I published the first version of this post on January 18, 2024. I'm reposting this with some edits to reflect my updated views on these ideas.
What do you think the future is going to be like? Better than now? Worse than now? And how certain are you?
Thiel has this talk: You Are Not a Lottery Ticket.
You can make this matrix of how people view the future:
optimistic | | |
pessimistic | | |
determinate indeterminate
To think that the future is determinate means to live with conviction; to live with the belief that you can dent the universe. To think the future is indeterminate means to hedge all your bets.
In the 1950s, right after the war, the U.S. was incredibly optimistic. Nearly everyone had more wealth than before. Everyone had children.
Contrast with today, where it seems most are pessimistic. There are "doomers" everywhere.
To quote Thomas Jefferson:
I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.
And contrast it with Malcolm Gladwell:
Success seems to stem as much from context as from personal attributes.
Over the arc of the 19th and 20th century, we've shifted to indefinite ways of viewing the world. Probability and statistics dominate most discussions. We are losing agency. We live in a state of "indeterminate optimism" or "indeterminate pessimism". Some of us are hopeful that the future will be better, but with no certainty on exactly how it'll be better. Others of us think the future will be worse, again, with no idea exactly how.
We focus on process instead of substance. To be more clear I'll quote Steve Jobs:
So they start to try to institutionalize process across the company. Before long, people get confused that the process is the content. That's ultimately the downfall of IBM. IBM has the best process people in the world. They just forgot about the content.
That's a little bit of what happened at Apple too. We had people who were great at management process. They just didn't have a clue as to the content.
Process is all the things you do to achieve results, but not the results themselves. Process, in and of itself, is not the result. You can have meetings, draft documents, design things, and prototype things -- but if you don't ship, you have nothing. This indefinite view of the future may be one of the biggest motivators for why more and more people are focused on process, instead of content.
We can't be certain of any future results. So let's focus on doing things we can control to try and make a good outcome as likely as possible.
Paul Graham has this essay called What Startups Are Really Like:
- Luck Is a Big Factor
If you think about famous startups, it's pretty clear how big a role luck plays. Where would Microsoft be if IBM insisted on exclusive license for DOS?
Why are founders fooled by this? Business guys probably aren't, but hackers are used to a world where skill is paramount, and you get what you deserve.
...the best model would be to say that the outcome is the product of skill, determination, and luck. No matter how much skill and determination you have, if you roll a zero for luck, the outcome is zero.
And from The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius:
Everyone knows that to do great work you need both natural ability and determination. But there's a third ingredient that's not as well understood: an obsessive interest in a particular topic.
...
The bus ticket theory is similar to Carlyle's famous definition of genius as an infinite capacity for taking pains. But there are two differences. The bus ticket theory makes it clear that the source of this infinite capacity for taking pains is not infinite diligence, as Carlyle seems to have meant, but the sort of infinite interest that collectors have. It also adds an important qualification: an infinite capacity for taking pains about something that matters.
So what matters? You can never be sure. It's precisely because no one can tell in advance which paths are promising that you can discover new ideas by working on what you're interested in.
You can never be sure.
Graham recommends that you just follow your interests. Have a good process. Go deep on your interests, and every so often jump into a field that doesn't quite make sense to the people around you (as long as it interests you). In his words, "remain irresponsible".
What can one do in the face of such uncertainty? One solution is to hedge your bets, which in this case means to follow the obviously promising paths instead of your own private obsessions. But as with any hedge, you're decreasing reward when you decrease risk. If you forgo working on what you like in order to follow some more conventionally ambitious path, you might miss something wonderful that you'd otherwise have discovered. That too must happen all the time, perhaps even more often than the genius whose bets all fail.
It's been hard for me to synthesize these two conflicting points of view. Both seem correct.
Thiel is right -- if you're uncertain about the future and hedge your bet, you become a passive participant to the times. There's the saying, "to predict the future, build it". But if you have no predictions about the future, what do you build?
Graham seems correct, too. Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do good things happen to awful people? Because, well, the universe is random. So much is outside our control, and the best we can do is accept that.
Trying to make things happen in your life is a balancing act between these two worldviews. They oppose each other. If you want to achieve your goals, you need to believe that your actions today will matter tomorrow. Even while acknowledging that, perhaps, they won't.
I think what Graham and Thiel are getting at is: we don't know how much luck is a factor in life.
As Graham says, "If you think about famous startups, it's clear how big a role luck plays." And as Thiel says, "[Boomers] point to the power of a particular individual's context as determined by chance. But they miss the even bigger social context for their own preferred explanations: a whole generation learned from childhood to overrate the power of chance and underrate the important of planning."
Which are both ways of saying: you don't really know how much luck plays in results, so here's a prescription on how much luck actually plays in your life. And in classic doctor fashion, they both have different prescriptions!
It's clear that something like health requires some amount of luck. If you have bad genetics or just end up in a hotspot for some particular disease, well, tough luck. Or you could have very blessed genetics. Whatever your environment is, however, you have actions you can take to maximize your health. Work on your diet, get adequate amounts of exercise, sleep a lot, and so on -- these are things that almost certainly will improve your health.
I've lived too long thinking like Graham. Hedging bets and focusing on process leads you down conventional success, but usually the upside is capped.
The moment I decided to take fate into my own hands and attempt to will a future I desired into existence, I felt noticeably happier about my life. You are not a passive observer in your life. You are the primary mover. Nothing will happen in your life without your will -- so exercise it, and exercise it loudly!