I read How to do great work by Paul Graham. It’s a collection of advice I’ve heard from various places. It sounds wise but it’s impossible to disprove. It leaves the practical parts of applying it to the real world up to the reader. Still, I find myself agreeing with pretty much all of it and it took me a very long time to learn these lessons.
I’ve written about many similar themes before. Default optimism is rational and so is techno-optimism. Why it’s important to build an initial product a small group of users love. Being obsessed with what you are building is a competitive advantage. Doing the hard thing perfectly that no one wants to do. And of course, the source of so much of this line of reasoning—Richard Hamming and his lecture You and Your Research.
Links to this note
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Compounding Is Unintuitive Because the Initial Curve Feels Flat
I’ve always wondered why the nature of compounding and any exponential relationship feels unintuitive. That is until I read this quote from Paul Graham’s essay How to do great work.
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Project Management Is Overlooked and Important
Being able to lead a project that coordinate multiple people, teams, and organizations is critical for career development. At a certain point, the limiting factor in one’s career is not skill, but the ability to do project management sufficiently well.