Comment by sireat
1 day ago
I am paraphrasing but I think it was W. Buffett who said:
"Work at the job that you do not hate"
In other words, not all vocations that you are great at and talented and want to pursue are valued by current world.
I love playing chess way more and actually am reasonably good at it, but programming and teaching are valued more and I like those too.
As Jimmy O. Yang's father reportedly said: "Pursuing your dreams is how you become homeless"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO6ntvIwT2k&t=22s
At the same time you have to be out there in the world, increase your luck surface - if you sit in your cubicle/room/private chatroom all day you are less likely to make a mark on the world despite your brilliance.
Again I forgot which artist said it but that in New York art scene the most successful artists spent most of their working days socializing not painting/sculpting etc.
>> In other words, not all vocations that you are great at and talented and want to pursue are valued by current world. <<
Good one! Im so glad I could built my current system with AI, because without it I wouldnt have started because of the amount of work. I went into SWE because I liked programming at home with my school friends but I had no real understanding of the "commercial environment" I would end up - turning out: I'm quite a good developer, but I hate it completely under commercial constraints.
Instead, I switched to Product & Projectmanagement, where Im a AAA-employee with my tech-skills and where I can always stand out because I speak both languages and Im usually very well connected to the tech people (like short ways ie picking the phone and asking for a quick help/advice to get something faster done)
I think Kevin Kelly has taken the opposing side before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44455933)
What are those artists successful at? Making art, or marketing it? The New York art scene is a curious example in this context, because it is notoriously all about who you know rather than what you do, and that's not usually considered a good thing.
> What are those artists successful at?
Making money in the profession that they enjoy, rather than having to take up one that they enjoy less.
Not everyone views success as making money.
To be honest, I don't follow. The different stories strike me as telling different/contradicting lessons.
But taking just the first one, the Buffet one. I think maybe that's how we get willing people in the bad companies? Bad companies doesn't even have to mean evil and morally wrong, it can mean bad decision making and poorly run. Companies can still be plenty lucky though and that accounts for a lot. But if the people who hate morally bad jobs or irrational decision making leave and the ones who don't hate them stay that's going to lead somewhere.
Maybe individually a "good" person will be happier (and perhaps poorer, if you have the belief that lower morals is an advantage in business). As a society, you'd probably really like that naysayers remain at companies. As a company leader, I don't know which one you'd like. It depends on your goals I guess. Overall, it strikes me as not capturing enough. The "job you don't hate" is broad. If you have a belief in something that should exist in the world and that company has a way of producing it, it doesn't seem to be wrong to work there trying to make that happen even against a tide of coworkers you hate, existing products you hate, social implications you hate. It's a lot of stress and work though with a low success rate. That's enough for a lot of people to say no, but more curiously it's enough for a lot of people to just change what they hate.