Tesla Reports a Profit (Sorta) While Elon Musk Regrets Mentioning Hyperloop - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/autopia/2013/08/tesla-2nd-quarter-2013/

<comment><USER2> How is this backtracking? Nothing has changed. He made it very clear from the beginning that this is an idea of his that he wants to release to the public, not work on it himself.

Somebody then had the audacity to pester him with Hyperloop on the earnings call for Tesla. It's like asking the president about his veggie garden while hes giving a press conference on the war on (whistleblowers|drugs|terror).

<comment><USER3> That's not a fair assertion. Hyperloop has the potential to change the world far more than tesla and spaceX

<comment><USER4> Electrification of mobility & GOING TO MARS > Tube transportation

<comment><USER5> Apart from science, which robots can do however slowly, I see little value in "Going to Mars" \- even if we were prepared, which we're not.

No air, no water, no plants or animals, no fuel, plenty of radiation (on the trip and while there) and dust and _extreme_ cold. Other than _very_ expensive chest-beating (for which the Moon is a closer dead body), reason suggests that continued support of robotic exploration will pay off better for science.

 _In the meantime_ we can invent new technologies which will greatly ease the burdens and dangers - once we have invented actual goals to make of such journeys worth the enormous investment.

Long-distance tube transport seems more than a little pipe-dreamish. Regional OTOH seems inevitable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "I'm sorry. I'm too busy revolutionizing the automotive and space travel industries."

<comment><USER7> Musk has unquestionably changed the space transportation industry. It remains to be seen whether he's "revolutionized" the automotive industry.

With self driving cars on the horizon, it certainly feels like a revolution is looming, but Tesla doesn't seem to me to be nearly as singular of a force of change as SpaceX is to it's respective industry.

<comment><USER8> Self-driving may be a bigger revolution in the end, but getting everyone off oil is also a huge revolution on its own. Yes, I know they're not the only ones to have an electric car ever, but without Tesla everyone would be dragging their feet with this.

Heck, they are _still_ doing that. Just look at BMW i3. BMW is still treating electric cars as some sort of "concept cars" for the mass market, rather than "real cars" for the mass market.

We could also say touchscreen smartphones would've inevitably arrived, too, since we already had PDA's with crappy resistive touchscreens, and LG Prada even launched before the iPhone in 2007. But how much slower would they have improved to reach they level they are now, if it wasn't for Apple? And how much worse would they be now?

<comment><USER7> I'm not quite sure if the _Tesla is to electric cars as Apple is to smartphones_ analogy works just yet.

Perhaps it will, but I live in the US and have still never even seen a Tesla vehicle. I've seen Nissan Leafs and Chevrolet Volts. My town even has charging stations.

Maybe that's how things will shake out, but I don't think they're there yet.

<comment><USER9> FWIW they are all over the place in Chicago, and presumably the other major metros.

<comment><USER4> I work for a major broadcast network in Chicago. Our owner owns both a Model S and Roadster.

I too see Model S vehicles _everywhere_ in Chicago.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If you're interested in undrestanding ZEV credits and its impact on Tesla's bottom line ($5000/car) read bellow [1]

Also, worth noting other automakers are slowly catching up. Remember Tesla had a big start with their roadster, but expect fierce competition from Japanese and European automakers. Which is all good for consumers.

1 : [http://www.wired.com/autopia/2010/08/tesla-subsidy- vanishing...](http://www.wired.com/autopia/2010/08/tesla-subsidy-vanishing- amid-electric-vehicle-boom/)

<comment><USER4> Tesla owns key energy management system patents.

Disclaimer: I'm super-long TSLA.

<comment><USER11> Patents can often be worked around. Almost all "real" patents can be worked around (BS "business method" patents are not "real" patents by my definition).

I also think Tesla has a bright future. But I hope they're relying on their brand value rather than transient advantages like patents. If I hear from Musk that he thinks their patents are going to be competitive advantage, I will be factor that (negatively) in my opinion of the company's prospects.

<comment><USER4> Legal standing > Opinion

Patents can and should be used when they were legitimately obtained through costly R&D.

Value based on brand value? Bullshit. Value based on innovation? Solid.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Title should remove backtracking. I don't think he ever said he'd build the hyperloop himself - though I don't personally trust anyone other than him to build it out successfully.

<comment><USER13> Yeah, the word 'backtrack' doesn't appear anywhere in the linked article, and is clearly editorializing in the title.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Interesting production numbers. The model S is now outselling the Chevrolet Corvette, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Corvette_(redirect)#P...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Corvette_\(redirect\)#Production)

<comment><USER15> That's not too surprising; the Corvette's sales figures have plummeted in the last 10 years or so. That milestone is a little like outselling the PT Cruiser.

<comment><USER16> An even easier task now: [http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2010/07/end- of-the-r...](http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2010/07/end-of-the-road- chrysler-builds-last-pt-cruiser/index.htm)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Commentors point out that Elon is not really backtracking, though I would still be curious what he means by shooting himself in the foot. The article says he regrets mentioning the Hyperloop. So despite his intentions to open up his designs, there must be some downsides he is considering, whether outstanding personal profit or otherwise.

<comment> jack-r-abbit Maybe the downside is that now everyone is watching him, waiting for the next update, speculating, criticizing, etc. Shooting himself in the foot may have been just talking about it prematurely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> There is interesting article about hyperloop desing, based on Musk's hints: [http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/how-elon-musk-can-build- the...](http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/how-elon-musk-can-build-the- hyperloop-in-10-days-for-a-tenth-the-cost-of-high-speed-rail)

<comment><USER19> I just read that yesterday.

I think it's sad that Musk doesn't have (public) plans to actually work on the hyperloop. As many here have said in the past, him being behind the project is what moves it from fantasy to actually having a shot in a lot of people's minds.

It's probably smart of him to not start it himself though, as it's risky, and a failed venture of that sort could bleed uncertainty into the minds of investors when regarding his other ventures.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Link-bait title. Is interesting the Musk said on twitter that a particular design was "the closest he had seen", but didn't say it hit the bullseye.

</comment><comment><USER21> It's more like he's trying to sell a car while publishing plans for a high speed people mover. You can just hope it won't displace the electric car in the inner city until Tesla become really profitable but you never know. It's a risky move that could potentially affect Tesla later on.

<comment><USER22> From what has been said a Hyperloop is closer to vary high speed rail than inner city transport so if anything it complements the electric car. AKA who cares about range limitations if you never bother to drive 500+ miles for a trip.

Assuming boarding time was 30 min and your going 500MPH a 500mile hyperloop trip would take 1.5 hours vs 7+ by car. And presumably drop you closer to mass transit / the center of the city than an aircraft.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I like that he is willing to open source it. A patent would be the surest way to be sure that it dies.

</comment><comment><USER24> There's a hangout with Elon Musk and Sir Richard Branson going on now; the host asked Elon about Hyperloop, and he spent nice 5 minutes avoiding to answer it :(. He only confirmed that it's a tube (but not evacuated), with little friction, and that you'll have to go a little bit faster than sound. He also said that details will be posted on-line.

</comment><comment><USER25> Specifically: he realizes he has no time to work on it no matter how promising it is.

<comment><USER26> That's not exactly "backtracking." Also, there's something strained about the structure of the article, like they were trying really hard to put as much negative spin in before they had to say "Tesla is doing well." They could have out and said: Tesla's doing well, but GAAP...etc, and left out 3 paragraphs.

<comment><USER2> They make it seem as if Tesla is doing shady accounting, but they explain in the very beginning of the shareholder letter:

 _In this letter and going forward, we will report our results on a GAAP basis as well as on a non-GAAP basis, excluding lease accounting. We believe these non-GAAP financials are useful as they align with the underlying cash flow activity and timing of vehicle deliveries, and because we use such information internally for operational management and financial planning purposes._

<comment><USER27> Further, reporting non-GAAP figures alongside GAAP is fairly common practice. In some cases I view it as an increase in the honesty of the reporting. They're adding information here, reporting things they don't otherwise need to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> The hyperloop will never work due to a non-engineering problem known as the NIMBY. The California species is particularly nasty.

<comment><USER29> Time savings + environmental savings = I think it'll have an easier time than a new highway.</comment></comment>


Google is bleeding cash trying to take on Amazon in the smart home - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/23/17272748/alphabet-google-q1-2018-earnings-nest-smart-home-amazon-competition <comment><USER3> is there really a big market thought for this? Alexa devices are at least 2 years old. How many real people do you know that really use alexa to control their livingroom? When I saw my boss repeatedly saying 'alexa turn the volume down' it made him look stupid, he could just grab the remote and turn it down. I understand it could be useful in kitchen if your hands are covered in food and you need basic things like set timer, change Pandora station or play a youtube recepy for whatever but using it to control the livingroom, for video calling etc. Sounds more like a gimmick that Siri became after Microsoft spent so much resources building Cortana. We have phones, tablets, smart tv and smart infotainment systems in our cars, we don't need another device to do things that we can get done through all of our other devices. May be I am wrong, bur just don't see it.

<comment><USER4> People said the same thing about personal computers in the early 70s and look where we are now.

<comment><USER3> computer did things that nothing else could do. alexa is doing things that practically every other smart device can do as well

<comment><USER5> Those other methods involve you having your device at hand or getting it out of your pocket, unlocking it, etc.

The Echo isn't at its full potential, but the basics can be useful and you can see where it's going. Once they handle a broader variety of things, they will be a no-brainer for every household that isn't nervous about privacy issues. (i.e., almost everyone)

I use it to set cooking timers without stopping what I'm doing or needing a hand free. My kids use it to play music. e.g., my three year old can play a particular album without knowing how to spell it and without having to nag me to do it. They also love asking it questions like "how many teeth does a horse have?" or "how much does an elephant weigh?"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think Google knows that this is the race for the new platform. It's what happened with Microsoft in PCs, and Apple in smart phones. If this market is similar to those aforementioned, once it is saturated there will be high brand loyalty and very few switch-overs. It takes a long time to win market share once people have adopted a platform. It's worth bleeding heavily right now to lock up market share well into the future.

My only sadness is that because of the nature of the tech involved, it seems like only a race between the big dawgs. Us small guys may be able to ride the wave with apps, similar to early mobile apps, but the proliferation of walled gardens and proprietary all-the-things will be unfortunate.

<comment><USER7> I believe it's only going to be a holdover until the first company to crack AR (always on, full vision) which will completely change the world.

AR will mix voice but to become the walled garden of a person's entire world, literally everything they see, is going to be so insanely powerful.

<comment><USER8> I think AR display tech is already where it needs to be for a breakthrough. Problem is input, not output. We need a high bandwidth input device, and voice is never going to be that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > Google parent Alphabet sees shares pop after earnings beat:

Adjusted EPS: $9.57 per share vs. $8.33 per share expected by a Thomson Reuters consensus estimate

Revenue: $27.77 billion vs. $27.2 billion expected by a Thomson Reuters consensus estimate

Anita Balakrishnan | @MsABalakrishnan Published 3:25 PM ET Thu, 26 Oct 2017 Updated 7:29 PM ET Thu, 26 Oct 2017 - <USER2>

\---

Google is bleeding money in the same way I bleed when I take my glucose reading, by pricking the tip of my finger. Drip. Drip.

</comment><comment><USER10> This is the stupidest article. The premise is predicated on a wild, baseless extrapolation that because Nest isn't cashflow positive, then surely the - totally unrelated and until this quarter separately managed - other hardware orgs must also be. It also completely ignores the internal org structure differentiating between hardware, software & distribution/partnerships/support, which vary wildly based on whether it's consumer hardware (like Nest), media (Google Play Music/Movies/YT), computing devices (ChromeOS) or mobile (Android/Pixel/accessories), or non-Nest Home HW (Google Home/Mini/Max).

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm curious how the products are doing outside of reviewers' contrived trials. I have a house full of Nest and Google Home, and it's hard to know whether to laugh or cry when it makes simple mistakes (or just doesn't work) 90% of the time.

It really feels like a product that hasn't been dogfooded at all...

</comment><comment><USER12> If these devices don't clean my home, take out the trash, mow the lawn or clean my dog's poo then they're quite useless to me. Why pay for having Amazon or Google bugs in your home?

<comment><USER3> if you have hardwood floors and not a messy house I would strongly recommend a robot vacuum. I leave that thing on few times a week when leaving the house and every time it manages to collect a handful of dust, mostly speck from cloth

<comment><USER12> We were thinking of getting a Roomba, since we have a dust bunny problem as well. Seems the only useful home automation so far. But even that one sends a map of your home to the manufacturer which can then sell the data to real estate agencies?

<comment><USER3> isnt map (blueprint) of your house already a public domain that was submitted for approval before construction/renovation?

<comment><USER13> That probably depends on the locality and age of the house. My house it 118 years old. The city's diagram shows a rectangle for the house and two smaller ones for the front and back porches. They also have no difference between the first and second floors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Google just reported record revenues up 26% from last year's quarter and almost _double_ last year's net income at $9bn. Not to worry, it has plenty of cash to bleed and it increases every hour of every day.

<comment><USER15> [1]: [https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/24/alphabet- earnings-q2-2017.ht...](https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/24/alphabet- earnings-q2-2017.html)

But I have to say, "Of course, Google has the money to spend."

"Bleeding cash" is hardly what Google/Alphabet is doing. At worse, this for Google/Alphabet is the $10 bill that discovered in a jacket they haven't put on since last spring. Or to state this properly, Alphabet's liquidity/viability is not in danger by this effort :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's a smart move. We gave away our Alexa's once we tried Google,

</comment><comment><USER17> Google reported $9b net income yesterday so not to sure this article is very accurate.

Plus

[https://www.voicebot.ai/2018/04/16/smart-speaker-adoption- in...](https://www.voicebot.ai/2018/04/16/smart-speaker-adoption-in-canada- surges-to-8-google-home-has-double-the-market-share-of-amazon-echo/) Smart Speaker Adoption in Canada Surges to 8%, Google Home ...

</comment><comment><USER18> Amazon was "bleeding" cash for the first 2 decades of its existence, and nobody complained.

</comment><comment><USER19> The problem wth home automation is that it's all about solving problems which are already solved. And the level of complexity required to achieve the small delta of improvement just doesn't make sense for most people.

<comment><USER17> Do not agree. We have several Google Homes now and they get used all day.

<comment><USER19> What I'm saying is that to experience the improvement of being able to turn on your lights by talking to your Google Home vs. simply walking over to the light switch and toggling it's position, you had to buy a whole bunch of smart light bulbs, plus the Google Home devices. So, there is a large expenditure of money and time just to get everything installed. But also, now, being able to turn your lights on by speaking out loud depends on an incredibly complex stack of technologies. There are two entire operating systems, networking stacks, etc. that all have to work in order for you to continue accruing this benefit.

That might be worth it to you, but it seems like chasing extremely marginal returns to me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Will this be Google+ v2?</comment>


EU cross-border payments outside Eurozone: MEPs scrap excessive fees - <AUTHOR> http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20190207IPR25223/eu-cross-border-payments-outside-eurozone-meps-scrap-excessive-fees <comment><USER3> As someone from Bulgaria, I am really glad they are doing this. At the moment it would cost me 10 EUR to make a SEPA payment from my bank to another country in the Eurozone. A few years ago when SEPA was first introduced I was able to make the same payment from the same bank with just a 2 EUR fee. Banks were not happy that people turned away from SWIFT so they simply raised the SEPA fees. I am glad that Transferwise and other fintech companies are able to offer cheaper payments but I would still prefer the banks to have a reasonable fee in the first place.

It's very similar to the EU mobile roaming situation that took years to get better but is now very convenient and I don't need to buy prepaid SIM cards whenever I visit another EU country.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is very cool to see, and something that _should_ have been at the heart of the EU monetary union project, we're it to serve "the people" and not just "the corporations, in the hope that trickles down". Very similar to the just unjustified and unnecessary (and hopefully soon to be gone) telco cross border BS.

Of course, if the cost of currency exchange is _estimated_ , it won't necessarily solve the problem I faced transferring money from a German to a Swedish account to pay my rent at the time: not knowing exactly how much of the sent money would end up arriving, and how much would be used up for fees, I had to resort to other payment services with much higher fees... This is purely a UI problem of the banks I tried, but that also means apparently the almighty market does not give them enough incentive to solve problems that are not those of rich people. Who'd have guessed.

<comment><USER5> I was in the same situation and just made sure to always pay an amount in euro that would definitely be too much in Swedish Crowns once converted. Better to pay 1% extra than to lose much more paying ridiculous conversion costs to my bank.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Transferwise must not be happy about this. I use them for all my payments outside of the eurozone and it saves a boatload of money.

<comment><USER7> Transferwise is maybe the real reason why this law is created. It gives bad reputation to the banking system.

<comment><AUTHOR> Banks still apply cutthroat conversion rates, the law only stops extra commissions.

TransferWise still offers a very useful product even after this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> As someone having a GBP, EUR and a BGN currency bank accounts, transferring money from one to the other is really painful and is currently solvable at low cost only by some digital banks - Revolut, n26, Transferwise.

Also interesting that the legislation was pushed by a Bulgarian EMP - <USER2> Maydell, where fees seems to be the highest.

</comment><comment><USER9> Finally, I was waiting for this.

I was sending money from UK to Romania and it was so expensive. About time to challenge those fees.

<comment><USER10> Those fees look very high for intra-EU transfer, I think they carried over from the old SWIFT system?

SEPA fixed that, but obviously some countries need to be forced to remove the high fees -_-

Also, you may be happy for about a month heh

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Next step should be regulating currency exchange rates. Not sure about rest of Europe, but banks here have such a high spread they effectively add 2 to 4 % fee to every transaction. And it's even worse than normal fees, because it's hidden from the clients.

If you know about it, you can do something about it (like using Revolut or some credit cards with better exchange rates), but most people just get stolen from.

<comment><USER12> Revolut. I'm not saying they will forever offer interbank-rate exchange, but currently they do.

And this is a very simply commodified service, so it should be solved by new entrants to the market.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> If you're doing a currency exchange along with the transfer, XE.com is a better choice than TransferWise - they only make money from forex, and their rate is still competitive to TransferWise, which also charges you a transfer fee.

</comment><comment><USER14> Wow, look at the percentages these people have been scamming off of everybody for years! That must amount to massive numbers of euro's total. Hilariously, people will be happy with this news.</comment>


How to Be Successful - <AUTHOR> http://blog.samaltman.com/how-to-be-successful <comment><USER2> It's also very successful, if you have built a stable business and a way of supporting yourself and a few others around you. Being successful doesn't always mean having a 1BN valuation. But sure, it's nice to think that one day, it could happen. I'm just grateful every day that what I've got now - stability and plenty of resources - was a result of pretty much what Sam said. Believing in ourselves and not giving up, and building something meaningful to others that isn't easily duplicated. Sometimes I feel that's not enough, here on this site, but it is. The business I have right now: it just can't get that big, the wider market doesn't need what I make. But I love what I do and I have insane amounts of freedom and to my friends, I'm wildly successful. I'm reminded by that each time I know I'm doing well enough to live the life I wanted, and can support my family. That's success, too.

<comment><USER3> It's also very successful if you were a stay home parent and your kids were able to succeed thanks to your efforts.

<comment> core-questions Absolutely. There are a range of definitions for successful, but I think in many ways it's best left as "in the eye of the beholder", in the sense that it's about achieving your own personal threshold. If you build a way of life that is sustainable for yourself and provides you with personal and psychological stability for you and your dependents, and if you feel at least reasonably fulfilled in this, you can call yourself successful.

If you don't think you're doing what you should be, or think you could be doing So Much More, or that you have wasted potential, then maybe you're not successful yet, even if you're doing better on paper than some people who do view themselves as such.

<comment> swagasaurus-rex I have a great many friends that do not have the kind of money and opportunities I have simply due to my choice in a software career path.

Even a boring thankless job for me is where many of my peers dream they could be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I clicked on this expecting to hate-read it and then post something snarky, but it's actually pretty reasonable, assuming you read the title as "How To Be Sucessful In Business"

With that said I think it's missing a hugely important area -- which is mental and emotional health.

One of the things I've noticed in friends who have incredible business success, and have noticed in myself during periods of greatest productivity, is that successful people are able to keep their emotional state in check.

They don't get rolled easily by criticism or praise, they don't get dragged into short term thinking or fake crisis, and they don't let an emotional state push them into saying or doing something that they'll regret, or will blow up a relationship, or give away info in a negotiation.

I think it's up in the top 3-4 attributes of those who are able to fit the description described in the article.

<comment><USER5> I think you're right.

The first big step in Emotional Intelligence is being able to understand and regulate your own emotions, and it's the first step for a reason.

Kids who passed the famous marshmallow test (were able to resist the impulse to eat the marshmallow when unsupervised) were far more successful in later life

I have two brothers who occasionally get very angry, cut off relationships on whims and sabotage themselves through acts of defiance and misplaced protest, and neither of them is very 'successful' (however you define it). There is definitely a link.

<comment><USER6> [https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/jun/01/famed- impu...](https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/jun/01/famed-impulse- control-marshmallow-test-fails-in-new-research)

Unfortunately the marshmallow test as a predictor of later success is debunked. It's part of the replication crisis in psychology. Half of the psychology we learned may be wrong. People just aren't that straightforward.

[https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/576223](https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/576223)

<comment><USER7> The 'replicators' here are assuming humans are blank slates even though the best evidence is concienciousness is 40-60% heritable.

We also know people with high time preference/ delayed gratification are wealthier.

So now - what is controlling for parental wealth doing? It's removing this genetic component.

Social science is confounded by genetics all the time, once you start to look for it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm not successful, but my strategy for getting there is specific....

\-- never put yourself in the position to go bankrupt

\-- stay in the game - keep your overheads down to the minimum practical for you

\-- learn to program so you can implement your own ideas without need for a cofounder or need to pay for anything more than hosting and a domain

\-- just keep banging out your ideas into products until one catches on.

\-- try to bootstrap and if possible avoid raising capital - it's too distracting and costly and dilutes your time massively

\-- do your very best to avoid employing anyone until you really can't avoid it

\-- don't get a cofounder if you can possibly avoid it - it can lead to arguments and business failure... if you really need help, bootstrap till you can employ someone

\-- repeat until success or giving up, not because you're forced to stop

<comment><USER9> By and large, this is the same algorithm I use. I've really only deviated on one point.

That said, I'd add to this the idea of thinking in terms of "Return on Capital Invested" where your time and effort are a from of Capital. IOW, it's important (IMO) to figure out how to direct your attention towards the efforts that are most likely to yield the outcomes (whether financial or otherwise) that you seek. The problem, of course, is that you don't know in advance how things will play out. So you have to experiment, but once you begin an experiment the big question becomes "do I keep going on this, or redirect my effort to something else which has a higher probability of success?" (for however you define "success").

<comment><USER10> One thing worth bearing in mind when bootstrapping a company is that to be successful you just need to earn enough to cover costs and pay yourself something at the end of the day. Which is completely different to 95% of the companies you read about on here.

If you are building it on the side even just making a few hundred dollars per month is going to completely change things for you, and give you the freedom to explore more risky ideas. We may not have a universal income, but with hard work and dedication ("showing up is half the battle"), I believe anybody here could build a side business to supplement their income in a meaningful way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> A more accurate title for this is "How to Be Financially Successful".

I'd love for Sam to write a post called "How to Be a Successful Human" or "How to Live a Successful Life". This more important topic has little-to-nothing to do with financial success.

<comment><AUTHOR> I also wrote this, which I think counting reprints is my most-read blog post ever:

[https://blog.samaltman.com/the-days-are-long-but-the- decades...](https://blog.samaltman.com/the-days-are-long-but-the-decades-are- short)

<comment><USER12> Re-reading this made me notice the overlap between the two posts. Most of the suggestions across both posts fall into a few common themes. I find having a shorter list of "keys to success" helps me keep them top of mind day to day. I see four main themes here across both posts:

1\. Be internally driven. Gain energy by working on things you are excited about. Think independently. Don't get pushed around. Don't default to doing the same thing everyone else is doing. Don't chase status. Have almost too much self belief. You can only motivate yourself to work hard and sell your ideas to others if you genuinely believe in them and your motivation is internally driven.

2\. Have clear goals. Have bold goals. Make them achievable by breaking them down by day, by week, by decade. Take advantage of compounding to make small daily accomplishments snowball to reach bold long term ambitions. Compounding works not just for financial wealth, but also for building knowledge, developing skills, relationship, and health. Taking new risks constantly will help you learn new things faster and speed up compounding in all domains. Try to create enough buffer to be able to take risks and experiment in all areas of your life.

3\. Be focused and don't waste time on things that don't matter. Minimize cognitive load. Minimize personal burn rate. Being focused does not mean sacrificing exercise, eating well, and sleeping. Most people would gain by spending more time thinking about which critical priorities to focus on. Start by killing the most obvious bad uses of time like TV and twitter.

3\. Work hard. Whether your goals are in business, family, fitness, or altruism, working hard at something that naturally excites you is not only easier than working half-heartedly on things you hate, but is also the only way to achieve your goals. Working hard goes beyond putting in hours - it also means being willful, pushing through rejection, being persistent to bend the world to your will. Being a doer not a talker is just the first step.

4\. Surround yourself with smart ambitious people who may join your team, teach you something, energize you and give you ideas. Invest in relationships by putting others first: be quick to do favors, don't judge too quickly, be forgiving, do not burn bridges, pause to think before acting especially if you're angry, be nice to everyone including strangers.

<comment><USER13> These lists are always the same and never say anything new. Work hard, have goals, be focused, etc etc. No fucking shit. Everyone has heard this stuff X1000. The problem is, you can read the same shit again and again, but if you're not that way from the beginning, reading the same crap isn't suddenly going to change you.

Most people who are mega driven are that way because of their birth parents and childhood. If you were born into a crap family who didn't encourage you, by the time you're 18, it's radically harder to change, no matter how many billionaires come along and say "hard luck chum, just work harder and set some goals."

<comment><USER14> > The problem is, you can read the same shit again and again, but if you're > not that way from the beginning, reading the same crap isn't suddenly going > to change you.

> Most people who are mega driven are that way because of their birth parents > and childhood. If you were born into a crap family who didn't encourage you, > by the time you're 18, it's radically harder to change

I both wholeheartedly agree with the above statements, but not necessarily the intent they seem to have.

I came from an incredibly disadvantaged background - single parent household, below the federal poverty line my entire childhood, unstable household (moved 20+ times before I turned 18, and spent several years of my childhood technically homeless and couchsurfing). I was fully self-supportive by the time I turned 17.

While I've had a lot of missteps and baggage due to my childhood, I also owe my current success and drive to it. The same coping mechanisms I developed them have served me well in my professional career:

\- My brother and sister used our circumstances to give up, whereas I used them as motivation to try harder to get the hell out.

\- I developed a very pragmatic and flexible mental framework. Growing up with zero power in any situation and zero support to fall back on, I learned to pragmatically accept what is while simultaneously evaluating any potential leverage points to change what is. I became incredibly effective at identifying those leverage points, and mutually-beneficial ways to exploit[1] them.

\- I didn't make waves, but I learned how to ride the ones around me in ways that didn't rock others' boats. Having no resources of my own, and in some cases being wholly reliant on the benevolence of others, I intimately learned the value of introducing as little friction as possible into situations.

\- I became very aware of implicit assumptions around me, and the friction and potential hardships[2][3] created by them. I make a conscious effort to address assumptions explicitly, because of that.

\- Being under chronic stress for my entire childhood, I have an incredibly high tolerance for high-stress situations and how to cope with them.

Not everything that came out of my childhood was positive, but I've been able to translate much of it directly into incredibly valuable and fairly unique capabilities in a professional context, and I've made a successful career using those as a foundation. It could be argued that I may have been more successful at this point in my life if I had started on better footing, but it could have also gone the other way if I had never had the impetus to develop the internal motivation and skills/abilities I have today.

[1] I don't mean exploit with any negative/malicious intent, but exploit as in "don't waste an opportunity".

[2] I was able to get accepted to Columbia, and qualified for a free ride due to both academic and financial reasons. I passed on it because even though the school and room/board was free, I wasn't sure how I'd handle the logistics costs of moving there, summers/holidays, incidentals, etc. Turns out there are resources for these types of needs, but I didn't know that at the time and their acceptance literature didn't address it at all.

[3] To this day, I have an intense aversion to birthdays. It's incredibly common to have kid's birthdays at places which have incidental expenses for participation or admittance, such as game centers or theme/water parks. And rarely do people make it explicit on the invite what those are and if those incidentals are covered as part of their event fee or expected to be paid by the person invited. For my daughter's birthday, I always ensure and state that all activities are covered, and also explicitly state that gifts are optional, won't be opened during the party, and that they please be anonymous if anyone chooses to provide one. For most people, neither one of those parts of the invite will be very meaningful. But for some people, simply stating that can be the difference between them declining the invite outright, accepting it and it being a hardship and causing undue stress/friction for them, or accepting it and enjoying themselves. The same sorts of scenarios exist both professionally and personally, and being cognizant of them can bring a lot of success in life.

<comment><USER15> You are a wonderful person. Keep doing you :).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This post embodies everything I dislike about success fluff. I look up to people I admire - Tesla, Nick Drake, Mingus, My highschool Chemistry teacher - they meet maybe 0-3 of the list. Creation of value is such a delicate thing, we should not flatten it that way.

As a side effect, if we widen our view of success, there will be more place up in the 99.9%...

<comment><USER16> I think one of the problems with trying to understand how to achieve success is that by referencing the successful we often are dealing with outliers and not rules. I think this is why a lot of people here like seeing startup failure blogs instead of startup success blogs. So much survivorship bias.

<comment><USER17> I hear this a lot, but I'm not convinced there aren't enough successful people to learn from. There are probably tens of thousands of "self made" multimillionaires. Surely there are patterns.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> _You don 't want to be in a career where people who have been doing it for two years can be as effective as people who have been doing it for twenty—your rate of learning should always be high._

I'm having trouble reconciling this point. How can you continuously increase your effectiveness exponentially in a particular role? Take being a developer for example. Seems like the progression of skill is usually linear (with some variability). Is Sam saying that investing in becoming a great engineer ins't effective if your ultimate goal is to be extremely successful? I feel like this is overly reductionist. Maybe being an engineer for your entire career isn't going to lead to that massive success, but spending part of your career cultivating that skill does provide indirect benefits that can help you become super successful. For example, being able to rapidly prototype an MVP when you are testing product ideas. Building a business is the high-leverage action that could lead to massive success, but the years you spent cultivating your technical ability could be what enabled you to be able to build the MVP in the first place. Or maybe it allowed you to recognize good technical talent if your first engineering hires. I think exclusively focusing on tasks that provide orders of magnitude improvement is too direct and superficial of an answer. I'd be interested in hearing people's thoughts.

<comment><USER19> I think the "career" you're talking about is entrepreneur, built upon the "skill" of programmer. On the other hand, if your "career" is programmer, you're limited by salary, and competing (largely) on skill, which a talented recent graduate could beat you at. If your "career" is entrepreneur, then you get a bunch of multipliers (as Sam calls them) which make your core skills more valuable.

For example, 10 years into your career as an entrepreneur, you'll have a network (and possibly financial assets, and possibly an existing successful business, plus vague intangibles like 'wisdom' and industry insight) which all lets you be vastly more effective than someone who is equally skilled but still in their first couple years.

I don't think Sam is telling you not to build any particular skill, but rather to put yourself on a path where, 10 years down the line, you'll be able to use those skills in a way that other folks can't compete with, thanks to the other assets/resources/multipliers you've built up for yourself, and the fact that you're playing in an area where there is a) the potential for scale and b) you own the upside if it works.

Caveat: I have no idea, just my interpretation of the article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> All such articles should be preceded by huge blink tags with 'Warning: survivorship bias ahead'.

<comment><USER21> I think 99% of the time bringing up survivorship bias adds nothing to the conversation. If I tell you how I ran a marathon, you could shout "survivorship bias!" But that fact still stands that I hadn't successfully run a marathon before I did those things.

<comment><USER22> It's not meant to add to the conversation, it's meant to get people to shut up about giving advice on becoming successful.

There's no trick to it, you need to work and get lucky. Emphasis on the getting lucky. We don't need 1,000 thinkpieces from people who are already successful.

Give me an article from a person who can reflect on why they're not successful. That will be more interesting any day of the week.

<comment><USER21> > That will be more interesting any day of the week.

I doubt it. I'm not successful because I haven't even put in the work these articles lay out. And I definitely haven't gotten lucky. I assume millions of dollars definitely won't come my way until I at least do the part of the equation in my control.

Doesn't sound like a very interesting article to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> #2: Have almost too much self-belief. Self-confidence has been something I've struggled with my entire life, to the point where its crippled my career growth as a developer. I've been told that I'm a good developer, but if I only believed in myself I could go a lot further and become truly great. However, it's hard for me to believe in myself when I don't have a lot of data points to prove that I AM competent and capable. Over the past 3 years of working full-time yes I've accomplished some things, but none of them were truly difficult or ground breaking. I'm always pushing myself harder to learn more and get better, but it never feels like its having enough impact on me actually growing. So if all I have are at best average/mediocre accomplishments, how do I convince myself that no, I AM great, that I CAN do this? I feel like if I start having a lot of self-belief it'll just become a lie that will blind me from my weaknesses and cause me to stop growing.

<comment><USER24> > Over the past 3 years of working full-time yes I've accomplished some > things, but none of them were truly difficult or ground breaking.

3 years? Fuck. It sounds like you're on track for a long and successful career. Not everyone peaks early. Give yourself a break, spend a little more time networking and a little less time on your hard skills and you'll probably find greater opportunities for ground breaking things through relationships than through your skills.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I am sorry, but this list does the exact same thing that a thousand Vogue or similar magazines do for whatever topic is trending. Substitute "successful" with "sexy" or "slim" or whatever and you get the same packaging.

It does feel like shoehorning people into fitting some particular "pattern" that the author believes to be the "secret" to obtain said goal.

I always find it surprising that such short (relatively) articles, choke full of relatively difficult to apply advice gain a mass following and plenty of readers.

It does remind me of the rather stupid advice that depressed people get every day: "pull yourself up!" Amazing how we do seem to forget the complexity that riddles our minds.

</comment><comment><USER26> > It's not entirely clear to me why working hard has become a Bad Thing in > certain parts of the US

Most people don't have any real access to capital, and most people's labor is totally alienated from its actual value. For most people, advice to "Work Hard" amounts to "Sacrifice More So Your Boss Can Get Richer".

Also, as far as "working hard", Americans are an extreme outlier: [https://20somethingfinance.com/american-hours-worked- product...](https://20somethingfinance.com/american-hours-worked-productivity- vacation/). Maybe if Sam is hearing pushback against "Work Hard" as good advice, it's because Americans already work harder than other people in advanced economies for a lower quality of life (meaning less access to healthcare, less paid vacation, less self-reported happiness, etc).

Sam's a smart guy and knows all of this already, so it's baffling why he would include such a stupid throwaway line in this essay.

<comment><USER27> Because he'd love for more fools to work hard and make him richer.

<comment><USER28> Yes, it's true.

1\. Write articles about huge success. 2\. Inspire people to loose their lives trying to get rich. 3\. If some of them start getting lucky by pure chance, convince them to share a large part of their business for small amount of money. ... 5\. PROFIT!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> IMO, this would be an order of magnitude more impactful if each point were illustrated with vivid examples, although I understand that would take more time to write. There's a vast gulf between saying, eg., "take more risks" in the abstract, and doing some specific thing that seems dangerous right now. Past risks that worked out always seem justified in retrospect, so it would be super cool to go into detail on eg. just how crazy SpaceX seemed back in 2002.

</comment><comment><USER30> I have to wonder who the target audience for this article is. The advice just doesn't seem particularly actionable. A statement like, "I think the biggest competitive advantage in business—either for a company or for an individual's career—is long-term thinking with a broad view of how different systems in the world are going to come together," sounds great in a TED talk, but what the heck is anyone supposed to do about it? It's shallow.

I think the article could be improved by considering more carefully who the advice is intended for, and tailoring the advice to them. The advice for a bright young college graduate should be different from the advice for a five- time failed entrepreneur or someone who has plateaued in middle management at 50.

</comment><comment><USER31> Points I learned:

\- Work hard

\- Have your sales point ( why should they do business with you and not with someone else, who does the same. The sales point doesn't have to be related to the thing you are selling / consulting on. They have to improve your overall image. Nothing else). I seem to be able to sell better in person, than anyone i ever saw ( but the work takes time...).

\- Grow your network or know people who have the network

\- Filter your network. Don't spend time on people who will never be in your niche. I filter it to simple: business. ( doing computers in the past, they were the most understanding clients) and no websites ( personally, i only create them for friends)

\- Take risks

\- Spend money when you can outsource, because your time is expensive.

\- Have a long term plan, which niche are you growing into. If you have been "doing everything and nothing", than what has been the most profitable with the least amount of time spend.

\- Prioritize, because your time is expensive

\- A plan can take time to come together. Sometimes links ( helping someone out 2 years before, pay out later in the future). Don't be afraid to help them remember, when you helped them in the past.

\- Don't be scared to drop clients. Especially if they are extremely rich/have no good business, they will consume all of your time and question every invoice you send.

\- Don't partner up for doing a cloud application for "free"/"low-fee" in return of being a partner. Most cloud applications fail.

\- If you are a developer, your "online-business" will probably fail in online marketing ( the chance is big). Get a plan how you would grow the business, before you have clients. Don't count on online marketing for it.

\- Solve problems or iterate on solutions for existing problems

\- Money earns money, if you use it

</comment><comment><USER32> Having read the title of the post, and browsed its contents, I went and ordered an autobiography of Gandhi with the hope of reminding myself what real success is.

</comment><comment><USER33> 90% of the advice here is solid, and if you are certain that high-risk high- reward businesses are what you are built for, and you have a safety net, then by all means join sama and the crew.

But there are other good ways to be an outlier success than just being a businessperson. I was reminded of Hamming's "You and Your Research" which offered similar advice for academics. (Ironically, a copy is also hosted by paulg. [http://www.paulgraham.com/hamming.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/hamming.html))

There are many points of similarity, so many that I start to wonder if sama was intentionally recasting its advice for businesspeople.

\- be an independent thinker

\- be courageous

\- work is like compound interest, you need both hard work and talent

\- work on small things that could grow to be big things and where you have some angle of attack

\- have a network of people.

\- be connected to what your colleagues do, but not a trend-seeker

\- be emotionally committed

\- be a good salesperson

\- know your strengths and weaknesses

====

But there are some points of difference, like

\- you'll do better work in spartan surroundings

\- tolerate ambiguity. Believe in your idea enough to go forward, doubt it enough to consider alternatives

\- make your work something that can lift others up to do more than you did

\- Use the resources of the organization, don't fight it

\- Don't be too rebellious or outwardly nonconformist

</comment><comment><USER34> I find it hard to read those kind of posts because they all boil down to "have a bunch of variables you have very little control over in the correct state and you're pretty much set"

If you're lucky enough to be born with a good wetware and an advantageous set of mental characteristics, you can tweak something here and there, build on top of it and become "successful". If you're nowhere near, there's very little you can do to change it.

Take "be internally driven" for example. This shit is almost impossible to intentionally cultivate unless you're just lucky enough to be born this way.

You can call it "loser mentality", but even that is ultimately defined by your genes.

</comment><comment><USER35> It's very common to over-analyze and generalize the specific behaviors of successful people, rather than acknowledge the stark reality of what truly separates them from others. There's a tendency to focus on the "symptoms" of their success rather than the root cause.

An accurate description of reality is both less flattering and seemingly less useful to others. But it does at least have the virtue of being real.

IMHO there are three major factors in changing the world:

#1 High general intelligence and ambition (genetics)

#2 Highly educated well-off parents (environment)

#3 Support of powerful people (opportunity)

You probably can't do much without at least one of these factors. Most people that do big things have all three working in their favor.

</comment><comment><USER36> This is a well written piece. However IMHO, one cannot lay down a path for success. Moderate success, yes - but huge success no (which is what this alludes to). Success doesn't refer to a rule book before manifesting. There are lot of great nuggets one could take from the article and apply - but I see them as little breadcrumbs that _might_ lead to success. Even if it did, we have no way to prove or disprove success factors.

Best thing is to take the learnings, enjoy the journey towards potential success and try not to become emotionally invested into the end goal. It's super hard I know.

</comment><comment><USER37> 1\. Be born to a wealthy middle class family and go to an elite school.

<comment><AUTHOR> The biggest reason I'm excited about basic income is the amount of human potential it will unleash by freeing more people to take risks.

Until then, if you aren't born lucky, you have to claw your way up for awhile before you can take big swings. If you are born in extreme poverty, then this is super difficult :(

It is obviously an incredible shame and waste that opportunity is so unevenly distributed. But I've witnessed enough people be born with the deck stacked badly against them and go on to incredible success to know it's possible.

I am deeply aware of the fact that I personally would not be where I am if I weren't born incredibly lucky.

<comment><USER38> What basic income will most likely do is send vast swaths of average people to entertainment and drugs. It's already happening, as social nets get bigger and wider.

<comment> core-questions This is a huge concern. I have known several people who, when they lose their seasonal jobs, coast on unemployment insurance until the very last minute, sometimes even going as far as welfare and couch surfing before a new job finds them (they won't go looking for it themselves).

All they want is beer, weed, porn, and video games. They don't seem to want relationships, work, friendships beyond smoking buddies... it's saddening, honestly.

I worry that UBI will enable large swathes of these people, permanently stunted in their personal growth, incapable of acting as real adults. Meanwhile, UBI itself may not be a sustainable system; if it results in taxation that cannot be borne by those who keep working, the result will be that it will eventually be cancelled. What happens to all those who subsist on UBI if that happens? Nothing is guaranteed...

<comment><USER39> Like you say, these stunted people already exist. They already do everything in their power to minimize their work time, including trying for disability or welfare. UBI won't create more of them, and it won't end the ones we have, but it may add stability to the working poor.

<comment><USER40> How do you know that UBI won't create more of them? It's a common refrain, like with legalization ("anyone who wants to smoke weed is already doing it"), and I know several people who didn't smoke before it became legal, and are now smoking regularly. It seems reasonable to think that UBI would enable some class of people who would otherwise exert themselves, to no longer bother.

<comment><USER39> Because there's already social safety nets those people can use. And yes, absolutely, there are probably going to be groups of people who are barely working now that will stop, but given there's already means to not work, I can't see this being a huge group, and really, this is an optimist / pessimist face-off, which is sad, because that's how we probably see the possible outcomes too. The only way we can know if it'll work or not is for someone to try it - which, thankfully, YC is.

<comment><USER40> Not sure if you've ever used those social safety nets, but they are not easy to qualify for and/or sign up for, so only the stubborn and/or desperate actually take advantage of them. There are also disincentives, like misinformation, run-arounds, and social shaming. From what I've heard, these reasons are exactly why UBI is a better strategy than those social safety nets --and why we can expect more people to take advantage of them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Good article. A lot of this stuff seems to come down to will (or maybe desire).

The power of sheer will is underrated imo. A long time ago, before technology (beyond sticks and stones) people did some incredible things to survive. They must have because we are here. I mean, chasing down deer for days, surviving in extremely harsh conditions, undergoing hunger and pain and injury and coming out the other side alive. We still have that capacity to some extent but most people don't believe this and stop at first discomfort.

Will seems almost magic sometimes, at least in my limited life experience. We do have incredible capacity to bend the world to our vision but it usually goes unfulfilled.

I wish I could will great success for myself but alas, although I think I'd enjoy being FU wealthy, it really seems like more trouble than it's worth. I don't want to deal with managing a bunch of resources and people. Don't want that sucking down my life. Don't want the responsibility, it seems a bit like a prison. So I do what interest me in places I feel good about until it doesn't anymore and usually skate by in relative comfort. I'd like to change this and reprogram my approach, but not sure how to go about it. I don't know if it's nature or nurture or what the situation is but I've noticed some people have incredible drive to materially succeed and best everyone else around them. However I like smelling the roses and casually enjoying my time on the planet. Maybe there's a pill I can get for this?

</comment><comment><USER42> > "You also want to be an exponential curve yourself—you should aim for your > life to follow an ever-increasing up-and-to-the-right trajectory"

ugh.. I guess this comes down to what you define as "successful" but another option is to be content in the present, and not anxious and desperately wanting the future, when you imagine everything will be better than it is now. When you treat life this way, it becomes just a means to an end, instead of an end in itself.

</comment><comment><USER43> I can't speak for the author, but in my opinion if you treat this as a checklist to follow instead of a set of observations, you will probably be intolerable to most people and will probably fail at your goal of being successful.

<comment><USER44> I think this is like a checklist for people to follow on their on volition. There cannot be a single recipe for success that applies to everyone. Hence the "Independent Thought" point in the post.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Sam, how does "consistency" play a role?

I'm all over the place in my work over the past 10 years. I've worked on projects in several different disciplines (biotech, accelerators, consulting, environment). I tend to make forceful starts, but then drive myself off course either running out of money and getting a job or lack of a long term vision.

How do I resolve this?

</comment><comment><USER46> 1\. Be Healthy

Regularly get your vitamin levels checked and make sure to get adequate Vitamin D3

Regularly get your hormone levels checked for any imbalance.

Exercise, breathe, sleep well, and eat healthy.

</comment><comment><USER47> What sort of careers can be considered "compounding" in the way Altman describes it?

Economist? Engineer? Lawyer? Doctor? Dentist?

I'm an economist, and i've always wondered if people with 2 years of experience can be better than those with 20+ years - if they're smart enough.

<comment><USER48> I might be wrong (too lazy to check; on mobile), but I don't think he is talking about compounding careers per se, but rather advices to look for opportunities that compound.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> The bit I struggle with is the contradiction between "try ideas out cheaply and fail many times until you hit on the right one" and "believe in what you do and keep going come what may". How do you pick between the two?

<comment><USER50> Measuable growth. If something is working it will be self evident if youre looking in the right places. The airbnb way is probably nonoptimal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> >> It's not entirely clear to me why working hard has become a Bad Thing in certain parts of the US

What does he mean by this?

<comment><USER52> I assume he means something like the Moritz's article about China's "996" work hours expectation and its negative reception in silicon valley press.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Make sure to also check out Michael Cera's video "Impossible is the Opposite of Possible":

[https://youtu.be/nAV0sxwx9rY](https://youtu.be/nAV0sxwx9rY)

</comment><comment><USER54> This is the most important point in the whole post: _As your career progresses, each unit of work you do should generate more and more results. There are many ways to get this leverage, such as capital, technology, brand, network effects, and managing people_

That goes straight to the concept of scalability. Usually we talk about it in terms of businesses scaling or benefiting from economies of scale, but this is talking about scalability on a personal level. Not to be understated.

</comment><comment><USER55> I think most of these are true. Here are two of my own that I generally don't see emphasized as much.

1\. Do something wrong

Remember that you have to be exceptional to reach outlier success. You won't be unusual if you do what everyone thinks is the correct path. When you feel strongly about something, be unwilling to change or compromise. If you're not doing anything that's considered "wrong", you won't be exceptional, and you probably won't succeed.

2\. Have many advantages

Have a high IQ. Have the ability to easily work hard. Have at least reasonably favorable social conditions (no debt, some money from family). To be exceptional, you need every advantage you can get. If you don't have many advantages, then you should really consider whether you can compete with people that have them.

I don't think it's right to encourage _everyone_ to try for outlier success. By definition, you need to be an outlier to reach it. On the other hand, if you have reason to believe you are an outlier, then the odds are better than you might think.

</comment><comment><USER56> Lists like this implicitly assume some baseline good health, an assumption that really is baseless. My health issues are a huge factor in my lack of financial success and public recognition. I'm very good at some things, but my health issues take a lot of my time. It's a huge barrier to accomplishing things, compounded by the poverty it fosters and other factors.

</comment><comment><USER57> These are very uninteresting to read. The first 3 points don't really explain how to successfully achieve them. They all come to 1 single point, you must be very skillful at multiple things to achieve them. And I think you're defining money/finance success, and not other kinds of successes.

</comment><comment><USER58> "Also, learn how to evaluate what people are great at, and put them in those roles. (This is the most important thing I have learned about management, and I haven't read much about it.)"

Finding and accentuating strengths was a big focus of my previous employer, Rackspace. They used a program based on Strengths Finder [1] to determine your "strengths" and even had them displayed on your corporate ID badge. Their management philosophy was based on putting people in positions based on their strengths.

It seemed a bit hokey at first and it had its problems but it was pretty refreshing compared to the typical corporate environment that espouses working harder to overcome your weaknesses.

[1] [https://www.gallupstrengthscenter.com/](https://www.gallupstrengthscenter.com/)

</comment><comment><USER59> Great post Sam! My two cents is to try and compete against yourself: quantify your actions with some set of metrics and loop your measurements of those metrics into a feedback loop of improvement. That way, you never feel left behind and have your improvement cycles interrupted or lost, and you gain a good deal of self-introspection, which is invaluable in a world where people nudge/push you around. Your understanding of yourself has to be the ground truth where all other personality traits, habits, and higher-level tasks evolve from, and these combine to generate high-quality work and personal roadmaps.

<comment><USER60> > My two cents is to try and compete against yourself

This. With social media so ubiquitous it's hard _not_ to compare yourself to others. I, personally, find internal motivation so much more of a driving force than external motivation. As long as I do better than I did last time, I'll be happy.

For example, if I can improve my 1600 meter run time by 5 seconds, that's a great success for me. And if I'm able to consistently see improvement over time, I'm successful. On the other hand, If I compare my 7m5s 1600m time to my neighbor's 5m30s time I feel terrible. And depending on personality type, seeing such a stark difference between where you currently are and where someone else is, it might deter them from even trying to get better. "I'll never get down to 5m30s, so why should I bother running at all?"

I'm not saying _all_ external comparisons are bad but I think it's important to know when to compare yourself to yourself (to ensure daily incremental progress is being achieved) and when to look up and see where you are relative to others (to see how your incremental progress is summing up in the big picture).

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> Own things: I agree with this.

The best way to own things is to leave Google/Facebook: What??? I know this is an entrepreneur blog, but what happened to the sentence ,,If you want to be rich don't start a startup''?

Most of my friends who are rich are working (or worked) at Google/Facebook and just accumulated assets over time (until they had enough money to stop working).

All you need is start accumulating assets as early as possible and get to 15-20x of your salary (at most 10 years if you're really frugal, more if not that frugal). Don't be afraid of not having much cash left if you have a stable job.

</comment><comment><USER62> I have no idea what it takes to be successful – whatever success even means, although a reasonable definition would run along the lines of good finances + family/friends + health + sense of purpose + luck – but I'm willing to wager you could significantly increase your chances of being successful by:

0\. Being curious

1\. Thinking for yourself

2\. Thinking about your thinking

3\. Tweaking your thinking in the light of new discoveries

4\. Associating yourself, as much as you can, with people who they themselves follow 0,1,2,3

The world is very complex. No one truly knows what they're doing. Our models of the world are just local approximations

</comment><comment><USER63> Lucky beats smart :)

</comment><comment><USER64> I agree with you.

All these books and essays ultimately boil down to "what worked for me, plus a million other things I'm not mentioning because they're not as glamorous, and a ton of luck: it could happen to you too!"

Yes there is hard work in becoming successful but a _ton_ of it is luck: being in the right place, at the right time, doing the right thing, with the right people... This talk, peddling luck, expresses what I mean: [https://vimeo.com/53494258](https://vimeo.com/53494258)

</comment><comment><USER65> An incredibly great post. Thank you for sharing. I have always wanted to take risk to found a startup, but since I am in Myanmar, I will need to claw my way up for a while to build up safety nets before I can take big risks. It is a great reminder that I cannot lose myself in a comfortable & stable career/lifestyle. Focusing too much on short term gains will blind me for long term achievement. But the risk is real especially for people in developing country so I will need to proceed carefully.

<comment><USER44> Wish you luck.

I totally understand that not all places on the Earth are conducive to entrepreneurial ambitions. Some places are downright hostile. I wish we had some mechanism to help those from such places.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> _> It's not entirely clear to me why working hard has become a Bad Thing in certain parts of the US_

What is this a reference to? What parts of the US? It's not backed up by a citation.

This is not the first time Altman has dropped a not so subtle cultural/political jab without any data to back it up.[1]

[1] "It seems easier to accidentally speak heresies in San Francisco every year." [http://blog.samaltman.com/e-pur-si- muove](http://blog.samaltman.com/e-pur-si-muove)

</comment><comment><USER44> My biggest takeaway from the article:

"Most people are primarily externally driven; they do what they do because they want to impress other people. This is bad for many reasons, but here are two important ones.

First, you will work on consensus ideas and on consensus career tracks. You will care a lot—much more than you realize—if other people think you're doing the right thing. This will probably prevent you from doing truly interesting work, and even if you do, someone else would have done it anyway."

<comment><USER67> I'd phrase this a little differently.

I'd say "they do what they do because they are motivated by other peoples expectations".

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> Is it odd that every time I see "How to be successful" posts, all of them are subjective opinion that's repeated from several hundred other "How to be successful" posts?

It's almost like there's no road map to success.

Here's my list, and its only one item.

"Be able to sustain yourself. To do that, find any profession where the income > expenses."

I learned that's the single, most important thing to being successful. If you can keep that up, everything else is just icing on the cake.

</comment><comment><USER69> Great article! I think sales is one of the most important tools to life, and it's one as a computer science major that was the hardest to cultivate.

Those are all positives directions but I also think about what attributes are really important. I think working longer in a single industry is more important than working hard for a brief amount of time inside. Most of the opportunities comes later as you are deeper inside and just staying till that point is important.

</comment><comment><USER70> It's reading like a recipe for success when really it's simply observation on factors that helped the author have a successful career.

<comment><USER71> Or factors of which the author thinks that they have helped him.

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> One thing that came to mind is that some of these "13 thoughts" are kind of dependent on each other.

For example, you might not want to be bold and have too much self-belief without being able to work hard, think independently or making it easy for yourself to take risks. If anything, try to do all of them, or be wary of how you pick and choose from the list.

</comment><comment><USER73> Advice in this article seems to only marginally apply to someone whose measure of success is in an artistic field. You can't get the same marginal returns as the article talks about. Also you're both competing with others for reader's attention, but not competing with anyone, as your stories can only be made by you.

</comment><comment><USER74> Oh really. This article has click baity title. All these motivational posts get repetitive. They have very little actionable content in them. Rather than reading advices from the privileged ivory tower of survivors, I better go and read "The dispossessed" by Ursula Le Guin.

</comment><comment><USER75> > almost no one in the history of the Forbes list has gotten there with a > salary.

Being "rich" and being on "the Forbes list" are two very different standards to aim for. (Neither of which has much to do with being a good/happy person or living a good/happy life.)

</comment><comment><USER76> I oftentimes find it difficult to balance actually attempting to be successful with finding time for the backlog of Medium posts and other blog articles about "How To Be Successful" that I assume I have to read in order to be successful in the first place

</comment><comment><USER77> Successful is a subjective term. Define successful your way is the best way to be successful.

</comment><comment><USER28> 1\. Write articles about huge success. 2. Inspire people to loose their lives trying to get rich. 3. If some of them start getting lucky by pure chance, convince them to share a large part of their business for small amount of money. ... 5. PROFIT!

</comment><comment><USER71> 0\. To compare is to despair(?)

</comment><comment><USER78> This is so trite as to be insulting.

</comment><comment><USER79> Success for most people (yes there are outliers but you probably are not one of them) is like a "good marriage" \- you have to work at it every day!! *disclaimer: neither married nor really that successful

</comment><comment><USER80> I like legendary basketball coach John Wooden's definition of success better:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MM- psvqiG8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MM-psvqiG8)

</comment><comment><USER81> Sam,

Philosophical question, why did you write such an article? What do you hope to accomplish?

Now the criticism:

Surely it must have occurred to you that at least some people out there are trying hard doing most things that you listed, and still not making it? What are you doing about it? The last I looked at YC funding, I saw that the figure is simply too low ( under $3000 a month) an incentive for a person with a stable salary to get into any venture.

Most of what you have written is indeed good - but statements like: "Be hard to compete with" \- are laughable. Stop making an ass of yourself with such articles, you can do better ( I mean it). Have it proof read by someone smart, before you put it out.

To others:

Users throwaway000021, saberience, neilk, voiceclonr, distant_hat, ah765, mcilai, beatpanda and johan_larson have all made astute observations.

</comment><comment><USER82> Really well-written. I especially agree with two points - "focus" and "learn to work hard without burning out". Those two skills will take you far, no matter your field.

</comment><comment><USER83> "You don't want to be in a career where people who have been doing it for two years can be as effective as people who have been doing it for twenty"

Do you think programming is like this?

<comment><USER84> Doesn't matter, once you're past a certain age, almost nobody will hire you as a programmer. Don't build your entire career on it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER85> A negative article "How Not to Be Successful" would be interesting, with unobvious observations. It could also include the top reasons why people get rejected from YC.

</comment><comment><USER86> Most surprising thing about this article: Diane von Furstenberg, fashion designer and wife of billionaire media entrepreneur Barry Diller, was a proofreader.

</comment><comment><USER87> Three ways to be successful:

1\. by capitalizing on your strengths, and 2\. by capitalizing on the weaknesses of others, and 3\. by knowing which way is easier.

</comment><comment><USER85> Why don't more employees from Google and Facebook start successful companies? They seem to exhibit all of these traits.

<comment><USER88> Did you read the full article, including the para "At YC, we've often noticed a problem with founders that have spent a lot of time working at Google or Facebook."?

<comment><USER89> The prognosis from the article is:

 _When people get used to a comfortable life, a predictable job, and a reputation of succeeding at whatever they do, it gets very hard to leave that behind_

I think that there's a sampling bias here; in fact, that bias is even pointed out in the paragraph: _> At YC, we've often noticed a problem with founders..._. I.e., this is an observation about FAANG employees who become YC founders.

But the fact is, very few of those drive/motivated Google/Facebook employees leave and become YC founders. So this observation is an observation about a very small subset of the people who choose to stay at GoogleFacebook.

I know a lot of people at the FAANGs who are there because they are primarily motivated by technical and scientific problems. The FAANGs -- and esp their research divisions -- are exceptionally good places to work for people who get meaning and fulfillment from technical excellence.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER90> 1\. Stop caring what other people think

2\. Do what interests you

</comment><comment><USER91> "The secret of success is knowing something no one else knows."—Aristotle Onassis. AKA insider trading.

</comment><comment><USER92> Everyone has a different definition of what success is- and I sure have a different one than the OP.

</comment><comment><USER93> "You get truly rich by owning things that increase rapidly in value."

 _buys more Bitcoin_

</comment><comment><USER94> The idea that there is only one way to be successful, and that we are all in some grand competition to make as much money as possible, is beyond stupid. Financial success does not in any way shape or form have anything to do with achieving happiness.

</comment><comment><USER95> How you measure success is how many people you bless - rick ross

</comment><comment><USER96> Reminds me of earl nightingale the strangest secret

</comment><comment><USER97> 1\. Let me have >= 5-10% of your billion dollar company for a song.

2\. Be born into a successful family so that you will actually have the ability and inclination to take risks the way I say you need to.

</comment><comment><USER44> 0\. Take care of your physical and mental health.

...

14\. Take care of your family.

</comment><comment><USER98> Hello...article had good advice. How does one build a network from scratch and become well connected? Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER99> "Things to consider if you're trying to avoid being financially unsuccessful"

</comment><comment><USER98> Dumb question...How does one build a network and become connected?

</comment><comment><USER100> 12\. You get rich by owning things.

<comment><USER101> so i should just own a lot of things and then I'll be rich. Works for rich people.

<comment><USER102> Well, what do you currently own? Or do rent/credit card/pay-as-you-go from a rich person?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER103> this is a great article

</comment><comment><USER104> nice one.!

</comment><comment><USER105> Randall put it pretty well [https://xkcd.com/1827/](https://xkcd.com/1827/)

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm successful and I'm lazy as shit. These lists are always coming from survivor bias.

</comment><comment><USER106> I find these types of articles/blogs to be relatively pointless because the market/economy/country/etc has room for a select few successes.

Imagine if Obama wrote "How to Be a Successful Presidential Candidate" and every 2016 candidate read it and adopted it to a tee. We'd still have dozens of failures and only 1 success.

If success were really a formula, then we'd all be successful. We can't all get into harvard, we can't all be wealthy, we can't all be movies stars. We can't all win the game of musical chairs.

It's like the "how to become a millionaire" books. If we all followed their advice, nothing would change because the market has only room for X number of millionaires. And if it worked and we all became millionaires, being a millionaire would become meaningless.

At the end of the day, hard work, contacts and luck leads to success. The older I get, the more I realize that the latter two is far more important than the first criteria.

<comment><USER29> A presidential election is zero-sum, since there can only be one winner. There is no fixed number of millionaires; every middle-class American is very rich compared to what Romans or Persians or Carolingians expected.

<comment><USER106> There definitely is a limited number of millionaires that an economy/population can support. Also, comparing across time is rather deceptive. The north korean military is much more powerfully compared to khan or alexander's armies. The comparison is pointless considering the north korean military isn't traveling back in time to fight the mongols or the greeks. Saying middle class americans are rich compared to romans, persians or carolingians is just as meaningless. You could argue that a homeless man with a smartphone is "richer" than napoleon since the homeless man has access to more computing power, better medicine, better everything. But that's meaningless and no solace to the homeless man since he isn't traveling back to the early 1800s with current technology in his pocket. If we follow your logic, a north korean starving in a political camp is wealthier than Caesar. I guess that could be true, but meaningless and empty.

It's also a deceptive tactic people use to compare apples to oranges. We have to compare today with today and even more importantly, we have to frame money within the zero-sum context of power. Money and power are interchangeable and viewed in this context, wealth is a zero sum game.

<comment><USER107> I don't agree, because there certainly are some objective measures of well being, such as access to nutrition, clean drinking water, life expectancy, exposure to violence etc. that hold true across any age in time. Most of these measures have in general increased in the course of humankind. So a homeless man im 2018 is most likely still better off than a homeless man during the Roman empire.

<comment><USER106> I understand that human society has progressed over time. That's not what I'm disputing. What I'm pointing out is that it's meaningless to compare current situation to the past. A homeless man in 2019 is better off than everyone in the roman empire - including the emperor and the homeless. So what? How does that help the homeless man in 2019. A slave in the 1800s was wealthier than the anyone in the roman empire. So what? People in 2019 or people in the 1800s weren't living in the roman empire. The north koreans in political camps are wealthier than the emperor of roman empire. So I guess that means everything is great? It's such a deceptive and insincere comparison. People live within their time and their "wealth" should be compared within it. And more importantly, wealth should always be viewed within the context of power because ultimately, that's what wealth is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER108> I embody all of these traits. I don't have a prototype or traction, I'm by myself, working the same idea for many years. I've applied to YC 8 times. never got any feedback.

I'm sure this is to my benefit. If suffering comes, I chose to use it to make myself stronger, more determined and focused. i close to learn. and instead of rushing to optimize for their objectives, I get to really create my vision.

Everytime they reject me, I like to think about how I will make a point of how much of a broken system I think it is, when I eventually get successful.

</comment><comment><USER109> If 'everyone' is out there 'bending the universe' to their will, well, will the universe be bent? Or just scrambled?

I can't help but feel this advice runs contrary to communitarian ideals, to the point that were we all to follow it, not much would get done.

The best Engineers I have encountered surely have 'always been learning' but it had little to do with careerism, or 'trying to shape the world', rather just plain curiosity. Outside of that they'll have had 'normal' careers, more or less satisfied with the work to be done ahead of them. Why? Because it makes them happy to be contributors, doing their jobs well, getting a decent income, possibly raising their families etc.. There is a _lot_ of mundane work be done even in the most creative of environments.

When Steve Jobs said 'you should try to nudge the Universe forward' my first thought was 'which way is forward?' \- meaning that lack of at least some kind of moral impetus (of course a very difficult, grey thing) it's hard to know.

It's a very self oriented treatise, specific to the accumulation of power and influence of the individual, while effectively externalizing the 'other', and of course, all those aspects of life which are not very well described in terms of 'career' , 'money' , 'power' etc..

I'm trying to find an example of someone doing something 'purposeful' but who also had such 'compounding' effects: Ingvar Kamprad. Founder of IKEA.

He wanted to make reasonable design, available to the masses for a reasonable price, and his 'small compound rate' spread over a life seems to have built something that I think will outlast most of the FAANGs. And maybe there's some 'good' in there as well.

Thanks Sam, fine words for young entrepreneurs maybe, but let's try to keep this in context.

The world is very big, diverse, full of all types - if the Valley wants to 'win' in the next phase of evolution, it's going to have to figure out how to promote ideals that aren't just suited to the 1%, but everyone else as well.

Trying to do this while maintaining that creative/exceptionalism will be hard, but there's no way around it.

You can't be 'irreverent feisty antagonists upstarts' and 'managing major parts of the economy and influencing global affairs' at the same time.

</comment><comment><USER110> TLDR: Be good at sales, build a network and work hard.

<comment><USER111> I'd also add "And keep learning/avoid stagnating"

</comment></comment><comment><USER112> 373 KB and a 2.66 second page load for what is literally text on a page with no images.

Better yet the content of the post is 20,000 chars on a single line inside of a 558 line HTML doc. :/</comment>


Google Tech Talks: "All Questions Answered" by Donald Knuth - <AUTHOR> http://www.clicker.com/web/google-tech-talks/-all-questions-answered-by-donald-knuth-1558044/

<comment><USER2> Compare the reception Googlers gave Lady Gaga vs. Donald Knuth [http://youtubedoubler.com/?video1=hNa_-1d_0tA&start1=115...](http://youtubedoubler.com/?video1=hNa_-1d_0tA&start1=115&video2=xLBvCB2kr4Q&start2=65&authorName=Gaga+vs.+Knuth)

<comment><USER3> I'm actually glad programmer-type people don't tend to scream like that, at least for another programmer-type person. (Though it disturbs me when anyone does it for someone--I can't stand live sporting events or concerts.)

<comment><USER4> I would totally scream for Knuth!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Direct: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLBvCB2kr4Q>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! The link I posted was the link cited on Knuth's website... no blog spam intended.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I loved this:

"If there were ten people like me in the world, we wouldn't have time to read each other's books." - Donald Knuth

<comment><USER7> "The answer is....I'm 73 years old and....I have friends."

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I haven't heard Knuth lecture for maybe five years, but he seemed sort of stuttery -- something I don't remember from his last lecture I saw at MIT. Does anyone know if the stuttering is common / worsening? I'm worried about his mental health!!

<comment><USER9> In most of his online talks, his extemporaneous speaking style seems to be consistent. For instance compare with his Christmas trees lectures from the previos years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Link in GoogleTechTalk's channel [http://www.topchan.tv/show/public1/265/GoogleTechTalks/2011-...](http://www.topchan.tv/show/public1/265/GoogleTechTalks/2011-03-27.w/1).

</comment><comment><USER11> I was fortunate to see him in Manchester, England in February. As Manchester is the birthplace of the Small Scale Experimental Machine (SSEM), someone asked him:

Q: What would you have done with the SSEM if you had access to it?

A: Given that I was about ten years old at the time, I would probably have used it to check Facebook.

A great man, with a great sense of humour. (He later gave his real answer: he would write a program to play music on it.)

</comment><comment><USER12> but I submitted the same link 25 days ago, and I got no upvote love: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2380269>

<comment><USER10> Sorry to hear it wasn't voted up. I suspect HN has an aversion to direct link to video in submission.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> He talks about The Bank of San Serrifee near the end.

<http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~uno/boss.html></comment>


Clever Chinese trains without stops at stations (concept) - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIeRrU4_M3Q

<comment><USER2> This was invented and tested by the British over 150 years ago: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slip_coach>

They stopped using them 50 years ago.

<comment><USER3> Slip coaches manage the drop-off, but not the pick-up.

<comment><USER2> _To reverse the journey, the passengers would board the slip coach at the intermediate station, which would then form part of a local train to the next station on the line where the express was scheduled to stop, and coupled to the express train there to be taken to its destination._

The concepts behind the drop-offs and the pick-ups are basically the same.

<comment><USER3> You might watch the video. The train in this concept _does not stop_ , unlike the case you describe above. It is certainly not "basically the same" unless you think this, slip-cars, car ferries, and modular cargo containers coming off a ship are all equivalent.

<comment><USER4> Yes, but this is not a dramatic new concept, it's a minor improvement in implementation because of decreased engineering costs and simply time.

This is nothing more than an elevated rail system and using a linear braking system to _accelerate_ the stationary vehicle. Beyond that, we're talking simply precision and as the concept has yet to be implemented, the Chinese are no way more advanced with the concept than 50 years ago.

For all intent this is a worse design than having a tandem acceleration system in the trains and allowing the slip-car to simply accelerate itself to rejoin the express. You wouldn't even have to redesign your fleet, you'd only have to implement it in the slip-cars initially for the concept to work.

<comment><USER3> Whether it's a _good_ concept, I don't much care. It is simply and obviously wrong to say it's the same as a slip car, just as it's simply and obviously wrong to say a motorcycle is the same as a draisienne. Whether it's "dramatic" enough a new concept for someone is not my concern.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Wasn't this on HN a few weeks ago?

<comment><USER6> A couple months ago (among others):

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1274655>

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Wouldn't this destroy a bullet train's aerodynamics?

</comment><comment><USER8> Perhaps a better solution is to make trains more cell-based. (Think ATM.)

Each "car" holds just 2-4 people. they run on the tracks and switch on and off at the right stops. Very granular.

But still like a train in that you have tracks and power from the tracks. There is no conductor then, so everything would have to be computer controlled.

<comment><USER9> I've thought of that as well, but you've got _serious_ problems with air resistance (and associated vibration) at high speeds unless you've got contoured fronts and backs. So you'd have to drop and add cars in the _middle_ of the train... added complexity and you'd need every unit to be powered independently (true, many are, but this would be a _requirement_ ).

So picture parallel tracks with a merge-point somewhere ahead (or a few, in case one doesn't work). You've gotta split the train, merge in the new car, and merge it all back together, at moderately high speeds. Not much of a fun engineering challenge, methinks. The top-car probably makes more sense in this case. At low speeds, where all cars can be the same shape, certainly. Just remove / add to the front / end as needed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This would make for some quite spectacular accidents...

<comment><USER11> I can imagine some fussy grandmother disembarking all too slowly on the one car, and since the next one has to come in, no matter what, they'll have to launch it, and the old lady, out on to the tracks or risk crashing two of these cars together at extremely high speed.

This whole concept is insane. It would only work with pre-packaged cargo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Looks like a pretty spectacular way to get yourself killed. Am I the only one thinking about what would happen if the slip coach didn't fully lock and then came loose while passengers were leaving or entering it from the main train?

</comment><comment><USER13> It seems like it would be very easy for people to get on the wrong mini train and end up leaving at the wrong place, because it would likely take significantly more time to get ready for a disembark.

</comment><comment><USER14> Seeing this reminded me of continuous elevators: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zx3MHm9WjBE>

</comment><comment><USER15> what would happen if half of the train needs to disembark at the same time?

<comment><USER16> Then the train stops? This is intended to reduce the time to stop at small stations.

There is ample time as people are loading onto the slip coach to discover that the train needs to stop, although I think in practice this would never happen (the train operators would never be surprised by a large number of people trying to get off all at once).

<comment><USER17> They wouldn't be surprised that it was crammed uncomfortably full of people; that doesn't mean they'd do anything about it though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> what happens if some people still onboarding when next under-bullets comes?

</comment><comment><USER19> Erm. What if you need to get off 3 stations down the line?

<comment><USER20> Then you don't take the express train. Just like now.

<comment><USER19> Sorry, I live in the middle of no where and don't really know anything about commuter trains.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> but how does one exit the train?!

<comment><USER20> The mini-train on top stops at the station, detaches from the main train, the doors open, and you exit by walking through the doors. Later, passengers board, the doors close, the mini-train waits for the next main train, and the mini-train attaches and off you go.</comment></comment>


An Open Letter From Internet Engineers to the Senate Judiciary Committee - <AUTHOR> http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/09/open-letter

<comment><USER2> Already posted:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1737715></comment>