Stealing Is a Skill
Points and comments are a snapshot, not live.
Copying others' work is a skill that accelerates learning and value creation.
Ben Wallace advocates for "stealing" as a path to rapid skill-building, citing Virgil Abloh's "3% approach", only altering 3% of an existing design. Wallace and his coworker rebuilt Mintlify's marketing site pixel-by-pixel to learn its design decisions. Recreating the site forced them to examine every detail, then trust their own instincts to make it their own. The result was a new site in under a month of weekend work. Wallace now asks teams "has anyone done something similar before us?" to prioritize efficient problem-solving over originality.
What commenters are saying
Strong divide between those who see value in learning via copying and those who find it distasteful. Some defend "copywork" as a time-honored practice in writing and design, citing examples like Offworld Trading Company borrowing from Age of Empires and M.U.L.E. Others call copying a site "pixel by pixel" disrespectful and foolish to admit publicly, potentially risking copyright issues. A prominent comment distinguishes stealing from one source (lazy clone) versus combining many influences (creative synthesis). One commenter shares pride in meticulously copying Paul Graham's site to learn about Viaweb.