Aug 2024
One of my favorite Paul Graham essays is “Superlinear Returns.” At first, the idea felt abstract, but it became clear once I started observing more effort-to-outcome pairs.
A single viral post can create more impact than thousands of regular ones. One enterprise client can provide more value than dozens of smaller customers. In engineering, taking time to fix a fundamental architectural problem can prevent thousands of future bugs with little extra work. Effort and outcome are not always correlated, so when the action space is huge, the biggest return often comes from choosing the right action. You can definitely end up overthinking and falling into analysis paralysis, but constantly grinding on low-value tasks and stacking your calendar with things that don't move the needle can be equally detrimental. After all, our energy is finite.
The key is to escape the linear fallacy that ties effort directly to reward. Instead, one must actively hunt for opportunities that offer asymmetric, outsized returns. A single brilliant decision on a company's core platform—like Amazon's choice to build AWS and lease its internal infrastructure—can create more value than hundreds of marginal product orgs. With AI poised to further leverage our time, skill, and money, this framework becomes even more important and applies on all levels. What is the single scientific discovery that could make radical life extension possible? What is the one technical breakthrough required to interpret the human brain?
The framework is not meant to undermine hard work but aiming your energy at actions where the slope is steep and one push sets a flywheel spinning.