
How things get done - olivercameron
http://blog.samaltman.com/how-things-get-done
======
ChuckMcM
I can say from experience that as you get older and develop a broader
understanding of the world, two things conspire against your focus; old ideas
presented as new ideas, and scars of things not done.

In the first case you will find you are presented with some "new idea" which
is so revolutionary it has its own set of buzzwords, its own methodology, and
its own unique values. Except that it isn't new, its like those folks who drag
up popular HN posts from 2 or 3 or 4 years ago and re-post them for the quick
karma hit. There is are people who re-wrap old ideas and pass them off like
holiday presents at a white elephant gift exchange. The trick there is to
spend enough focus points to validate that the idea isn't really all that new,
identify where (and if) it varies from what you've already seen/heard/done and
then either discard or integrate it into the same slot.

The second is tougher. There was a really funny skit on Saturday Night Live
where two psychics meet for their first date. As psychics they foresee all of
the events from first date to heady romance to angry bittering to rejection
and separation. They decide not to go out. As an experienced entrepreneur it
can be really disheartening to be asked to walk down a road you've been down
one or more times before where you know there is a pit of pain at the end of
it. And then not proceed knowing the probable outcome without risking the
possible better outcome. For example, try to find anyone, who did any startup
in the 90's. to do a startup where you are selling pet food over the Internet.

Because of these effects I think experience can really have a damaging effect
on focus if you don't actively work to avoid it.

~~~
swombat
_In the first case you will find you are presented with some "new idea" which
is so revolutionary it has its own set of buzzwords, its own methodology, and
its own unique values. Except that it isn't new, its like those folks who drag
up popular HN posts from 2 or 3 or 4 years ago and re-post them for the quick
karma hit. There is are people who re-wrap old ideas and pass them off like
holiday presents at a white elephant gift exchange. The trick there is to
spend enough focus points to validate that the idea isn't really all that new,
identify where (and if) it varies from what you've already seen/heard/done and
then either discard or integrate it into the same slot._

I'd strongly argue that this is a very bad filter. Almost all good ideas are
"not new". The fact that you recognise them as not new just means you've been
around the block now. 3-4 years ago they were just as old - you were just
younger and more naive.

Discarding an idea just because it's not new seems foolish. If it's good, use
it - even if it was first dreamt up by the ancient Sumerians.

~~~
mkr-hn
This is how we get things like Reddit, HN, Digg, and N4G, even when we already
had Slashdot. Trying to do old things better is a good way to go.

~~~
wslh
Yes, think in tablets and how many "history cycles" required. The context of
the idea is extremely important.

The lesson? If you have a rough idea about how the future will be in some
domain start to build today. The difficult part of this is knowing what to
build. For example, you need a fancy rich UI for your application but there
are no components for that so you start building your own GUI library BUT at
the same time juggernauts like Adobe, Sun, Microsoft, and Google try (in
different technology eras) to move forward with Flash, Java, Win32,
Silverlight, WPF, and HTML5.

What is the correct decision? Waiting like a Confucian can be the best option.

------
jseliger
I left this on the main blog but think it relevant to the HN discussion too:

 _I’ve heard a lot of different theories about how things get done. I’m
interested in this topic, so I pay attention and see how the theories hold
up._

This is tangential to the rest of the post, but you should get a copy of
_Daily Rituals: How Artists Work_ by Mason Currey, which is a compendium of
short, fun descriptions of the conditions in which artists do their art.

The similarity between artists and entrepreneurs is strong, even if stories
about the eccentricities of the former are far more common than similar
stories about the latter.

------
GruppeC956
Life, and therefore getting things done (especially as a startup CEO) is all
about setting priorities. The number 1 priority always somehow gets done,
regardless of what it takes. And there are things that one "should" do, and
never does.

But then there are also the hybrids, the ones that start out as unimportant
back markers, and then move up the ranks over time, predictably so. It's funny
to observe how you absolutely know they are there, how you see them coming,
getting closer and closer, how you know they will become critical at some
point, because you have been there before, and how you still manage to find
something "better" to do up until the very last minute. They feel like that
heating pipe in your basement that you only fixed provisionally with duct tape
on a summer weekend and meant to get repaired for real before the cold season
starts. It's always on the back of your mind as summer comes to an end and
fall approaches, but, well, "tomorrow" will do as well....

As time goes by, you live more and more in denial, you start getting anxious
to the point where you are simply angry with yourself for not taking care of
it while it was still easy, hassle-free, inexpensive, and non-pressing. In the
end, you find yourself in a situation where something becomes your number 1
priority not because it is per se important, but only because you have no
other choice but to make it happen on that very day.. "Again?" is the question
you ask yourself when you finally dig through all the documents you need for
preparing that damn corporate tax return on the 14th of March. "Really?" goes
through your mind when you start packing a bag for an upcoming trip 2 hours
before you have to leave in the middle of the night.

And as frustrating and senseless as it might be, it seems to be one thing
above all: human. As a startup founder, I have come to appreciate that in the
end it doesn't matter how you got somewhere; the only thing that matters is
that you made it.

------
jamesjyu
Totally agreed with Sam here. We built Parse with this simple program:

    
    
      10 Ask users what they want
      20 Synthesize the feedback and build it
      30 GOTO 10

~~~
zeckalpha
User: "Solve the Halting problem"

The program could continue to run forever, stuck at 20.

But back on topic, good article. We're in the everything else phase right now.
:(

~~~
emmett
When a user asks you to solve the halting problem, ask them what they want to
accomplish by doing it. Almost always there's some way to cheat and get them
what they want without doing the impossible.

~~~
MichaelGG
Like Microsoft Terminator:

[http://research.microsoft.com/en-
us/um/cambridge/projects/te...](http://research.microsoft.com/en-
us/um/cambridge/projects/terminator/)

------
volume
"The best hires I’ve made or seen other companies make are usually friends or
friends of friends."

perhaps this is confirmation bias -- that by hiring friends your actual
relationship becomes the interview and therefore by the time you actually
hire, you have pretty much minimized your risk of a bad hire.

The other problem is that that this is not a secret. And therefore everyone
"networks" and nowadays more and more people see their relationships as a form
of currency. When you meet someone new and "interesting" there's a subtle hope
for some sort of payoff into the future.

Then again, anything I say isn't from experience, just my inner internet troll
offering unsolicited criticism. Thanks for sharing your ideas.

~~~
mathattack
My experience on friends of friends is it's a 2 way validation - it validate
the hire, and it validates the firm. In lieu of this, headhunters expensively
fill the function. I've found employee referral programs to be highly
efficient as a result. The downside is you can close yourself off to entire
schools of thought.

------
Arnor
I've been hacking at features for my startup for a couple months now. As I
progress, I get increasingly nervous about the process of turning the product
into a business. I'm not so worried about the community or functionality
because I am talking to people and getting great feedback. It's encouraging to
hear that the stuff I'm nervous about ("corporate structures, interviewing
lawyers...") is exactly the stuff that I shouldn't be focusing on, but it
leads me to a tricky question... If I don't, who will?

~~~
bgilroy26
There are size-appropriate solutions. In the beginning you have a bookkeeper
and a lawyer but you are obviously not their biggest client. Then it goes up
the ladder from there.

------
kriro
Investors: Don't talk to any lawyers or think about corporate structure so we
can fleece you :P

I kid, I kid pretty much spot on. Talk to customers, make sure you got the
right ones and solve painful problems -> code. Talk to customers again to make
sure your code actually allows them to solve their problems/ease their pain.

------
mathattack
"Most early-stage startup founders do a bad job of getting the company to
focus on just two or three critical priorities—they chase whatever shiny new
object appears that day."

This is true of everywhere. Companies like to call themselves agile and
flexible, but when it's just the boss changing focus every few days, nothing
gets done. This also highlights the importance of saying "No" to a lot of
interesting and useful things.

------
dude_abides
This is great advice for YC-stage companies. For bigger companies, the biggest
challenge is how to continue to focus on the “write code and talk to users”
part, while having to deal with everything else, which unfortunately becomes
harder to ignore as you grow. "Why organizations tend towards inefficiency as
they grow" should be a fascinating chapter in the "How things get done" book.

~~~
andysinclair
Try to keep as high a proportion as possible of employees focused on the core
functions of coding and selling.

Outsource as much of your non core business as possible.

Simple ;-)

------
evincarofautumn
> The sort of people that start companies generally like doing new things, not
> executing relentlessly on the same things. But restraint is critical...

I haven’t started a business, but I mean to. Is it really so common to be all
about the new? “Restraining myself” would actually mean _starting new things_
when I’m supposed to, instead of working relentlessly on one thing to
completion like I prefer to do.

~~~
beat
If you work relentlessly to completion, count your blessings (assuming you're
actually achieving completion, not just stuck in recursive perfectionism). The
problem most creatives I know encounter is _not_ completing things, because
they chase the shiny new ideas that come to them constantly.

~~~
evincarofautumn
I certainly used to be that way, but in the past year or two I’ve grown. Doing
a short one-off project from start to finish is fine, as long as it doesn’t
get out of hand. But I’m making a long bet on a programming language project
and there’s little time for anything else.

Besides, it seems better to think in terms of tasks, not projects. What is the
most concrete thing I can do right now? Even if it’s large and daunting, I
think you can always be productive as long as your goals are specific enough
to be actionable.

------
rdudekul
How things get done? Through a combination of focus and personal connections.
Focus at YC is “write code and talk to users”.

Here is the Charlie Rose interviews Paul Graham, YCombinator video:

[http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/14928956](http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/14928956)

