The You Know What You Should Do Move
Raise a founder's ceiling by recontextualising their small project as the seed of something enormous.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 6
- Confidence
- 85%
Shear names this the classic Paul Graham-ism and says explicitly that he learned the trick and can now do it for startups himself. The move is a sentence - 'you know what you should do' - always followed by an addition that turns project A, addressing a small thing, into project B, changing the universe. Shear's account of the mechanism is that Paul deludes himself about your business and how great you are, then invites you to join him in interpreting what you are doing in the biggest, best possible light. From that vantage point the question stops being about the hard problems ahead and becomes: what if it goes right, and we keep going, what could it be. Crucially, Shear insists the specific ideas are usually bad - Paul is not seeing the actual path to scale, he is seeing a bunch of ways you could be big. The value is that after rejecting ten of them, you cannot help but start hearing the voice in your own head. He compares it to the Antoine de Saint-Exupery line about teaching people to yearn for the vast and endless sea rather than to build ships, and pairs it with a counterweight: big trees grow from small acorns, and many of the best things start with someone doing a small good thing.
Origin
Shear observed it repeatedly as a YC founder mentored by Paul Graham, at a rate he estimates at about three per hour, and eventually recognised it as a reproducible technique.
Core principles
- 01Ambition is transferred by contagion, not exhortation
- 02The specific big idea does not need to be correct
- 03Recontextualisation requires no change to what is being built
- 04Repetition installs the voice in the other person's head
- 05Balance it against the truth that big things start small
How to run it
- 1
Adopt the deluded frame deliberately
Interpret the person's work in the biggest, best possible light and believe it while you are talking. Shear stresses this is genuine on Paul's side, which is why the invitation to join the frame lands rather than reading as flattery.
Pro tip You are conveying a belief about them, not a claim about the market.
- 2
Generate category-changing additions
Attach something that moves the project from addressing a small thing to changing a whole domain. Shear's examples: powering all transportation instead of building a wheel; making a calendar programmable so it becomes the central hub of someone's entire online information management system.
Watch out A feature suggestion is not this move - the addition has to change what category the thing is in.
- 3
Ask the what-if-it-goes-right question
Push the founder to stop enumerating the hard problems and the work ahead, and instead sit inside the question of what if this works, what if it goes right and we keep going, what could it be.
Pro tip Time spent in that vantage point is where the small thing starts looking consequential.
- 4
Let the ideas be rejected
Expect most suggestions to be wrong and do not fight for them. Shear says both ideas he was given were bad and were rejected, and that they were still very helpful because of what they implied about who he was.
Watch out Defending the specific idea converts an ambition-raiser into an argument.
- 5
Repeat until the voice installs
Volume is the mechanism. Shear reckoned Paul produced about three an hour, and that after rejecting ten of them you cannot help but start hearing the same prompt in your own head, applied to your own work.
Pro tip The goal is a raised ceiling that persists after you leave the room.
- 6
Hold the opposite truth alongside it
Pair it with the small-acorn view: most of the best things started with someone doing a small good thing, often for themselves. Shear notes the two pieces of advice contradict each other and different people need each in different contexts.
Watch out Delivered to the wrong person at the wrong time, big-plans advice is just pressure.
In the wild
Paul Graham told Shear he should go hire all the reality TV stars and get them onto Justin.tv, taking over all unscripted entertainment. Shear says it turned out to be a terrible idea for a bunch of reasons.
→ The idea failed but recontextualised the company for him: they were not making an internet live streaming show, they might be building the way unscripted entertainment gets made generally.
On Shear's first startup, a calendar, the suggestion was to make it programmable so it could talk to your to-do list, your email and everything else - the central hub of your entire online information management system. Shear's own verdict is that this is also a bad idea and your calendar should not be that.
→ The implicit message landed instead: that he was the kind of founder who could change how people relate to information, rather than someone building an Outlook clone in JavaScript.
Common mistakes
Believing the big ideas are predictions
Shear is blunt that Paul sees things that have nothing to do with how you will actually get big - he sees a bunch of ways you could be big. Treating the suggestion as a roadmap sends founders chasing terrible ideas like recruiting reality TV stars.
Trying to do it with raw-raw motivation
Shear explicitly contrasts Paul with a Tony Robbins or David Goggins style of pushing. The ceiling rises through reinterpretation of what the person is already doing, not through exhortation to think bigger and push harder.
Using it on someone who needs the acorn advice
Shear names the tension directly: plan big or go home versus big trees grow from small acorns. Both are true, and pushing grand ambition on a founder who needs permission to do one small good thing does damage.
Is it for you?
Best for
Mentors, investors and managers whose people are executing well but thinking too small
Not ideal for
Situations needing tactical correction, or people whose ambition already exceeds their execution
From the transcript
“You know what you should do is the classic Paul Graham-ism.”
“interpreting what you're doing in the biggest best possible light”
“both of those ideas are bad, but they were very helpful”
“Paul is a faucet for these. It's easy. I can do it for startups too now if I want to. I learned the trick.”
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