The thing about optimism is that if you believe there is a solution, you'll keep working until you find it. If you're pessimistic, you're more likely to give up if there solution isn't obvious. Successful people are often optimistic because it's useful.
By now many in the HN crowd have likely spotted the survivorship bias here. Sometimes optimistic people will keep working toward a solution to a problem until they find it, even if no actual solution can ever exist. Those are the optimistic failures you never hear about.
Likewise, sometimes pessimists are rightfully pessimistic about something that has no solution, and end up moving on much sooner to something better. You rarely hear about that either.
It doesn’t matter whether you are optimistic or pessimistic, what’s important is to be optimistic or pessimistic for the correct reasons.
Those are the optimistic failures you never hear about.
To be fair, you hear about that exact scenario constantly on HN. It's a common topic here. I've been reading stories about it here for the better part of a decade now. Pretty much every thread that touches on success, failure and survivor bias end up with discussions covering the issue of entrepreneurial blindness due to eg over-confidence or over-optimism.
You also frequently see entire threads dedicated to the subject, spawned from articles posted by entrepreneurs that put themselves through blind optimism scenarios and then go on to warn against it. Knowing when to throw in the towel, when to stop trying to pivot, and so on, are common themes with founders. You'll run across some really good discussions on the subject here over time.
Comments
By now many in the HN crowd have likely spotted the survivorship bias here. Sometimes optimistic people will keep working toward a solution to a problem until they find it, even if no actual solution can ever exist. Those are the optimistic failures you never hear about.
Likewise, sometimes pessimists are rightfully pessimistic about something that has no solution, and end up moving on much sooner to something better. You rarely hear about that either.
It doesn’t matter whether you are optimistic or pessimistic, what’s important is to be optimistic or pessimistic for the correct reasons.
To be fair, you hear about that exact scenario constantly on HN. It's a common topic here. I've been reading stories about it here for the better part of a decade now. Pretty much every thread that touches on success, failure and survivor bias end up with discussions covering the issue of entrepreneurial blindness due to eg over-confidence or over-optimism.
You also frequently see entire threads dedicated to the subject, spawned from articles posted by entrepreneurs that put themselves through blind optimism scenarios and then go on to warn against it. Knowing when to throw in the towel, when to stop trying to pivot, and so on, are common themes with founders. You'll run across some really good discussions on the subject here over time.