-
Notifications
You must be signed in to change notification settings - Fork 0
/
Work As Hard As You Can.html
146 lines (146 loc) · 6.91 KB
/
Work As Hard As You Can.html
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
<html>
<head>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="styles2.css" />
</head>
<body>
<p>![[Naval-Ep28.mp3]]</p>
<p>Even though what you work on and who you work with are more important</p>
<p>Work as hard as you can</p>
<p>
<strong>Naval:</strong> Let’s talk about hard work. There’s a battle that
happens on Twitter a lot. Should you work hard or should you not?
<a href="https://twitter.com/dhh">David Heinemeier Hansson</a> says, “It’s
like you’re slave-driving people.”
<a href="https://twitter.com/rabois">Keith Rabois</a> says, “No, all the
great founders worked their fingers to the bone.”
</p>
<p>They’re talking past each other.</p>
<p>
First of all, they’re talking about two different things. David is talking
about employees and a lifestyle business. If you’re doing that, your
number one priority is not getting wealthy. You have a job, a family and
also your life.
</p>
<p>
Keith is talking about the Olympics of startups. He’s talking about the
person going for the gold medal and trying to build a multi-billion dollar
public company. That person has to get everything right. They have to have
great judgment. They have to pick the right thing to work on. They have to
recruit the right team. They have to work crazy hard. They’re engaged in a
competitive sprint.
</p>
<p>
If getting wealthy is your goal, you’re going to have to work as hard as
you can. But hard work is no substitute for who you work with and what you
work on. Those are the most important things.
</p>
<p>
<strong>What you work on and who you work with are more important</strong>
</p>
<p>
Marc Andreessen came up with the concept of the “<a
href="https://pmarchive.com/guide_to_startups_part4.html"
>product-market fit</a
>.” I would expand that to “product-market-founder fit,” taking into
account how well a founder is personally suited to the business. The
combination of the three should be your overwhelming goal.
</p>
<p>
You can save a lot of time by picking the right area to work in. Picking
the right people to work with is the next most important piece. Third
comes how hard you work. They are like three legs of a stool. If you
shortchange any one of them, the whole stool is going to fall. You can’t
easily pick one over the other.
</p>
<p>
When you’re building a business, or a career, first figure out: “What
should I be doing? Where is a market emerging? What’s a product I can
build that I’m excited to work on, where I have specific knowledge?”
</p>
<p><strong>No matter how high your bar is, raise it</strong></p>
<p>
Second, surround yourself with the best people possible. If there’s
someone greater out there to work with, go work with them. When people ask
for advice about choosing the right startup to join, I say, “Pick the one
that’s going to have the best alumni network for you in the future.” Look
at the PayPal mafia—they worked with a bunch of geniuses, so they all got
rich. Pick the people with the highest intelligence, energy and integrity
that you can find.
</p>
<p>And no matter how high your bar is, raise it.</p>
<p>
Finally, once you’ve picked the right thing to work on and the right
people, work as hard as you can.
</p>
<p><strong>Nobody really works 80 hours a week</strong></p>
<p>
This is where the mythology gets a little crazy. People who say they work
80-hour weeks, or even 120-hour weeks, often are just status
signaling. It’s showing off. Nobody really works 80 to 120 hours a week at
high output, with mental clarity. Your brain breaks down. You won’t have
good ideas.
</p>
<p>
The way people tend to work most effectively, especially in knowledge
work, is to sprint as hard as they can while they feel inspired
to work, and then rest. They take long breaks.
</p>
<p>
It’s more like a lion hunting and less like a marathoner running. You
sprint and then you rest. You reassess and then you try again. You
end up building a marathon of sprints.
</p>
<p><strong>Inspiration is perishable</strong></p>
<p>
Inspiration is perishable. When you have inspiration, act on it right then
and there.
</p>
<p>
If I’m inspired to write a blog post or publish a tweetstorm, I should do
it right away. Otherwise, it’s not going to get out there. I won’t come
back to it. Inspiration is a beautiful and powerful thing. When you have
it, seize it.
</p>
<p><strong>Impatience with actions, patience with results</strong></p>
<p>
People talk about impatience. When do you know to be impatient? When do
you know to be patient? My glib tweet on this was: “<a
href="https://twitter.com/naval/status/1008533213919133697?lang=en"
>Impatience with actions, patience with results.</a
>” I think that’s a good philosophy for life.
</p>
<p>
Anything you have to do, get it done. Why wait? You’re not getting any
younger.
</p>
<p>
You don’t want to spend your life waiting in line. You don’t want to spend
it traveling back and forth. You don’t want to spend it doing things that
aren’t part of your mission.
</p>
<p>
When you do these things, do them as quickly as you can and with your full
attention so you do them well. Then be patient with the results because
you’re dealing with complex systems and a lot of people.
</p>
<p>
It takes a long time for markets to adopt products. It takes time for
people to get comfortable working with each other. It takes time for great
products to emerge as you polish away.
</p>
<p>Impatience with actions, patience with results.</p>
<p>
If I discover a problem in one of my businesses, I won’t sleep until the
resolution is at least in motion. If I’m on the board of a company, I’ll
call the CEO. If I’m running the company, I’ll call my reports. If I’m
responsible, I’ll get on it, right then and there, and solve it.
</p>
<p>
If I don’t solve a problem the moment it happens—or if I don’t move
towards solving it—I have no peace. I have no rest. I have no happiness
until the problem is solved. So I solve it as quickly as possible. I
literally won’t sleep until it’s solved—maybe that’s just a personal
characteristic. But it’s worked out well in business.
</p>
</body>
</html>