My first big startup had the following on the cover of the business plan (it disrupted consulting):<p>“Some think,
Some do,
Some both,
But few”.<p>Got that from a lecturer.
Reminds me of a quote (paraphrasing), "a vector without a force is not a useful vector". I thought it was by Theo de Raadt (OpenBSD team lead), but not finding it in a search.<p>The opposite makes sense too, a vector with magnitude but no direction isn't super useful on its own either.
> Toulouse noted that Poincaré kept very regular hours. He did his hardest thinking between 10 a.m. and noon, and again between 5 and 7 in the afternoon. The 19th century’s most towering mathematical genius worked just enough to get his mind around a problem—about four hours a day.<p>The two 2-hour hard thinking hours chart was the most useful takeaway for me.
I wonder if social media could actually be a really positive push for the “small stakes big thinkers” type, in some cases.<p>There’s loads of great content on YouTube for example, with channels doing genuine and interesting science and experimentation in public. Channels like Breaking Taps, Journey to the Microcosmos, The Thought Emporium, all come to mind, for me. I’m sure you can think of others.<p>More hackernews-coded, perhaps, there’s also lots of cool small blogs positing some pretty neat ideas… although, sites like YouTube might arguably provide easier access to finance for sustaining these people!
In the mid to late 20th century seeds were planted; of ideas & inventions we now take for granted.<p>Then progress exploded! Quality of life massively expanded.<p>Now: a slowdown. Stuff still gets made yet we feel disenchanted.<p>It never stopped being a good time to planting more idea-seeds.<p>Tenure sounds a lot like basic income. Maybe it’s a coincidence.
> Which is why he has undeniably succeeded in doing incredibly hard things, things that many (most) said were well nigh impossible.<p>> Built an EV car company, operating at scale<p>He bought into a pre-existing company.<p>> Produced batteries for those cars at scale<p>How is the 4680 going? And is BYD eating its lunch yet? Last I looked they losing court cases over a particular dry cathode patent.<p>And well, BYD's new fast charging tech is far more performant than Tesla superchargers, multiple car makers (including Tesla!) are using their batteries not the 4680, so...<p>> Launched brand new self-made rockets to space, at scale, including catching them on a ship when they fell back from the sky!<p>That is indeed pretty cool, but did Elon actually do that? Also, how's Starship looking? Can it take more payload to orbit than a Falcon Heavy yet? Is it exploding less often?<p>> Bored tunnels cheaply<p>[citations really needed] If they can do this, the Boring Company isn't capitalising on it, I see a lot of cancelled projects, and only one where the public actually uses it (in Las Vegas).<p>But hey, Elon's definitely a doer, just you know, sometimes he's doing things that are very bad for the companies involved.<p>If he could stop trying to micromanage his companies, and just trust the very very very smart people who work there, and maybe I dunno, turn back time and not get radicalised on the Internet because his child transitioned, and avoid getting involved in politics in the absolute worst way possible, he'd accomplish so much more.<p>Someone once told me that Tesla and SpaceX largely succeeded in spite of Elon, and it rings true.<p>But I feel mean-spirited commenting this on a 3 year old post, that feels like an eternity ago in the Muskverse.
I'm struggling to figure out why you'd pick Musk as an example of a doer when you also can't distinguish coalescing money and talent from the thing money and talent does. What distinguishes doers from capital being capital? How do you distinguish between a "generational genius" and a useful idiot?
I don't understand the reason for the bizarre I/II/III parts.<p>The real gist is in IV/V and you can easily skip directly to it. Or something still evades me.
Thinking is for idiots.<p>It's only when your start doing that you find out the things you never would have thought about.<p>Do things before you've made up your mind so you don't have time to regret it.