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Comment by portLAN | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure what you mean by "sharing" in this context but I did note your mini-autobiography above:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47588

Here's an example of what I mean by there being no generic "good" team:

Give me the top 5 athletes in the world. Maybe you pick Tiger Woods, Lance Armstrong, Roger Federer, LaDainian Tomlinson, and Wayne Gretzky. Or maybe you pick Barry Bonds; or a top marathoner or sprinter or a boxer. Then I tell you we're playing basketball. And you get beaten by Venezuela.

> Again, thanks for sharing your experience.

I think you're taking what I'm saying the wrong way.

I'm pointing out that if you don't care what you work on, your results won't be as good. Thus, you should figure out what you do care about, and work on that.

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I said I don't care what project I take on as long as I'm with a great group of people, but you quoted me saying that I don't care (careless). That's a big difference.

That's a misinterpretation. Maybe this quote will explain it better:

"I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle." -- Steve Jobs

http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-06150...

(You can also find it on Google Video)

> as long as I'm with a great group of people

Except how are you going to know that until they do great work? Which is very unlikely if you're not all working on what you love. If you don't care what you work on, then you haven't found what you love -- otherwise you'd work on that.

Merely being "great" without reference to a particular context isn't very useful. Take your favorite 5 entrepreneurs, stick them in a room, and probably nothing gets done. PG and Max Levchin we know; maybe Marc Andreessen; take your pick. They probably couldn't even agree on a language, and they're all used to being the one in charge.

No, there's no "misinterpretation." I hope you respect that I choose to follow more credible sources. It's very hard to take somebody's advice who we don't know. Maybe you care to share your background? Thanks for the discussion!

I DO want to work on what I want to work on, but with investment and other people (which might not be exactly what I or my team envisioned, of course.)

> I DO want to work on what I want to work on

That's funny, you just spent several messages reiterating that you didn't care what project you worked on.

To me, "please give me money and great people to work with" is not a convincing pitch. Plus, if I already have a group of great people working on something, why would I want to burden them with an additional person who had no particular interest in what they were working on?

On the other hand, if you were really interested in a particular problem domain and had expertise or at least enthusiasm for it specifically, then you're giving investors a more compelling reason to put their money behind you. Remember that investors aren't only the VCs and angels, they're the people you're working with. They have a lot invested, too.

I don't think that's what you said in the other posts. I find it very hard to follow your posts because you've made about 30 different points. At this time, there are more credible resources than yourself I choose to follow. I hope you respect that. If you would like to share your credentials and background like I have, then by all means.

I wish you well, and thanks for the discussion.

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