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Paul Graham is one of the most influential and impactful investor of our times. (We must thank GenWise for introducing him to the readers who otherwise wouldn't have bumped into him.)

When the force behind Y Combinator says we can't skimp on hard-work, we better listen with both our ears and absorb with all of our learning receptors!!!

Acclaimed writers have said this time and again - "Writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair." We should probably have an idiom like - "Behind every successful person is the golden mean of 10,000 hours." (Reference Outliers - Malcolm Gladwell). During this long phase of working, one shifts from the paradigm of "conscious incompetence to conscious competence, and finally unconscious competence."

As long as our outputs are dependent on our inputs, the only way to move the needle is putting in efforts. Yes, what we work on is as important as how much efforts we put in. Because when we pursue activities that are of our liking, the hard-work is not *labored* and can even be fun. One has to read about Scott Adams spartan routine before he had sufficient popularity and resources to leave his day job. Closing my remarks with another suggested idiom - "In hard-work we trust :-D"

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