> I can't think of any field in which determination is overrated

Getting into land wars with Russia with winter approaching.

These are pretty far from verbatim. Way far in some cases. I never said anything about board meetings, for example. I said it was good to keep in touch with your investors, but I assume most of a startup's investors won't be on the board.

Unpaid internships are one of the biggest scams ever.

You want me to work for you for free so I get "invaluable experience"? How much is my work worth to you, if you're not paying me? For that matter, how much is the experience I get, if I'm doing worthless work? You want ME to be grateful for the privilege of getting the experience of making YOU money for nothing in return? Screw YOU.

Mark Cuban makes it sound like this is about the bright-eyed ambitious kid who just wants to get his foot in the door and, given that one chance, will eventually rise up to run the company. Bullshit. The ambitious kid will find a way. This isn't about him.

This is about all the people struggling on the lowest rungs of a profession, trying to enter it. They can't find a job, so they'll jump at any chance they can to be "working" in their chosen field, even if they don't get paid. They're strung along with the promise of an actual job down the road. And guess what? As soon as they want money, they're out, replaced by someone else who's willing to work for free. This is about having too much supply and not enough demand for a profession, and free labor only makes the problem worse, by masking the real market condition.

This is about a lot of things. It's about ambitious kids, it's about struggling people, it's about flux in employment conditions. You can bring in mentions of the apprenticeship model of yore, but you'll probably realize pretty quickly that there are some big differences.

But let's drop that bullshit and call it what it is, Mark. You're arguing against minimum wage, since zero is usually less than the minimum wage. Why don't you come up and make that argument straight up.

Edit: after re-reading my comment and noticing how many comments there are here and on his blog, I once again realize that Mark Cuban is a troll. Bleh.

The post is a discussion of why I'm moving from desktop apps to web apps.

That is less consequential at HN than elsewhere, since most of the community here already is in web apps. However, even if you'll never touch desktop software, you may find the points about AdWords and conversion math worth your while. (They're about halfway down.) The short story is that anything you do to increase your conversion rate has a side effect of increasing your ability to win the AdWords "auction", which means you get additional benefit (increased volume) above and beyond the base increase in conversion.

1.

Easy way to become better at controlling will power is controlling your diet. Yep - glucose increases will power. http://psr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/short/11/4/303

2.

"Environment trumps discipline"

I'd read an article that said that for most people - their income will be very close to the average income of their 5 closest friends. Create the environment - and discipline will come on its own.

3.

Ambition either comes from having kickass heroes or from facing strong problems. England started becoming a super power only when King Henry read the book of King Arthur and his Knights of the round table. (King Arthur's story was a false story written by Thomas Malory - while in prison. A convict changed the fortunes of England which was until then a land of misfits and barbarians - by giving them a hero!)

When there is a lack of heroes, you need strong problems to build that burning ambition. Eg: how Chandragupta and Chanakya went on to unite India 2300 years ago - because Alexander threatened their existence. Up until Alexander showed up in India - no one even dreamt of uniting India...

4.

I think what is missing is luck - which can also be hacked somewhat. Book: The Luck Factor: The 4 Essential Principles: http://www.amazon.com/Luck-Factor-Four-Essential-Principles/...

Hmm, one is an equal partnership, the other isn't.

The unpaid internship law serves to give some protections to the little guy.

Btw, I really don't understand why a billionaire (?) can't afford to pay hourly minimum wages to a bunch of kids.

WordPress registers users for comments in the same table as administrators, making anonymous commenters into "administrators" with no privileges. It is constructed almost entirely out of concatenated SQL queries with no explicit parameter bindings. It's internationalized and relies on explicit input filtering. Its templates are executable code; templates can pop a shell. It has, in the actual web application, a "theme editor" that edits that executable code. Because it's built on ad-hoc PHP, it's had --- within the last two years --- remote file inclusion vulnerabilities, where people can load portions of other people's WordPress installs off their own MySpace pages. It supports hundreds of plugins, all of which have the exact same problems and the exact same exposure.

vBulletin and Mediawiki are also incredibly popular. But they have nothing resembling the rap sheet that WordPress has.

Try another argument.

I still don't understand why php is so frowned upon here. Easy and quick implementation and a low learning curve.

Is it me or is the site broke?

A strange fact popped into my mind, after reading this story and remembering some comments on the "Turing deserves an apology" story.

Many people will say that two consenting adults have the right to do whatever they want in the privacy of their own bedroom. As soon as the act those adults want to do becomes nonsexual (e.g. an unpaid internship, unlicensed medicine), that principle goes out the window.

Very confusing.

If you're "ambitious", you may be going where no one has gone before. These days, everyone knows that getting into a land war with Russia is a bad idea, but it may not have always been so. Same thing with lots of other people whose ambition caused them to push the limits (mountain climbers?). If you're at the limits, you may not know when 'determination' means pushing on despite everything to achieve some great success, and when that same pushing on will cause you to die, when turning back may have let you live to fight another day.

Not sure where I'm going with this, I guess I just like to play devil's advocate a bit:-)

It's a good essay, but perhaps what I don't care for in general terms is the vagueness that surrounds the whole issue. Some people are smart because they push on in the face of great opposition. Others win plaudits for "knowing when to quit" and changing direction. It's all a bit wishy washy, although I think that PG's elements for success are, in a generic way, about right. Just that that vagueness sort of precludes one from applying them to specific situations until after the fact.

OMG, I would so never do that.