I'm curious what you would think about transforming the "Ideas are cheap" saying into something like "Creativity isn't free" or "Thought requires effort" in this content?
I'm not a big fan of classifying ideas and by extension thought as cheap, and would love to think of better way for conveying what's really implied here
Very interesting concept, and I agree completely. One thing I've noticed in myself – and I'm curious if others have noticed this as well – is that the "million-dollar idea", as he puts it, never really turns out to be quite as good as I had imagined. Especially once it's been stored away for some time, under the pretense that I don't have the ability to explore it, it seems to be dramatically worse than what I had it made out to be.
I have maybe 30 really good ideas in a note book I keep at home. All of them could make me money, maybe lots of money. But like all the other wage slaves out there, I do not have the time to make them happen.
Ideas are cheap, they are easy. The hard part is being born into wealth.
If your certainty that they will make you money is so high, is there really no avenue to get the funding? (assuming you are willing to take the work) Like saving money, finding investors, borrowing, etc? Isn't it possible to bootstrap a concept in a few months with savings (for example by moving to a place with cheap food and accomodation off of savings).
There's opportunities for everyone who works hard toward achieving their vision. Many times, not being born into wealth ends up being a greater driver than being born into it. In my personal experience, all those ones you probably envy that are working on their "dreams" are also working 2-4 hours a day at most because their wealth has given them too much comfort. Many will spend a lot of the day just talking and delude themselves that it's work, but really, it's just laziness.
The idea that you (and presumably others) are incapable of working on your own ideas because you're not wealthy is ludicrous, and nothing more than an excuse to validate inaction. If you want something, go get it.
Yeah if you wanna go to an Ivy League JUST DO IT! It doesn't matter that you have to work 20+ hours every week to support your family which can't pay the bills! Time you could have invested into school. But does that actually matter if you go to a crappy school your parents decided on? It doesn't matter that you guys don't have money to cover health insurance or regular dentist or doctor's appointments! Got a car? NO! Fuck it not enough money!
You are yourself and you can do whatever you want. The stats are just stats. Just because no one has seen a black swan before, does not mean black swan doesn't exist. It is foolish to think that it is impossible to achieve something and give up even without trying just because of the stats.
What does "America" have anything to do with this? You could complain all day long about how bad of a situation you are in, or you could do something about it, and that's a fact.
How is something as common as "positive thinking" unique to American? I don't understand how you picked up that idea. It's like saying "being courteous to elders" is uniquely Chinese.
I think its the loss of excitement mid way executing an idea that makes one lazy. If an idea continues to excite you to a level where you think "you're doing justice to it" i think thats the one worth pursuing.
Try a 100 times and maybe you'll find the one that really clicks with you.
Saying things like what? "I do not have the time to make them happen"?
If so, I'd say that's more a matter of prioritization (assuming at least one project is underway). For example, I think we could all agree that working on 30 projects would be an ineffective way to spend time. Mark Cuban recommends "1, not 50" [1]. You have to pick your best candidate project and run with it, and what's best depends on what your criteria are.
I think the term "fear of failure" is applied too broadly. Often this "fear" is more a healthy respect for the challenge of bringing highly functional yet simple experiences to your end user. Those experiences coupled with a product that solves a legitimate problem, absent any legal or bureaucratic barriers, is a recipe for winning. Understanding the intricacies of the challenge can make it difficult to find a single-threaded manner to work on it. It's almost more of a logical bewilderment than it is fear.
If none of the ~30 projects are being worked on then maybe fear of failure or laziness might apply but it could still be a matter of prioritization.
This guy calls himself "wage slave", which means he's not some homeless bum and can sustain himself. He is also on hacker news commenting on stuff, so he does have time. Also I never said fear of failure was bad. I just pointed out that he's using his "not being born into a wealthy family" as an excuse when the real reason is in fear of failure or laziness. Lastly, does this guy sound like someone who is actually working on a project but only complaining how he wishes he had more time so he could work more?
Woooo 11 comments in 501 days is really overdoing it, HN is obviously where all his free time goes.
And I didn't say you said fear of failure was bad, I said it was applied too broadly and possibly not even applicable in this case, though you seem to have thoroughly investigated his background, personality, time expenditures and other personal preferences, so I'm sure you know better.
Being afraid of failure is perfectly rational if one genuinely does not have any safety net. Something the middle class wealthy folks here probably forget.
Fear of failure itself is OK. Using lack of wealth as an excuse is not. While one guy who has access to the Internet and have enough time to post on hacker news is complaining about how he's screwed because he's not born into a "wealthy family", there are many people who are in much worse situations who actually get shit done on their own. It's just a difference in mindset. While this guy complains about how he can't take risks because he has no fallback, another guy in exactly the same situation may work 10 times harder exactly because he doesn't like his life without a fallback and wants to do something about it.
How to finance the new business in a realistic way should be part of the "idea", just as much as how to make the widget and how to find customers for it.
The problem of course is that you have to "run the program" so to speak in order to figure out which ideas are actually going to stick and in turn which one you should then go with.
Its not much different than being presented with a thousand logos and then having to decide which one you are going to choose.
In other words producing a thousand ideas isn't going to help you unless you try them all out. If you could; most likely what you would find, is that your most stupid ideas are going to be the biggest winners.
Agreed. The best way to generate more ideas is to implement the ones you already have, so you can know what works and what doesn't. Fail early and quickly and then get up and get going onto some other idea!
Ideas are cheap but they heavily determine the outcome also.
#1. Ideas are seeds. They grow into the trees that then give us fruit, and it takes work to get to the fruit that is so valuable. Yet, without the seeds we would have nothing. So if you're into trees and want fruit, you still cannot avoid the idea problem. And you cannot avoid the fact that the value of your fruit will be proportional to the value of the original idea. So if you're about to put a day, a week, or a year into an idea, it better be a damn good idea.
#2. Ideas require more ideas. People seek that one amazing idea and think they're done. Hell no. We may start with one idea, but day after day new challenges will arise as we work on that idea. And the only way to solve those challenges is with great ideas. We can look at an iPhone and say, "touch, ya of course", but the designers and engineers know that there were countless ideas that made the original concept work. If something about an idea is not working, chances are another idea can fix it.
#3. Ideas only come from the mind. So in the end, the fruit that lends itself to the idea lends itself to the person or persons that came up with them -- the source of instructions for all the right work. This makes the constant thinker an invaluable part of the entire process. And thank goodness there is that constant thinker in all of us, as well as that constant worker that gets those instructions done.
“We shouldn't be looking for heroes, we should be looking for good ideas.”
― Noam Chomsky
IMHO those with the greatest ideas have already proven to be our heros. Everyone works, ideas are what generate work, and working on ideas is work also. There is no choice between the seed (ideas), the nurturing (execution), and the soil (environment). They are all mission critical, and depend on one another. And there really is no swapping of seeds, no rewinding the clock, and no replacing the soil. Granted we ever get that far, if the product or service does suck, the company must rot. We are free to thank the people, the opportunity, the journey, and all we learnt from it, but in the end the ideas are only there to be damned. Ideas: Cheap but crucial. Always bring as many as you can.
31 comments
[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 66.8 ms ] threadI'm not a big fan of classifying ideas and by extension thought as cheap, and would love to think of better way for conveying what's really implied here
Ideas are cheap, they are easy. The hard part is being born into wealth.
The idea that you (and presumably others) are incapable of working on your own ideas because you're not wealthy is ludicrous, and nothing more than an excuse to validate inaction. If you want something, go get it.
Yeah if you wanna go to an Ivy League JUST DO IT! It doesn't matter that you have to work 20+ hours every week to support your family which can't pay the bills! Time you could have invested into school. But does that actually matter if you go to a crappy school your parents decided on? It doesn't matter that you guys don't have money to cover health insurance or regular dentist or doctor's appointments! Got a car? NO! Fuck it not enough money!
The world is WAY less meritocratic than we think.
It's generally assumed that positive thinking is how you get ahead (another American belief), but that doesn't seem to be the case: http://www.newyorker.com/currency-tag/the-powerlessness-of-p...
Try a 100 times and maybe you'll find the one that really clicks with you.
If so, I'd say that's more a matter of prioritization (assuming at least one project is underway). For example, I think we could all agree that working on 30 projects would be an ineffective way to spend time. Mark Cuban recommends "1, not 50" [1]. You have to pick your best candidate project and run with it, and what's best depends on what your criteria are.
I think the term "fear of failure" is applied too broadly. Often this "fear" is more a healthy respect for the challenge of bringing highly functional yet simple experiences to your end user. Those experiences coupled with a product that solves a legitimate problem, absent any legal or bureaucratic barriers, is a recipe for winning. Understanding the intricacies of the challenge can make it difficult to find a single-threaded manner to work on it. It's almost more of a logical bewilderment than it is fear.
If none of the ~30 projects are being worked on then maybe fear of failure or laziness might apply but it could still be a matter of prioritization.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sa5t-Hx8A7Y&t=34
And I didn't say you said fear of failure was bad, I said it was applied too broadly and possibly not even applicable in this case, though you seem to have thoroughly investigated his background, personality, time expenditures and other personal preferences, so I'm sure you know better.
... I was waiting eagerly for the "and execution is difficult."
>The hard part is being born into wealth.
Which gave me quite a hearty chuckle
How to finance the new business in a realistic way should be part of the "idea", just as much as how to make the widget and how to find customers for it.
Its not much different than being presented with a thousand logos and then having to decide which one you are going to choose.
In other words producing a thousand ideas isn't going to help you unless you try them all out. If you could; most likely what you would find, is that your most stupid ideas are going to be the biggest winners.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10141469
#1. Ideas are seeds. They grow into the trees that then give us fruit, and it takes work to get to the fruit that is so valuable. Yet, without the seeds we would have nothing. So if you're into trees and want fruit, you still cannot avoid the idea problem. And you cannot avoid the fact that the value of your fruit will be proportional to the value of the original idea. So if you're about to put a day, a week, or a year into an idea, it better be a damn good idea.
#2. Ideas require more ideas. People seek that one amazing idea and think they're done. Hell no. We may start with one idea, but day after day new challenges will arise as we work on that idea. And the only way to solve those challenges is with great ideas. We can look at an iPhone and say, "touch, ya of course", but the designers and engineers know that there were countless ideas that made the original concept work. If something about an idea is not working, chances are another idea can fix it.
#3. Ideas only come from the mind. So in the end, the fruit that lends itself to the idea lends itself to the person or persons that came up with them -- the source of instructions for all the right work. This makes the constant thinker an invaluable part of the entire process. And thank goodness there is that constant thinker in all of us, as well as that constant worker that gets those instructions done.
“We shouldn't be looking for heroes, we should be looking for good ideas.”
― Noam Chomsky
IMHO those with the greatest ideas have already proven to be our heros. Everyone works, ideas are what generate work, and working on ideas is work also. There is no choice between the seed (ideas), the nurturing (execution), and the soil (environment). They are all mission critical, and depend on one another. And there really is no swapping of seeds, no rewinding the clock, and no replacing the soil. Granted we ever get that far, if the product or service does suck, the company must rot. We are free to thank the people, the opportunity, the journey, and all we learnt from it, but in the end the ideas are only there to be damned. Ideas: Cheap but crucial. Always bring as many as you can.