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Comment by singlow | Hacker News Reader

I have never quite understood YOLO as it is used. Why would I do something especially risky while realizing I only live once? If I had 10 lives, I would take many risks, but since I only live once, I will try to make a reasonable balance between risk and reward.

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It is picking the adventure over playing it safe. "You only live once so you just as well pick the once in a lifetime, most exciting, or whatever experience." What an author finds exciting and YOLOs may be above your risk tolerance.

For this article it's "Life is short so I'm going to favor doing the things I enjoy (releasing something at "it works!", add a feature because it sounds fun, wear socks that don't match) and not the things I don't enjoy (documentation, tests, collaborating/compromising with others...)"

I understand that if I only live once I don't want to waste the time I have on things that I don't enjoy. I don't understand when it means rushing into something that could cause immediate catastrophic failure.

In this case it is You Only Launch Once. If I can launch 50 times, I might skip a test since I can just launch again with a fix. If I only get one launch, I am sure as heck going to test it a few times over.

Pragmatically, you will try to optimize the balance.

But throwing out YOLO is merely arguing against "no risk", and regardless of how long you stay alive, never really living. A modern take on "No risk, no reward" with a focus on adventure.

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