
Smart People should do Stupid Stuff - davidwurtz
http://blog.davidwurtz.com/smart-people-should-do-stupid-stuff
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Alex3917
PG says this in one of his essays, I think the example was basically that the
secret to making money is getting someone like Einstein to do something like
designing refrigerators.

It works for two reasons:

1) The reward for invention and innovation is basically the same, but the ROI
on innovation is 10x better than the ROI on invention. (This is one of the
main ideas of Seth Godin's book Free Prize Inside.)

2) The best person in a given industry makes 10x as much as the tenth best
person, and 100x as much as the 100th best person.

Thus the best way to make money is by innovating, not inventing, in an area
that you are way overqualified for. It took me a long time to really
understand this, but it's a lesson that's well worth learning.

~~~
AndrewWarner
Does anyone have a link to this pg essay?

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RiderOfGiraffes
[http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=site%3Awww.paulgraham.com+e...](http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=site%3Awww.paulgraham.com+einstein+refrigerators)

<http://www.paulgraham.com/gh.html>

<http://www.paulgraham.com/bronze.html>

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Eliezer
I don't think this is good advice, and I wouldn't advise anyone to follow in
this person's footsteps.

Smart people should _think_ about doing stupid stuff, not necessarily follow
through and _do_ it. Selling TV wall mounts online is not a very great
contribution to human progress from someone who was experimenting with
ferromagnetic fluids. This is advice on how to stay alive and make a living,
not advice on how to achieve your full potential and help humanity.

~~~
davidwurtz
Stupid does not mean "not worth it". Stupid means "obvious, and often
overlooked".

And plenty of "stupid" things do mankind some good. Amazon invested a whole
lot in selling books online, and now they contribute significantly to our
quality of life.

That said, I acknowledge in the article that there should always be those
aiming higher.

~~~
amix
If you mean "obvious" then you should use "obvious" and not "stupid" - -
because they are different words with different meaning... For example,
selling books online is an obvious idea, but not "stupid" and it isn't easy
either. Selling books online and creating Amazon is far from a simple
achievement and something you could do without intellectual power or really
hard work.

~~~
zach
No, I think "stupid" is right because it speaks to the prejudice that bright
people hold against these kinds of endeavors. It is social conditioning but
rarely examined as such.

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czstrong
Suitably, his business relies on people doing stupid stuff, like spending $170
on a mount you can get from monoprice for less than half the price.

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erikstarck
There is a similar line of thought in how tech people always seem to think
their startup idea has to be something completely new. It usually goes like
this...

Person A: I got this great idea! If you do X to Y you will get Z which is of
huge value for people working in M. Great, huh?

Person B: Yawn. Company SomeCorp did that in 1974.

Person A (spirit broken): Darn...

The idea that a new company has to come up with something completely new must
be unique to our business. Even so, the number of successful web companies
that did not have a unique idea when they started should be enough to kill the
argument, but it lives on.

Probably because of the reason mentioned in this post: smart people just don't
think it's smart enough to do something someone else has already done.

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Murkin
Can someone explain to me, what is the connection between "Science smarts" and
"Sales/Marketing smarts" ?

You really think a brilliant physics PhD can create a network that gets
1,000,000$/year in bowling ball sales ?

Or maybe that PhD should go and work as a lawyer, with his brain he can be the
best lawyer ever !

Or he can do what he loves, and if money is an issue, work _in his field_ on
something he understands and can contribute to.

Please don't send our PhDs to mend shoes. No matter how good they are at it.

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rebelvc
Question for the author. Why are you working at Google if you are wealthy from
selling wall mounts?

~~~
myoung8
Money != happiness. Working at Google is probably significantly more
intellectually stimulating and satisfying than selling wall mounts...

~~~
iamwil
For us, yes.

But not everyone cares to be intellectually stimulated to be happy.

~~~
nvoorhies
Or for that matter gets their intellectual stimulation of choice at work.

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richardburton
This article made me nod and shake my head. I agree that so many people
incorrectly think you need an "awesome, completely original, patentable idea"
to start a business when you don't. However I disagree that all endeavours
that do not push the limits of science should ever be labelled "stupid".
Selling bowling balls (an example in the article) might not be academic, but
clearing a million dollars in profit annually requires plenty of business
intelligence.

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eric_t
The author makes a couple of assumptions that I don't agree with.

The first is that success is measured by the amount of money you earn. For me
it is much more rewarding to work on interesting and inspiring problems than
having a huge income.

The second is that people that are good at hard science problems are good at
solving the "stupid" problems. You need a different set of skills to solve the
latter.

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johnl
First off I don't think that doing anything with a lava lamp as referenced in
the article qualifies as "high achievement". But the author does have a point
that has been played out in business over and over and that is: Find a niche
market and do it well, become the dominating player in that niche and you can
make a good living.

~~~
davidwurtz
I've got to agree with that, myself. I guess my point is, the chemistry that
went into the ferrofluid project wasn't trivial. And I could have made many
"greeting card companies" in the time it took to develop one ferrofluid
company.

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Ixiaus
I would state that simplicity does not equate to stupid, maybe less exciting,
but not stupid: "Simplicity is boring, complexity entertaining."

Wealth is measured relative to society. Whether you create wealth in devising
an innovative yet complex new device that millions of people swarm over, or in
selling bowling balls to masses of people - you're still creating wealth by
producing value for _many_ or for _few_ that control a percentage of the value
of the _many_.

Simple things are more straightforward to create - usually, only requiring
footwork and a solid foundation (generally existing already).

Complex things are not straightforward to create - usually, requiring footwork
and the innovation of a foundation upon which to rest.

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hackoder
It depends on what brings you inner satisfaction. Is it the "stupid" idea (I
personally wouldn't use the word stupid) that brings you $$$ or the smart idea
that keeps you up all night trying to figure out a solution?

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rebelvc
Partly to self-promote but my easiest and more profitable business is a funny
shirt site. <http://BangBangPanda.com>. I just put up the design and an
company do the hard part of making the shirts, taking the payment, and
shipping.

~~~
garply
Since you've eaten some of our time with your promotion, will you tell us a
little bit about the economics of your business? Are you ramen-profitable off
of it? How long did it take to build? How severely do shipping costs eat your
margins?

