
Would I do this for 10 years? - dshipper
http://danshipper.com/would-i-do-this-for-10-years
======
munificent
Asking a 20 year old what they want to do for the next ten years is pretty
silly, but I don't think it's as silly to ask the same question of someone
older. My experience is that my ability to predict who I'll be at some point
in the future scales as some fixed fraction of my age. Personal development
seems to be logarithmic, at least for me.

~~~
DenisM
They may not have an immediate answer, but it's not silly to ask - the sooner
they begin thinking about this question, the sooner they arrive at that
answer.

~~~
raarts
I see no reason why this would be true.

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tedmiston
> Instead, it’s more helpful to ask yourself questions whose answers don’t
> depend so entirely on how things have been going that day. For me, the most
> helpful one was this:

> Am I learning? Importantly, am I learning what I want to learn?

This was the key takeaway from the post for me. It's something I ask myself
regularly as well.

If you are a curious enough person, there are so many thing you would be happy
learning though. I've found it much harder to assess: "Is this _the thing_ I
want to be learning more than any other things _right now_?

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fecak
I think the "No" answer to this question will quickly weed out anyone who
isn't incredibly driven by the task at hand, whereas a "Yes" answer is
obviously not considered any type of guarantee that someone _will_ actually
spend 10 years on it. It's a filter, and like most filters it's rather
imperfect.

~~~
exclusiv
If you're using it to filter out employees or companies to invest in, it may
be helpful. But if it's advice for people trying to figure out what to do, I
think it falls quite short, in the same camp as "do something you're
passionate about".

I have 2 successful companies (one consulting/services and another
subscription business) and neither one is attractive to me for 10 years. I'm
in about year 5 for both. I went into both knowing that they wouldn't excite
me for 10 years.

They both excited me to build though. Entrepreneurs often like the challenge
and the process of the build. So having a shorter time frame or commitment is
not necessarily a bad thing. Some people are good at, and enjoy, incubating.

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toss1
A better question for a VC to ask would be:

"Can you stick with _anything_ for 10 years?" or "What else have you done that
demonstrates long term perseverance against adversity?".

The real question is whether the person has the ability to persevere in
adversity.

No matter what you are starting, your activities will be quite different far
sooner than 10 years.

Passion for a particular mission is helpful, but you must be able to handle
the drudgery and adversity -- even the most exciting and pleasant pursuits
include many tasks that quickly turn to drudgery, and things will go against
you often.

It is not passion that gets you through the drudgery and adversity, it is the
perseverance. Many passionate people quit when things get tough, while many
people with perseverance have made a success of projects with merely
"worthwhile" goals.

[edit: clarity/punctuation]

~~~
satysin
I have managed to procrastinate for 10+ years without much trouble :P

~~~
toss1
Ha!

... but, just curious, is your procrastination the same in year 10 as in year
1?

------
shubhamjain
"I think it’s a bad question because we’re just not good enough at predicting
our desires over the long term to be able to answer it. We’re capricious
animals. We’re generally fickle and impulsive. We’re maddeningly mercurial"

The conclusion is — motivation is complex. It's hard to understand what makes
people stick and no set of objective questions can possibly answer if people
will be resilient if things fall apart (which usually do in a startup).
Gabriel Weinberg worked for more than five years on DuckDuckGo before getting
the first taste of real traction[1]. Some may have worked on a similar scale
without even getting any significant success.

Although, humans are fickle by design, it seems some motivation is sticky.
That's probably the difference between doing Supply Chain Management and
building a Google competitor. The former seems to be an impulsive idea
triggered by recently gained facts but the latter seems to be working on
something you actually believe in.

[1]: [https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/motivation-being-cusp-
somethi...](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/motivation-being-cusp-something-
big-gabriel-weinberg)

~~~
graysonk
Here is a pretty good article about people who persevere for decades to end up
with nothing
[https://www.wired.com/1995/06/xanadu/](https://www.wired.com/1995/06/xanadu/)

------
unclesaamm
This reminds me of Jiro Dreams of Sushi, and his advice to his kids
(paraphrased): I don't care what you do, as long as you do it every day for
the rest of your life.

I think one of the main thing this advice misses is that if you're doing a
"lean startup" then you could very well end up doing something different than
what you started. It's hard to know what exactly the continuation will be in
what you do.

~~~
aerique
An equally 'deep' advice could be: I don't care what you do, as long as you
don't do it for the rest of your life.

~~~
DarkTree
Yeah, there are two ways to find value in your life's work. One is to
continually perfect your craft (Jiro), which means dedicating yourself to
primarily one skill/career/industry. The other is to continually diversify
your skill set by trying new things and experiencing the breadth of activities
life has to offer. I don't think you can say one is more meaningful than the
other, but it does seem that they are mutually exclusive.

~~~
shostack
One could argue that some paths are impossible to reach without
diversification of skills.

------
kstrauser
I've worked for mobile gaming and fintech. Would I voluntarily do either of
those? Hell no. But I love the experiences, the learning, and my awesome
coworkers. I got insights into problem solving methods I wouldn't have
encountered otherwise. I got an appreciation for new problem spaces. In short,
I had a great time and wouldn't change a thing.

I'd work on my current engagement for as long as they'll have me because it's
an intersection of the life interests I keep coming back to. I love going to
work every day. But wow, am I ever glad I played those other "2 years, tops"
roles.

------
IsaacL
The author states that people are too mercurial to know their own long-term
desires. This is true for many young people - it was true for me - but you can
and should define long-term goals for yourself. I spent enormous time in the
last few years thinking about what I really wanted, and it was an enormously
valuable activity. Tracking your thinking in writing is also highly
recommended - writing clarifies and objectifies your own thoughts, and once
you've accumulated a few years worth of properly-written notes-to-self, you
have an incredible resource for self-analysis.

The secret is to rationally analyse your own values, identify why you value
what you value, and try to define what unites the different tasks that you
have found meaningful in the past.

This post contains some hints of the framework I used:
[http://aristotleadventure.blogspot.co.uk/2008/05/what-is-
cen...](http://aristotleadventure.blogspot.co.uk/2008/05/what-is-central-
purpose-in-life.html?m=1)

------
billyhoffman
Early stage investing is largely about investing in the people, and their
ability to execute, and less about the idea, assuming a reasonable business
plan. VCs want to determine how steadfast and committed you will be to the
company when the going gets tough. VC's ask this question if they cannot infer
this from your background, employment history, or accomplishments. For early
20-somethings, there usually isn't a lot of history there to tell them, so
they have to ask probing questions.

Once your time spent at a single company with high stress, multiple people,
and fast growth is measured in years and not months, VCs stop asking you this
question.

~~~
stuartmalcolm
The best question that I was asked by a 50-something when I was a 20-something
was about my team:

"Do you want to be bailing out a sinking boat with them for the next 10
years?"

Now that I am nearly a 50-something myself, I still think its the most
important question to ask!

------
jaxn
Both of these approaches seem to be looking in the wrong direction.

How does what you are working on now build on what you were working on before?

Steer toward hard and long-term problems, but keep the momentum you have
already built.

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sp527
The problem with this argument (and why it comes across as somewhat
reductionist) is that it fails to acknowledge the sharp dichotomy between
employment and entrepreneurship.

The question of working on something for 10 years is less relevant in
entrepreneurship, because your role and the nature of what you're working on
should be highly dynamic and therefore unpredictable.

One should question the mindset instead. Here's what I now tell anyone getting
into entrepreneurship to consider: when what you're working on flatlines in 1
to 2 years, do you have the resources and the courage to keep going? I've seen
untold numbers of very capable people try their hand at it and then give up
after a year or two. That's a waste. And more to the point, it's also a good
way to squander much of the value of what you may have learned in the process.

------
mentos
One thing that really surprised me was when I did the math on how long Steve
Jobs was at NeXT.

~~~
biot
To save everyone from looking this up themselves: 1985 - 1997.

~~~
pcunite
1997 - 1985 = 12

------
chippy
The question "would I do this for 10 years" or "Do I see myself doing this in
10 years" allows for the possibility that they don't see themselves continuing
for that duration and it allows the person to not look that forward into the
future realistically. Rather an answer of "YES!" really shows enthusiasm and
passion that they currently have in the present day.

The question is about the future, but the answer is about the present.

A better question, therefore should reflect this reality. Something like: "Do
you feel like your current interest and enthusiasm for this would keep you
going for years here?" (or better worded...).

