But there is a lot wrong with the idea that you need to work until your health is impacted to succeed; if you need to work that hard, something else is off - the idea isn't good enough, you're attacking it in the wrong way, whatever.
To me this ties into the gross, pervasive trend of wantrepreneurism. Shark Tank, Zuck, Elon Musk - being a founder has never been sexier, never been more interesting or lucrative. In the wake of that, WeWork and GaryV and a whole bunch of people are selling the idea that regardless of how bad your idea is or how unfit you are to be an entrepreneur, all you need is access or hustle to succeed. And that's awful, awful advice.
As income inequality continues to grow, I expect this to get worse and worse.
No, it doesn't mean "imitating something for the sake of it".
It means ritualistically imitating some advanced technology and thinking of it as magical way to get wealth and prosperity (based on primitive tribes building fake-airports and thinking that will bring the associated goods westerners coming to their land with airplanes had). And yes, it can involve all kinds of "rain dances or other backwards stuff" too.
"The name derives from the belief which began among Melanesians in the late 19th and early 20th century that various ritualistic acts such as the building of an airplane runway will result in the appearance of material wealth, particularly highly desirable Western goods (i.e., "cargo"), via Western airplanes."
No, "cargo cult" means imitating someone's activities that lead to a certain outcome, without understanding why did that work and why it might not work for someone else. In fact, to be precise, imitating the perceived activities: your coconut headphones might look like what that US army guy had on his head, but they don't have the whole technical and human infrastructure behind them; or, your Web search page might look exactly like Google's, but it won't produce similar results by itself.
It's more about misunderstanding cause and effect. Tribal people after WW2 started building runways on their islands because they thought that as long as they built the runways the airplanes would show up bringing their cargo.
They didn't imitate it "for the sake of it", they genuinely thought they would receive cargo by building runways.
So while it's not about rain dances and shakalaka sticks the previous commenter was on the money about the term cargo culting.
People who think hustling is about working hard have a very different interpretation of the word than I'm used to. A hustler is supposed to be a cunning character who uses their guile and persistence to get ahead, taking advantage of the system. Someone who just works really hard at the expense of their health sounds more like what I'd expect to see characterised as a schmuck than a hustler.
I think both connotations are valid and context usually determines the underlying meaning.
For a third connotation that is close to the GP's, think of a coach telling his players to hustle on the basketball court. To me, that means they need to play hard and quick, not that they need to try more to bend the rules, take advantage, etc.
>For a third connotation that is close to the GP's, think of a coach telling his players to hustle on the basketball court. To me, that means they need to play hard and quick, not that they need to try more to bend the rules, take advantage, etc.
That's interesting, I always assumed the coach was actually suggesting they try to bend the rules and do whatever's necessary to win, but your interpretation makes more sense.
As someone who played a lot of sports, the classic "hustle" play was laying out/diving/getting on the ground for the ball. Be it in baseball, basketball or football.
You could play the game without hitting the ground, but if you wanted to hustle and win, you had to get your clothes dirty.
You weren't breaking any rules, just doing what other people wouldn't.
That's also my understanding of the term "hustler". Obviously hustling is considered cool - so a lot of people want to be hustlers - but if a lot of people were able to hustle - then it wouldn't be anything special. So by means of commercialized cargo culting the agreed upon definition gets watered down to a level that can be met by more people.
I think about it in the same way I think about "American Idol": Simon Cowell became a notable figure simply because he was honest with people; he dared to tell people that they were wasting their time pursuing singing.
Right now, Gary and all of these other hustle porn types are Paula Abdul. And they'll keep telling people that all they need to do is work harder, up until the point that it becomes to professionally more lucrative for them to stop being Paula and start being Simon. When we get to that point, they'll flip in a second. And their fans will eat it the fuck up.
Well, not 'simply' for being honest, but for being (entertainingly) rude about it. You can be honest without being brutally honest, but it doesn't make such good TV I guess.
You know that they intentionally put through and hyped up the worst singers, right? Like some kid who showed up for the first round on a lark was told "congrats you're great!! You're coming back for the next round when the judges are here," did the whole profiling/backstory thing like they'd do if you were a good singer, and intentionally set you up to fail in the worst way. Just so Simon can make a joke at your expense.
Whether or not the singers were hyped up for entertainment doesn't change the fact that they seriously auditioned, unless you think they tried out ironically for the lulz.
In the first case, rudeness can be helpful and in the second case it won't hurt their feelings. Seems like a fine choice to me.
What depends? on..what?! I don't understand.. (I really tried) uh.. I don't understand your last sentence either.
Assuming you meant 'But you have to be brutal to have the desired effect of getting through to the terrible singers, plain honesty - considerate, respectful honesty[0] wouldn't work', well, he didn't get through, did he. Instead they thought he must be just being rude deliberately and didn't mean what he said. He made it impossible for them to hear him. Mostly.
Anyway.. I was making another point, not that Simon became notable 'simply because he was honest' but because he was rude; whether it was effective (at getting terrible singers to realize they're terrible) is another thing.
[0] See the book Crucial Conversations, it's largely about how to be honest with people, in important situations people usually aren't, while being respectful and considerate.
Whether or not he is being rude depends on your interpretation of his intentions based on assumptions about how the performer will react.
Are you implying those people are auditioning ironically and know they are bad singers?
It does not seem rude to me to try and change the course of someone's life who is _drastically_ underperforming.
Is the definition of rude hurting someone's feelings? That doesn't follow the implication that rudeness shouldn't happen; sometimes people need their feelings hurt to inspire positive change.
Are you implying those people are auditioning ironically and know they are bad singers? - No. I have absolutely no idea why you ask that.
It does not seem rude to me to try and change the course of someone's life who is _drastically_ underperforming. - Leaving aside what underperforming could mean - so, if he means well, it's just not possible for Cowell to be rude, no matter what he says? I think that's just not what the word means to people (apart from you).
That doesn't follow the implication that rudeness shouldn't happen; - I can't parse that, sorry.
I read something recently along the lines of "People who brag about being 'brutally honest' are usually much more into the 'brutal' part than the rest of it."
Yes. This exactly. Or, if not ability, then experience and wisdom. Or relevant skills. Or connections. Or discipline. None of which you can manifest by sheer force of will.
I always tell my Jr. Engineers that if you have to work THAT HARD to accomplish your daily tasks then you need to go back to school or go for a more newbie-friendly position.
>I always tell my Jr. Engineers that if you have to work THAT HARD to accomplish your daily tasks then you need to go back to school or go for a more newbie-friendly position.
I don't think that this is very productive thing to say to someone. If the Junior Engineer is still able to produce, why do you care how much they struggled with it? If a person truly wants to grow and then struggling on problems that are on the edge of their comfort zone sounds like the perfect way to do it.
If their abilities are effecting project timelines, quality, profitability, etc then I can understand having that conversation with them but I really don't see the harm in someone challenging themselves professionally.
I mean, yes there's nothing wrong with engineers struggling and pushing their skills and boundaries, it's how we grow and improve. But persistent struggling with daily tasks is indicative of a deeper problem. There might be missing knowledge, or the mistaken idea that programmers should be hard workers to be productive.
Using our tools of simplification, abstraction, automation and domain knowledge, it's critical to teach your juniors how to be optimistically lazy and do less. That's how we raise great engineers. Otherwise, we're just raising mid-level programmers who only know how to throw lots more code at their problem, and as I hope we all know by now, more code never results in fewer problems.
Its interesting that you've been down voted. I'm not suggesting that you are correct or wrong, but I'd geniunely like to hear a philosopher or somesuch clever thinker talk at length on this topic - are they the same? are they different? is the ability to get through a difficult physical experience such as pain related to being able to work at a task you show no interest in for hours? Is it a single trait that you either have or don't, or do some people have remarkable discipline when it comes to office work and others are disciplined when it comes to gardening or cooking for hours with passion all day every day? Is it something that is geniunely in a person's character, or is it to do with other things (do people with discpline just get more sleep/have a better upbringing/have interesting work to do etc?)
I don't want to pass any judgement nor assume the answers to any of these questions - I'd like to see/hear/read discussion on it.
I really like this interpretation, but to take it at face value would be to assume that other approaches do not offer actionable steps? or at the very least do not suggest that their steps actually work?
Naturally it's correct that no matter what you do you don't always suceed, but does the fact that people eat this up suggest that for most people there are no actions they can take to be successful?
Not saying this isn't true sometimes, but I think it's far more rare that the reason someone isn't succeeding is their ability, but rather their circumstances.
But either way it doesn't change the fact that it is one's personal responsibility to chart a course through those circumstances.
It's great for people to get out of their comfort zones and try things that they weren't sure they could do, but sometimes you just have to aim for a target you can hit.
It's pretty well known that the most successful teams are often those that function well as a team, complementing and supporting each other, even if they lack superstars. They need people who fit into their "lesser" niches. Sometimes it's not about hustle, hustle, hustle. It's about execution, execution, execution. The small fish you caught tastes better than the big one that got away.
> there is a lot wrong with the idea that you need to work until your health is impacted to succeed
Know your pay-offs. Gambling your health to enrich someone else, while you scrape by with pennies, is a last resort. Gambling your health for tremendous gains is a fair choice.
These are gambles humans leaving Africa and navigating the oceans made. (The cost of loss was death.) It’s a risk we’ll face expanding to the Moon and Mars and Alpha Centauri. Be thoughtful about the risks you take—not all are offered equally—but don’t discard them outright for being risky.
I suspect "work" here refers to that thing you do so that you can pay for the life-risking adventures worth having. If you kill yourself working how can you kill yourself scuba diving with sharks?
GaryV was a major investor in FaithBox, a company that knowingly incurred huge bills with my company that they'd knew be unable to pay (I run a 3PL). The switched to another warehouse for two months and did the same to them, then they "sold" to a firm in Omaha in a supposedly $0 asset-for-debt sale, and the buyers are trying to get out of paying me ~$60k. My lawyers are on it and I expect to get something out of them eventually, but I was lucky my business was far enough along to survive the hit.
The guy who ran the company into the ground through gross mismanagement was one of the speakers at SubSummit this year.
I am seeing more and more of this on youtube now. The people who advise others like this are usually flawed in their business dealings. These people usually tend to focus on soft skills without any emphasis on other skills. The soft skills is usually convincing people and leans more towards conning people with sweet talk and forceful marketing.
Ultimately its peddling false hope with just enough of an inkling of truth to not be downright fraud. Like peddling health elixirs, magic diets, or the casino's w/l rate. It will get worse as income inequality (and desparation) grows.
Wake me up when Gary does a video on unit economics. Or cohort analysis. Or CAC/LTV. Or literally anything to do with business other than the idea that regardless of how unfit you are, how unsuitable your idea is, or how damaging the attempt will be on your personal finances or health, hustle is all you need.
The winds are increasing against him. It's going to be interesting to watch him flip and suddenly preach realism, once he calculates that his adoring masses are going to appreciate that message more on the basis of his "authenticity". (And I wish I could use about fifteen more air-quotes around that word.)
I've never actually heard him say a single shred of useful, practical advice. To me, Gary is the epitome of a snake oil salesperson because I have absolutely no idea why he's so popular.
Is this some sort of twisted Truman Show dystopia where everyone is pretending to worship him and seeing if I am foolish enough to believe them?
Reminds of what happened with Inbox Zero. Didn't that guy wind up admitting he himself failed at it and it wasn't reasonable anyway? (Or am I getting confused with someone else?)
No, Merlin Mann distanced himself from Inbox Zero once it got picked up by the productivity porn blogger crowd who reduced it to yet another lifehack and lost the spirit of the idea which is that your inbox should not be your todo list because then you lose agency over your own priorities.
Unless you exist in a vacuum, your agency over your own priorities is strictly limited anyway. Sure, you can choose what to work on but a large part of the time, practical considerations are gonna make it pretty damn obvious what the right thing to do is. At that point pretending it's your choice to do that one obviously correct thing is pretty specious.
If you're at one of those rare crossroads where you do have a genuine choice, your inbox is probably going to be close to zero already. I think cause and effect here are getting switched.
It’s worse than that. This kind of pressure leads to ethical lapses and outright corruption.
Hustle is fine. The requirement to give 110% at every moment of every day to succeed means, anyone with two neurons to rub together will just cheat. Not hard to find conspirators when everyone is in the same situation.
And on top of that, the guys come from an already well off background. They were able to invest all the time they wanted in their personal projects, as mundane problems like paying the rent were never issue to them.
>They were able to invest all the time they wanted in their personal projects, as mundane problems like paying the rent were never issue to them.
A million times this. Many, many, founders come from upper middle class families or better. Many of them have, or were earning, ivy league educations when they dropped out to run their funded businesses full-time. A good chunk of them have already exited at least 1 startup and are independently wealthy if they chose to live in most of the US, if not any city in the world.
It's easy to pour yourself into an idea when you're not worried about making your car insurance payment, making rent, hoping no personal emergency happens that you'll have to put on a credit card, it's a whole different story when you're lower middle class or lower and have no cushion. When you have no family to fall back on when things don't pan out.
Hustle is sexy when you have an exit, when you have a safety net, when you have a support system. Hustle is tantamount to slavery when you don't have these things. When hustle is a means of survival it can quickly become toxic, demoralizing, soul-crushing and even dangerous to your health but when you come from a position of means it's just a challenge, another way to get that adrenaline and endorphin release.
> But there is a lot wrong with the idea that you need to work until your health is impacted to succeed
Yeah but that's the thing: people tell you it makes totally sense to work long hours if you have the time, no commitments in life etc. Those people can be parents, 'peers' (whatever that means), people on the Internet... My bosses - during the times in which I was regularly employed - rarely told me such things. But to come back to the point, nobody of these people tells you to work while you're seriously sick or to work yourself to death. They tell you to work yourself into a higher position, wealth, etc.
So by the time you're health or social life are affected, it's already to late. I mean this is not a process where you turn one day to the other from healthy to sick. It's a gradual process and you realize it when it's years to late.
> To me this ties into the gross, pervasive trend of wantrepreneurism. Shark Tank, Zuck, Elon Musk - being a founder has never been sexier, never been more interesting or lucrative.
I've heard the term 'wantrepreneurism' but the people you mention are highly exceptional and super successful. Chances that you can copy them are for various reasons next to 0,0000%.
> In the wake of that, WeWork and GaryV and a whole bunch of people are selling the idea that regardless of how bad your idea is or how unfit you are to be an entrepreneur, all you need is access or hustle to succeed. And that's awful, awful advice.
In my experience this is not true. I mean when you encounter people working in the startup scene running accelerators etc., there are not tired to tell anyone how selective they are, that this stuff isn't for anyone, brainstorm any aspects of your idea that might be stupid. When you listen on the people on the videos, you realize that this is also the whole point of this hustling porn: either you have incredible luck or you work like crazy so you become successful. That said, I think the original Medium article which popularized this topic recently was much more on point: https://medium.com/@nateliason/no-more-struggle-porn-202153a...
Is anyone actually advocating for working until your health is impacted? The article mentioned working weekends and waking up before dawn - neither of which is particularly toxic to your body.
If other people want the hard-working founder lifestyle, and if they find these videos motivating and useful, I don't see why we should try to tear them down. People don't need to be criticized or psycho-analyzed just because they have different life goals and dreams.
Edison famously said that genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. Was he fetishizing Hustle Porn as well?
There's nothing wrong with hard work, nor does work have any intrinsic value (despite what the Puritans and many others would have you believe). You need to work hard enough to earn enough money to ensure you have everything you need to survive, plus whatever extra work it takes to earn what you need to live "comfortably" (which means different things to different people). You should also work hard enough so that you can save for retirement and contingencies that might prevent you from working in the future to ensure you have what you need.
Unfortunately many in our modern society are caught up with tying the idea of "accomplishment" with work and "productivity". Accomplishment is a completely subjective idea, as is personal satisfaction and happiness. I've found that most people who seek to lose themselves in their work or derive satisfaction out of being as "productive" as possible are usually very unhappy people overworking themselves in an effort to distract themselves from their unfulfilled lives. I am not referring to those who truly enjoy what they do, and thus can "work" all the time and find actual fulfillment. People like this (artists, writers, ect) would be engaged in this "work" whether or not they were getting paid. I'm referring to the people who put in an extra 20 hours of overtime at an office job they don't particularly like, or work a "side hustle" in their few, spare hours because they have been convinced that if they aren't being "productive" all the time that they are being lazy, or that their time is being wasted.
For most people work is a means to an end - not something that can or should define you as a human being.
Sometimes you do have to work that hard. Sacrificing personal health for some future gain for you (and your family) is not strange nor rare, it's reality for many people.
There's no moral judgement necessary as each individual can, and should, make that call for themselves. I only wish more had more opportunity to do so.
One of the best things that happened to my entrepreneurial career was realizing that I wasn't cut out for every aspect of the entrepreneurial career. It took a failed startup to realize the things I don't do well. So now I offload them to others. And I'm so much happier for it.
I respectfully disagree with you that Gary vee is selling the idea that everyone should become an entreprenuer.
His main message is to be self aware and to be patient. In fact, in many videos he clearly makes the case that entrepreneurship has become glamourous and he warns against the dangers of faking it till you make it mentality.
OT, but I only just learned with this post that Gary Vaynerchuk is known for more than being a prolific wine vlogger/reviewer back in the day. Shows how plugged-in to the entrepreneurship sphere I am, I guess.
There's also those companies that advertise on TV to help inventors patent their ideas. No price is mentioned. I assume they fleece customers pretty hard.
But there is a lot wrong with the idea that you need to work until your health is impacted to succeed; if you need to work that hard, something else is off - the idea isn't good enough, you're attacking it in the wrong way, whatever.
To me this ties into the gross, pervasive trend of wantrepreneurism. Shark Tank, Zuck, Elon Musk - being a founder has never been sexier, never been more interesting or lucrative. In the wake of that, WeWork and GaryV and a whole bunch of people are selling the idea that regardless of how bad your idea is or how unfit you are to be an entrepreneur, all you need is access or hustle to succeed. And that's awful, awful advice.
As income inequality continues to grow, I expect this to get worse and worse.