
A Word to the Resourceful - anateus
http://paulgraham.com/word.html
======
nostrademons
Applies to employees as well. One of the better things about Google is that
with _most_ engineers, you can raise some concern or some alternative way of
doing things, and they'll just get it, understand all the implications, and be
able to implement it with no further direction. (The ones that can't are
pretty infuriating to work with, because it takes you longer to hand-hold than
it would to just do it yourself.) I had an intern last fall where I could just
give him the name of a product or technology to look into, or a contact e-mail
for the team in charge, and he'd go look into it and come up with a working
implementation. He's just been given an offer, so with any luck he'll be a
coworker next year.

The thing is - I'm not certain this is entirely a property of the person
involved. Yes, there are certain skills that make it easier to find
information on your own. But this is also a function of the problem domain and
how well you know it. If you give me a credit card and a problem statement,
chances are that I can come up with a working webapp that solves the problem.
But if you give me the name of a VC and tell me to go raise money - where do I
start? How do I approach him? What will burn bridges and what won't?

So my question to PG and any other resourceful folks out there is: how do you
approach a problem domain in which you know _nothing_ , and manage to gain
enough of a map of the territory so that you listen to someone's one-word
suggestions and instantly grasp the implications?

~~~
patio11
Is it cheating to suggest not knowing nothing about problem domains likely to
be of interest to you, and or learning generalizable techniques for learning
quickly?

For example, hypothetically, if one has a weakness regarding chasing down
money and one knows their career path is likely to involve raising money, then
one could get a fairly rapid education in the subject for the price of a few
cups of strategically ordered coffee. Don't know the character of a VC? Thirty
seconds of Googleage should give you the names of five compulsively chatty
people willing to give you their take.

I can sort of see why, if one were busy, one would quickly burn out on
explaining How To Email People A Question to folks who did not immediately see
that in the solution set when they had a plan of action which required a bit
of discoverable organic knowledge.

~~~
loceng
That doesn't mean you'll know the nuances of the situation if you've not done
VC raising before. Nuances and confidence come from previous successful
experiences. To bring this back to the article - of course a VC would prefer
someone who has experience, and who of course will be easier to talk to then.
It looks to be more closely aligned with if people know how to execute or how
much experience they have with doing so, taking and processing information.
Personally, I'm not good processing information and acting on it quickly -
some of it, sure, but it takes time for certain types of information to sit.
Sometimes I'm sure I overthink what needs to be done, instead of just
initiating and playing off of what happens.

~~~
larrys
"Nuances and confidence come from previous successful experiences"

And to add to that what one person is able to pull off given their skills is
not always possible by another person even if they have been told what to do
or how to do it.

Seat of the pants feel involves knowing how to react and adapt when the
situation changes ever so slightly (a nuance). It's impossible to prepare
someone for every possibility that might come up. That's something that comes,
as you said, from "from previous successful experiences".

The best advice I can give is to learn concepts as opposed to a specifics and
to understand exactly why something (say in a negotiation) should be handled a
certain way. It's like the difference between learning what streets to turn on
in NYC and learning the way the streets and avenues run so you can arrive at
your destination even if you miss a turn.

Think of yourself as an actor playing a role.

------
jonnathanson
A very good mentor of mine once put it succinctly: when thinking about a
problem, he said, "don't start with the barriers." Don't frame the thought
process as "Here are all the reasons why not; now I need to figure out why."
Instead, start from a place of "Absent all barriers or obstacles, here's what
I would like to accomplish." There will be plenty of time to address
obstacles, but it's best to be energized by them when you get there. If not,
you'll see every obstacle as a crushing defeat.

If this sounds new-agey, well, perhaps it is. It's a mindset thing. But
mindsets can be extremely critical. There's a huge difference between someone
who sets out to succeed and prepares for failure, and someone who sets out to
avoid failure and hopes for success. The former will exhaust every option to
circumvent the obstacles; the latter will almost look at the obstacles as
vindication of a deep-seated suspicion that he's wrong.

~~~
bitops
_> mindsets can be extremely critical._

I would go so far as to say that they are the only thing that matters.

You can look at a problem from one mindset and see that it's going to take you
5 days or 5 weeks. Change your mindset and you might see that it's going to
take you 5 minutes.

~~~
gnaritas
"Perspective is worth 80 IQ points." -- Alan Kay

------
konaaceo
@pg Coming from an outsider looking in, I wonder how much of the issues is
with you and other YC mentors. I know you have an incredible amount of
knowledge but how you impress that information on people is very crucial. I
wonder if the process of sharing your knowledge with people needs some
refining.

Watching you do office hours and other interactions, you often make the
situation uncomfortable to people who are already unsure of whats next. When
you ask them a question, you cut them off as they are trying to explain what
they see, only to try and answer the question for them. This has been feedback
from many who have experienced the YC process.

There are people like me who have built a company and held true to our vision.
We make money and we know how to run our business. We have applied to
incubators not to have someone tell us what to do, rather to get advice from
people who have experience similar challenges and the apply them to our
structure. Granted there are groups coming through YC that don't have that
experience and those people need some direction. But for both sets of groups,
they want you to actually listen to them. When you bring them in for their
hour each week, listen to them. The wall is not that they cannot communicate
or motivated to take down leads. They are put out because every time they try
to communicate they feel the door is slammed in their face as if their thought
or idea doesn't matter.

In a recent blog post I wrote "When people feel comfortable, essential and
free to be individually themselves, a person can become a solar flare of
focused energy that fuels the world we call business." So make them feel like
they are not only essential to their company but that you actually care enough
to listen and hear them. People going on rants are an altogether different
issue, but sometimes people need to just talk out loud to work their head
around an idea. As a matter of fact, you are one of those people! But you have
to give people the sense that their voice is relevant in the direction they
are taking and not driven. Give people time to understand why your suggestions
should be heavily considered, so they can figure it out for themselves.

Again, this is from the outside but maybe it is a place to start.

~~~
pg
At first I did worry that the problem was on my end. That is always one's
initial assumption when people don't seem to understand. Maybe I wasn't clear
enough, you think, and you try again to to explain it a different way.

The reason it seems unlikely that the problem is on our end is the correlation
between being difficult to talk to and failure in the outside world. If the
problem was on our end, we would experience difficulty talking to both
successful and unsuccessful startups.

Incidentally, if all you've seen is "office hours" on stage at a conference,
you don't really know what office hours are like. Office hours onstage at an
event are about 1/4 as long as real office hours, and with people I've never
met before. So of course they are all over the place. Office hours at events
are more like YC interviews than YC office hours.

~~~
konaaceo
But do you not see the flaw in that logic? "We are not the problem so we are
not going to try something else". What advice would give if one of your groups
said that? Paul everything I have studied about you and YC over the last 5
years tells me your an incredible person but you are stubborn and you know it.
You love experiments, the next office hours simply try this approach with one
of the groups. Ask them questions and then just sit back and listen. I know it
is hard because you are an excitable guy but try it. They look at you as an
authority figure, this larger than life person who just made there dreams come
true. That holds so much power, I wonder if you realize it? Ease that stress
by leveling the playing field. One or two meetings like this, where they feel
you are actually listening, and they will be right back to your level and its
business as usual. I bet you dinner at your favorite spot that if you truly
give this a chance, it will work.

I understand the difference and don't pretend to know the daily goings on at
YC, am just putting an alternate perspective on the table for consideration.
Tonight when you reflect on this conversation, I think an idea will come to
you. I am sure this is something that bothers you very much, because you are
obsessed with solving tough problems. I think people also forget that you are
human and have feelings and your not always on the top of your game. When
people are overcome with a tough process they shut off. As you stated, that
doesn't mean they don't know how or that they are not capable. They just don't
know how to get back on the right track. These situations don't need force
they need delicate leadership. If they don't respond from there, then you have
done all you can and that is all anyone could ask for.

I even up voted you because I know you have taken time to have this
conversation. I most likely will never get into YC because I am a single
founder, therefore I fear no recourse. When the terms are level, inspiring
conversation and progress can be made. I appreciate that you have listened to
me and considered my thoughts, as someone trying to reach a goal, that means
very much!

Think about this conversation and then what I just said, the answer is right
there staring at you my friend.

~~~
jbooth
I don't think pg is saying his communication is flawless, he's saying that the
good teams could get past whatever those flaws are and the bad teams couldn't.
The same would likely apply to another investor/mentor's differently-flawed
communication style.

That of course is no reason for pg to not try to relentlessly improve, but the
point about the founders stands.

~~~
konaaceo
I think we would all agree, none of our communication is ever flawless,
including mine. I also think that from PG position he can only hold peoples
hands for so long until they have to be big boys and get on there own feet and
get there ass in gear. For all those who have played sports, great coaches
treat different players differently based on how they best respond and that
allows them to get the maximum effort from their talent. All I am offering in
this thread is maybe there is something more that can be done from a new
angle, for both PG and the founders growth and a solution to make the YC
process even better.

~~~
jbooth
Sure, and there's probably a subset in there that would actually be successful
with someone else but just have a personality mismatch with Paul. But it's
probably a minority of those who couldn't make it work with him.

------
dotBen
Honestly I think this same observation is true of engineers (good ones you can
give them the direction and they'll go work out how to solve whatever problem
they're having, the bad ones will look at you blankly and you end up doing the
work yourself).

And then, as someone who has been a founder, an engineer and a corporate
worker in enterprise during my career to date, I realized that this is also
true of people in big companies.

I guess in startup world the stakes are greater _(your company will fail vs
you won't get promoted or make bonus)_ but this is no different to middle
managers who reach a glass ceiling.

The bottom line is this: if you identify with the negative character trait PG
identifies, you need to snap out of it anyway regardless of whether you're
being bold and doing a startup or whether you want to play it safe and take a
corporate job.

------
tpatke
While I think that PG is probably right in his observation, it is not actually
very helpful. It is kind of like when he said, "When we haven't heard from, or
about, a startup for a couple months, that's a bad sign. If we send them an
email asking what's up, and they don't reply, that's a really bad sign." [1]
Well... ok. But is that cause or effect? I doubt business was booming and they
just decided to stop responding to email.

If you have a startup that is growing I am sure it is easier to take advice
and get funding. ...all sorts of things. If the business is not doing as well
I can see where it is more difficult to see the correct action.

[1] <http://www.paulgraham.com/die.html>

~~~
pg
It's true I didn't write this as a source of advice for founders so much as
just a report on a surprising (to me) connection I'd discovered. But it's not
useless. It should be very useful to investors, for example, because it offers
a quick way to detect which startups will succeed. It even helped me
understand the procedure we've evolved for YC interviews. What we do during YC
interviews is essentially to start YC right then, as if we'd funded them. Now
I know why that works so well.

It should also be useful for founders, as a warning sign to look for. People
can change, and they can also stand outside themselves to some degree. So some
founders will probably be able to read something like this and ask themselves
"does this happen with us?" and if the answer is yes, to try to be less timid.

~~~
startupfounder
People who are timid are less willing to attack schleps, to acknowledge
schleps and ask for help with schleps. Maybe this is the correlation? Maybe
people are timid because they are embarrassed or unconfident in their ability
to overcome schleps? Maybe they put up a wall or get defensive so that others
who seem smart (and who blow through schleps) don't see them as unintelligent.

This is why successful people I have interacted with have most often been
extremely welcoming and nice, because they have learned that putting
everything on the table when surrounded by peers and mentors is the best trait
of success.

If this is the case then the solution to making more successful companies (and
not "wasting" investment) is to get around this dilemma somehow. The solution
might be for founders to practice a little "mindfulness" or "self-awareness"
throughout the day. This could be a check-in with your body before meetings or
after an important call in the form of being aware of the breath or feeling
sensations like your feet on the floor. If your body is tight or you are
feeling defensive or unconfident then air it out.

Any other ways people think founders can solve this dilemma?

~~~
_delirium
It's quite possible that the situation is different in academia, but in my
line of work I tend to find the opposite: some of the most accomplished people
are very cautious and unwilling to take strong positions without thinking them
over. Usually, because they are so knowledgeable and thoughtful that they can,
as soon as they start saying anything, see a million possible caveats. In the
worst case that can be paralyzing, but it can also help avoid the opposite
behavior: the hot-headed, confident, untimid person who just doesn't really
know enough (or think over what they know) to realize why they should be more
cautious about overarching claims, especially on questions that a _lot_ of
smart people have looked into already.

It's not a universal correlation, but I've generally noticed junior and less
knowledgeable people (graduate students, early-career professors, etc.) to be
much more brash, confident, and even aggressive in that sense than
accomplished researchers, though there is a bit of an inverted-U curve
(undergraduates and 1st-year graduate students tend to be very timid). Of the
people I've met professionally, probably the most humble, and least willing to
make strong statements without thinking them over and later offering a
tentative opinion with caveats, was Bob Moog, who is also probably the
smartest and most accomplished person I've met professionally.

~~~
vidarh
I agree with your assessment, and I think in many ways one of the critical
parts to learn is how to assess when it is ok to "turn off" the critical eye
and be brash and confident and aggressive.

Some of my most valuable experiences stemmed from just throwing myself in on
the deep end instead of waiting to analyze all the implications. But at the
same time those experiences were terribly _hard_, and carried a great deal of
risk. E.g. my first company was an ISP. Started it with some friends at 19.
Knew _nothing_ about running a business or about setting up a large scale WAN,
or about accounting, or sales, or configuring Linux servers. A year later I'd
had hard, brutal and effective lessons in all of that and more.

If I'd spent time carefully trying to figure out the risks and implications
beforehand, I doubt I'd have started that company. It didn't make me wealthy,
but it was definitively worth it in terms of what I learned, and the
connections I made also led directly to my next job and overall it has been
pretty vital to my career.

On the other hand, there are many situations where not stepping back and being
careful and considered and chasing down the implications up-front would've had
disastrous consequences.

The problem isn't being cautious, if you know when not to be, but not taking
action. Being cautious because you want to chase down and understand the
implications is very different from being timid about addressing weaknesses in
your knowledge. Whether you address those weaknesses with research or by
trying is less important than avoiding paralysis.

------
mhartl
While it's tempting to treat "resourcefulness" as a trait intrinsic to
founders, in my experience it can be a sharp function of the founder/startup
fit. When I did YC, I didn't feel resourceful at all, but that's because I was
working on the wrong problems. (Don't ask; it was painful.) As soon as I
switched to education and technical publishing (the _Ruby on Rails Tutorial_ ,
started after YC), I was suddenly resourceful as all get-out—and I started to
feel unstoppable. I suspect that if I ever do YC again, the resourcefulness
transformation will appear miraculous, not because of any change in my
intrinsic resourcefulness, but because the new startup will be a much better
fit for my interests and abilities.

One could argue that truly resourceful founders will iterate until they find a
good fit. That's probably true—and it's exactly what I did. It's just that
sometimes the penultimate "iteration" involves shutting the old thing down and
starting something new. Chalk it up to my Artix Phase
(<http://www.paulgraham.com/bronze.html>).

~~~
pg
It can also change over time, especially in younger founders. As Garry pointed
out elsewhere in this thread, most schools and jobs train you to be somewhat
passive.

~~~
AndyNemmity
I agree with this. I actually didn't go the route of school, preferring to
just go out on my own, and I was/am amazed at all the passivity.

I think if anything the defining quality of my career is a total lack of being
passive. Having no formal training allows you the quality of never being
intimidated.

I didn't know anything when I started. I am not concerned about taking on any
challenge I know nothing about.

------
jseliger
This:

 _My feeling with the bad groups is that coming into office hours, they've
already decided what they're going to do and everything I say is being put
through an internal process in their heads, which either desperately tries to
munge what I've said into something that conforms with their decision or just
outright dismisses it and creates a rationalization for doing so. They may not
even be conscious of this process but that's what I think is happening when
you say something to bad groups and they have that glazed over look. I don't
think it's confusion or lack of understanding per se, it's this internal
process at work._

is precisely what happens with students, too. A few weeks ago a former student
wrote to me about career choices and whether she should major in biochem or
English, because she'd struggled in biochem classes. My girlfriend was a
biochem major, so together we wrote a thorough response that turned into an
essay called "How to think about science, becoming a scientist, and life" that
should go up soon. After spending a couple hours on the response, we sent it,
and I got back an e-mail from the student saying. . . she's going to go to law
school and "become a judge."

So all of the considered reasoning and description and discussion was merely
"put through an internal process in" her head. Experiences like this teach me
why a) a lot of professors aren't eager to interact with students and often
distance themselves from students and b) why writing "How to get your
professors' attention, along with coaching and mentoring" was useful, if only
for the relative handful of students who get it:
[http://jseliger.com/2010/10/02/how-to-get-your-
professors%E2...](http://jseliger.com/2010/10/02/how-to-get-your-
professors%E2%80%99-attention-or-how-to-get-the-coaching-and-mentorship-you-
need) .

~~~
a_a_r_o_n
I'm not saying your student didn't have a pre-filter as you describe. On the
other hand, you may have been just one source of advice for your student.
Asking for advice doesn't mean that taking it is always the best course, it's
information to be weighed against all other advice and information.

------
tnuc
At a company I used to work at they used to put the new engineers through
kindergarten. They had a few tasks that needed doing and the way to get these
tasks done needed a little bit of resourcefulness.

One of the tasks was to get a set of data from a very old computer (PDP-11)
into excel. Of course there were lots of problems with doing this and of
course most things were broken.

I was working at some crappy desk hidden near the PDP-11. The easiest solution
I would tell everyone was to type the numbers into a laptop, it would take
them about 2 hours.

The difference in the way people would listen to what I would tell them was as
different as their responses. Most people would try something for about an
hour or so then type it in. A few resourceful people would implement some very
amazing solutions and then tell me about it, I was impressed. And then there
were quite a few people who would spend two days trying to implement a
technical solution only to end up typing it in or just give up completely.

Some of the resourceful results where quite simple. The main thing I found was
that trying to tell the difference between the resourceful people who came up
with a solution in 30 minutes and those who took 2 days was impossible.
Neither of them really wanted to hear my answer. Observing the differences in
how people would deal with the problem and then with the advice was
enlightening to say the least.

The people who gave up because they didn't want to type in data for 2 hours
ceased their employment rather quickly.

------
raganwald
Reminds me of an anecdote about Tim Cook:

    
    
      In a meeting convened to tackle a problem in China,
      he had said: "This is really bad someone should be in
      China driving this." Thirty-minutes in the meeting he
      chided Sabih Khan, the then operations executive,
      saying "Why are you still here?". Khan responded by
      immediately booking a ticket to China, sans a change
      of clothes.
    

<http://www.theverge.com/2011/08/24/tim-cook-apples-ceo/>

~~~
mechanical_fish
Which brings up a relevant point: It is very easy for an organization to
undermine the resourcefulness of its employees. Indeed, this is so common that
one may eventually come to expect it.

That's why this story is as much of a story about Tim Cook as it is about
Sabih Khan.

------
aarlo
It's all about the anxiety caused by the fear.

Deep-down the unresourceful founders are afraid, which causes anxiety that
their decisions are wrong, so anything that approaches being wrong causes the
anxiety to repress and get in the way of the freedom to explore things.

Resourcefulness is also about letting new ideas and opportunities come to you,
which helps if you listen to your unconscious, which you can't do if anxiety
makes your conscious mind jumpy.

------
jcromartie
It bothers me to hear this, because I know that I tend to fall on the "hard to
talk to" side. I used to be _really_ bad at this kind of resourcefulness, and
I would have a hard time "chasing down" those various implications. I like to
think that I'm better now.

I think that, as with many areas, deliberate practice has helped.

~~~
tomjen3
Can you specify how you did deliberate practice to overcome that weakness?

~~~
makmanalp
Just sit down and think not just about _what_ a person said, but _why_ they
are saying it.

If my dad says, "Son, never date girls who are hippies", that probably means
that he himself was burned from an experience like that. While reading it
plain would have given me a catch-all theory that is not necessarily true,
reading into the reasons told me two extra factoids: my dad doesn't want me to
get hurt, and he has dated a hippie girl and that ended badly.

------
sawyer
This effect goes both ways; resourceful people should be wary of people who
are hard to listen to. I feel like when I'm speaking to someone on the same
wavelength about a specific topic it's quite easy to take shortcuts through a
lot of the conversation with a simple nod and a word.

The opposite type of conversation feels like you're walking through a swamp
with no end. You know exactly where they're going with their point many
sentences before they reach it, however they continue to drag out the thought.

------
zach
The note at the end is priceless.

I think there is something in operating under a fearful authority that spoils
people in this way — that causes them to make excuses, obfuscate,
counterattack, pass the buck or shut down when confronted by a sound argument
against their way of thinking.

Once someone has succumbed to the politics within a large organization, they
have likely internalized these patterns of dealing with objections.

~~~
garry
This is a critical observation. By default, for most people who have been
through the modern school system, and/or worked for companies -- they're used
to covering their ass and sounding smart.

The market doesn't care about cover-your-ass -- it only cares if their
problems get solved and if your product is any good.

------
ChuckMcM
So here is a reference, 'Confronting Reality' by Bossidy and Charan [1] it's
worth a read. (Their book on execution is better but they are both worth
reading)

The core thesis is exactly what Paul writes about, successful enterprises are
successful at confronting a reality which does not agree with their world
view, or their desired world view. Fundamentally, if there is a problem, or
more importantly a problem in a place where you won't look, it needs to be
dealt with. If you don't deal with it sooner, then you will be forced to deal
with it when it does so much damage that you cannot deny it any more.

People who can confront those issues fix them when they are small and thus
don't waste any time on excess damage control.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Confronting-Reality-Doing-Matters-
Thin...](http://www.amazon.com/Confronting-Reality-Doing-Matters-
Things/dp/B001T0I7KA/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_3)

------
brador
Hmm...not sure about the conclusion from the data here.

Maybe they lacked "resourcefullness" (noticed by a difficulty in closing)
because their startup wasn't so hot...maybe they were hard to talk to because,
again, their startup wasn't so great and they didn't want to talk about it.

It's the old "basketball players are tall because they are good at basketball"
thinking...

Look deeper, I suggest the cause-effect be inverted.

------
martinrue
The partner note at the bottom is spot on. I have reflectively seen myself
doing it. I used to get so focused on the particular idea I had that I lost
sight of the fact I was solving a problem, for which there were likely many
solutions – blinded by wanting to simply do it the way I had in my head.
Conversations would just be a way for me to validate my concrete idea, not to
search for additional ideas or entirely new approaches to the problem.

I like this essay because it serves as a personal reminder to always avoid
that. As soon as you close your mind off from the ideas others may give you
(directly or indirectly), you've lost.

------
jameslevy
_The unsuccessful founders weren't stupid. Intellectually they were as capable
as the successful founders of following all the implications of what one said
to them. They just weren't eager to._

Startup founders should read 'The Denial of Death'
([http://www.amazon.com/Denial-Death-Ernest-
Becker/dp/06848324...](http://www.amazon.com/Denial-Death-Ernest-
Becker/dp/0684832402))

Of course, as a founder, you could make it a point to embrace the reality not
just of your inevitable death, but also your startup's inevitable eventual
death.

I say this because I'm guessing a lot of the things pg says to the least
successful startups involves the reality that their startup will die if there
are not quick and radical changes to some part of the business.

I'm sure _many_ physicians must have this problem when talking to their
patients who smoke, binge-eat, do not take their medicine, etc.

------
bh42222
This is going to sound mean, but I don't mean to be mean. I am genuinely
curios:

Could you describe "hard to talk to" as not having very high social skills? I
would say that a lot of average folk could be described as hard to talk to,
but super smooth people are never hard to talk to.

So I mean to restrict my question to well above average social skills.

And this leads me to my next question. Could it be that social skills require
more brain power than traditionally intellectual pursuits?

We know from AI work that things which come naturally to humans are some of
the most computationally intensive and most difficult to replicate.

Whereas things like math and playing chess are much easier to implement in
software.

Doing math in your head can feel much more difficult than just having a
conversation with someone. But what if having a conversation feels easier only
because a huge amount of brain power is genetically devoted to vision,
language processing, face recognition, and reading other humans' emotions?

(This is what's going to get me grayed out) What if socially awkward geeks are
truly _lacking_ brain power compared to socially super smooth but not
particularly intellectual people?

And does pg's experience prove that social smoothness provides higher fitness
even in the high-tech startup environment?

Are then technically brilliant but socially awkward people truly less _fit_ in
almost all areas of life?

Do socially awkward people only out-compete socially smooth people strictly in
situations where interaction among humans is truly minimal?

~~~
bluekeybox
> Do socially awkward people only out-compete socially smooth people strictly
> in situations where interaction among humans is truly minimal?

As someone who's been socially awkward in the past (yet good with math, a
typical nerd type I guess) but who eventually taught himself to be social to
the extent that I can arguably surpass most of my former friends at this game
(yet who is nowhere near Paris Hilton yet), here is my hard-won perspective:

1\. Being truly social requires two things: (a) social experience, (2) a
sophisticated theory of mind, a brain "faculty" that is incredibly resource-
intensive, possibly more so than the faculty which performs abstract
reasoning. In evolutionary biology, there is an influential theory which
claims that it was theory of mind (which is being able to figure out what
others think) that developed due to the pressure of living in groups and not
tool-making that was the original cause of humans becoming sentient. This is
why I don't believe for a second those who say that women are less smart than
men (most women were simply taught to be dependent on others from the early
age).

2\. Our education system especially tends to value social skills less than
hard problem-solving skills and therefore convinces us at early age that being
social requires less brain power than doing math (because "brainy" is always
"good"). This is because of two things (1) people with high social skills are
somewhat more likely to steal money from you or cheat or use you in some other
way without you ever knowing it, (2) most people except the autistic minority
are capable of powerful theory-of-mind type thinking given enough social
exposure, while only a select minority (whether because of education or
biology) is capable of high-level abstract reasoning.

3\. At one point in my life I felt I could be very social if I wanted (and I
indeed could), yet I still avoided social interactions because being social
felt incredibly draining to me (all those neurons firing consume glucose...)
and I did not learn yet to derive pleasure from being social.

4\. People who are very good at being social (past a certain threshold) derive
a lot of pleasure from it, to the extent that they forgo most non-social
intellectual pursuits which they perceive as less rewarding. This is actually
a dangerous trap to fall into (similar to a drug addiction) if your main area
of work requires quiet contemplation.

5\. People who are truly brilliant (I'm not there yet) learn to balance the
amount of interaction with others (and pick those they interact with
carefully) because they understand that social withdrawal can give them a
serious advantage, since most of the society (perhaps except tiger-educated
Asian kids) falls squarely into the social-driven category.

------
maxklein
I think both are just manifestations of intellectual curiosity - some people,
when they talk to you, are asking themselves: "what is this guy trying to
say?" So they listen. Those same people, when they see something unusual, for
example, a new type of design, they ask themselves - why did these people do
this? So they are constantly discovering, and it's that discovering of methods
and ways that ultimately leads to them discovering the path that works.

The other people - the non-listeners - are not observing what's going on. They
are looking inwards, so are unable to react to changes, and they are unable to
see the path when they stumble across it.

~~~
larrys
"manifestations of intellectual curiosity"

Exactly. A person who is constantly reverse engineering business, peoples
behavior and life in general.

Curiosity is a big thing. Before I wrote this reply I clicked your handle to
see what you did and who you are. I guess that's fairly common on HN but there
are people that I know in the local area who still haven't visited my website
and have no idea what I do. They just aren't curious in the least.

------
ozataman
To further explore this topic, I would recommend reading the book
Iconoclast[1]. It identifies "a lack of fear and mental laziness" as some of
the key qualities rare extraordinary individuals possess. Having a child's
mind and looking at things fresh was another way of putting it for me at the
time I read it.

Reading PG's post, it immediately reminded me of the detailed analysis of this
quality in the book.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Iconoclast-Neuroscientist-Reveals-
Thin...](http://www.amazon.com/Iconoclast-Neuroscientist-Reveals-Think-
Differently/dp/1422133303/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1327002753&sr=8-1)

------
nodemaker
I think entrepreneurs/founders are inundated with so much advice from every
direction that their brains train themselves to ignore all advice at the
present moment and maybe give it a thought later.

This is actually a good thing since a founder needs to have capacity for
independent thought but it misfires when the advice is from someone like pg.

My recommendation would be to consciously admit when you are doing this and
then to consciously stop yourself from doing it when someone really
knowledgeable is talking to you.

------
tom_b
The "hard to talk to" test is almost the perfect description of how I feel
about working with certain clients (for lack of a better phrase) in my current
job.

Prior to this gig, I would have said one my strengths was actually working and
communicating with users of software I helped write or support.

Now, it seems like our team is mostly "walled off" from the external people we
could do the most for.

Any tips out there for breaking through that wall? It is really discouraging .
. .

~~~
ljf
I don't know if you believe in the 'Myers Briggs' stuff (I do to an extent) -
but one of the most valuable tools with it (which isn't often mentioned) is to
look out for any of your types switching from one to the other.

If this is happening it means you are under stress, and once you can spot it
and do something about it, it's really powerful.

~~~
gnaritas
Myers Briggs is a descriptive, not prescriptive, categorization of personality
types; belief doesn't enter into it. Like all categorizations, it's merely a
useful description of people with a fixed precision of 16. If 16 is an
accurate enough categorization for a particular need, then Myers Briggs is
sufficient. And like all categorizations, it's just a single way of looking at
things, it's not in any way authoritative. You can't dis-believe in a
categorization system.

~~~
jleader
I think the GP was talking about belief in the usefulness (or reliability or
validity) of Myers Briggs. Note that the MBTI doesn't just classify people
into 16 categories; it classifies people into discontinuous binary categories
along 4 axes, obviously resulting in a total of 16 categories. It's certainly
useful to think about peoples' positions along those 4 axes, although maybe
there are other axes more useful for describing personalities in some
situations. However, I find the idea of absolute binary classification (i.e.
you're either an introvert or an extrovert, there are no shades of gray) hard
to swallow.

For what it's worth, Wikipedia has some interesting summaries of criticisms of
the MTBI's validity and reliability. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-
Briggs_Type_Indicator#Val...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-
Briggs_Type_Indicator#Validity)

------
abarringer
Reminds me of the historic "Message to Garcia"
<http://www.foundationsmag.com/garcia.html>

"The point I wish to make is this: McKinley gave Rowan a letter to be
delivered to Garcia; Rowan took the letter and did not ask, "Where is he at?"

By the Eternal! there is a man whose form should be cast in deathless bronze
and the statue placed in every college of the land. It is not book-learning
young men need, nor instruction about this or that, but a stiffening of the
vertebrae which will cause them to be loyal to a trust, to act promptly,
concentrate their energies: do the thing—"Carry a message to Garcia."

~~~
tomjen3
Ok that seems stupid in the extreme.

Yes in this case he was right, but what if you knew something about where the
man is? He might have saved days of this crucial journey.

To me, he is no smarter than I would be if I was late for a train and ran out
of the house rather than look up how to get to the trainstation.

------
Jd
An even older adage (from Confucius) : "I will hold up one corner. If the
student does not return, with enthusiasm, having raised the other three, the
Lesson ends."

~~~
gwern
Hm, the version I have runs

    
    
        'The Master said, "I do not open the way for students who are not driven with eagerness;
        I do not supply a vocabulary for students who are not trying desperately to find the language for their ideas.
        If on showing students one corner they do not come back to me with the other three, I will not repeat myself."'
    

(Analects 7.8)

------
MattGrommes
I would love to see more stories of YC companies that didn't work out (no
personal details needed of course). It seems like the weeding process is good
enough to have a very high success rate so the ones that don't do well should
be good examples to keep in mind.

------
frasertimo
I think the primary flaw that PG has identified in start-up founders who fail
is the inability to acknowledge and deal with potential weaknesses in your
plans.

This can come as a result of many things, but here are a few off the top of my
head: 1)Having a set idea about a product or feature and not wanting to adjust
it to user feedback due to being enamored with that idea. 2)Not wanting to
accept that something will take many hours of tedious work and then having to
put in that tedious work. 3)Worrying that if X essential feature is necessary
that you don't have the ability to create X 4)Having to learn and work hard in
an area that doesn't come naturally to you (tech founder doing sales/marketing
or non-tech founder doing programming) 5)Social encounters that require one of
the following hard to master traits: charisma, confidence, tact, or
stubbornness. Social anxiety or nervousness are a given for most people trying
to employ these (VC pitches are the obvious example here, but closing a big
deal or just talking to your users also applies). 6)Having to seek/turn down
investment after working on the basis that you were going to do the opposite.
7)Etc.

I don't think the communication with the YC partners is necessarily the
problem (although if you can't communicate well with them, then it's likely
you can't communicate well in other crucial areas. Even socially awkward types
like Zuck and Houston have found a way over time to communicate well where
they need to), it's just a symptom of it. If you can't communicate well with
them then it's likely because they're exposing you to some uncomfortable
truths that you don't want to hear. But there are still founders who are bad
communicators who have the necessary honesty about their business to succeed.

------
dmethvin
> I could never quite tell if they understood what I was saying.

Still it seems this is just coming down to communication. Is it possible that
the less successful ones were doing things in areas where you personally had
less expertise? Perhaps your advice was impractical or irrelevant, but they
felt intimidated into silence rather than feeling they could discuss the
problems honestly and see how the advice could be adapted.

~~~
pg
You are (unconsciously) giving me far too much credit.

------
aswell
I think a _huge_ portion of the blame of this is on the YC partners.

I'm extremely comfortable debating and discussing ideas in an extremely
logical and thoughtful way. My favorite question every day to myself is "If I
was starting over today what would I do". And Joe Kraus's "Face reality".

I found it impossible to do that during my YC interview though. From minute
one it was a series of arrogant and condescending statements after another.
Their ideas were nuggets of golden insight and my (far more educated in many
instances) responses were dismissed out of hand.

I've had countless discussions of the same type with many other smart people
(successful founders, investors, regular smart people) before and since. Some
who raised far more difficult questions. I have reason to suspect the biggest
problem was the YC partners and not some problem I have being flexible or
thoughtful.

I think the essay as well as this quote are very revealing:

 _With the good groups, you can tell that everything you say is being looked
at with fresh eyes and even if it's dismissed, it's because of some logical
reason e.g. "we already tried that" or "from speaking to our users that isn't
what they'd like," etc. Those groups never have that glazed over look._

I think you're mistaking some founders ability to placate you with
thoughtfulness in many, but certainly not all, cases.

One person who publicly talked about this phenomenon (in a joking way) was one
of the founders of Heroku. He said that pg said "You're an Oracle killer" so
he "smiled and nodded because I wanted to get in" (paraphrasing).

I think that's very indicative of the way many founders probably feel when
talking to the YC partners. The ones who disregard that idea are likely marked
as "difficult to talk to."

I think there's a very real danger you guys aren't hearing stuff like this
because who in their right mind would tell you and who would you listen to?
You would probably just say they're difficult to talk to.

The problem with being so damn smart (which all the YC partners truly are) is
that you can start to think that any problem you run into (like founders who
seem hard to talk to) you're assumption is that it's their fault instead of
your own.

I do think there's some unbiased truth to the essay and maybe the founders who
are good at placating will make better founders. But you have to consider:
would Bill Gates or Steve Jobs really have smiled and nodded or would they
have said "What the hell are you talking about, that's stupid." (We know what
Jobs would have done anyway.)

I'm still a really big fan of YC and all the YC partners, but I do think you
might have let some arrogance creep in to your process. You guys are doing
alright though, so feel free to ignore little ol' me.

~~~
paul
The purpose of the interview is to find people who will make good founders. It
is not a salon for intellectuals to sit around and be "comfortable debating
and discussing ideas in an extremely logical and thoughtful way". It's closer
to a boxing match. We're definitely not looking for people to "smile and nod".
In fact, we sometimes make misleading suggestions in order to see how founders
respond, so simply agreeing with everything is definitely not a winning
strategy.

~~~
AndyNemmity
"In fact, we sometimes make misleading suggestions in order to see how
founders respond"

Wait, really?... Being intellectually dishonest is not cool. If you cannot
figure out the winning strategy without lying then you're not trying hard
enough.

Asking questions where you are honestly open to consideration even though it
seems wrong, that's great. Knowingly making misleading suggestions isn't.

~~~
paul
I mean "misleading" as in "leading in the wrong direction", such as "have you
considered doing X?", where X is something that I think is a bad idea. If they
agree with every I idea I have, then they will even agree with bad ideas, and
won't make for a very effective founder (because the reality is that investors
will make all kinds of dumb suggestions).

------
hristov
I think Paul is only partially right. There is another side to this. It is the
people that do ask a lot of questions that are usually more able to look at
things from a different perspective and to be innovative. A man of action is
great for getting things done but he (or she) will usually always do things
the same old and usual way and not think much about what he is doing.

A more contemplative person will ask a lot of questions and figure out the
problem in its entirety and then be able to test the boundaries and question
the implicit assumptions.

I think a good team requires one of each, although having at least on man (or
woman) of action for a team is important.

------
studentrob
Please. This is the manager's side of the argument whenever there is
miscommunication. There are 100 you things you can do to fix communication
problems.

Besides being overly general without any anecdotes, this article completely
overlooks that there are solutions to miscommunication on both sides of the
table, and that some people simply are not suited to work together, whether in
a investor-to-founder relationship, or at the manager-employee level.

------
jroseattle
I agree with Paul's comments here, and think they hold true far outside the
bounds of this conversation. However, there is something about the context in
the original post that doesn't seem clear to me. It relates to what qualifies
as "being hard to talk to."

It sounds like the label is being assigned to those who don't jump at
something, take a ball and run with it, or whatever metaphor you'd like to
insert. And the summary reaches a point of "hard to talk to yields lack of
resourcefulness." And as evidence, those who weren't hard to talk to were
those who closed funding, grabbed users, or some other metric. And those who
were hard to talk to were the ones who didn't.

Those who succeeded at something were easy to talk to, but those who didn't
succeed at something were more difficult? Not really a surprise, but what's
smoke and what's fire? Seems to me there exists the possibility that failure
in those areas may be the cause, and hard-to-talk-to was merely a symptom
representative of a point in time.

I imagine this is contextual in the relationship of YC to its member
companies, but from an outsider's perspective I could see this working out
differently.

------
jorleif
This was a very insightful post which confirms my experience that generally
working with people you can't communicate easily with almost always leads to
bad results. What I'm wondering though, is if it really is a property of the
person, or the fit between the two parties. Some people just don't get each
other. Maybe their values are too far apart or something. Maybe they try to
follow the other parties implications, but it leads somewhere they don't want
to go, or then they cannot even fill in the blanks correctly because of
different mental models.

So an alternative explanation for pg's observation is that when there is
founder-advisor fit, communication is easy, because both parties can follow
the implications of the other party and value similar things. Then the
startups with better founder-advisor fit do better in the outside world,
because they can actually benefit from the advice they are getting, whereas
for the ones without founder-advisor fit the advice is pure noise to them, and
does not guide them in the right direction (that is the one they want to go).

------
joebadmo
I have of late been grappling with Dunning-Kruger, which I'd like to apply to
this topic.

How do I know if I have this problem? Because everyone filters advice through
their brain in one way or another, right? How can I tell if my brain is
filtering in such a way to conform advice to my preconceptions, or if I'm
truly grappling with the advice?

And if I do have this problem, how do I fix it? Is it remediable?

------
philwelch
> My feeling with the bad groups is that coming into office hours, they've
> already decided what they're going to do and everything I say is being put
> through an internal process in their heads, which either desperately tries
> to munge what I've said into something that conforms with their decision or
> just outright dismisses it and creates a rationalization for doing so. They
> may not even be conscious of this process but that's what I think is
> happening when you say something to bad groups and they have that glazed
> over look. I don't think it's confusion or lack of understanding per se,
> it's this internal process at work.

This sounds suspiciously like a rousing game of "Why Don't You/Yes But".
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transactional_analysis#Why_Don....](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transactional_analysis#Why_Don.27t_You.2FYes_But)

------
doubleconfess
A great deal of this article seemed to be concerned more about flexibility
than resourcefulness.

"Like real world resourcefulness, conversational resourcefulness often means
doing things you don't want to. Chasing down all the implications of what's
said to you can sometimes lead to uncomfortable conclusions."

"My feeling with the bad groups is that coming into office hours, they've
already decided what they're going to do and everything I say is being put
through an internal process in their heads, which either desperately tries to
munge what I've said into something that conforms with their decision or just
outright dismisses it and creates a rationalization for doing so."

This sounds like a testament to the lean-startup movement, where success is
more dictated on the ability to iterate on user feedback rather than being
stuck in one static idea of what your business is or is meant to be.

------
johngalt
Another indicator of this is verbal ping-pong. How granular you have to answer
questions/give direction. If you get a lot of "What do I do next?" or "you
never told me to do that!" A non-resourceful person would say "How am I
supposed to know that an introduction means X, Y, Z?!"

------
cwilson
I've spent much of my professional career thinking about this concept, because
I've experienced it so often, but more out of frustration for my peers who
DON'T seem to work this way.

There is nothing better than the feeling of clicking with someone
intellectually, or even on a romantic level, when either of you can say one
word and the other just gets it.

That said, there is nothing more frustrating than watching a peer, co-founder,
or employee doing the exact opposite. PG doesn't mention the situation where
you're witnessing someone over-explain something, when the other party clearly
understood after one word, but the person explaining hasn't realized it. This
infuriates me to no end (especially when pitching), but it's almost impossible
to explain this to the guilty party!

------
revorad
I want to know about the successful exceptions. Which groups succeeded despite
being hard to talk to?

------
markkat
This just crystalized something for me. I like to create stuff with people.
Once I find that someone is thoughtful, reflective, or whatever you want to
call it, I like to talk with them in a manner that prods the abstract. It now
makes sense to me that my most successful collaborations have happened with
people with whom I can easily speak in the abstract. Details and competence
are real things, but they are not the most important things by a long shot.
Details can't be accounted for except for the fact that they will arise and
they will have to be dealt with in one manner or another. Also, besides a
reticence to talk in the abstract, one thing that puts serious doubt in my
mind about people is self-help books.

~~~
jodrellblank
_Also, besides a reticence to talk in the abstract, one thing that puts
serious doubt in my mind about people is self-help books._

Any particular reasons?

~~~
markkat
Well, I am sure that some will disagree, but what I've seen, most of what is
in self-help books is common sense, although the best wrap it in amusing or
counter-intuitive anecdotes. I think self-help allows people to convince
themselves that there's formulae to life, when it's really just a matter of
doing things in earnest and learning as you go.

So, basically I see self-help books as a sign that someone over-values
impersonal advice. Not a sign of confidence, IMHO.

~~~
dmoney
So you're saying the formula is to do things in earnest and learn as you go?

~~~
markkat
Hardly a formula. But sure, even if you consider it to be one, it's not book
worthy. It's common sense.

~~~
forensic
Common sense does not exist.

------
EGreg
I like that at the end they added:

"With the good groups, you can tell that everything you say is being looked at
with fresh eyes and even if it's dismissed, it's because of some logical
reason e.g. "we already tried that" or "from speaking to our users that isn't
what they'd like," etc. Those groups never have that glazed over look."

Because honestly ... sometimes it suck when someone with general knowledge
tells you to do something you've already tried, and you have been having
success with your own paradigm. Sometimes it's hard to work with someone who
has a different paradigm but is also successful. Which is a shame! It would
have been great to know that there's more than one way to approach things.

------
steder
Regardless of profession I think listening and reading are the most important
skills.

Unfortunately I find many technology people are programmed to discount or
deprecate any and all "soft" skills.

------
kanchax
Thanks for pinging the article. It applies very well to my actual situation,
which is different and yet similar in its essence. I am still in school and
when I had problems I dealt with it by myself no matter how hard or the
quantity of extra activities. Since then I have learned to rely on the help of
actual people not only internet. I guess thats a problem many of you guys
already solved. Anyway, it was mine to solve and this article only makes the
map neater.

------
forensic
It's called "Will"

Schopenhauer and Nietzsche figured this out a long time ago.

------
adrianwaj
Sounds like executive intelligence coupled with a willingness to take personal
responsibility if it fails - that's why they chase up the implications. Hard
to talk to can also translate into talking to users. The paradox with startups
comes in building something very much for yourself, but also very much for
other people: possibly a similar maturity in talking to others, requiring a
mental leap of faith.

------
itmag
This elegantly summarizes some thoughts I've been having myself the past
years.

PG applies it to founders, whereas I apply to potential friends.

The word I've been using internally for this: pounceability. As in, with high-
quality friends they will POUNCE on stuff you say to them and return to you
later having independently researched whatever it was that you told them
about. Whereas others have to be hammered into submission pretty much.

------
danielharan
@pg are you giving founders psychometric tests?

Resourcefulness might decompose into several well-defined traits or aptitudes.
If I had to guess, I'd expect successful startup founders to score low for
neuroticism, high in conscientiousness & openness as well as having an
internal locus of control.

This could be invaluable, both in selecting the companies as well as for
coaching and teaching.

------
tlogan
The note at the end perfectly described myself :( Now the question is: how to
improve? How to be better?

------
bitops
Though I'm not otherwise a big fan of Donald Trump, I read one of his books to
see what he had to say. The book was called "Think Like A Champion" (I suppose
that says something about Trump, but let that go by).

He pointed something out which I thought was a great business lesson: if you
can't explain yourself in 5 minutes or less, you are going to be in trouble.

Relating this to pg's story, it means: you have to be able to express your
ideas cleanly, succintly, and then forget all about them so you can take
feedback. You have to drop the fact that it's "your idea" and just listen to
what is being said.

I've worked with a number of people who were really, really, really excellent
technically, but you could literally _see_ the cogs churning in their head as
you were speaking to them. And it was very much like what Paul describes, a
sort of glazed over look. Afterwards, you'd have to rev the same idea with the
a few times until they got it, or until you had to give up and make a decision
by yourself.

I think it's a hard habit for some people to break, but it can be done.

~~~
TheSOB88
I think glazing is something different - basically, when you're ignoring
what's being said.

------
lionheart
I wonder how much this "resourcefulness" characteristic is innate vs learned?

Can you learn to be more resourceful? To be easier to talk to?

I think you can, but aside from going out there and doing your thing and
failing and trying again, I don't see how.

------
6ren
True, it can be hard to think about something, if it means we have to then do
something irksome, or terrifying, or beneath us etc.

But why not _ask_ them? They mightn't know (or be right), but they have inside
information.

------
chegra
Is this a play on "A word to the Bad" - Jermaine Jackson ?

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88d67-ypsXM&noredirect=1](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88d67-ypsXM&noredirect=1)

------
NDizzle
How do you say that you actually have this skill on a resume without sounding
like a pompous d-bag?

~~~
mikeklaas
Same as all other skills: give examples from your past where you demonstrate
the relevant skill (and don't explicitly say that you have it)

------
dennisgorelik
It looks like PG is talking about the need of being flexible and open-minded.

~~~
AndyNemmity
I don't read that from the writing. It just isn't relevant to what he is
saying.

What he is saying is, taking the ball and running with it on your own, and
really attacking the issue, for all it's faults is better than saying you're
taking the ball and running with it, and instead allowing challenges throw you
off the path.

That's what I read from it. Nothing about flexibility or being open minded.
You can be both of those things, and still allow challenges to make you focus
on other topics.

~~~
dennisgorelik
How does "difficulty to talk with" fit into your picture of "really attacking
the issue"?

~~~
AndyNemmity
If you're really attacking the issue, you're not concerned with talking about
it.

The whole issue comes down to fear. Fear that the challenges and issues are a
negative, and feeling embarrassed by it.

Being bold, attacking the issue, tracking down details, giving updates on
status without fear. These are the qualities.

Vs.

Being timid. Hearing the request, and putting it off because you don't know
where to start. Not asking for help because you don't want to be thought of as
someone who doesn't know something. Working on other tasks that you are good
at, but not addressing the tasks you're not good at. The next time you think
about it (aside from worry), is you being asked for a status and you have
nothing. You put off the email.

That's the difference no? That's what I see working in startups.

There are the types that you hand them something, and they own it, and there
are the types that you hand them something, and they fidget with it, and delay
it at the first challenge that they don't know.

Perhaps I'm reading it wrong. That's my experience.

~~~
dennisgorelik
You are describing it right. Note that being flexible and open-minded helps to
overcome fear of making a mistake.

------
eande
"bad groups is that coming into office hours, they've already decided what
they're going to do"

If someone has this kind of set in mind and not listening to the context what
the other end has to say meritocracy is at best the outcome.

------
ericb
How much of a factor in pg's perception is the know-it-all phenomenon, I
wonder? I find the most unteachable folks to be the ones who already _"know."_

------
heed
I don't know if 'resourcefulness' is the right description for trait pg
observed. I think 'assertiveness' is more accurate.

~~~
noblethrasher
'Assertiveness' is decidedly the wrong word (though it might apply to the
specific example that he mentioned).

Resourcefulness means that you can do a lot with a little. In the context of
this piece, it means you can turn a little advice into a lot of (useful)
action.

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troll24601
I'm not an investor, but I've had a parallel experience having been involved
with roughly 150 tech contracts in my career.

A strong predictor for mediocrity is when communication is troubled. If we're
unable to have two-way conversations with all project stakeholders, it's
almost a guarantee that we'll end up delivering something that has less value
than it could, at a higher cost than was possible, and that nobody is thrilled
with.

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PaulHoule
word to the wise pg, watch out for getting nailed for age discrimination...

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anantzoid
Paul Graham is my idol! Always looking forward to getting more and more stuff
from him.

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caublestone
"A Word to the Resourceful" or "Do or Do not, there is no try"

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alexwolfe
This reminds me of the book "Blink" by Malcom Gladwell. Something doesn't seem
right and our instincts pick up on it way before we understand it.

Communication is such an import part of business, relationships, and life. If
there is a lack of communication it can spell trouble in many different areas
down the line. In this case it seemed to be an indicator of many other
problems as well.

Thanks for sharing, interesting to see how the pieces are connected from a
business/startup perspective.

