294 karma · joined September 30, 2012
https://mobile.twitter.com/billgates/status/1052914693042450...
It feels like you’re entering a prison camp going through immigration. Everyone is screened by security before getting on a plane yet passport control officers are wearing swat team bullet proof vests and open-carry guns while checking your passport.
Quickly saw we were calling random leads generated by click bait ads like “become a swat expert” or enter to win type stuff.
We would call people who had no idea they had signed up to get called and push them to “further their education and future”.
First priority was to check to see that they could get a loan. Then aggressively get them to sign up for school.
I had access to the online courses and they were absolute trash.
Complete racket based on federal funding.
Talk with people to develop the idea as far as you can, but you don't truly know until people pay you. So you have to deliver a product (unless you're lucky enough to get pre-sales but even then you've likely invested something in a prototype) which is that point your stomachs tightens up as it requires some amount of money to develop this product. Aka the moment you find out if you really believe in this idea, enough to risk it.
Whether it's server costs, building a physical prototype, buying a data set, whatever it is.
Someone buys it, cool. Then don't spend anymore money until you've repeated the sale several times to validate you didn't just find this one unique customer.
A few would-be entrepreneurs have asked me for advice (though I'm not sure why) and are looking for that whole reverse prescription to success through how other people did it, which is a fallacy - there's only your path. I've noticed that they were stuck in this idea phase and it always came down to that moment of putting your money where your mouth is. I would just tell them either you believe in your idea enough to pay the $5,000 to fabricate the metal for your prototype, or $500 for the up-to-date information for your real estate developer app, or whatever the thing is that is your next step, or you don't because you don't really believe in the idea enough to take the risk. Which is fine, just recognize that and keep searching.
The guy who started it quit his job and decided to do something like 1,000 interviews or something like that with no real goal. a portrait of each human and asked the same line of questions but they usually got more personal.
Turned from a website to coffee table books and now makes millions and has a penthouse in the city.
Also lookup New York nico.
The newer the subway lines in Tokyo are fun because they have to built in under the others (as referenced in the FAQ), you can tell you're on a new line when you descend down flights and flights of stairs.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmyr_de_Hory
Orsen Welles did a great movie on him and fakery in general - http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gIVgUjj6RxU
The question of who are the real fakers in the art world, the forger or the critics who are duped and swear that a painting is authentic.
The tragedy of Elymr was that he was a great painter but no one cared for his original works and he was much more successful as a forger. The same for Clifford Irving, ironically, who wrote Elymr's biography.
Irving wrote a fake biography of Howard Hues or something along those lines.
Maybe instead of being average, focus on your average of the 5 people you spend the most time with. :D