One of My Top 5 YouTube Videos of All Time

/** For better or worse, I’ve spent a large portion of the past ~13 years online with Youtube being one of my most frequented sites. This has been both helpful and distracting, hopefully more of the former. I watched this video in late 2016 when it was released and I feel it is such high-quality material that in my view essentially all of Sam’s advice should be internalized.

Fun Fact: I went to YC Startup School 2014 and now I can’t find my notes. When I find them I’ll post them!

High-level takeaways
(READ THIS AFTER YOU WATCH THE VIDEO. OTHERWISE IT WON’T MEAN ANYTHING)

It is worth the time upfront to intentionally think about what you want to do in your life: intersection of what you’re good at, what you enjoy, and where you can create value for the world.
- He notes that people tend to fall into what they do which has its benefits, so I am undecided about whether you should do things blindly or spend more time in preparation. I feel I have gone down the latter path, enabled through browsing the internet/Youtube for many years.
  
  If you do things blindly, the time it takes to find whatever “it” is will most likely be longer. If you overprepare, you may begin a journey with false expectations and/or be anxious about the difficulty of the journey.
  
  Neither answer is correct, but it is worth acknowledging that career prep/selection in the 70s-2000s was different than it is now (see ongoing popularity of “Day in the Life” videos). You can find anyone doing anything and figure out what that REALLY entails. You couldn’t do that in 1991.
Paraphrased…”You have to have a deep-seated personal conviction that what you are working on really matters, regardless of what anyone says”
Maximize chances of compounding effects and don’t undervalue the ability to put effort initially.
Enjoyment in what you do and an intense belief that it matters is vital, and liking the people you work with.
Momentum is energizing & lack of momentum is super draining.
Take more risk than you think 99% of the time (just like drink more water than you think). Risk is not doing something that you will spend the rest of your life regretting.
Just ask for what you want.
One of few arbitrage opportunities in the market is time (everyone knows this and it is stupidly obvious but I don’t think it has or can be competed away!).
You want a strong opinion but be flexible about the details. Refinement and pivoting (in startups) is not the same thing. Strong opinions around the future are really important and it is ok to not be diversified in your portfolio or life.

tl;dr Watch the video, 1.25x speed is good.

Cheers,

Vishal

Published on January 6, 2023.