Hacker News Reader

Comment by Ardit20 | Hacker News Reader

I do not think it is useless to ask what makes me happy. You know there are such things as forests and trees. You start with differentiating big themes, such as what makes me happy, or what do I want, or what will I be doing in ten years time, or am I really in love, you focus on one of the big themes and then you go into the specifics.

Its harder to start from the bottom up when the matter is so pervasive and complex.

View on HN

Another thing I've noticed is that asking the "big questions" (e.g. "Who is our customer? What will make me happy?) sometimes becomes a way to avoid acknowledging the answer. The purpose of the question is to bury you in the process of finding an answer, while simultaneously obscuring the answer itself. If you're a business, you probably already know who your customers are. If you're an individual, you probably already know what makes you happy. Attaching momentous formalism to the question only serves to emphasize process over result.

I _think_ the article is trying to convey that asking those questions about an existing business is not helpful. I first read it as 'These are all bad questions that are never useful,' which is obviously false. But in the situation where there is an existing in depth knowledge base, they are better replaced with more topical questions.

I baulked at 'What is our goal?" since that is the first question I ask after someone requests help. But if I am expected to already be acquainted with the situation, I wouldn't ask.

I use 'what's your goal' as a conversation starter as well, but if it gets bogged down there, I start to tune out.

I think you and I may differ in what we consider 'useful.' I don't classify procedural starting points as 'useful' except in a ritualistic sense. So in that sense I think I stand by my rather extreme-sounding view :)

I believe it is not a big picture/details distinction but an information-free vs. informational distinction. There can be insight questions that are very large scale. Pascal's "probability that God/heaven/hell exist" is a very insightful but big-picture question.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com