Why do people who care about money often fail to make big money? ——Read "Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned"

Why do people who care about money often fail to make big money?

Since this year, GPT has been very popular. There is also a book related to artificial intelligence, which is also somewhat popular. This book was written by two people who study artificial intelligence. Because in the process of studying various algorithms of artificial intelligence, they gradually discovered that setting a goal for artificial intelligence, such as a robot, is often easier to achieve good results than not setting a goal.

The title of the book is "Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned". The main point of the book is that everyone should set goals for everything they do, such as setting year-end goals, monthly goals, etc. at work.

It may be counter-intuitive to most people, but from my own experience, I agree with it.

1. Success comes from exploration

There are several key concepts in this book: search space, stepping stones, goal search, novelty search, etc.

Let’s talk about these key concepts.

Let’s start with an example from the book. I have worked as a robot, so I can particularly understand the example in this book about the robot finding its way out of the maze.
A robot is in a maze and the robot doesn't know how to get out of the maze. .

So, how does the robot get out of the maze?

The first is to use a goal-based algorithm, that is, set a goal to get out of the maze, and let the robot start from the same starting point over and over again to find the exit of the maze. Every time, I either successfully exited the maze or hit the wall.

The second type is not to set a goal, that is, the robot does not have a goal to get out of the maze. Just let the robot try new, untried routes. Whether it's successfully getting out of the maze or hitting a wall.

Surprisingly, after many experiments, the data concluded that the second method is easier for the robot to get out of the maze than the first method. In other words, the number of times the robot successfully exits the maze is much more in the second way than in the first way.

The first type is called target search.

The second type is called novelty search.

This room is the search space of this robot.

Every failure experience is a stepping stone for this robot.

This is a simple example, but worth thinking about. Because, in our daily life and work, we are often like this. Either we have a goal, or we are aimless, or because we like it, we run into walls everywhere. Some of them have good results, and some of them have good results. Just kept hitting the wall.

How can I get better results? In other words, how to succeed? In other words, how can you make a lot of money?

The answer to this book is actually to enlarge your search space, accumulate your stepping stones, and explore based on interest and meaning, which is novelty search.

Don't set a goal for everything. If you do things based on the goal, you will often not succeed. Instead, you will miss many opportunities for success.

So, why is targeted search inappropriate? In other words, why is it inappropriate to set a goal for everything?

2. Why target search is wrong

What I object to is "lofty" goals, not small daily goals.

What we are opposed to is a goal without a "route", that is, a goal with unclear "path from where it stands to where the goal is". If the "route" is clear, you can set a goal. If the "route" is unclear, then don't set a goal.

Because such goals are deceptive. And this deception comes from the countless possibilities and uncertainties in the intermediate process to reach this "lofty" goal. Ultimately the "route" is unclear.

This is a very important point in the book.

Everyone has his or her own success. Defining your own success goals based on the success of others is often thankless.

There is no way around it. Everyone has their own unique search space and their own unique stepping stone. Different conditions determine the success of each person.

Finding your own unique success is the most worthwhile thing to do.

3. Past experience

Growth, product iteration, and business planning all require clear goals. Because we have done so much, we have gradually formed our own methodology of goal determination and decomposition over the years, as well as a goal-based approach to growth and product development. Iterative methodology. Simple and effective, it has helped me continue to succeed in many jobs in the past. However, these methodologies of mine are all based on short-term goals. Achieve the current short-term goal and then determine the next short-term goal. For example, achieve the iteration goal of this version, and then determine the iteration goal of the next version and the next version. There are no long-term goals. Because it's of no use.

In the long term, there is only direction but no goal.

Plans cannot keep up with changes.

Anyone who works long hours should have this experience, and it should be a very common situation. You make a longer-term plan. Such as a one-year plan. Basically, it will not be realized in the end, or it will not be fully realized. But the final result may be a good result in another direction.

Many teams take their goals too seriously. No matter what you do, you must set short-term and long-term goals. However, because few goals are achieved without compromise, in the end, no one from the person who sets the goal to the person who implements them believes in the goals they set. They just follow the goals. Regulations, just setting a goal.

In the Internet, an industry that changes rapidly, set a long-term goal, such as a one-year goal: to achieve as many users as possible and as much profit as possible, and then block everything and work hard to achieve this goal. Basically looking for death. It is very likely that after working on it for a while, you will find that this product may not have such a large market and potential users at all, or due to various factors such as cost, it can only be done to a certain extent, or it cannot be done at all. .

This situation is very common.

You can set a long-term direction, for example, a specific direction for social products, a specific direction for AI, etc. This is more appropriate.

In fact, many times, even if you want to set a goal, there is no set goal, especially in the process from 0 to 1. Exploration and trial and error are the correct ways to go from 0 to 1. The conclusions, experiences, results, etc. obtained during the process of exploration and trial and error are all stepping stones to that "1", just like the previous example of the robot. As for what the final "1" looks like, you often don't know until you do it.

I have also seen many, really many, many, people who thought about the specific and clear appearance of "1" from the beginning, and then realized it, and then failed.
Often it is not very clear at the beginning. If you do not stick to a specific and clear "1", it will be easier to succeed.

This is a fact.

Goals are short-term, while direction and strategies are long-term.

This is even more obvious when it comes to growth. Not only are all goals short-term and phased. In fact, a lot of work is exploratory, experimental, and trial-and-error. Many things may be online in one version and offline in the next version, just to see how the data is. Using the concept in this book is novelty search.