Firstly im not comparing myself to that guy, but you could say i have similar “odds” with starting companies and having them succeed, and I'm a solo developer.
Ive build close to 100 projects and companies that have generated over 1B in revenue combined with only one other person (the non-tech owner). I dont have a team, I just build alone on all these.
A few notes:
I have programmed for over 30,000 hours. 3x what people say the time is to mastery is
I look at things in a way that i haven’t really ever heard anyone else explain. I’m not sure if it’s unique but it IS the reason. Everything in my mind is a complex web of cause and effect down to the most nuanced level. In my mind it has a visual aspect even. You have causes (knobs and dials you can turn) to produce effects.
Part of meditation is that you can learn an idea more deeply (insight). This same idea sort of applies to what I said above. People miss the magnitude of this cause and effect statement. I’ve told many people and they’re like sure cool. In my mind this statement is like standing next to the tallest mountain. The magnitude and depth is profound. It’s of this magnitude because it means you are in direct control of your own outcomes. Anything you want, is a solvable puzzle. Literally. And the deeper level of insight you feel about this idea the more you are capable of.
Now for the actual process of how to navigate this cause and effect. My mind operates on a value formula. Every single decision, word, line of code, micro decision is basically a tradeoff decision. Not in terms of code performance but in terms of this cause and effect web, of EVERY action in physical reality. I have excellent ability to “project” causes outward and then find the “end result”, and essentially find the fastest path from A->B to get there. And this value formula always optimizes RESULTS over other things many other great programmers optimize for like knowledge. I just have a different style. So basically I'm always analyzing every single tradeoff as if I see “threads” of reality extending from every decision and what path I go down. As a simple example I might learn linear algebra and Bayesian statistics extremely intensely for 7 days to learn or build an algorithm, but then I hit a diminishing return where I will switch to something else knowing i can hire someone later to teach me and fill in gaps.
This is an extremely simple contrived example. In real life, instead of there being 2 variables there would be like 50.
Thanks for the insights. It seems to me that this interesting explanation focuses primarily on the tactical level. On a strategic level: What drives you? That is, what criteria do you use to apply the thought process you described above?
I'm extremely motivated by 2 things: 1) solving puzzles 2) freedom (and by proxy, money)
First, when a puzzle gets in my head its extremely extremely difficult not to solve it. I love architecting solutions to complex problems in ways that are simple and elegant. I find it difficult to sleep, eat, or do anything else.
Similar to when I was a kid and I realized I might be capable of doing a backflip on a trampoline, the very moment I had the idea that I COULD do it, i got sick to my stomach and laid on the ground wrestling with fear, but it consumed me for hours and hours until I just got on the trampoline and did it. I dont know what that is, but the same thing applies to puzzles, just without the fear.
I also have a friendly relationship with money. I absolutely love it, because it gives me freedom. freedom to wake up whenever, focus on whatever, do whatever, travel whatever, learn whatever, help whoever, etc etc.
These 2 things added together I think are a good combo for "success" (by my definition)
Ive never really written it online, but I have spent dozens and dozens of hours trying to explain it to people on the phone.
I don't spend any conscious time strategizing, as if it's a separate thing. It happens 24/7 on autopilot where I cannot "turn it off".
Its more like putting on magic glasses which show you the future, as if you could see colored lines sweeping outward from your decisions... and you move your hand and the path arcs a different way where you can see how a decision affects a future outcome, kind of like a game of hot or cold.
It's not actually like that of course, but that's a good analogy. It's something that I cant UNSEE and therefor every action I take has this value formula calculation / cause effect projection "baked in" such that I dont have to "do" anything.
Thats what the other non-tech person I mentioned is for. Personally, I don't like that stuff. If you are a really good programmer, find a marketer and just make a 2 man team.
In general the formula boils down to him managing a team of media buyers though.
We also don't usually do projects that don't have an aspect of certainty from the start. For example, lots of people just build Saas products and wait years for customers.
We will generally look for entry points where we either know some privileged piece of intel, a person, a relationship, an account, etc. It will never be the thing that causes success, but it's the "certainty" aspect that gives you a lot better odds than just picking an idea and hammering away at it with ads.
I could if you really want, but let me give you something (hopefully) more useful. In my many hours trying to help friends and people I know there is 1 idea that I repeatedly come back to.
First though, I recently learned lots of people cant do this... but I can easily visualize a large future outcome that to other people they would say "thats too far from where I am at to think about that"
And not visualize in the sense of "if i visualize it it will come", but if as if I said "picture yourself making a sandwich". This reality is not foreign, so people can do it. You need to do that same thing but with ANY big outcome. The only difference is that there might be more knobs to turn to get there... nothing else.
When talking about this stuff, I get this insanely deep feeling of "magnitude". It happens every time, and its extremely difficult to convey. It's as if in my vision, certain statements are MULTIPLE orders of magnitude more powerful for someone to understand, and i can see that magnitude, but I cant always explain it because what I say gets "flattened" from my minds eye into just a conversation where I can only use the words "IMPORTANT" or capitalize things or raise my voice to emphasize it, and those only convey a 2x important and not a 100000x importance. I encounter this idea a lot and its very frustrating, because I often see how people can evaporate their own problems SO simply, but they just cant "see" it. And even if I tell them over and over, they will still not see it. So, I don't know if this makes sense by what I'm about to say, imagine this as a 1000000x thing. Read through my words into the "infinite void" beyond to grasp in the dark at the importance.
I would say, almost all peoples problems & dreams are solvable if they realize that the shortest path from A->B is a straight line, and that all things are solvable. At any given moment, if you can picture some outcome, you have the capability of performing the actions to produce that outcome. It's really that simple. This is why I said the meditation reference about deeper layers of insight at the beginning, because the statement itself is not profound at all, but in practice its the most profound thing in life ive ever experienced. Its the idea i can do anything, simply by doing it. there is "nothing else". all "problems" are basically self created barring extreme medical conditions and such. I say this because at the end of the day youre capable of performing actions that yield outcomes, and it always falls back to that. there is nothing that escapes this mechanism.
One might say "but my motivation... job... circumstances... focus level... no ideas... too much emotion... fear... etc etc" I have heard them all. They're all solvable by realizing the shortest path is to just do it/not do it, and then deal with all the side effects as separate easily solvable discrete puzzles. Everything that gets in the way is a fallacy created by your own mind to protect you.
Now this is definitely easier said than done, but just like meditation "insight", You learn deeper insight and deeper insight over and over again about the same idea. Each time you learn the same lessen again, you add another magnitude to your own realization of it. You are literally capable of anything. Start with being able to visualize the "perfect" life. if you cant, then dissect why and work backwards, because you most definitely CAN. All your "but I..." are most likely made up bullshit that is actually easily solvable.
I can try to help more later as well, I literally just woke up so my thoughts are not 100% clear. ive written about this in the past in much more clear ways, but I can give you better examples if thats what you want, but ill wait for my mind to wake up first!
Comments
Firstly im not comparing myself to that guy, but you could say i have similar “odds” with starting companies and having them succeed, and I'm a solo developer.
Ive build close to 100 projects and companies that have generated over 1B in revenue combined with only one other person (the non-tech owner). I dont have a team, I just build alone on all these.
A few notes:
I have programmed for over 30,000 hours. 3x what people say the time is to mastery is
I look at things in a way that i haven’t really ever heard anyone else explain. I’m not sure if it’s unique but it IS the reason. Everything in my mind is a complex web of cause and effect down to the most nuanced level. In my mind it has a visual aspect even. You have causes (knobs and dials you can turn) to produce effects.
Part of meditation is that you can learn an idea more deeply (insight). This same idea sort of applies to what I said above. People miss the magnitude of this cause and effect statement. I’ve told many people and they’re like sure cool. In my mind this statement is like standing next to the tallest mountain. The magnitude and depth is profound. It’s of this magnitude because it means you are in direct control of your own outcomes. Anything you want, is a solvable puzzle. Literally. And the deeper level of insight you feel about this idea the more you are capable of.
Now for the actual process of how to navigate this cause and effect. My mind operates on a value formula. Every single decision, word, line of code, micro decision is basically a tradeoff decision. Not in terms of code performance but in terms of this cause and effect web, of EVERY action in physical reality. I have excellent ability to “project” causes outward and then find the “end result”, and essentially find the fastest path from A->B to get there. And this value formula always optimizes RESULTS over other things many other great programmers optimize for like knowledge. I just have a different style. So basically I'm always analyzing every single tradeoff as if I see “threads” of reality extending from every decision and what path I go down. As a simple example I might learn linear algebra and Bayesian statistics extremely intensely for 7 days to learn or build an algorithm, but then I hit a diminishing return where I will switch to something else knowing i can hire someone later to teach me and fill in gaps.
This is an extremely simple contrived example. In real life, instead of there being 2 variables there would be like 50.
Thanks for the insights. It seems to me that this interesting explanation focuses primarily on the tactical level. On a strategic level: What drives you? That is, what criteria do you use to apply the thought process you described above?
I'm extremely motivated by 2 things: 1) solving puzzles 2) freedom (and by proxy, money)
First, when a puzzle gets in my head its extremely extremely difficult not to solve it. I love architecting solutions to complex problems in ways that are simple and elegant. I find it difficult to sleep, eat, or do anything else.
Similar to when I was a kid and I realized I might be capable of doing a backflip on a trampoline, the very moment I had the idea that I COULD do it, i got sick to my stomach and laid on the ground wrestling with fear, but it consumed me for hours and hours until I just got on the trampoline and did it. I dont know what that is, but the same thing applies to puzzles, just without the fear.
I also have a friendly relationship with money. I absolutely love it, because it gives me freedom. freedom to wake up whenever, focus on whatever, do whatever, travel whatever, learn whatever, help whoever, etc etc.
These 2 things added together I think are a good combo for "success" (by my definition)
I thought of one other thing thats very important... ill write it as a reply to another commenter.
Do you do this all in your head, or do you document it anywhere? How much time (or what percentage of the time) do you spend strategizing?
Ive never really written it online, but I have spent dozens and dozens of hours trying to explain it to people on the phone.
I don't spend any conscious time strategizing, as if it's a separate thing. It happens 24/7 on autopilot where I cannot "turn it off".
Its more like putting on magic glasses which show you the future, as if you could see colored lines sweeping outward from your decisions... and you move your hand and the path arcs a different way where you can see how a decision affects a future outcome, kind of like a game of hot or cold.
It's not actually like that of course, but that's a good analogy. It's something that I cant UNSEE and therefor every action I take has this value formula calculation / cause effect projection "baked in" such that I dont have to "do" anything.
Super interesting. How do you approach the marketing and finding the first customers for your businesses?
Thats what the other non-tech person I mentioned is for. Personally, I don't like that stuff. If you are a really good programmer, find a marketer and just make a 2 man team.
In general the formula boils down to him managing a team of media buyers though.
We also don't usually do projects that don't have an aspect of certainty from the start. For example, lots of people just build Saas products and wait years for customers.
We will generally look for entry points where we either know some privileged piece of intel, a person, a relationship, an account, etc. It will never be the thing that causes success, but it's the "certainty" aspect that gives you a lot better odds than just picking an idea and hammering away at it with ads.
Are you able to share a concrete example of this process in action to help us 1x plebs understand better?
I could if you really want, but let me give you something (hopefully) more useful. In my many hours trying to help friends and people I know there is 1 idea that I repeatedly come back to.
First though, I recently learned lots of people cant do this... but I can easily visualize a large future outcome that to other people they would say "thats too far from where I am at to think about that"
And not visualize in the sense of "if i visualize it it will come", but if as if I said "picture yourself making a sandwich". This reality is not foreign, so people can do it. You need to do that same thing but with ANY big outcome. The only difference is that there might be more knobs to turn to get there... nothing else.
When talking about this stuff, I get this insanely deep feeling of "magnitude". It happens every time, and its extremely difficult to convey. It's as if in my vision, certain statements are MULTIPLE orders of magnitude more powerful for someone to understand, and i can see that magnitude, but I cant always explain it because what I say gets "flattened" from my minds eye into just a conversation where I can only use the words "IMPORTANT" or capitalize things or raise my voice to emphasize it, and those only convey a 2x important and not a 100000x importance. I encounter this idea a lot and its very frustrating, because I often see how people can evaporate their own problems SO simply, but they just cant "see" it. And even if I tell them over and over, they will still not see it. So, I don't know if this makes sense by what I'm about to say, imagine this as a 1000000x thing. Read through my words into the "infinite void" beyond to grasp in the dark at the importance.
I would say, almost all peoples problems & dreams are solvable if they realize that the shortest path from A->B is a straight line, and that all things are solvable. At any given moment, if you can picture some outcome, you have the capability of performing the actions to produce that outcome. It's really that simple. This is why I said the meditation reference about deeper layers of insight at the beginning, because the statement itself is not profound at all, but in practice its the most profound thing in life ive ever experienced. Its the idea i can do anything, simply by doing it. there is "nothing else". all "problems" are basically self created barring extreme medical conditions and such. I say this because at the end of the day youre capable of performing actions that yield outcomes, and it always falls back to that. there is nothing that escapes this mechanism.
One might say "but my motivation... job... circumstances... focus level... no ideas... too much emotion... fear... etc etc" I have heard them all. They're all solvable by realizing the shortest path is to just do it/not do it, and then deal with all the side effects as separate easily solvable discrete puzzles. Everything that gets in the way is a fallacy created by your own mind to protect you.
Now this is definitely easier said than done, but just like meditation "insight", You learn deeper insight and deeper insight over and over again about the same idea. Each time you learn the same lessen again, you add another magnitude to your own realization of it. You are literally capable of anything. Start with being able to visualize the "perfect" life. if you cant, then dissect why and work backwards, because you most definitely CAN. All your "but I..." are most likely made up bullshit that is actually easily solvable.
I can try to help more later as well, I literally just woke up so my thoughts are not 100% clear. ive written about this in the past in much more clear ways, but I can give you better examples if thats what you want, but ill wait for my mind to wake up first!