To do great work, you should follow your excitement and interest as both the motor and rudder, taking you to the frontier of your field where you can find gaps to fill.
The speakers summarize Paul Graham's essay 'How to Do Great Work,' explaining that following your excitement takes you to the frontier of an industry where you can find and fill gaps others don't see. ✦ AI generated
Sam Parr · My First Million · 2026-08-12 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 20:57
Paul Graham wrote this essay called How to Do Great Work. And what he describes is like a few steps system... He basically says, 'Look, like here's the formula. You want to first just follow the path of most excitement, so of most interest to you.' And he basically says, 'Look, this is twofold. One is that being really interested in something is highly motivating. So, you'll work more than other people, you'll have more endurance than other people. And he goes, two, it's differentiating cuz exactly what interests you is not what interests most people. And so, you have a specific like flavor palette for what you like. And if you follow that truly, you will end up in a place of less competition.' So, he says, let your excitement or your interest be the motor of the boat as well as the rudder... And he goes, when you're at the frontier... you will find the gaps and then the entrepreneurial step is to just decide to fill one of those. And it starts with noticing.
verbatim transcript · starts at 20:57
20:37"Noticing is such a superpower. It's a superpower for entrepreneurs." Paul Graham wrote this essay called How to Do Great Work. And what he describes is like a few steps system and I'll just just It's like a 3,000-word essay. It's probably one of his most important essays, but it's so long. In it, he basically says, "Look, like here's the formula. You want to first just follow the path of most excitement, so of most
20:58interest to you." And he basically says, "Look, this is twofold. One is that being really interested in something is highly motivating. So, you'll work more than other people, you'll have more endurance than other people. And he goes, two, it's differentiating cuz exactly what interests you is not what interests most people. And so, you have a specific like flavor palette for what you like. And if you follow that
21:20truly, you will end up in a place of less competition. So, he says, let your excitement or your interest be the motor of the boat as well as the rudder. So, it's like it's the motor that motivates you and it's the rudder that guides you of which way to go. He goes, okay, so now you took that boat and you just let it go and you just follow it and you
21:38follow it all the way to the edge of the frontier of whatever industry you're in, whatever field you're in, whatever technology you play in. Go all the way to the frontier. If it's lead for this pencil, it's lead for this pencil. If it's the conveyor belt thing, it's conveyor belt thing. Whatever it is. And he goes, when you're at the frontier, when you're far away from the
21:56frontier, the the frontier just looks like a like a circumference, like a like a continuous line. But if you get all the way out there, you notice, oh [ __ ] you got to kind of step over these gaps that exist. People don't know this. They don't do They don't know how to do this. Oh, you got to do this manually yourself. Nobody does this for you. It's
22:12kind of tedious. It's a pain in the ass. And it's only when you're in the frontier there that you will find the gaps and then you the entrepreneurial step is to just decide to fill one of those. And uh it starts with noticing. >> That's a That's a very good summary of that article. Paul Graham is another guy who's like I don't know if he might be an artist. I
22:30don't know what he considers himself. I think he does actually. I think he's a >> Yeah, I think he does. >> uh in terms of traditional art, but also like when he writes stuff, it's pretty amazing how he takes something that it's sort of like how to win friends and influence people where he tells they tell you certain stuff in the book and you're like, that's obvious.