Imagine a human being with a growth mindset. He optimises his bodyfat to the point of anorexia. He optimises conversations by extracting knowledge then moving on. His diet is pure protein shakes and broccoli. Every morning he does six Leetcode Hards. If you met him you'd think he was deranged.
This growth ideology means every company we interact with behaves like Bob. Soon enough this Bobism filters into people through the labour market and professional values. (Like the Leetcoders). It's alienating and the only purpose it serves is an investment based economy with unclear benefits to society at large
It creates a very strange world where we have computers acting like people and people acting like machines
More to the point, if you think about it the biggest follower of the growth mindset is cancer.
And turns out that’s not just of
> unclear benefits to society at large
But actively detrimental to it, and ultimately, with a handful of exceptions, to the cancer itself.
This was my life 2-3 years ago! Almost exactly. Definitely was deranged, no argument there. But I got in shape for the first time in my life (-90lbs), found a romantic partner, and got a ridiculously well paying job, all within a year. So, yeah, definitely worth it!
This is not to say low-creative types make a better company. I've worked with completely different sets and it makes for polar opposites. What I find interesting is that companies/groups tend to cluster leaning towards ones which push for innovation or either shun it, again determined by their core member personality makeup. I wish there was some more tendancy for them to balance out somewhat, but it is definatey a phenomenon.
As long as they aren’t acting in a way that excessively blocks/restricts competition, I don’t really see a problem with this. Old companies get boring, and eventually if they get too boring they get disrupted … maybe disrupted to death.
I would expect a growth mindset as applied to health and fitness would recognise short term versus long term benefits. Maintaining a healthy bodyweight decreases the risk of all cause mortality. Losing weight to the point of anorexia would cause numerous potential problems, and quickly be recognised as not ideal and a different approach applied.
Optimising conversations only for maximum knowledge extraction is not a valid approach within the broader goal of optimising social interactions to maintain a healthy group of friends and family who you enjoy spending time with and can depend upon for years to come.
A diet of pure protein shakes and broccoli is clearly not in line with any reasonable approach to a healthy diet which instead should aim to have a broad a varied source of nutrients, again with the goal of maintaining long term health and supporting whatever sports/training/activities the person takes part in.
A programmer/software engineer who is serious about improving their craft would be much better served by taking a holistic view of their role and expanding their knowledge and expertise to a much broader set of skills than just algorithms and data structures.
Your hypothetical deranged person I would argue is operating under the exact opposite of a growth mindset.
But there seems to exist another phenomenon that is described in the book The Mindset, where the term originates, which is quite different.
Let's take some examples from partner dancing which I am very familiar with.
In some dance cultures, it is customary for the leader to try to maximize the area on the dance floor that is occupied (or "owned") by the couple. This is done, so you can dance more freely, do whatever you please. Such leaders may use many methods, such as intimidation and even physical force to push "weaker" leaders away from the area they consider their own.
There are other dance cultures, where the leaders try to co-operate. For them, the area on the dance floor is shared. I feel where the other leaders are going, in a way I dance with the other leaders as well. We will try to harmonize our movements so that we can all share the area. The leaders who are able to effectively use the space are highly valued in such cultures. Beginners are given a little bit more slack, of course, but at the same time, non-cooperating leaders may be pushed out by the co-operating leaders.
I once participated in an Argentine tango dance event (called a milonga) in Buenos Aires, which was for locals only. Many milongas are filled with tourists, so the locals try to keep the tourists out from certain events they consider their own.
I was invited to the event by a friend, a follower, who knows many locals and so is accepted member of that event. But even knowing my friend did not give me any slack, but my co-operation was put into a rough test from the beginning.
Many leaders intentionally surrounded me on the dance floor, and pressured me from all sides. As I am quite experienced in dancing in small spaces, I did not hesitate and was able to continue my dancing and keep co-operating with the other leaders although they were putting me into this test. After I had passed this test, I was accepted, and the testing stopped.
I have also been invited into events where one key requirement to even get allowed to apply is that the organisers know your dancing, and they especially need to know that you will co-operate. These are lovely events, because the level of co-operation is very high.
I think one key part of the real growth mindset is co-operation. You give up on fighting for some resource (in this case, the area you occupy on the dance floor), and you will gain something more valuable -- co-operation with the peers -- and through this co-operation you will have enough of the resource you need -- in this case you will always have enough space for your dancing.
Another part of the real growth mindset appears to be the attitude of anti-fragility. If I accept the challenge of trying to learn to dance without aggressively trying to occupy space -- even though I would be skilled enough to do it -- that pressure will eventually teach me to become an even better dancer. It is not easy, however, it may take years of persistent effort to overcome this hurdle. But without this pressure I would have never learned.
It already has: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_SubGenius
https://jacquesmattheij.com/if-growth-was-good-then-getting-...
This obsession with growth is so utterly self-centered. I still have those chairs, by the way.
> investment based economy with unclear benefits to society at large
"unclear benefits"? Unlimited growth is causing the environmental collapse.
Growth for growth's sake is simply wrong. It is always growth at the expense of something larger.
The three month stock market cycle coupled with capitalism and advertising are at the root of a ton of societal problems that we are incapable of solving within that framework. Between those three we are all just lemons to be squeezed.
Growth mindset is the _personal_ belief that _your own_ abilities are not fixed and can grow. It provides psychological benefit when faced with difficult problems and improves grit. It is not the classic HN over-optimized self. It says nothing about _requiring_ growth.
But for this conversation, the point is made well enough, I just hoped we could avoid a viral pushback against a perfectly reasonable thing.
At some point, obsessive focus on growth has to lead way to something more sustainable.
I like how you phrased that as the positive result of a (personal) growth mindset. For non-native English speakers, the word "grit" might be interesting to learn about. Aside from the other common meaning of "coarse grains as of sand or stone"..
> In psychology, grit is a positive, non-cognitive trait based on a person's perseverance of effort combined with their passion for a particular long-term goal or end state (a powerful motivation to achieve an objective).
> This perseverance of effort helps people overcome obstacles or challenges to accomplishment and drives people to achieve.
> Distinct but commonly associated concepts within the field of psychology include "perseverance", "hardiness", "resilience", "ambition", "need for achievement", and "conscientiousness".
It reminds me of a similar term, "gumption".
> gumption - Boldness of enterprise; initiative or aggressiveness.
I'm lambasting the "growth strategy" that leads companies to release worse products via over-optimisation. I am pointing out how this sort of 'growth strategy' would lead to absurd behaviours if a human applied the same logic.
I think it would be reasonable to class his mode of being as that of individual growth mindset.
But it's absolutely crucial to VC funded businesses. Current VC groupthink isn't "how can we create businesses that deliver value", it's "how can we create businesses that we can convince other investors to see as valuable before we cash out and move on?"
That's why we have things like "increasing headcount" as a goal, because increasing the number of people a business employs increases its perceived value. It doesn't matter if it destroys team dynamics, increases the burn rate, etc. It's a tool used to make a company seem more valuable before the VCs exit.
You can have ordinary well functioning products that just do their one thing and do them well, and thus grow market share.
There is nothing about 'growth' that says your product must add and add features until it is un-usable, which it seems like people are saying is 'growth' as in 'personal growth'.
Just build good products and 'grow' market share.
Printers have failed this by making their products bad by growing features, and thus Brother is winning because it can simply print. A printer that can just print, and not wash your car.
That sounds more like a sustained model with unhealthy targets.
I'd think a growth model would be more like uncontrolled addiction, where the goal dosage continually increases and stays out of reach.
Growth is good, but it will eventually cap out. It's what people do when that happens that really matters.
Analogy is a literary device for conveying an idea. You obviously understood the idea being conveyed, thus, the analogy did exactly what it was meant to do.
"How can we steal a man's shirt while convincing him he only lost it[1] instead?"
If there's only so many shirts to go around, and they have to come from someone else, maybe we just load a bag full of rocks, lie and tell people it's full of their laundry, and then leave the laundromat before they notice. When they do notice, they will blame themselves. "Why oh why," they lament, "did I not immediately recognize it was a bag of rocks all along!"
And I don’t know about you, but I’m kind of glad the healthcare industry has a growth mindset that “what we have is good enough”.
It’s how humans advance. If cavemen thought “well this is good enough” well, we’d still be living in caves.
However starting 200-300 years ago the industrial revolution and various innovations have made other growth possible. Today war destroys far more than it gains you need a large industrial base to build a lot of equipment that you destroy (bombs are not cheap), plus all the equipment the enemy destroys. If you don't go to war you can instead use your industry to build more luxury goods (vacations are a valid luxury good for this discussion though we don't normally think of them that way!)
Note, war above is entirely from the attackers point of view, and it is - as attackers are - optimistic about the chances of winning a war. The defender has other considerations.
If you've studied artificial life and see societies as mechanisms for executing the genetic algorithm, you see the faults with the growth ideology you've criticized. It's a plateau-making machine: it will tend to reward what's working right now, and starve out the genetic pool of anything else, leaving the resultant society unable to adapt.
Computers acting like people and people acting like machines is a bad trade-off. It's not at all focussing on the strengths of each. There's a reason societies (such as big cities) that seemingly focus over-much on caring for useless and suboptimal people (compared to the darwinism of the wild frontier), end up burgeoning and becoming hotbeds of accomplishment. If you treat people not as machines, but as the genes of the genetic algorithm, it suddenly makes a lot more sense to be humanist: you'll get unexpected wins out of unexpected traits being cultivated until they can be useful in their own right.
indeed there's a notion of quality in innovation and development, and also market rhythm fit..
as a kid, waiting 3-5 years to see the next version of photoshop or office was long but good, when the web came, you could get a near direct line with the devs.. instant download, constant updates.. and it quickly felt like a disease, this growth is just instability under disguise
Where did I say that?
> And I don’t know about you, but I’m kind of glad the healthcare industry has a growth mindset that “what we have is good enough”.
No, you really don't know about me. But there is plenty of innovation in healthcare, and not all of it is super costly (though some of it is). Like every other industry it is a confusing mixture of regulatory capture, people that really care, people that only care about their income stream or bottom line and people that wished they could do even better. The difference between say 'big pharma' and your average nurse of doctor is massive and to lump them all into one giant heap is not very productive.
> It’s how humans advance. If cavemen thought “well this is good enough” well, we’d still be living in caves.
The 'this is good enough' is a strawman. There are plenty of things that really are good enough, and which have turned into pathways that are borderline extortionist.
And there is plenty of innovation that is not cancerous.
But do deny the reality that short term stock market driven goals of eternal growth are incompatible with a sustainable and healthy society is a non-starter for me, it is so incredibly clear that to ignore it is almost wilful at this stage. "After me, the deluge".
The problem with reality is it is not clean or simple. For example having chlorinated water keeps you from getting any number of terrible diseases when you get a drink. At the same time it's a deadly chemical that takes huge amounts of industrial processing to make, and if not treated right is a source of pollution.
Not any different then the 'forever chemicals' we've made. They were highly stable and did their jobs well. They also are terrible cancer causing bioaccumulators that have caused tons of misery.
Open ended problems do not have simple solutions. They have trade offs. It's a good idea to fully understand the trades you're making.
>You've mastered the highest paying technology, you've moved to the highest paying location, etc.
The point isn't that the particular strategy for health and fitness is right or wrong, it's that the growth mindset causes the person (Bob?) to over-focus on that aspect of their life to the detriment of more important but less obvious ones, like personal relationships, being kind to others, or enjoying fallen leaves in autumn.
Bob spends his 20s trying to improve his bodyfat percentage, max his bench, get a Porsche, and build his 401k.
He misses out on his niece's early childhood, loses his highschool friendships, and breaks up with his girlfriend for a job opportunity in a different city.
This is like the printer company focusing on revenue instead of brand loyalty or its reputation.
Of course people here are getting hung up on your analogy. It's no surprise. But what you've written here is a very real consequence of our growth economy because humans are merely inputs into hoarding monetary capital. All other capital, including people, with the exclusion pf land and some selective niceties are expendable towards that end.
Yet here we are - with the most prosperous and healthy nations all based on a model around, what you call, “short-term stock market driven goals”.
May you have give an example? Because I look around and don’t see what you see.