Who You Work with and What You Work on

So let's talk about hard work There's this battle that happens a lot Should you work hard or should you not? You're slave driving people All the great founders worked their fingers to the bone And they're talking past each other First of all, they're talking about two different things Employees and the lifestyle business, which is fine Your number one thing in life If you're doing that is not getting wealthy If you have a job, you also have your family You also have your life But Keith is talking about the Olympics of startups Hе's talking about the person going for the gold mеdal Trying to build a multi-billion dollar public company That person has to get everything right They have to have great judgment They have to pick the right thing to work on They have to recruit the right team And they have their work crazy hard Because they're basically engaged in a competitive sprint So if getting wealthy is your goal You are going to have to work as hard as you can If getting wealthy is your goal You are going to have to work as hard as you can But hard work is no substitute For who you work with and what you work on Who you work with and what you work on Who you work with and what you work on Hard work is no substitute For who you work with and what you work on Who you work with and what you work on Who you work with and what you work on Finding product-market-founder fit How well you are personally suited to that business The combination of that three That should be overwhelming goal And you can save yourself a lot of time If you pick the right area to work in Picking the right people to work with Is the next most important piece And then third comes how hard you work But they're like three legs of a stool If you shortchange in any one of them The whole stool's gonna fall down So it's not like you can pick one over the other that easily So the order of operations when you're building a business Or even building your career Is first figure out, what should I be doing? What is something where there is a market that is emerging A product that I can build that I'm excited to work on And something where I have specific knowledge And I'm really into it And then second Surround yourself with the best people possible No matter how high your bar is Raise your bar because you can never be working With other people who are great enough If there's someone greater out there to work with You should go work with them I advise a lot of people who are looking At which startup to join in Silicon Valley The one that's going to have the best alumni network For you in the future Look at PayPal mafia, they worked With a bunch of geniuses so they all got rich So just try and pick based on the highest intelligence Energy, and integrity people that you can find And then finally Once you've picked the right thing to work on And the right people to work with Then you work as hard as you can Then you work as hard as you can Hard work is no substitute For who you work with and what you work on Who you work with and what you work on Who you work with and what you work on Hard work is no substitute For who you work with and what you work on Who you work with and what you work on Who you work with and what you work on This is where the mythology gets a little crazy People work 80, 120 hour weeks A lot of that's just status signaling It's showing off Nobody really works 80 to 120 hours a week Sustained at high output with mental clarity Your brain breaks down You just won't have good ideas So really the way people tend to work most effectively Especially in knowledge work is they sprint As hard as they can while they're working on something And they're inspired and they're passionate And then they rest, they take long breaks It's more like a lion hunting And much less like a marathon runner running So you sprint, then you rest, you reassess And then you try again Hard work is no substitute For who you work with and what you work on Who you work with and what you work on Who you work with and what you work on Hard work is no substitute For who you work with and what you work on Who you work with and what you work on Who you work with and what you work on Hard work is no substitute For who you work with and what you work on Who you work with and what you work on Who you work with and what you work on