Trevor McKendrick - Villains Act, Heroes React

Just got back from a wonderful few days off, glad to be back at it.

Have a great week.

Trevor

Paul Graham spent about 10 months writing this, mandatory reading if you want to do something interesting with your life.

You can read it in an hour, which would be time better spent than the same 1 hour in the vast majority of books (even really good books)

Here are the notes I took reading it twice:

The way to figure out what to work on is by working. What to work on? If you have to, start by guessing
Guideline on picking your projects: whatever seems to you excitingly ambitious
The recipe of most great work: work hard on excitingly ambitious projects, and something good will come of it
- Keep those things constant, worry less about planning
There’s technique to working!!
- Can’t just put up your sail and be pushed by inspiration
It being hard to start working is the nature of work, not a flag in your character(!!!!!!!!!!!)
“People who do great things don't get a lot done every day. They get something done, rather than nothing.”
Lie to yourself to get started
- I’ll just exercise for 2 minutes
Don’t strive to be anything but the best
- Easier to try to be the best than merely good
Be earnest
Be professionally curious about a few topics, and widely curious about many topics
Be curious, period
To not shut down ideas… think about what you wish someone else would explore?
New ideas are more about new questions than new answers
Being prolific is underrated
Error on the side of starting, and start small
Some talented people are
- Being talented is how they got away with being a jerk, not what made them great
Take care of your morale like a living organism.
- “It’s the basis of everything”
- It’s a loop, so switch to easier work if you need to

A visual history of SpaceX rocket explosions, put to delightful music.

This made me lol. Mel would just respond to executives notes by saying yes he’d do it… and then literally just not doing it.

“I recently heard the screenwriting trope "Villains Act, Heroes React" for the first time and it destroyed me

“While there are counterexamples, it does seem like the Good Guys are more likely to protect the status quo rather than try to change the world”

Good story about how to deal with very large incumbents who can exert existential risk over your company (i.e. shutting down all your revenue)

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