There are 40 things listed in OP's site. And he claims to have written 40M loc. So approximately 1 mil loc per program, (or 2.5M loc per year)? Honestly can someone write that many lines of code?
40 million lines of code is a lot of code to have written. Is this number exaggerated a bit? Exaggerated a lot? Just doing the math: to code that much in sixteen years (assuming a start of age 10) would require writing 6,800 LOC, every single day.
Yup. My estimate of my own, over the last twenty-one years, is somewhere in the neighborhood of a million. And that's in delivering projects for a lot of customers.
When people are talking about moving fast an breaking things it does not mean to move so fast as to skip quality. They mean they are delivering new goods and old services can be torn down (or something similar enough).
A half uploaded you could have taken 15 minutes to proofread is a clear indication that you are more focused with quantity than results. You then expect us to see you as automatically deserving of a high end tech job. Is it possible that you did something, anything to give anything less than a perfect first impression in interviews?
If you must code take some of your many lines of code and put them on github and use that as portfolio. This is a strong way to make a first impression. Don't tell people you wrote a bunch of code, show them how awesome your code is.
If I were you I try to land a job at company in your town writing software. Even if it is one of those ever so hated insurance company jobs. You will be held accountable and forced to deliver. You will earn money. You will get at least some perspective you haven't had yet.
Then you can try again at doing whatever you like with a little cash in your pocket and no one breathing down your neck.
That was the first thing I noticed as well. That amount seems like a tall tale to me. I also don't like how one of the first things I have to read in this article is basically a bunch of bragging.
For me the most eye-opening lesson about the business world was the realization that you are not an entrepreneur just because you can build something. You become an entrepreneur when you build something that people are willing to pay for.
You may be good at writing software, but are you writing software that solves a problem for anyone? If not, you're going to be hard-pressed to find external validation.
You don't say what your family business is, but is there something there that can be made better -- more efficient, more profitable -- with technology? Some aspect of billing? Shipping? Inventory control?
I'm not suggesting that you acquiesce and go to work for your father if you don't want to. The fast track to misery is following the path that some else chose for you.
But at 26, you don't have a lot of years of hands-on experience in a profitable business. So your father's company may be a quick way to get your foot in the door and expand your skills for a while.
I've come to realize the same thing. Like the author, I've been programming since I was an early teen and that was pretty much all I did for years. I would love to break into the software market but realized that I only think like an engineer and not so much like a business man. I've been mainly interested in the design, implementation, and theory of software rather than thinking of what software that people would and have had a tough time thinking in the business mindset. Do you, or other HN readers, have any resources that they would recommend for engineering minded people to better understand what goes into building a business? Just started reading Zero to One and am enjoying it so far.
Do you, or other HN readers, have any resources that they would recommend for engineering minded people to better understand what goes into building a business?
Read The Four Steps To The Epiphany by @sgblank, and The Art Of The Start by Guy Kawasaki. Zero To One is a good book, but it isn't as much about the "nuts and bolts" of actually building a business. TFSTTE is very much "nuts and bolts". It is, IMO, about as close as you can get to a "paint by the numbers" guide to building a business.
There is a newer version of TFSTTE, retitled The Startup Owner's Manual. It is also good and while it is, in many ways, "just" the second edition of TFSTTE, there's enough new content that it should probably count as a separate book. I'd actually recommend reading both.
"The E-myth" by Michael Gerber is the single most helpful book I've ever read on transitioning your thinking from engineering-focused to business-minded. Specifically, the difference between the Technician, the Manager, and the Entrepreneur. I read it on the recommendation of an ex-Google engineer turned failed-entrepreneur, here on HN. He said that a The E-myth described all the failures he had encountered trying to start-up his own software company after leaving Google. And that he wished he'd read it before he took the leap. Do yourself a favor, and pick it up as soon as possible.
I suspect it is this one based on the summary at Amazon "Michael Gerber's The E-Myth Revisited should be required listening for anyone thinking about starting a business or for those who have already taken that fateful step. The title refers to the author's belief that entrepreneurs--typically brimming with good but distracting ideas--make poor businesspeople."
Yeah - no worries. Except for E-myth Manganager - I didn't either until a couple of years ago my younger brother was going to open up a clinic and was talking about "E-myth for Doctors" or some such. Now I think he has one for all walks of life (like the "One minute Manager" or something). To me, it dilutes the message. My opinion is not the one that counts! :-)
If you're an engineer looking to try bootstrapping a business (as opposed to going the venture capital route), try the “Startups For the Rest of Us” podcast. Start from the beginning. Or startupbook.net for mostly the same content in book form.
Interesting, thanks for the pointer! Doesn't look like it's a business podcast at all (but a “how to pick up chicks” podcast?), but maybe I'll check an episode or two.
Back when Startups For the Rest of Us was new, I found it to be a pretty good value/minute compared to other podcasts I could find at the time (2010). The episodes start with a useless 5 minutes of chit-chat, but the other 15 minutes was pretty solid.
You like Art of Charm but don't like random chit chat? Makes no sense from what I've heard of them.
Anyway, I've listened to more than enough Lifestyle Biz / General Entrepreneurial stuff.
TropicalMBA.com and EmpireFlippers.com are my favorites (newer TMBA is going a little downhill. They've sold their business and are kind of figuring out what to do at this point). There's also the Smart Passive Income podcast (SPI). Nathan Barry (on his self named site) has a few good podcasts as well. He started an email marketing software biz that began out of a blog challenge a few years back.
Also, I've YouTubed the fuck out of Silicon Valley (I live in the Bay Area..and if anyone's local and in the same position as op let's talk). PandoMonthly has plenty of interviews, most are ~2013 though. This Week In Startups has some fun Travis Kalanick interviews and a few Sacca interviews (including a new one featuring his VC partner). Greylock Partners (LinkedIn founder's VC) has a Stanford class up... and last but not least (though there are also plenty more) there is Y Combinator with plenty of videos. Google Sam Altman and Jessica Livingston. They have a lot of interviews not on the channel. Startup School goes live on the site. You can find it under "School" on Paul Graham's site.
Oh yeah, and Gary Vaynerchuck.
Personally, I've consumed plenty of this stuff. I have a good idea for a date coaching (again, if you're local and curious.. or just curious, talk to me) which I may or may not pursue. I started learning to code a couple months ago. Just got rejected from Hack Reactor and MakerSquare this past week (...fun) and now I'm going to continue learning, going to meetups and start making things while doing whatever interests me on the side and trying to work a job as little as humanly possible.
The best way to solve this is to find a business partner who is also a good friend of you. The best freelance teams I know contain extroverts who connect with the clients (and sometimes develop) and god-like developers who do the heavy lifting. You shouldn't underestimate the effort to get a client and do proper project management and budgeting, it's easier with a good friend who knows his business stuff.
Actually I would even go a step further: Entrepreneurs are people who make things happen and then sell it. You can get around being able to make it yourself, but you can't get around figuring out what to make or how to sell it. Therefore despite being a programmer myself I would argue that a good salesman is more an entrepreneur than a good programmer.
I think this solves most of your problems: only accept bitcoin. You can convert them to dollars when you want and the taxes on that are extremely simple.
Kind of pigeon holed yourself, dont you think? Maybe add a tariff to purchases w/ other currencies or the like, but outright only accept bitcoin? That is badass tho.
My dad has always told me that doing taxes is a pain in the ass, that I shouldn’t get into making money that fast. (I’m really pissed off with this one, I’d go back in time and fix it)
Huh, what?
But you're still young at 26 with lots of experience. I didn't even really start my "real" career until about that age.
Keep trying. Apply to more than 5 companies. What about internships? Perhaps some of those companies where you might have a connection can help out?
Don't take this the wrong way, but the attitude you give off in your writing comes off as kind of entitled. I'm honestly not sure that I would want to work with you. Even after you get a job you will still fail from time to time. I think what matters more is what you take away from failure and the only thing your writing says is: "Woe is me! The world is cruel".
Perhaps taking a critical look at why you were not hired will help you to learn how to correct any perceived deficits those companies say in you? Also network! Even if you live in the middle of nowhere IRC/Google Groups are a great way to talk to like minded people.
A modern business owner is closer to a programmer than you realize. I automated almost all of my daily business tasks and now get to spend most of my days just coding new features and accruing income passively.
You can pay an accountant. They're not that expensive.
Learning to lead yourself and doing what you know is right and understanding how you add value and what your value is the most important skills I have worked to learn.
Motivation is the wrong thing to go after. Discipline is the key. Building discipline to do the things that are needed will beat motivation every time.
It's always nice to have external support, but the best support you can build and keep is from the relationship you have with yourself.
There's lots of positive data eschewing the benefits of pursuing discipline as the master skill, because once you learn that you can learn to be disciplined at any skill you need, you can more effectively learn and do anything that needs to be done and get to the task of being successful towards your goals.
Discipline to do what needs to be done will always beat constantly seeking motivation, because motivation implies a lack of it to begin with and staying that way.
Discipline for me is like making sure one takes a regular bath. Motivation is a temporary mental bath that constantly needs renewing. Discipline ingrains habits that bypass a lot of that.
Discipline makes sure to keep you in a position to perform and remain productive. In any hard task, great, aspirational, much of the things that need to be done are heavy lifting, mundane, critical and a lot of drudgery, not tasks anyone would be motivated to complete, and often the winner are those who can be disciplined to do what needs to be done.
They say time and learning from experience is the best teacher, I'm slowly beginning to realize this is true. In our case, talking about swimming, reading swimming, and watching swimming doesn't make up for jumping in the pool and realizing you don't need motivation to stay afloat in the water, only discipline to do what needs to be done to survive before picking a direction in which to thrive.
Some interesting reads that shouldn't be examined internally by an open mind and not one seeking social or external validation for a belief in something:
Not a single one of your links supports your claim. Most (all?) are not even talking about motivation or discipline at all. One talks about self-control, which is a whole other topic and closely related to motivation.
Your statements cannot be read properly because you are using a term far outside its normal definition yet you have not defined it. Discipline is traditionally the execution of codes, norms, and orders, often involving an institution or a person who will inflict punishment or other, well, motivational tools to make you comply with those codes, norms, and orders. The blog I linked goes over this.
> Motivation is a temporary mental bath that constantly needs renewing.
> Intrinsic motivation can be long-lasting and self-sustaining.
Interestingly enough, this sort of motivation is perceived as superior to the motivation you're suggesting (if you are using the word discipline), which is punishment based.
I can't help but think that this is simply a case of drastic misuse of terms. If there was something of substance to be said here, I'd expect to see a discussion about extrinsic/intrinsic motivation, how it plays into self-control, and related pathways.
Pop-culture uses of discipline, grit, and other nebulous terms should not be used as truth.
I'm motivated by ideologies and idols that serve as role models to me, they keep me company even after death. My support comes from philosophy largely.
Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, Mussorgsky, Bach, Nikolai Lugansky, Sviatoslav Richter, Evgeny Kissin, Orson Welles, Ilya Repin, Andrei Tarkovsky, Ennio Morricone, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Pushkin, Hunter Thompson, David Foster Wallace, Albert Camus, Kafka, and most of all Heinrich Neuhaus amongst many others. Those are my lifes main influences. Mainly music, some authors, couple of pianists, few painters.
Glenn Gould especially. Check my previous comments for his mentions.
I feel closer to them and their art (especially music) than any friends or family. I hope one day I'll break into that 'sphere' of people but it's going to take a couple of lonely decades and that's ok, and they've made me feel okay with it. I respect the amount of time that goes into works of divinity. With respect to philosophy, I mean in the loosest sense, peoples personal systems of thought, especially those of idols have helped me. PG's essays, Stoicism, and Eudaemonia come to mind.
So you have applied to Google et.al, you are not the first brilliant kid they have turned down, so don't worry about it. Your first priority should be to get a job though. Take the first one you get. It will suck, you will have ten years more experience then your boss, it will pay bad, and you will be the only one that knows shit, but you will afford to move into your own place, and that is the most important. You need to get a life of your own.
I noticed myself that i stay motivated by focusing. I have multiple projects running and i can be very motivated and passionate but only one at a time. It's very easy for me to neglect other businesses whenever i'm focusing.
If i focus, i plan in my head what i want to do and imagine the results. I stay more motivated when i make visual progress. This has always worked for me and i created a lot of big projects on my own this way. Downside for me is that its too easy to focus too much on product and less on market research, marketing, and sales.
I'm not sure why people consistently get hung up on getting accepted at one of the "Big Five"
"I tried to look for a job out of my city, but no luck, I don’t know what’s the deal with coding interviews, but I bet they don’t work good. I’ve been rejected from"
...
Google
Facebook
Magic
Uber
Holagus (Mexican startup)
I'm not sure what draws everyone to places like this when there are ~many~ other companies.
Also does the article end abruptly for anyone else at "There are two possible reasons"...
Edit: After looking at your LinkedIn it seems like you've accomplished a lot (well done!), but you haven't had much "real" workplace experience - I would assume ~most~ companies would want some industry experience on a resume (I could be wrong)
Making simple mistakes like being off by a factor of 10 and not looking at something you're uploading to get feedback on to ensure it's complete doesn't bode well for how you would handle an interview process...
How many companies did you apply for? To get my current job, I applied for about 120 positions, interviewed with four of them. It's a competitive market, which means it's a numbers game. Don't give up after applying to a small handful of companies. Also, if you're near Mexico City, try spending some time at a well-connected coworking space like Centraal. If not, check out workfrom.co for coworking spaces near you and start spending time there and going to events. Jobs come easier through connections than through cold applications. Plus you'll probably find encouragement there too.
Also mexican. Not sure what visa you are trying to get. But if you just want to work in USA it is very easy to get a visa if you are Mexican and you have a relevant degree. Look at TN Visa. You just need an offer letter. 3 close friends have done that and the process was very simple.
Not that easy. There are a limited quantity each year and the process is excruciatingly long. I was sponsored, had a company-sponsored lawyer helping me and I was rejected still.
There is no limited quantity. The process is very simple, basically you show the offer letter to the officer, answer some questions, prove you have a degree and you are done, no need for lawyer.
Isn't most of the compensation due you receive going towards just existing (rent/taxes/living expenses) in cities like SF or Seattle with inflated costs of living?
I wouldn't say that any company that ~ins't~ a large corporation only has the mindset of "ship fast/ship often"
Sure, even making 400k in silicon valley or sf doesn't go that far if you want to own a decent house without a long commute. For the employee, it would seem silicon valley wages with full remote in an affordable housing area with worse weather might be the best tradeoff.
Hmm, do you know of any specific companies that aren't large that value quality over delivery speed? I guess the key is to look for companies that really measure their key metrics, and ruthlessly iterate on improving them. For instance, if you have a viral growth model, focus on your viral coefficient with tons of a/b testing etc. Using data and metrics goes a long ways! I've observed many companies just "shooting in the dark" which seems a bit odd to me. Not sure how that happens.
Jeff Jordan did a great job at opentable of a/b testing the customer sign up flow and it dramatically increased revenue. That's the kind of leadership companies need more of in my opinion.
Well, making businesses is stressful. I'm the same age and have no experience of the sort, nor do I really have a portfolio. I may have money, but I'm not convinced I'm better off. I think that kind of experience may be harder to get than the money.
Could be beneficial to do some more things than just computer, though, just for simple well-roundness and insights into how other facets of life work. Your parents' business is probably a big deal for them and they want it to continue, which doesn't mean you absolutely have to but it's going to be hard for them to let it go, especially if it is a rather successful business.
Maybe just take a normal job for a while? It shouldn't be that hard to get one with your portfolio, and it could even help you relocate. Working at a normal job and doing well could give you some confidence. Or contracting could fit you better, perhaps.
Either way, this is far from catastrophic, as the tone in your writing suggests. 26 is very young and it's not like you haven't gained any knowledge or skills during that time.
> Is it now the time to make money? I think I’m way off... I should’ve been making money since I was 14 years old, I had an online game that reached over 100,000 registered users
Such shoulds do not exist in this universe. That sounds like it may have been a missed opportunity (hard to know for sure how that would have went, really), but that's about it. Often such opportunities do not exist at all. That's not the only thing you've missed, our brains can only work so well, we will miss things.
I'm a 27 year old programmer that was in a similar situation as you when I was 25 (although with much less lines of code written). I still struggle a bit with motivation for working on personal projects, but I did eventually get a job as a software developer at a non-tech oriented company. I noticed you applied to several highly selective companies like Google, Facebook, Uber but have you tried looking at less selective companies that might be in other industries? You'd be surprised how many companies hire software devs although it might not be the most interesting technologies (for instance I spend a lot of time on "out of favor" technologies like Java EE) or applications (like banking or medical software). For me at least it helped to actually get a real software job where I could focus my efforts a bit more and learn from working with co-workers.. and being paid to code helps my motivation too :). I also don't live in a city, just a random suburb in Connecticut.
edit: By the way I didn't realize you were in Mexico at first. I only have experience with getting a job in the USA but hopefully what I wrote is at least slightly helpful.
You'd also be surprised at the number of companies out there that aren't the Big Five and are tackling a bunch of interesting problems using different technologies.
This. And what everyone else is pretty much saying. If you only read tech blogs you'd probably think the only companies in existence are Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, etc. The world is big and you can have an impact in places that will probably never get press, because they aren't sexy enough. Take healthcare, Google keeps trying to break into that industry, and kinda failing miserably. Partially because the problems in that industry are more related to regulations and people, stuff that machine learning isn't going to solve anytime soon.
I have 20 years of professional coding experience.
The last time I was job hunting, I applied to nearly 3 dozen companies and got only 1 (very good) offer.
> There are two possible reasons I didn’t get a job: Either coding interviews don’t work, or I really suck at coding.
How do you know that you were rejected based on technical merits? A software developer's fit within a team comes down to more than just technical proficiency. Do you work well with others?
Indeed. I reject people all the time that can code just fine, but due to the technical details of the position, they don't seem to have the technical depth in a certain area that may be entirely unrelated to just generic coding.
Stop living in the past and suck it up cupcake. You've been though interviews that went poorly. Reflect, learn, grow, try again. You're not that good. It's more then just some raw amount of code or random projects that you spew out while interested and then abandon when you're bored.
As for the complaining about lack of support. I'm sorry, but you're being supported! You have a roof over your head and food in your belly. You have a computer and freedom of choice.
It may not be the support you want or imagine, but it's support. Don't forget that and don't take that for granted.
It's not a matter of sucking it up. OP clearly has emotional difficulties. It would be nice if OP could share a lil about his relation with his father.
> Wish I haven’t touched a computer when I was 10.
This hit way too close to home. I'm sure computing skills have made me a better person in the long run (logical reasoning, resource planning et al). But I also wish I spent more time working on equally important aspects of my life - starting from those soft skills that make the difference in interviews.
191 comments
[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 259 ms ] threadThe highest I've hit is 3,500 over a three-day weekend, and the experience was awful. I spent a week recovering.
When people are talking about moving fast an breaking things it does not mean to move so fast as to skip quality. They mean they are delivering new goods and old services can be torn down (or something similar enough).
A half uploaded you could have taken 15 minutes to proofread is a clear indication that you are more focused with quantity than results. You then expect us to see you as automatically deserving of a high end tech job. Is it possible that you did something, anything to give anything less than a perfect first impression in interviews?
If you must code take some of your many lines of code and put them on github and use that as portfolio. This is a strong way to make a first impression. Don't tell people you wrote a bunch of code, show them how awesome your code is.
If I were you I try to land a job at company in your town writing software. Even if it is one of those ever so hated insurance company jobs. You will be held accountable and forced to deliver. You will earn money. You will get at least some perspective you haven't had yet.
Then you can try again at doing whatever you like with a little cash in your pocket and no one breathing down your neck.
You may be good at writing software, but are you writing software that solves a problem for anyone? If not, you're going to be hard-pressed to find external validation.
You don't say what your family business is, but is there something there that can be made better -- more efficient, more profitable -- with technology? Some aspect of billing? Shipping? Inventory control?
I'm not suggesting that you acquiesce and go to work for your father if you don't want to. The fast track to misery is following the path that some else chose for you.
But at 26, you don't have a lot of years of hands-on experience in a profitable business. So your father's company may be a quick way to get your foot in the door and expand your skills for a while.
Read The Four Steps To The Epiphany by @sgblank, and The Art Of The Start by Guy Kawasaki. Zero To One is a good book, but it isn't as much about the "nuts and bolts" of actually building a business. TFSTTE is very much "nuts and bolts". It is, IMO, about as close as you can get to a "paint by the numbers" guide to building a business.
There is a newer version of TFSTTE, retitled The Startup Owner's Manual. It is also good and while it is, in many ways, "just" the second edition of TFSTTE, there's enough new content that it should probably count as a separate book. I'd actually recommend reading both.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0887307280
I still think it (the original) is a great book.
Does the book help you acquire the business mindset or does it just show examples of failed businesses with analysis of why they failed?
The Lean Startup by Eric Ries.
Traction by Gabriel Weinberg.
Tried the "Startups for the rest of us", couldn't keep listening to their random chit-chat, the informational value per minute is really too low.
Back when Startups For the Rest of Us was new, I found it to be a pretty good value/minute compared to other podcasts I could find at the time (2010). The episodes start with a useless 5 minutes of chit-chat, but the other 15 minutes was pretty solid.
Anyway, I've listened to more than enough Lifestyle Biz / General Entrepreneurial stuff.
TropicalMBA.com and EmpireFlippers.com are my favorites (newer TMBA is going a little downhill. They've sold their business and are kind of figuring out what to do at this point). There's also the Smart Passive Income podcast (SPI). Nathan Barry (on his self named site) has a few good podcasts as well. He started an email marketing software biz that began out of a blog challenge a few years back.
Also, I've YouTubed the fuck out of Silicon Valley (I live in the Bay Area..and if anyone's local and in the same position as op let's talk). PandoMonthly has plenty of interviews, most are ~2013 though. This Week In Startups has some fun Travis Kalanick interviews and a few Sacca interviews (including a new one featuring his VC partner). Greylock Partners (LinkedIn founder's VC) has a Stanford class up... and last but not least (though there are also plenty more) there is Y Combinator with plenty of videos. Google Sam Altman and Jessica Livingston. They have a lot of interviews not on the channel. Startup School goes live on the site. You can find it under "School" on Paul Graham's site.
Oh yeah, and Gary Vaynerchuck.
Personally, I've consumed plenty of this stuff. I have a good idea for a date coaching (again, if you're local and curious.. or just curious, talk to me) which I may or may not pursue. I started learning to code a couple months ago. Just got rejected from Hack Reactor and MakerSquare this past week (...fun) and now I'm going to continue learning, going to meetups and start making things while doing whatever interests me on the side and trying to work a job as little as humanly possible.
Seconding this notion. It's one step closer to bringing things to irl
Huh, what?
But you're still young at 26 with lots of experience. I didn't even really start my "real" career until about that age.
Don't take this the wrong way, but the attitude you give off in your writing comes off as kind of entitled. I'm honestly not sure that I would want to work with you. Even after you get a job you will still fail from time to time. I think what matters more is what you take away from failure and the only thing your writing says is: "Woe is me! The world is cruel".
Perhaps taking a critical look at why you were not hired will help you to learn how to correct any perceived deficits those companies say in you? Also network! Even if you live in the middle of nowhere IRC/Google Groups are a great way to talk to like minded people.
You can pay an accountant. They're not that expensive.
Motivation is the wrong thing to go after. Discipline is the key. Building discipline to do the things that are needed will beat motivation every time.
It's always nice to have external support, but the best support you can build and keep is from the relationship you have with yourself.
Please provide either some sources or argumentation for such a significant claim.
Discipline to do what needs to be done will always beat constantly seeking motivation, because motivation implies a lack of it to begin with and staying that way.
Discipline for me is like making sure one takes a regular bath. Motivation is a temporary mental bath that constantly needs renewing. Discipline ingrains habits that bypass a lot of that.
Discipline makes sure to keep you in a position to perform and remain productive. In any hard task, great, aspirational, much of the things that need to be done are heavy lifting, mundane, critical and a lot of drudgery, not tasks anyone would be motivated to complete, and often the winner are those who can be disciplined to do what needs to be done.
They say time and learning from experience is the best teacher, I'm slowly beginning to realize this is true. In our case, talking about swimming, reading swimming, and watching swimming doesn't make up for jumping in the pool and realizing you don't need motivation to stay afloat in the water, only discipline to do what needs to be done to survive before picking a direction in which to thrive.
Some interesting reads that shouldn't be examined internally by an open mind and not one seeking social or external validation for a belief in something:
- A few weeks ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12557335
- https://www.hotjar.com/blog/the-passion-fallacy
- http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/14/opinion/sunday/learning-se...
- IQ isn't as valuable as self-discipline: http://time.com/12086/how-to-make-your-kids-smarter-10-steps...
- http://time.com/4175356/habits-routines/
Here's a link that would be relevant to what we're talking about: http://growthzer.com/substitute-for-motivation/
It could be argued with. But, at the end of the day, it's just a blog post.
Here's another blog post, with which I agree more: http://zenhabits.net/discipline/
Your statements cannot be read properly because you are using a term far outside its normal definition yet you have not defined it. Discipline is traditionally the execution of codes, norms, and orders, often involving an institution or a person who will inflict punishment or other, well, motivational tools to make you comply with those codes, norms, and orders. The blog I linked goes over this.
You are vastly oversimplifying what motivation is and constructing strawmen, it's a fairly complex subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivation
> Motivation is a temporary mental bath that constantly needs renewing.
> Intrinsic motivation can be long-lasting and self-sustaining.
Interestingly enough, this sort of motivation is perceived as superior to the motivation you're suggesting (if you are using the word discipline), which is punishment based.
I can't help but think that this is simply a case of drastic misuse of terms. If there was something of substance to be said here, I'd expect to see a discussion about extrinsic/intrinsic motivation, how it plays into self-control, and related pathways.
Pop-culture uses of discipline, grit, and other nebulous terms should not be used as truth.
Glenn Gould especially. Check my previous comments for his mentions.
I feel closer to them and their art (especially music) than any friends or family. I hope one day I'll break into that 'sphere' of people but it's going to take a couple of lonely decades and that's ok, and they've made me feel okay with it. I respect the amount of time that goes into works of divinity. With respect to philosophy, I mean in the loosest sense, peoples personal systems of thought, especially those of idols have helped me. PG's essays, Stoicism, and Eudaemonia come to mind.
If i focus, i plan in my head what i want to do and imagine the results. I stay more motivated when i make visual progress. This has always worked for me and i created a lot of big projects on my own this way. Downside for me is that its too easy to focus too much on product and less on market research, marketing, and sales.
Working on that.
"I tried to look for a job out of my city, but no luck, I don’t know what’s the deal with coding interviews, but I bet they don’t work good. I’ve been rejected from"
...
Google Facebook Magic Uber Holagus (Mexican startup)
I'm not sure what draws everyone to places like this when there are ~many~ other companies.
Also does the article end abruptly for anyone else at "There are two possible reasons"...
Edit: After looking at your LinkedIn it seems like you've accomplished a lot (well done!), but you haven't had much "real" workplace experience - I would assume ~most~ companies would want some industry experience on a resume (I could be wrong)
Apparently so.
WOw! And I applied to 14 and thought I had it tough! I'm motivated by you.
https://travel.state.gov/content/visas/en/employment/nafta.h...
I get depressed for, like, two years after that.
There is no limited quantity. The process is very simple, basically you show the offer letter to the officer, answer some questions, prove you have a degree and you are done, no need for lawyer.
I wouldn't say that any company that ~ins't~ a large corporation only has the mindset of "ship fast/ship often"
Hmm, do you know of any specific companies that aren't large that value quality over delivery speed? I guess the key is to look for companies that really measure their key metrics, and ruthlessly iterate on improving them. For instance, if you have a viral growth model, focus on your viral coefficient with tons of a/b testing etc. Using data and metrics goes a long ways! I've observed many companies just "shooting in the dark" which seems a bit odd to me. Not sure how that happens.
Jeff Jordan did a great job at opentable of a/b testing the customer sign up flow and it dramatically increased revenue. That's the kind of leadership companies need more of in my opinion.
Could be beneficial to do some more things than just computer, though, just for simple well-roundness and insights into how other facets of life work. Your parents' business is probably a big deal for them and they want it to continue, which doesn't mean you absolutely have to but it's going to be hard for them to let it go, especially if it is a rather successful business.
Maybe just take a normal job for a while? It shouldn't be that hard to get one with your portfolio, and it could even help you relocate. Working at a normal job and doing well could give you some confidence. Or contracting could fit you better, perhaps.
Either way, this is far from catastrophic, as the tone in your writing suggests. 26 is very young and it's not like you haven't gained any knowledge or skills during that time.
> Is it now the time to make money? I think I’m way off... I should’ve been making money since I was 14 years old, I had an online game that reached over 100,000 registered users
Such shoulds do not exist in this universe. That sounds like it may have been a missed opportunity (hard to know for sure how that would have went, really), but that's about it. Often such opportunities do not exist at all. That's not the only thing you've missed, our brains can only work so well, we will miss things.
edit: By the way I didn't realize you were in Mexico at first. I only have experience with getting a job in the USA but hopefully what I wrote is at least slightly helpful.
How do you know that you were rejected based on technical merits? A software developer's fit within a team comes down to more than just technical proficiency. Do you work well with others?
As for the complaining about lack of support. I'm sorry, but you're being supported! You have a roof over your head and food in your belly. You have a computer and freedom of choice.
It may not be the support you want or imagine, but it's support. Don't forget that and don't take that for granted.
This hit way too close to home. I'm sure computing skills have made me a better person in the long run (logical reasoning, resource planning et al). But I also wish I spent more time working on equally important aspects of my life - starting from those soft skills that make the difference in interviews.