Spending the proverbial 10k hours on something gives you mastery. This mastery matters if it's a mastery of a right thing.
Spending 100 hours on 100 different subjects gives you an immense breadth of view, and maybe a better chance to choose the worthy area for digging deep.
There's an obvious survivor bias in the messages of people who have spent 10k hours on doing something and succeeded. They have spent their time and concentrated effort on the right thing that returned the investment many times over.
You don't hear much about people who spent 2k hours on something that drove them to poverty, so they dropped it. They are seen as losers that wasted their time on that silly thing. There are also people who keep doing something completely unrewarding for years, because they like the process, or because they think they can't learn anything else. They are seen as crazy. No matter that they were or are exercising the same perseverance that drove other people to the shining summits of success.
I personally think a mixed strategy is best. Do one or two things long-term, learn it deeply. Keep looking around and trying other things, and be ready to de-prioritize your old "deep thing" and start to dig deeper at something else.
The key like you said is spending those 10k hours on the right thing. A mixed strategy makes sense, but I’d recommend starting with some breadth - experiment and then go for depth. How can you know where to spend your time if you don’t know what you don’t know.
A hilarious take on this that comes to mind is one of my favourite Onion videos.
SPOILER - for those who don’t want to watch it. It’s about an Anteater researcher who spent 25 years researching it. He breaks down in anguish at a talk show wondering just what he’s done with his life.
> There are also people who keep doing something completely unrewarding for years, because they like the process, or because they think they can't learn anything else. They are seen as crazy.
If they keep on doing it, then there must be some kind of reward for them, perhaps just not something that you're aware of.
I'm reminded of meditation. People nowadays take it for granted that mediation is a good thing and a worthwhile endeavor.
However, just think for a moment how useless and unnecessary it seems if you know nothing about meditation.
Zazen meditation means sitting still for hours staring at the wall.
Where's the reward in that? Why would anyone spend 10k hours doing it? They must be crazy right?
Actually, they might have a very good reason for doing Zazen and they might just know something you don't.
Right. I know plenty of people that spent 10k hours playing WoW back in the day. That's not a judgement. If you enjoyed those 10k hours good for you. Just guessing though that mastery of WoW is a not that useful of skill outside of WoW
High-level WoW team players, and also Eve team players, are known to be in high regard in certain business settings.
The orcs and planets may be virtual, but the skills of team-playing, knowing your teammates, strategy, resource allocation, quick estimation are very real and transferable.
4/ what is actually difficult, and worthwhile, instead is to do ONE single thing for a very, very long time. It's much harder and much rarer and results in outlier outcomes much more often.
A friend of my parents spent more than 30 years building a famous watch called "jens olsens world watch" in half size by hand (as in litreally everyhing is done in hand also the wrenches which for some of them takes 400 years to go around their own axis)
This is on top of a bunch of other things he built. If there is a modern day da vinchi he would be it (he paints, plays music, writes assembler like it's an artform, understand mechanical engineering and electrical engineering he reversed engineered the Mac2 back in the days, I could go on)
He never brags about it so I have to do it because I think there are far too few people like him left and they are the ones who really do things in life.
So many undergraduate research assistants want to be in the lab to do the minimum time and effort, get the check mark in their cv, and move on. Then they go interview with an impressive looking list of labs and projects they've worked at, but when you inspect their thinking there is little depth. Then you find the jr specialist applicant that stayed at one lab their entire undergraduate career, shows some understanding and language surrounding the basic problems in that field, and mental dedication to work through the hard problems without bailing. That is what I valued in candidates. No matter how tough it gets, they didn't give up.
I am all for the expert generalist but you need to at least have tried to dig into something really serious and spent the years learning to become really good at something.
First time I did that was with music where you learn that you will hit plateaus along the way were it feels like nothing happens until then suddenly you are catapulted to an ever more accomplished level.
Luckily this still happens but it seems like it mostly happens outside of academia because it's not been as politicized as much of that seems to have become.
Similarly, you can see a remarkable model airplane collection by Edward Chavez at SFO now. It was sponsored over two decades by the Nut Tree restaurant owner:
Markets reward useful uniqueness. Long-term focus yields mastery few have achieved.
A path even more likely to lead to success is combining two types of expertise in a fruitful way. In today's global economy, it is very hard to be among the world's top 100 or 1,000 for a particular skill, even with years of practice. It is quite possible to be among the top 1,000,000 in each of the two skills that, when usefully integrated, result in a fairly unique output or skill set.
Making something people want is a foundation, but no good if someone else copies it (and perhaps does it better amd markets it better through capitalization).
I think the YC playbook is if you keep improving it, it's hard for copiers to catch up (so don't worry about competitors/copiers in themselves, look fotward, not behind you). There's also a market advantage of being first - people like that, and you've have longer for news to spread about you.
You could say defendability is implied by uniqueness. Once it is copied it is no longer unique. Better to have it spelled out though.
I used the word ‘toward’ to hint that there is no perfect market fit. One can only continually improve toward the ideal, which also keeps changing. I think we largely agree. :)
> In today's global economy, it is very hard to be among the world's top 100 or 1,000 for a particular skill, even with years of practice.
Why do you need to be in the top 1,000? Why do you need to be in the top 100,000?
If I have a market of 5,000 people around me who want my service, why is it not OK to be the best you can be for 100 of those people paying you $5,000 a year (or some other amount)? If I'm doing my part for those 2% and someone else, perhaps a large company, is doing the same for 50%, what's the problem? :-)
Your scenario assumes that larger competitors, possibly from other localities and nations, will not come in and provide services as well as you can at a lower price (perhaps by subsidizing at first to gain market share).
With network effects, economy of scale, and commoditization of more and more products and services, larger players have stronger advantages than ever. In the long run, how do you secure a niche that can provide you with significant income per customer when those same niches tend to be lucrative for larger players as well?
Examples: There are fewer independent grocery stores, book stores, and pharmacists than ever in the US.
It is true that if your services are fairly immuned to those effects, it might be possible. Medicine and software consulting are two areas I can think of right now. However, those skills also require substantial investment/time to develop and some entrepreneurial skills to monetize well.
Do you have examples of occupations that can achieve success with a skill level of 8 out of 10?
> Your scenario assumes that larger competitors, possibly from other localities and nations, will not come in and provide services as well as you can at a lower price (perhaps by subsidizing at first to gain market share).
This doesn't apply to all industries nor all products and services that can be offered. I suggest reading, "Small Giants."
Not everyone wants to do business with big players. Some people are forced to due to lower prices and their diminished funds, but not everyone is in that boat. Small, privately owned business can operate just fine surrounded by big players, especially when customer service and customer satisfaction absolutely smashes the big player across the street. Suggested reading: "The Millionaire Next", which clearly indicates that a lot of wealthy families got wealthy providing professional services to other wealthy families.
You have to start somewhere and at some scale, and once you reach a certain point, you can stop. It's OK not to want to be the next billionaire.
> Do you have examples of occupations that can achieve success with a skill level of 8 out of 10?
Computer programming. 6/10 in London will get you lucrative contracts you can use to bootstrap a side business with part of the proceeds. London is so dense and business so freely flowing, that the GFC did next to nothing for most of us in this industry. We still got our AUD$1,200/day payslips.
DevOps. 7/10 would get you a huge daily rate (like I'm on now) and that can be used to bootstrap a side business (like I'm doing now.)
Driving Instructor. I remember my instructor back home in England. Lawrence. Lovely guy. Good instructor. Maybe 7-8/10. AUD$35/hour for a driving lesson. Had so much business he was hard to get a booking with and could pick and choose his clients. Why? Because every year a new 16 year old boy/girl entered the arena and wanted to learn to drive. Tens of thousands of them from the surrounding towns. Despite the very large instructor schools having hundreds of instructors all over the country, Lawrence was "successful" and continues to be.
Cafes, bookstores (despite what you said earlier), and those kind of businesses (those that can be operate by a single business owner) easily stay in business here in Australia and certainly at home in England.
Overall, I think you'll find the problems you've outlined to be mostly exclusive to and quite excessively bad in the US, but it's not the case in the UK and Australia (to the same degree.) I'm going to bet a lot of Europe is the same as AU/UK, too. Yes big players exists here, but check out this documentary about why Starbucks failed here in Australia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FGUkxn5kZQ -- what was it you were saying about economy of scale?
I guess we define success differently. For me it means not needing to worry about money for the rest of my life, while relying on just passive low-risk investment income, until any age I happen to live to. This includes having sufficient funds to obtain world-class treatments of the highest quality and little wait time for any possible health issues of family members.
Services for the wealthy might be a path for that but it requires at least 2 major skills: specialized knowledge in a profession and how to make strong connections and provide those services properly to the rich.
Successful small businesses also require both 1) specialized knowledge in an industry and 2) entrepreneurial skills (which I alluded to in my comment above). In addition, not a high percentage of small businesses is sustainable for decades, so one needs to judiciously invest the profits in a diversified portfolio to secure a good retirement.
IT job examples you cited might be great for single individuals or youngish families who can still work and catch up with new technologies. They do not necessarily cover secure and comfortable retirements and great treatments for health conditions in old age, unless one saves and invests a significant portion of the income. It is also unclear that the supply will continue to be lower than the demand for a long time into the future.
Investing applies to everyone, in all walks of life, is is the sole reason the 1% exists - the wealth is built up through investments and passed down through the family tree.
the same way that if you lift for 3 months, it achieves nothing.
I'm probably missing the point - but that first 3 months of training is where you make the fastest growth and can double the weight you lift (from untrained to novice). Sure - you aren't going to compete at a world level after 3 months, but it doesn't seem right to describe it as 'nothing'.
Agreed. Though re-reading it, I think the point may have been more about quitting after 3 months and not so much that you don't gain anything the first 3 months.
> 5/ if I had only worked on a startup for a year, I would've gotten nowhere, the same way that if you lift for 3 months, it achieves nothing. Everything good in life comes from perseverance, but at the beginning, you're just like "I need to be somebody!!!"
It may be more about persevering beyond that arbitrary time limit and trying to get to a certain real goal instead... maybe.
How (and when) do you decide that your time is better spent elsewhere? Basically the Silicon Valley catchphrase, "Fail fast"
I know that if I decided to spend my next two (or three or ten) years learning Discrete Mathematics I would probably get somewhere. But what if I gave up once I realized that I have more of a talent somewhere else and followed that subject?
That aside, I find references to historical successes kind of a truism. Sure, Amazon is successful and Jeff Bezos perservered. It doesn't mean everyone who perseveres at their craft is going to be as successful as him.
It's not about reading 52 books or reading 1 book 52 times. Your literary journey should be all about discovery, if you really like an author then read his omnibus. If you gravitate towards certain areas - then read the best writing that is available. Books lead to other books and good authors always name their influences. There is nothing quite like reading, when you read an author's omnibus you are literally getting into his head and realizing he is/was wrestling with the same existential dilemmas that you have/had.
I'll leave one of Naval Ravikant's podcast here that contains similar advice including putting down books instead of reading them cover to cover, https://fs.blog/naval-ravikant/
Spending the proverbial 10k hours on something gives you mastery. This mastery matters if it's a mastery of a right thing.
Spending 100 hours on 100 different subjects gives you an immense breadth of view, and maybe a better chance to choose the worthy area for digging deep.
There's an obvious survivor bias in the messages of people who have spent 10k hours on doing something and succeeded. They have spent their time and concentrated effort on the right thing that returned the investment many times over.
You don't hear much about people who spent 2k hours on something that drove them to poverty, so they dropped it. They are seen as losers that wasted their time on that silly thing. There are also people who keep doing something completely unrewarding for years, because they like the process, or because they think they can't learn anything else. They are seen as crazy. No matter that they were or are exercising the same perseverance that drove other people to the shining summits of success.
I personally think a mixed strategy is best. Do one or two things long-term, learn it deeply. Keep looking around and trying other things, and be ready to de-prioritize your old "deep thing" and start to dig deeper at something else.