Re:How to Do Great Work
by grumpy_coder on Saturday July 01, 2023 @12:39PM
(#36551939)
You really shouldn't write a long post on doing great work without mentioning teamwork. He seems to say great work is done in the garage or garden shed, which has been false for centuries at this point.
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He mentions that for certain projects you’ll need to be good at managing others, or you shouldn’t attempt them at all.
Unless you live in any of the houses right outside the Apple campus. The single most shocking thing to me when I visited for the first time was that the entire area including right outside the visitor center is still dominated by these upsetting 60s bungalows. Ironically up in Redmond they're putting them to shame in terms of development.
Teamwork was mentioned in the post
I think your comment is an underappreciated one.
The article, to me, seems exceedingly preferential to the "tortured/overworked genius" method of innovation, and by now I'm personally tired of seeing that trope fall on its face.
The best... anything gets built by many people. Of course it takes a VC to try and tell us about the "exceptional" people at the top who make it all possible, but the number of times PG points out how instrumental Jessica was to the early days of YC disproves the very trope he's trying to puff up here.
My thoughts as well. He himself went ALL the way through the educational system broadly and were into arts and so on, so did his friend and collaborator Morris. Granted, PG has seen tech talent and success unfold on a scale that few will experience, which gives him a unique perspective. I'm still left wondering what role he attributes having close friends like he did, peers, mentors, community and collaboration...