I'm not sure what to take away from this piece as it appears to be yet another blog post decrying the "easy way out" that seems prevalent (according to the author) within Silicon Valley. I would like to make a digression and point out that in almost every article of this kind that I've read on HN, the author takes pains in comparing a present "fad" to a seemingly hard yet commonly graspable internet success story. Something that most people in the audience could look at and admire while saying inwardly, "if only I did this I could surely build this." Again this might be true, but the point is that such blog posts or articles always contain such seemingly hard, but familiar examples instead of something like say Lightsail Energy or DWave. In the end in an awe inspiring tone and yet in a very graspable way the author concludes the article by stating that you, yes you, can do such great thing X and all you have to do is solve "hard" problems...
What most authors don't realize and that they often fail to grasp is that the fads are necessary. The failures are necessary. Sure it burns to be on the losing side of history, but it is important for that side to exist nonetheless. It is important to try out things nonetheless. Take the great internet fad example, Pets.com. Hindsight tells us that it's a terrible idea but we forget that people weren't excited by the fact that someone was selling pet food. They were excited that they were selling pet food through the internet and because we didn't have any reliable models of the time their reasoning told them that through scale such a thing might make a lot of money due to its reach. They were groping in the dark, but they were trying to hit upon the - at least from my perspective - vein of modern internet retail. They got it tragically and hilariously wrong, wiping out a large amount of investment, but we are all better off from this failure as an example. It helped us to hone our models. All of those failures from the unknown two people in some garage / living room to the big expensive messes like WebVan taught someone something and in general as a society we inched closer to a more refined understanding of things resulting in a better understanding of things. We now know for instance that X, Y, and Z are constraints in e-commerce and to be successful you need A, B, and C. Those things weren't readily deducible in the past, they are now apparent as a result of all of these "fads."
Is there any underlying thesis over here? I don't know, but what I do know is that maybe it is a bit unwise to be so quick to judge someone's efforts and work just because their motivations, direction, and/or the end result doesn't jive with your internal model. Just saying.
What made me write the blog posting was the observation that many brilliant people I know waste their talent on what I tend to think of as "the lottery of Internet fads". They don't even try to solve hard problems or find opportunities that are under-explored.
I did not say that failures were unimportant or bad. Nor did I say that you should never do projects that are shallow.
But I do think that failing at something that is hard or original is preferable to failing at something everyone else is doing.
Every time someone attempts to judge what other people work I think of this quote:
It is only possible to succeed at second-rate pursuits -- like becoming a millionaire or a prime minister, winning a war, seducing beautiful women, flying through the stratosphere, or landing on the moon. First-rate pursuits -- involving, as they must, trying to understand what life is about and trying to convey that understanding -- inevitably result in a sense of failure. A Napoleon, a Churchill, or a Roosevelt can feel himself to be successful, but never a Socrates, a Pascal, or a Blake. Understanding is forever unattainable. --Malcom Muggeridge
SV rewards people who fall for the cheap parlor tricks of extrinsic motivation. "You'll be a multi-millionaire! Just work your ass off! Here's a crappy title to tide you over." Why do you think they pursue young engineers aggressively? They prey on a lack of self-awareness. Actually, they need it in order to make it sustainable.
The real solution is to rewrite the cultural narrative that praises these sorts of runaway successes as being essential. We're being held hostage by individualism. When we deify success, we say "it's ok to neglect your SO/family/health!"
SV rewards people who fall for the cheap parlor tricks of extrinsic motivation. "You'll be a multi-millionaire! Just work your ass off! Here's a crappy title to tide you over." Why do you think they pursue young engineers aggressively? They prey on a lack of self-awareness. Actually, they need it in order to make it sustainable.
Thank you for writing this. I wish I had read it several years ago. I had to learn what you wrote through experience. It would have been much better for me to have just had a mentor tell it to me.
What most authors don't realize and that they often fail to grasp is that the fads are necessary. The failures are necessary. Sure it burns to be on the losing side of history, but it is important for that side to exist nonetheless. It is important to try out things nonetheless. Take the great internet fad example, Pets.com. Hindsight tells us that it's a terrible idea but we forget that people weren't excited by the fact that someone was selling pet food. They were excited that they were selling pet food through the internet and because we didn't have any reliable models of the time their reasoning told them that through scale such a thing might make a lot of money due to its reach. They were groping in the dark, but they were trying to hit upon the - at least from my perspective - vein of modern internet retail. They got it tragically and hilariously wrong, wiping out a large amount of investment, but we are all better off from this failure as an example. It helped us to hone our models. All of those failures from the unknown two people in some garage / living room to the big expensive messes like WebVan taught someone something and in general as a society we inched closer to a more refined understanding of things resulting in a better understanding of things. We now know for instance that X, Y, and Z are constraints in e-commerce and to be successful you need A, B, and C. Those things weren't readily deducible in the past, they are now apparent as a result of all of these "fads."
Is there any underlying thesis over here? I don't know, but what I do know is that maybe it is a bit unwise to be so quick to judge someone's efforts and work just because their motivations, direction, and/or the end result doesn't jive with your internal model. Just saying.