Richard Hamming's legendary talk on what separates great scientists from good ones - courage, working on important problems, and the art of 'planting acorns.'
“The most important career talk ever given. 'If what you are doing is not important, and if you don't think it is going to lead to something important, why are you working on it?' That question haunts me productively.”
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The 'open door vs. closed door' section is the part I think about most. Hamming chose the open door - interruptions and all - because the serendipitous connections mattered more than unbroken focus. In the remote work era, we've all closed our doors.
'Great work requires courage.' That's the sentence that changed how I pick projects. Not skill, not resources, not connections - courage to work on something that might not work, in public.