Claim to Fame

Beware of people who tell a lot of interesting stories from their lives.

People of substance need only one claim to fame. Empty-calorie people are the opposite: they’re great at sounding important, and trick you into thinking they’re noteworthy. Substance is purpose—it’s the bigger picture you’re zoomed into day in and day out. Broadly speaking, people of substance are genuinely trying to advance humanity in some capacity, or plan on it. I say “genuinely” because it’s easy to lie to oneself, and I say “plan on it” because one might be temporarily restrained by circumstance. On the contrary, empty-calorie people have no substance—they’re not zoomed into a big picture, but simply storyboarding their way through life based on whatever is popular at the moment. Paul Graham has observed these folks in the field of startups:

I don’t know about other fields, but in startups the worst thing you can be is a scenester. It’s even worse than being stupid. Stupid people can succeed if they try hard enough. But when I hear the founders of a startup described as scenesters, I write them off. (link)

Since many people don’t know the word scenester, what it means is someone who is more focused on seeming cool by doing x than actually doing x. It’s a big problem in the startup world because startups are so fashionable at the moment. (link)

The problem is that scenesters, or empty-calorie people, are more interested in the attention than the act itself. So it’s hard to discern who’s what, and the stakes are through the roof. If you’ve hitched your wagon to a scenester, you’re not going anywhere meaningful. Further, these scenesters can often seem compelling—they’ll share several claims to fame. Fancy degree, fancy work experience, fancy acquaintances, fancy side projects, and tweets about whatever is hot right now are just some indicators. I think one is fine, but if someone flogs these sorts of attributes, it’s generally a clear signal they lack substance.

So what does substance look like?

The only better signal would be the total absence of a Linkedin page. Aaron started an online storage startup while in university and worked on it for decades without wavering. He even admits he has an “unhealthy obsession with enterprise software”—you’ve got to be a total psycho to be into something so boring. But that’s how I know he has substance: he’s working out the details of some bigger picture we don’t see yet. While I’ve never met Aaron, I can sense he doesn’t go around and introduce himself as a “dropout founder of a publicly-traded billion dollar tech startup”—no, he likely just says “I’m CEO of Box”.

One claim to fame—that’s substance.

I anticipate some pushback: what about a second-act, or what about Elon? The reason people with substance succeed is that they’re focused and intrinsically motivated. If these people start something new, they’ll likely devote the same level of energy thus legitimzing the endeavour. In other words, they’re serious people. Typically, one is so serious that it’s all one focuses on. For example, Aaron likely has other business dealings, but he’s most serious about Box. Serious people can lay multiple claims to fame like the flogging scenesters, but with the crucial distinction of seriousness. Elon can claim SpaceX and Tesla because he actually started SpaceX, he didn’t just tell amusing stories about going to Russia to buy ICBMs; and he actually shipped electric cars, not just build prototypes. In short, he was serious about those things. So I should revise:

Serious people are substantial by nature.