
None of Us Knows What We're Doing - srid
http://www.feross.org/none-of-us-knows-what-were-doing/
======
goo
I don't usually play the part of armchair psychologist, but this essay appears
to me to be an excellent example of projection.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projection_bias>

The author assumes that because he doesn't know what he's doing, other people
also don't.

I disagree. Sometimes people can know exactly what they're doing, and be
fairly confident about the possible consequences.

I made a viral hit similar to the author's YT instant, and I very much did not
know what I was doing. Then I did it again with different code, without
leveraging the existing user base, just to see if it was all luck. It wasn't.
I think a better argument would be that "sometimes successful projects are
successful by accident", but that would make a terrible post title.

~~~
jeromec
Yeah, according to the author I guess Einstein was "winging it" too.

~~~
josiah
"If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would
it?" \-- Albert Einstein

~~~
jeromec
Sure, and we still research Gravity today. That doesn't mean we're _guessing_
a ball will drop when released the same as it always has, now does it? At some
point you _do_ know what you're talking about, to a degree of certainty beyond
"winging it", at any rate.

~~~
jeromec
I find it funny someone downvoted my comment above. They must imagine we
_really don't_ know anything about anything. Perhaps we should just throw out
all scientific experimentation, proofs, textbooks, etc. ever done and pretend
the universe is actually working according to Dr. Seuss type principles. It's
just as likely, right? </sarcasm>

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ctdonath
"I decided to turn off the incessant trivial chatter on Twitter and
TechCrunch, get my hands dirty, and just build something."

Hence this exchange a few days back:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2556295>

    
    
        "He seems to leave virtually no trace (other than awesome software) on the Internet."
    
        "Probably because he spends his time writing awesome software."

~~~
geekzgalore
An excellent point.

------
swanson
I'm surprised this didn't get much of a response on HN - I really enjoyed the
article. Very inspirational and candid.

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nicpottier
Is it just me or is this perhaps taking the story of YouTube Instant a bit
far?

I mean ya, I guess it got some press and got him a job offer, but it's not
like he invented cold fusion or something. It was a cute idea. Can we really
draw any kind of real conclusions from it?

Seems like that type of success, of a cute meme taking off is actually rather
common, it is the longer term, build a sustainable company, king of success
that is much more difficult.

PS. Hate the font formatting, ugh.

~~~
ctdonath
He's excited about how successful he can be when applying himself to an idea
for a few hours.

Scale it to 10,000 hours (Gladwell's Rule for success).

And that to >100,000 hours (lifetime devotion to an idea by the hyper-
successful).

The importance of learning enough to recognize an opportunity, searching for
it, finding it, then tenaciously applying oneself to it for decades, is
something not taught in schools (at least not well) - most have to figure it
out or fall into it.

------
spiffytech
I'm surprised no one's brought up the counterexample of Steve Jobs. He turned
Apple from an unknown garage startup to one of the industry's most powerful
players in just a few short years.

When Jobs was ousted, Apple went to the dumpster. When he returned, Apple once
again rose to great success. Jobs was directly responsible for enough wildly
successful products to make probably any other company or inventor in history
green with envy.

It would be silly to claim that Apple's success is due to blind luck. Jobs'
relationship with Apple and Apple's products appears causal and has been
repeated in different market environments with vastly different product lines,
which flatly contradicts the idea that _all_ successful people wing it and
succeed based on luck.

Sure, some people succeed on accident. Some people succeed because they have
real talent and just happen to get publicity at the right time. But some
people succeed on purpose.

------
thewisedude
Your claim that most people who hit success dont have product vision may be
true. Even though this might not be quantifiable, I get a similar idea from
what I read. But I definitely think that it is not as uncommon as you think
among Fortune 500 companies. I would think Bill gates( controversies/ethical
questions apart) had a great vision. The reason why I say this is, I could say
cancel a trip to Bahamas hoping to build something and see if I make it big.
However, I would probably not drop out of a prestigious school to build
something unless I am dead sure it will be a success. Obviously I am talking
about Bill here.

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FeelsGoodMan69
What's with all the bold and italics? I feel like I'm being yelled at in the
face.

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kakashi_
Are you still reading Hacker News? Didn't you get it?

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tintin
One think I'm missing in this story: You have to know what you are doing to
have some luck in doing what you do.

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taphangum
One of the best articles on hn this year.

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hugh3
The grammar of this headline really bugs me. The author correctly remembers
that "None of us" is singular, but then spoils it by throwing in the plural
"we're".

The correct version would, I think, be "None of us knows what he's doing",
although both the feminists and the languagelog folks would complain about
that.

~~~
premchai21
Are you sure about “none” being singular in that context? I agree that the
title is inconsistent, but I'd have written “None of us know what we're doing”
(if I couldn't just pick some other phrasing).

gcide defines “none” as “No one; not one; not anything; – frequently used also
partitively, or as a plural, not any.” and also offers “None of their
productions are extant. –Blair”, both purportedly from 1913 Webster. So it
seems that the pronoun can be interpreted in either number as needed.

~~~
dvdhsu
Yep, "none" is not always singular. For example: "None of them are coming
today" instead of "none of them is coming today". It is generally considered
unidiomatic to use the latter.

~~~
hugh3
No, the former is wrong (and sounds very wrong to me) regardless of how
frequently misused it is.

"None" == "Not one", and therefore singular.

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arapidhs
The internet is so unpredictable.

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Helianthus
Well, yeah.

No one knows what they're doing. They only have the appearance by doing the
sensible thing and doing the best they can.

The result is that in reality a lot of people know what they're doing; but
they're still resting on that cardinal assumption:

whatever you're doing, it could fall to pieces. Even the most egotistical
hacker, in his/her private moments, acknowledges the chaos of the universe.

