Researchers and Founders

The author, who has worked with founders and now works with researchers, argues that the best people in both groups share common traits worth learning from, even though they often differ from average people in ways like very high self-belief. The traits named include spending much time on the Hamming question of which important problems in one's field one should be working on, a laser focus on the next step combined with long-term vision, and extreme persistence. The article also cites a bias toward action, honest assessment of what is and isn't working, a steady supply of ideas, strong valuing of autonomy, and motivation driven often by genuine curiosity.