutes to
approximate nearly any integral? Fuck you, we don't even teach programming in
high school. In fact, such witchcraft is prohibited here. Instead, spend half
a year of your life memorizing these integration tricks because we're
definitely still in the 19th century. Speaking of which, don't forget that you
have a big history project due tomorrow because you will no doubt be required
to distinguish between Greek column types when you're in the real world!

Oh, you have a natural gift for writing? Too bad you don't know what a gerund
or past participle is! You must be dumb! Let me tell you: In the real world,
it is imperative that you be capable of diagramming sentences. Yes, you
deserve to fail grammar tests even if your grammar is impeccable in practice.

Oh, you taught yourself conceptual aerospace engineering in elementary school?
Fuck you and your creativity and advanced knowledge; you must follow
directions to the point in engineering class to build this cardboard rocket!
Engineering is all about following directions!

\-----

Yeah, I've seen some nasty things in school.

I hope I see the day when students don't feel pressured to learn things just
to make the grade or "keep up" with the fierce competition. Maybe young people
will increasingly realize that competing to be #1 in the Great Conformity
Competition is really dumb because it actually makes them less competitive
where GPAs don't matter.

Imagine where you'd be if you were given the chance and encouragement to
_really_ focus on the things you loved while growing up. Young people should
not be led to believe that there is one correct path for everyone.

~~~
crpatino
How could you possibly write a program that "approximates nearly any integral"
without having learned calculus in the first place. I by that I don't mean to
"spend half a year memorizing" any tricks. (If that's what they taught you, I
am sorry to say you had a pretty awful teacher and you should seek to educate
yourself elsewhere).

Oh yes, I forgot about the 3 minute part. You didn't write _anything_ from
scratch. You just at best googled for a math library and hooked it up to your
hello world program... if not downloaded the whole damned thing from easy-
Aplus.com!!!

Nevermind, rest assured that grownups never had to learn anything in order to
build the infrastructure you happen to enjoy today.

~~~
alexvr
First, these are all exaggerated cases, inspired by experience. I appreciate
the infrastructure a great deal, but I'm saying that there's a tremendous
amount you can do if you focus on learning concepts and have a computer.
School doesn't even care if you understand concepts; memorization is usually
sufficient. And anyone who understands basic conceptual 1-var calculus and
programming can indeed easily write functions in plain C that perform
numerical integration and derivation because the hard part about calculus is
putting up with the countless algebra tricks that are not obvious to mortals.
Don't know how to manipulate that monstrous algebraic expression to take the
limit? Good thing your computer can use some tiny floats. People who are not
going to be math/physics professors or NASA physicists who need to plan a Mars
voyage to the nearest nanometer would really benefit from focusing on the
concepts instead of algebra. And my calculus teachers were pretty superb, by
the way.

------
kak9
On the last point of passing it on. The key is to find secrets with network
effects on awareness. Secrets that degrade in utility as more people know them
are the weakest form. Stronger are those that get better as more know them.
Even stronger are those that accrue even more value when you explain to people
it gets stronger as it spreads.

------
vincentbarr
Also, I enjoyed the author's previous – and first – post: Small-Batch Blogging
[1].

[1] [http://pathsensitive.blogspot.com/2015/05/i-like-doing-
thing...](http://pathsensitive.blogspot.com/2015/05/i-like-doing-things-
right.html?view=classic)

------
peterwwillis
So, privilege is great, and we need to capitalize on and discover new kinds of
privilege so we (and our kids) can become captains of industry, Olympic
medalists, and the smartest or most successful people in a particular field.

This would sound great if it didn't also reveal the horrifying nature of only
thinking about yourself (or, in the case of a parent, your child) and being
the best. You completely disregard everyone else, and totally ignore what
capitalizing ("exploiting" in his words) on that privilege does to others.

But maybe I missed something.

------
xiaoma
This is a very thoughtful essay. I particularly appreciate the insight that
his own insights have a shelf-life just as his parents' did.

------
jxm262
this is an awesome read, thanks for sharing. I wonder how this can be applied
to my career in software development?

------
jayajay
Gotta admit, the first two paragraphs of this post made me stop reading it.
Then I scrolled to the bottom thinking "what a silly article" until I read the
last sentence.

:> everythings ok now

------
sawthat
This is absolutely odious.

------
scythe
This is an absurdly depressing outlook on life.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CrOL-
ydFMI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CrOL-ydFMI)

~~~
tptacek
I don't see any connection between this post and DFW's address, nor do I
understand why this would be depressing.

~~~
nemo1618
If I had to guess, it would be the author's apparent desire to "optimize" life
-- specifically by optimizing how much you will be paid, or how you will be
perceived by others. For example, he states "right now a degree in computer
science is a ticket to a decent life," with the implication that it's not
unreasonable to study computer science _solely_ as a means of achieving
financial security. So the depressing aspect is the thought of people
directing all their energies towards "gaming the system" as effectively as
possible.

~~~
thaumaturgy
As usual there's a balance to be struck. I've had my fair share of years spent
chasing whatever fun thing I was into at the time. I don't regret those years
at all, they were fantastic and they've contributed to my character far more
than many other pursuits.

But there's still nothing glamorous about not having enough money to cover
basic expenses, unexpected emergencies, to live in a comfortable place, to be
able to afford the transportation that will get you to your passions.

I would not be worse off if I had abandoned some of my dreams a little earlier
and pursued money for a little while longer.

