Read writers who operate

We have more books on birds written by ornithologists than books on birds written by birds, and books on ornithologists written by birds. Taleb eloquently describes this as the key problem of knowledge, or in other words as epistemic arrogance. Strong corollary can be drawn with various disciplines, including entrepreneurship.

Entrepreneurs simply spend more time doing entrepreneurship rather than writing about entrepreneurship. It’s very difficult for successful entrepreneurs who are in the thick of action, to be talking about action.

Take the example of the Elon Musk biography by Walter Isaacson written on 2023. It’s been just a year, and it seems to be already outdated. In this short span, Musk has gone ahead to influence Trump’s 2024 election, grow xAI as an alternative to ChatGPT, and even make great progress on Neuralink/Boring Company and shitpost (and buy Twitter) at the same time. (Walter Isaacson should rather do something similar to Robert Caro’s four-volume series on Lyndon Johnson). Raw material is necessary for all professions of any importance; all the more merrier when they write about in a first-hand account.

I’m interesting in this rare breed of folks who thrive in this intersection: of being operator-writers. Will Larson describes this phenomenon in his essay (also originally coining this term of writer-operators). For whom, ‘writing about their experiences’ is a part-time hobby. And when their own experience is a resource:

‘A writer—and, I believe, generally all persons—must think that whatever happens to him or her is a resource. All things have been given to us for a purpose, and an artist must feel this more intensely. All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art.’ — Luis Borges

I’m imagining there’s more to this relationship between writing and doing. My hypothesis here is that (doing) makes your thinking clearer, so you write better. Without the fluff. Speaking about fluff, the Arabs have an expression for trenchant prose: no skill to understand it, mastery to write it. The more I listen to Naval Ravikant or Steve Jobs, seeks to confirm this hypothesis; that “you have to work hard to get your thinking clean and simple”. Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, and writers who operate have a unique knack to shine at this, when they talk about their domain.

The content of the book-writers without adequate episteme also seem to be a dull dud in contrast. You will also notice the writers shift from genuine passion in a given niche, to a more ephemeral engagement in topical events and the latest new controversy in limelight. Larson contrasts “writers who operate” with full-time writers, noting that the former are less influenced by the expectations of writing audiences or other writers’ communities.

So here are some lists:

Venture operators (as mentioned originally in Patrick Collinson’s list)

Writer-operators are generally a broad church, and many more writers out there who fit this archetype. Someone who hasn’t written anything for the past few years would also NOT make it into this list.

Apart from venture operators and entrepreneurs, we also do have some genius individual contributors who are having fun writing about all that they’ve shipped (originally from Guzev’s list):

I’m consciously intending to read more of writers who operate. We are what our feed is.

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