
Paul Tudor Jones to Staff: Learn to Write or I'll Rip Up Your Memo - jskonhovd
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-23/billionaire-paul-tudor-jones-to-staff-learn-to-write-or-i-ll-rip-up-your-memo
======
paul
This also is good advice for anyone applying to YC. I'm not going to read your
10,000 word manifesto -- just tell me what it is you are building! :)

We've actually found that the ability to provide clear and concise answers
strongly correlates with success, so this is a major factor when evaluating
founders.

I'm also reminded of my favorite C. A. R. Hoare quote: "There are two ways of
constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are
obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that
there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult."

The same thing applies to business. Long, complex pitches are a sign of muddy
thinking and hidden icebergs.

~~~
retbull
So pitches should follow coding practices? No pitch is longer than one screen.
Line width is 80 characters. Sentences should be about one thing and one thing
only. Names should clearly describe what the thing they name do.

~~~
dangerlibrary
You could do a lot worse...

------
vegabook
I cannot endorse this idea enough.

Paul Tudor (I don't know why anybody calls him Mr Jones. Anybody who has ever
dealt with his firm calls him Paul Tudor) knows what everybody else in finance
knows: you're dealing with people who have money, and when you have money,
there are many, many, people trying to solicit your interest. This is _not_
about the blog writing style, your deep intellect, your pitch. It's about "I
get 10 _really_ smart people 10x per hour trying to communicate with me
(including my own employees). My bandwith is limited. You have 10 seconds. Get
my attention".

This issue is less about tech, than about the basics of trying to get through
to the wealthy/privileged in what is the biggest, most brutally competitive
communication arena. Literally everybody wants Paul Tudor's attention. He's a
financial genius, but he's just a man with a limited attention span and dozens
of solicitations per hour. Make sure your 10 seconds count.

I was a fixed income strategist for many years. Realizing that there were 30
PDFs from my competitors hitting the target's inbox every hour, my successful
strategy was to do what none of them were doing: sit back, _really_ think
about what was the essence of my piece that was different from the first
principal component of everybody's obvious chatter, summarize that in a single
line, and put that into the subject.

~~~
walterbell
_> My successful strategy was to sit back, really think about what was the
essence of my piece, summarize that in a single line, and put that into the
subject._

Any chance you remember exemplar subject lines? This technique also applies to
blog post titles which eventually appear in micro-blog tweets, HN story
headlines, and presentation titles.

~~~
vegabook
Impossible task because the subject in my domain (finance) changes so soften.
Is it New Gingrich shutting down the government today? Is it Bank of America
losing its shirt in Detroit? Or is it Greece failing to pay its debt? Or is is
it Glencore overleveraged on commodities? Maybe it's China devaluing!

The only common denominator, in my experience, is not to try your best to be
the first. The first is usually a computer, and that trend is only growing.

What you want to do, and this is a time honored principle, is to really
_think_ about what you want to say, before you say it, and make sure you know
the unique aspects of what you're saying. Paul Tudor, like most AAA people, is
hammered every second with the main-line thinking. His attention is only
piqued with things that are oblique to the mainstream view. (notice that I use
the word "oblique", not necessarily "orthogonal", because there are many
unsubtle people who take the idea too far ie: "I want attention so will go
wild with my thinking". You must never underestimate the extent to which high
end people have seen it all before and have defences against charlatans). Your
best bet is to be really honest with yourself, about what you're saying that's
_different_ but not crazy, make sure you can back up your claims, at least
intellectually (the market often does not have time for proof), and make that
the key point of your piece, upfront in the subject line/headline.

Then, be prepared to defend your standpoint, with credible arguments. No
sloppiness allowed. Your 10 seconds turned into 5 minutes! Don't screw them up
by not knowing your facts.

~~~
walterbell
_> notice that I use the word "oblique", not necessarily "orthogonal", because
there are many unsubtle people who take the idea too far ie: "I want attention
so will go wild with my thinking" ... Your best bet is to be really honest
with yourself, about what you're saying that's different but not crazy ..._

That reminds me of a recent article (which I can't find again) that talked
about the "optimal distance" between prevailing fashion and a new trend, based
on studies of trend-setters.

------
joshu
For the startup world:

Approximately 80% of the pitches I get are between garbled and incoherent.
Even higher in the unsolicited ones.

Consider that your recipient is reading on a small screen and utilize pyramid
structure. And don't bury the lede. Many pitches ask for money without saying
anything at all about what they are about.

~~~
santiagobasulto
Would you recommend something like "How to pitch a VC" by Dave McClure. Or
something else?

I feel like there's no magic in a pitch. That you just have to tell the VC
what problem you're solving. And just expect your VC to get it. Maybe the same
pitch can have 2 totally different reactions in different people, because one
of them have felt that pain or is identified with it.

Bottom line, my take is: make it simple, be clear and open. There's no need to
"sell" or "charm" with it.

~~~
tlb
I would recommend William Zinsser, _On Writing Well_.

Persuasion tactics have almost no place, except at the end when you say, "So,
are you in?"

Before that, the hurdle that (as @joshu says) 80% of pitches fail to clear is
explaining clearly what the company will do.

------
jackschultz
Wow all the comments here seem negative. The guy is just saying that people
should be clearer with their writing and getting to the point right away to
avoid confusion.

If they're writing about a topic that's more complex, sure, the writing will
need to be more complex. But there's nothing wrong with communicating simply
if the subject allows it.

~~~
rayiner
Whether your topic is simple or complex, you still need to lead with your
point. A complex analysis might have many sub-points that you prove-up in
subsequent paragraphs, but your ultimate conclusion still needs to come at the
beginning, and each supporting paragraph still needs to lead with the sub-
point you're proving.

Say you're writing a memo to your boss explaining why you need to double the
size of your engineering team. That point has to come first. Now, maybe the
reason you need to double the size of your engineering team is that management
wants to add new product lines, and customers are demanding more customized
solutions. Okay, so each of those points are the leads in their own
paragraphs.

Where a lot of people have problems is that their writing is a chronological
recounting of their thinking about the issue. So it starts somewhere in the
middle where they encountered some part of the overall issue, then backs up to
where they recognize the larger issue, and then buries the solution at the
end.

The structure you were taught in high-school: topic sentence, supporting
sentences, conclusion, is simple and appropriate for business communications.
There are some writers who can clearly convey complicated thoughts using a
more narrative structure, but you'll rarely go astray sticking to that basic
style.

~~~
sokoloff
Yes, lead with the point. I can't tell you how many emails I get that are
written like a movie or TV script. (Better not spoil it for the reader; we'll
just barely foreshadow the point and there's more coming up after this
commercial break...)

Even worse is wading through one of these tomes, only to read two or three
possible courses of action with none recommended above the other(s).

------
pjungwir
In college I helped a lot of people write papers, and almost always they were
trying to "sound academic", and the sentences were so complex they didn't even
parse. So I'd ask, "What does this mean?", and whatever they said, I'd reply,
"Write that down!" Basically they were trying too hard. It reminds me of the
common advice to edit your work by reading it out loud.

If you are a great writer your prose might be better than speech, but I think
for most of us, writing for non-literary goals, writing should approach common
but correct speech. Good writing has the illusion (but not the reality) of
being conversational.

~~~
CaptSpify
To be fair, I think schools encourage this sort of behavior. I've had
countless "$x number of words/pages, minimum" writing assignments. Eventually,
you start to be convinced that _every_ teacher wants it that way.

~~~
dragonwriter
> I've had countless "$x number of words/pages, minimum" writing assignments.

My better professors had, rather than just minimums, either ranges or
maximums.

~~~
CaptSpify
IME, that is uncommon. Most have had minimum. YMMV of course

------
heydenberk
Read your writing out loud to yourself, carefully observing the punctuation.
You won't become Hemingway, but you will find the most obvious flaws in your
writing.

~~~
dionidium
The only problem with this technique is that people start dropping in commas
everywhere they'd take a breath. It's a pretty good approach, otherwise.

~~~
zo1
I have that habit, though not because I read my stuff out loud and use pauses
as an indicator for comma placement. It just reads better to me, with having
"semi-separators" that I don't quite feel justify a separate sentence, but
help with the flow of what's being said.

Looks like I did it twice just now.

------
Splendor
> "Jones says writing as a newspaper journalist does can help someone become a
> better problem-solver..."

------
jbob2000
Eh, I think he's mistaken. Journalists aren't good at writing because they
took a course, they're good at writing because they write. A lot. You want
better memos, hold memo-writing practice sessions every week and give constant
feedback. Ripping a memo up and saying "take a course" is ignorant.

~~~
superuser2
A writing course mostly _is_ writing a lot and getting feedback.

------
mindcrime
A good book related to the topic of clear writing is "The Pyramid Principle".
[http://www.amazon.com/The-Pyramid-Principle-Writing-
Thinking...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Pyramid-Principle-Writing-
Thinking/dp/0273710516)

This book was recommended by a fellow HN'er a few years back in a different
thread. I bought a copy and read it and was suitably impressed. I'm still
working on integrating the ideas from the book, but I think it's worth
reading.

Basically, the book teaches you to organize your thoughts (and writing) in a
hierarchical, logical structure, and to present the most important idea first,
and then branch out below that with sub-points and supporting material.

If you're interested in clear writing, I think this book is worth the money
and time.

~~~
minikomi
Kind of sounds like a pitch for org mode too!

------
afarrell
Are there good classes one can take online which teach someone how to get
through writing anxiety? Or how to write despite the fact that you cannot
really ever know how your audience will interpret what you are saying?

~~~
pp19dd
IMO, it's not writing that you're necessarily struggling with, but editing
afterwards. Good writing is a process that includes time to think about that
writing. The answer is to write a lot. After you go through a certain volume
of text, you get a better feel for it. Andy Weir wrote "the Martian" and he
was an amateur; he set daily writing goals (word counts) and stuck to them.

Reducing amount of written text is not something reporters/writers do easily,
because to them every word is sacred, because they wrote it and removing words
would always amount to loss of detail. Good editors manage to reduce that text
and still sharpen the message. Thus, being your own editor can be tough.

In the news world, writing is done lightning fast by reporters who are good at
hunting information down but not assembling it into a narrative. The process
therefore includes a layer of editing done by someone else who can focus on
it. This is why journalism has a bad name with viral articles written by
general assignment reporters who have no expertise in the field (an emerging
PR, for example) that they're writing about. They're expending minimum effort
for the greatest return, and that's their job. Compare those to print articles
that have had attention, and you'll see stark differences.

My advice is: I suggest you follow copy-editors to see how they do things;
many of them have blogs, some offer courses, but more than anything they give
you impression that language changes and you shouldn't be frozen when writing.
In fact, what they believe in is that grammar is a living, changing thing.
When you see how copy editors transform text, it becomes eye opening.

John McIntyre writes a blog titled "You don't Say" about copy editing for the
Baltimore Sun (which he's done for 29 years now). Most of his evening shifts
start with him grumbling about snipping text (ex: from 28 column inches to
20), which means he _has to_ reduce some articles by 30%. His reductions are
somehow always gains to the reader, but he sure can reduce a reporter to
tears.

Some simple examples of his editing: "In a prone position" changed to "prone".
Or, "... to anticipate the problem in advance" replaced with "anticipated." ;
"End result" replaced with "result." ; "Added bonus" changed to "bonus". "New
initiative" reduced to "initiative". And these are just small snippets having
to do with filler - larger fact-checking and narrative edits are a much longer
story.

~~~
rdancer
I would hope _The Martian_ would get a do-over by a professional editor. As it
is, its translations will forever be better than the English original.

------
joesmo
For news articles and business correspondence (memos, emails, letters), if I
don't know what the article is about and the general conclusion of the article
after reading paragraph one, the writer has failed horribly.

There's few things I hate more than 'news' articles not being written
properly, something that's incredibly common these days on the Internet. I
especially hate articles that start out with a couple of paragraphs of some
stupid, boring, anecdotal story before even hinting at what they're about.
Such things are evidence of terrible writing. I don't expect blog posts to
adhere to this, but I see it so often on 'news' sites, it's horribly
disgusting. Yes, there is a place for magazine stories but the news is hardly
ever it. And certainly, business correspondence is the last place for that
kind of literal gibberish.

------
pcunite
TL;DR

Get to the point in the first paragraph or I'll make you take an online
newspaper writing course.

~~~
thescriptkiddie
He must be reading better newspapers than I am, because in my experience
newspapers _never_ get to the point. They just restate the headline using more
and more words until they have filled up the available space. It's like
they've been written with the assumption that you're going to bail out after
the first 500 words, and so the rest doesn't matter.

------
puranjay
I know HN keeps saying that great coders are hard to find, but the hardest
role I've filled at my startup was for our chief content creator. People who
get writing AND marketing are exceptionally rare.

------
vincefutr23
anyone have any advice for online courses that deal with this? find myself
struggling with it as well..

------
illumen
He should learn how to read better. Seriously. Hire lieutenants that can read
really well, and trust them to filter.

That aside, sucking up to journalists is a really good way to get their
attention. PR win!

------
tonomics
If you're technical, they'll tell you to make money you need to learn X
framework/library/language.

Instead, if you can communicate well, you turn a WordPress theme into
millions.

------
asdf9900
Every time you write "tl;dr" you demonstrate that you don't know how to write.
Your most important idea should come first by default.

------
kordless
The summary first style of writing is a _hack_ to enable quick trust
establishment. It doesn't work for all concepts and it's unlikely to be
effective for communicating very complex and innovative subjects.

Also, some things just have to be shown visually to be trusted. A paragraph
explaining an anti-gravity device isn't going to cut it. You need to show it
working in person where there can be no doubt it's doing what you say it does.

~~~
jperras
> The summary first style of writing is a hack to enable quick trust
> establishment. It doesn't work for all concepts and it's unlikely to be
> effective for communicating very complex and innovative subjects.

This is literally the point of an abstract in any and every respected
scientific journal I've ever read.

~~~
ams6110
And key to how to efficiently read journals: Read the abstract. If still
interested, read the conclusion. If still interested, read the whole thing.

------
astral303
Absolutely. It is a requirement for a modern software engineer to be able to
write well.

------
buzzdenver
"Every time I get a memo from someone written magazine style, I literally tear
it up"

So they either communicate on paper, which would be stpid, or he misuses
"literally", which would be ironic.

~~~
dionidium
Use of the word "literally" as hyperbole is understood clearly by every single
reader of this thread, including you. You might as well get over it.

~~~
Flimm
I actually took what he said at face value and I understood that he does tear
paper up.

~~~
jqm
Which might be true. I know a guy who had his secretary print everything out
rather than read it on the screen. Which I always found silly and wasteful,
but there are people like this.

------
mpdehaan2
Glad I don't work for this guy.

Being "efficient" at what you do at the cost of seeing the full picture,
attention-deficit decision making, etc, is not a good thing.

A lot of people with positions of power think they are snap decision makers.
They are snap decision makers because there's nobody to challenge those
decisions, and often thinking a bit _more_ and listening more, is a good
thing.

As Herbert put it in Dune, "a mentat needs data".

I liked Bezos's requirement for a 6 page memo, and time to read it, before
meetings. So many times meetings start and everyone wants to share an opinion,
and people don't take time to listen.

Sure, inverted pyramid is nice. But so is understanding.

I really appreciate a good long-form article -- NYT and Salon or whatever - if
it's somewhat focused. So much that passes for 'journalism' these days is
reformatting quick summary feeds, and it loses meaning.

~~~
fit2rule
"Snap decision makers" .. in some circumstances, such as during deadline-
approaching, clock-ticking, actual "print schedules", are quite appropriate
for some forms of industry, methinks.

Perhaps there are different models for different schedules?

~~~
mpdehaan2
I was using that as somewhat of a euphimism for the leader that doesn't know
anything, but likes being correct and pretending he does. He does this by
saying "let's do that", or worse, "I am going to tear up your memo and
humiliate you by requiring you to take a class because you're wasting my
time", which is pretty deep on the ego scale to say that to someone. It might
be better to just reply "I'm having a little hard time following this part
about X, can you summarize this and what would you decide?" or something.

~~~
ConroyBumpus
Taken to an extreme: [http://www.lettersofnote.com/2010/08/tiger-oil-
memos.html](http://www.lettersofnote.com/2010/08/tiger-oil-memos.html)

------
SixSigma
Oh, please don't write like journalists :

Something is definitely true

The thing that non-one thought was true is now definitely true. Or that's what
researchers at somewhere say in a new report.

The report by the It's True Foundation ....

------
justin_vanw
Yes, he should rip up that memo. Then lean back and take in all the wood
paneling while he sips an Old Fashioned and scans the paper ticker tape for
his investments while his secretary takes dictation in shorthand.

