Especially if you’re smart. Especially if you’re used to winning. But that’s exactly why hard problems are such a strong signal, they scare off the people who want to look good fast. What’s left are the ones who actually want to figure it out.

I’ve met a quite a few people who say they’re building billion-dollar companies. But that’s not the same as working on a hard problem. Wanting to build a billion-dollar company isn’t a problem, it’s a wish. Even saying “we’re getting stuff to space” sounds like a problem, but it’s really just a mission. The actual problem is: how do you do that when no one gives you money, no one takes you seriously, and the materials don’t exist yet?

A real hard problem shows up when you have nothing: no capital, no permission, no perfect plan. It’s not “how do I achieve this big shiny thing?” It’s “what do I do right now, with what I have, that pushes the boundary even slightly?”

That’s why working on hard problems is such a good signal. It forces you to invent, to adapt, to survive. And those are the people worth betting on not the ones with the best answers, but the ones who stay with the hardest questions.

Thanks to Richard Kelly for reading drafts of this essay.