>The internet is one of the biggest advantages you have over prior generations. Leverage it.
Most powerful statement in there. It's one thing to 'know' about Internet's power and another thing to utilize it to your personal best.
Internet can be an incredible personal force multiplier -- if used in a good way -- leading to never-before-imagined opportunities. This truly is an amazing time to be alive. [0]
This 100x! Falling in love with "making things" in my mind might the single most important trait to be come a successful entrepreneur. The other trait might be "insatiable curiosity", but I think someone who "makes things" demonstrates a curiosity to identify interesting spaces and the resourcefulness to piece together a solution.
That's a really overlooked point, and perhaps the most contrarian nugget of wisdom in this damn good piece of advice. Point is, whatever successful thing you do, it'll always end up gaining you a certain degree of prestige (which is ultimately a form of bullshit, but that's another topic).
The converse also seems to be true: Some currently seemingly prestigious things are long past their relevance, society at large has just not caught on yet; it is good to recognize these and to avoid building your future on them.
That being said, I can see how -if you identify as a non-conformist in some way or the other- it makes sense to move to a place with a higher-than-normal ratio of other non-confirmists.
After all, even if they are not of the same bent as you, at least they are familiar with the feeling of not fitting in and, hopefully, as a result are more tolerant of other people who deviate from the norm - whatever that norm may be.
do you really think people are that interesting in SF? there are a lot of people trying to make a lot of money by building tech startups in SF, but are those the kind of people that are interesting to meet? Yes, if your aim in life is to build a startup or invest in one, probably no otherwise?
I was in SF for the last WWDC, mostly to see and visit these people I keep hearing about. But I couldn’t for the life of me figure out where they were or how to talk to them. I went to WWDC, a couple of meetups, the Computer History Museum, walked through Stanford, ate hummus in Palo Alto, took only public transport or shared Lyft rides. But other than a chance meeting with the CEO of Mode Analytics in one can ride that lasted three minutes, basically zero interaction with the type of people mentioned.
Granted, I am an introvert and don’t strike up conversations as much as I should, but it seems like saying visit SF is useless. Is there a club or some secret society or library or bar that everyone hangs out in? I’ll come back and visit if I have an address to go to. SF is way too broad.
That's correct. 2600 is a hacker quarterly. The 'zine has all sorts of interesting writeups, including hacker politics, 0-day discussions, free software talks, notes from people (including fuckyous as well). And the back is a picture of payphones from around the world.
And the name is a throwback to the 2600Hz tone that was used to gain operator rights on pre-digital trunking phone lines.
Sorry, but that's just not true. Silicon Valley is filled with stories of successful stalkings.
For example, in 2007, I loitered outside Facebook HQ on university ave until I had a chance encounter with someone who also attended my alma mater (!) and was starting his first day of work, so he took me inside with him[1]. I tried to meet with Zuck but they sicced Dave Morin on me. I ended up getting incredible access to the FB engineering team and my app was ultimately acquired, and I partially attribute that to unfair advantage.
I think you need to pick your targets. 2007 FB isn’t the same as 2018 Google.
Also it seems like you might be good at talking to people (based on the story above). The OP says they are an introvert and might find that more difficult.
It's terrible that friendship these days is based on superficial/selfish character features like confidence instead of more socially beneficial features like altruism.
If evolution keeps going in this direction then there will be a point where capitalism won't be able to support it anymore.
Capitalism was designed for a certain kind of species and we are no longer it.
First, as the other commenter said, FB had something between 150 and 450 employees in 2007 (depending on when in 2007 you did that). You can still do that with "smaller" startups today, of course. But you can also just email the CEO of a 150 person startup and they'll reply if you're not full of shit.
Second, just because it worked for you doesn't mean it works in general. I'm sure if 1,000 people did it, a couple of them would be successful. But that's definitely not the best way to get peoples attention. Some YC partner says in one of their Investor Startup School lecture that they hate it when people stalk investors at their favorite coffee shop or whatever and that it leads to an adverse effect.
I wouldn’t be where I am today without 2600. Hacking (real hacking, not pg’s definition) is what lead me to learn to code when I was a teenager back in the 90s. Many of the folks I met via 2600 may not be CEOs but are extremely successful. Sage advice.
I think just visiting for a couple of days doesn't work. You need to spend considerable time in SF, at least to build a base for your network.
- You can meet people by emailing them and asking for coffee. A cool thing about SV culture is that people are pretty open for that.
- The favorite way I like meeting new people is through friends (friends of friends) at non-work related parties
- You can meet people at networking events, but I find that there's a self-selection bias (i.e. interesting people usually don't go there, at least in my experience)
- You can just meet people randomly at bars, etc. but that takes some time :-)
If you want to do this, then decide who you want to meet, make a list and email them all to ask to buy them coffee. Maybe 5% will say yes, so email some more...
Note the advice about making friends over the internet. Do that and then ask to say hi.
Reply to the person on this thread who suggested places to go and ask to buy them a coffee.
I've basically done the exact same thing as you (though I was there for a different conference) and pre-organizing meetups online is essential, you just don't run into people, as you noticed. Even if you go to somewhere like Red Rock Coffee it's jam packed with people busy working on their thing, so you'd need to be pretty forward to strike up good conversations.
nl's advice seems to be broadly on the money. Get in touch with people online first, and also spend more time there so you don't have to pack the schedule too hard.
Yes. The secret is to find a few well-networked people and then get invited to gatherings/parties in the homes of said people. You'd be shocked at both how connected all of the important and wealthy people in SF are and how much business gets conducted at intimate gatherings.
What's nice is it's somewhat less insular than other status-oriented hierarchies in that you can break into these circles by being reasonably good at generating value (particularly as an engineer/technologist) and even vaguely charismatic.
That said, in my opinion the primary focus should always be on figuring out how to create value. These days the upper echelons of the Bay Area are alarmingly saturated with talkers and bloviators, as opposed to doers.
You don't need to get on pmarca's radar. The point is that there are tertiary personalities, who are much more accessible, that can bootstrap you to the higher social tiers. If you're serious about it, it just takes concerted effort and the right attitude (i.e. not sarcastic defeatism).
I would scout specific meetups of interest on Meetup.com before you go next time. You can definitely find several good ones in the same week in SF.
Besides that it helps to be around other similar people, but I wouldn't necessarily spend my day in Philz / Ritual / Sightglass / Four Barrel / a co-working space if the trip was for vacation. I came to SF for a pre-accelerator once that brought a similar crowd.
Do the interesting people really come to meetups? Almost all the tech ones seem like glorified networking or recruitment watering holes.
I'd love to hang out with chill tech folks à la Homebrew Computer Club, but I get the feeling that kind of thing doesn't really exist anymore. Everyone is too busy peddling their wares.
I've had good luck at niche meetups like for one particular language or framework.
And then less good specific but decently good networking at interesting side projects meetups.
I think the general purpose tech meetups can be hit/miss. It takes some work to find the best big one in a city. The best one in my city asks that only startup employees attend and not third party recruiters unless they're sponsoring.
It also helps if the meetup is hosted at an incubator or accelerator type space — one signal of quality vs a random place.
I suspect that even though SF at one point may have been a gathering point for people who didnt want to do things the normal way it has been filled with people who want to make money off the previous group, which makes it less interesting for future trailblazers. i wonder where they will go in the future
If "Texas" is a downside for Austin, then surely Portland has the same problem? Isn't the rest of the state strongly conservative?
Honestly I doubt it will be a city on the tier of Austin/Portland/Seattle, when San Francisco was still the obvious place to go for people who wanted to do weird things it was much cheaper relatively. The same goes for NYC back when it was a musical/artistic hotspot - living space was much much more affordable than any of these cities.
>If "Texas" is a downside for Austin, then surely Portland has the same problem? Isn't the rest of the state strongly conservative?
It definitely does, but to a lesser extent. Oregon is a reliably blue state because the population is extremely sparse outside of Portland, whereas Austin is just a bubble amid a sea of red. Oregon is also a lot less of the "southern redneck confederate" type, and more of the "libertarian don't tread on me" conservative, which is far more tolerable.
His point was that openness is highly valued. The way I'd put it is that in SF, it is completely OK to be a nonconformist and to do things your own way.
It's actually hard to be fully aware of the high levels of conformity one finds elsewhere until you have spent 6+ months in SF.
That's not to say that there aren't widespread prejudices held in SF.. the biggest one I have encountered is the belief that people living in "flyover" states are idiots and are less enlightened than those living in SF.
Saying SF is open to nonconformity is not another way of saying SF is "enlightened". It's just an aspect of enlightenment that SF culture does particularly well compared to other parts of the world.
This isn't even necessarily all kinds of nonconformity... it's just some that are rare elsewhere.
If you pick a person at random from anywhere in the US you'll find roughly equivalent levels of enlightenment and judgmental views. What's unique about SF is that being different is way more acceptable than it is elsewhere.
When you live in SF for a while and then go to other major cities and see how people dress it looks like they are all wearing a conformist costume, trying to look acceptable. But acceptable to whom? It's this instinct toward conformity that is so repellent about many areas of the country. The example I used about fashion is just an example, the same exists when it comes to life choices, values, etc.
Hackernews, Medium and Slack groups related to what you like are great ways to get to know people in SF that are into tech/startups.
Anyone has any other suggestion as to where to meet people that built something interesting? I tried tech/startup meet ups and Startup Grind but they sucked. I had more luck with unrelated events.
As far as "changing the world" goes; the reality is you mostly have to be very lucky. The amount of people setting out to do world changing things vs. the ones that are successful is a staggering ratio.
Hitting 40 this year my advice to any young person is do what will make you feel happy and fulfilled. Whatever that is. It's hard to figure that out, but we only live once and the old adage "You'll regret the things you didn't do more than the things you did." is generally true.
The one sentence version is; say "Yes!" to more things.
The things that make you feel happy and fulfilled today might be the very things that make you feel unhappy and empty tomorrow. The challenge is that most people can't tell till they find themselves in that unhappy state.
My advice for any young person is to learn to think for themselves and figure out things for themselves. There is no magical advice out there that will work for everyone. The same thing that will transform someone's life in an amazing way will ruin someone else life.
nah. that's just too vague. Let's be more specific. Specifically, you are less likely to feel happy and fulfilled if you do not find something that you really enjoy actively doing. Actively working on something that is yours is more likely to make you feel fulfilled than sitting around the house after 9-5 work. But many people end up mostly sitting around the house, with occasional break for travel and vacations, etc.
Actually I think most happy and fulfilled people find that outside of work, risking your wellbeing on the whims of an employer or the current state of the job market is a fools errand.
I think it takes a bit more time to cultivate lessons learned from the past decade. There were things that made sense to do ten years ago, but twenty years, thirty years, forty years (or more) on it becomes more obvious of the validity of the choices made.
Aren't they? If youre on this site you're smart enough to know he doesn't mean holistically but in terms of interest and achieving things relatively young.
Most of my interests formed, solidified and shaped me in this range. 20-30 is more so improving aptitude. I am not saying people do not find new lifelong interests past this range.
haha im sure he knew that was going to be a bit unrelatable.
in general i like that he scoped his advice to his own years though. very humble thing to do despite having done more than most of us will in our lifetimes.
I've never been able to get into audiobooks. I listen to podcasts already, and to be honest I find my retention on audible things drastically less than the written word.
I used to read in bed every night. Sometimes it was technical material and at other times, it was entertaining fiction. It helped me in many ways - it made it so that I had an activity that helped me relax before I put the book aside and slept. It also helped me make big leaps in my understanding of certain technical topics. I found that (at least in my case) reading before bed led to high retention.
Also, doing it this way, it was an easy ritual -> brush teeth, shower, lie in bed and read, feel tired and can't focus anymore, set book aside, turn off bedside lamp and close your eyes and fall asleep quickly. This adds up to a lot of reading over the months and years.
Get it on your phone. Use downtime to read. It's not as tactile as a physical book, but you always have your phone on you. Any time you'd pull it out to browse/eff about, read instead.
I'll read waiting in line. During unproductive meetings. Riding in any sort of public transport/lyft/etc. In airports. On the toilet.
Perhaps it isn't that important to you then. Most people who read a lot do it because they like it, not because they feel it will improve their character in some way.
One of the things I like about getting old is I can let go of all those things I should be doing, in my case writing but in your case perhaps that's reading.
At ages 10-20 one has the time to go deep into many different subjects, would that be viable for someone late into the game (20-30s)? Or would they have to narrow the number of subjects they explore?
That statement is a bit of an oxymoron, you can't go deep into lots of subjects. You pick one and immerse yourself in it or you cover a wide range to a shallower depth.
One thing that I didn't do at that age and very much regret is to be really conscious of being healthy and physically fit.
That's the right time to learn what you should and shouldn't put in your body, and how to be constantly active. There's a million different ways to accomplish that but it's important to find one.
People at that age often don't really understand how closely linked physical fitness and mental health are. But if you ignore it there will be consequences.
And the general, consistent feeling of well-being and attentiveness is seductive - it makes you feel like it'll always be there, without any maintenance.
If you look at the places where people live longest they are not health nuts especially and have quite a nice lifestyle. eg
>Ikaria, Greece, three times more likely to reach 90 than Americans, almost no dementia
>residents stay active through walking, farming and fishing, but they also make sure to take time out to nap and socialize. In addition to their Mediterranean diet, they eat a lot of wild greens and drink an herbal tea that’s full of nutrients. Their community lifestyle also encourages good health habits and regular social engagement.
I am in the same boat. And the damned thing is it's not that hard to do right by your physical health with moderate amounts of exercise and some self-discipline with meals and alcohol.
Yes, that's the greatest component of my regret. I cannot even make the excuse of "it was so hard, and I was focusing on other things".
I started weightlifting at age 40. I never seriously exercised or did sports regularly before. After one year of exercising 30 minutes a day, I am in a better physical shape than ever before. Those 30 minutes a day are totally worth it. And I regret not doing it twenty-five years ago, when I had much more free time than today.
Why did I even think it would be hard?
Seems to me that most people are bad at giving "80/20" advice -- an advice that is not literally best in the world, but is close enough to the best, and it easy to understand and remember. People often make things sound much more complicated than they are; for example there are dozen of exercise methods, and everyone says their own method is the best, and doing any other method is just a stupid way to hurt yourself. It all you have is contradictory advice of this type, it doesn't sound encouraging. Then some people say "well, it's a science, you have to study it", but I don't have extra 5 years of life to research exercise, then 5 more years to research nutrition, 5 more years to research finance, etc. for each important aspect of life.
(Then there is another line of useless advice, which is "just do what feels natural". Well, what feels natural for me is using internet all day long, and not exercise. Because that's what I have been doing most of my life. And of course, my natural shape is fat. But this is all because "feels natural" simply means "your habits". If you have good habits, following them is a good advice. But if you have bad habits, it is a harmful advice.)
If I tried to give advice to younger people, I would probably just give them one book per topic to read. "Convict conditioning" for exercise. "How not to die" for nutrition. "Early retirement extreme" for financial planning. I would have to think longer for books on other topics; perhaps some topics do not have the right kind of book. (The right kind = one you can read without much previous knowledge in the area; and which will give you advice that is maybe not perfect, but pretty good and not actively harmful.) I believe that sending these three books by a time machine to a 15 years old me would have dramatically improved my life.
I agree - it took me until ~25 to focus on my health. I've felt myself get younger and more energetic over the past few years.
Observing my family, I have realized how much exercise impacts your quality of life as you age. I've seen family blame "just getting old" for many symptoms of poor health choices, such as problems walking up stairs or type II diabetes. If they focused on health, they might be able to improve their quality of life significantly!
As a specific example - various studies have correlated the ability to stand up (or, doing a squat) not only with how long your life is - but also how long you will live independently. Extrapolating this - not only does exercise have the potential to extend your life, but it also extends how long you can continue to do what you want in life - such as traveling, walking, living alone, etc. Being specific - I know one 60-year-old who ran a half marathon last year, and another who can barely walk up the stairs to his bedroom.
I wish I had learned better health and exercise routines as a teenager!
Same here, I actually lost 200 lbs in my mid-late 20s and it's amazing how many positive ways it has affected me beyond the physical health benefits. Growing up I never had an interest in sports/physical activities but I wish I had.
That's an incredible achievement. That's more than I've ever weighed. I can't imagine what it would be like to be carrying that much excess weight every day, I'm sure you were physically quite strong. And even mentally stronger for the commitment to lose the weight. Kudos for your transformation!
Ahh thank you, I've never been good at accepting compliments and don't really feel like I did anything too special since many people each day are able to handle their nutrition/weight in a much better way than I can. But I appreciate the kind words.
I didn't start eating well or exercising until my 40s, but now am in the best shape I've ever been at 45.
I would say that I regret not doing these things earlier, but a large part of the issue is that it's somewhat expensive (both in terms of time and $$) to exercise and eat well, so it would have been hard for me to afford living like this (both in terms of time and money) when I was younger.
(Yes, you can eat well and exercise well without much money, but it's super challenging if you can't afford quality prepared foods and a decent gym membership: I don't see many 24 year olds that have a full time job, are in top physical health, but also still have time available for other interests...)
Also, a physical sport. You will never have the time, interest, and enthusiasm that a kid has to get good at a sport again. I grew up surfing and am proficient at it. This makes it fun. Which means I do it regularly. It’s a great fitness activity and much more fun than my gym workouts. I’ve seen countless adults try to pick up surfing and 99% never become proficient. It took several years as a kid before I gained anything near proficiency. I’d be one of those 99% if I tried to pick it up as an adult. I got lucky I guess to have been introduced to it as a kid. That would be my advice.
Nah, there are still plenty of optimistic people in SF. Many of them right now are working on a blockchain something-or-other or an AI-powered something-or-other.
The type of folks you want to meet, if you're interested in doing something that will be seen as important in a generation, are generally fairly apolitical. Politics (at least the hyper-partisan variety pursued in the U.S. today) consumes a lot of energy for the purpose of opposing other people who are expending a lot of energy. It makes sense that neither one of them makes much progress, though they generate much heat and noise in the process. Real change comes from people working on stuff so weird that nobody bothers to oppose them.
By definition only one place can be the Schelling point: the one that, in the absence of any coordination, a plurality of people think would be picked as the one that a plurality of people think would be picked as... etc.
Seattle is (or was) great at many things but as someone who has lived here all my life, I disagree with this categorization. From what I know of Portland, it describes that city even less well.
We're politically liberal (sometimes to a fault), not any more optimistic than average (and quite possibly less), and definitely not what I'd call "energetic". It'd be more accurate to say the PNW has positioned itself as the laid-back alternative to SF. I've known a couple companies who have left the area because they couldn't find enough people here in their particular field who wanted to really work hard.
On these particular axes (which may or may not be important to you), Seattle/Portland simply aren't in the same league as San Francisco or New York City. People in those cities are mercilessly open, optimistic, and energetic.
Having spent a year in the Bay Area after living in Portland for 10, I really do feel there is much more creative energy in places like Portland, and also that it's a far better place to start most companies.
The problem is that the Bay Area might be full of more creative, interesting people, but the quality and cost of life down there is terrible (and nobody's fixing it), and the problems associated with that more than mitigates the benefits.
You meet smart people, but in order to pay their exorbitant rent they need to work long hours for companies that can pay them an enormous salary, and that's usually the big ones you know about already. That financial burdon, combined with chronic transportation issues, prevents the congealing of people and free time required to form the really creative new ideas and companies, and you just end up with whatever the VCs want to throw a pile of money onto.
So naturally, the thing I do find the area useful for is companies that could be considered VC/10x plays. But I feel like most companies, even very successful ones, don't fall under that criteria. And it only works for companies VCs are willing to fund, limiting your ability to get creative and outside the box.
My advice would be to go there for 1-2 years after college, then decide if all the problems with the area are worth it. Anecdotally, most people I've known eventually get sick of it and leave. And infact the problems are so bad now that the area has started losing population.
I think in order for the Bay Area (and California in general) to really become good for creatives, they need to take a deep existential look at themselves and really decide that they're willing to solve the problems. That means making radical, Marshall Plan levels of reform to zoning and property tax laws, establishment of strong regional metropolitan governments, and significant investments in better transportation. I have zero confidence in the idea that the region will continue to be successful unless they aggressively tackle these problems.
>I think in order for the Bay Area (and California in general) to really become good for creatives, they need to take a deep existential look at themselves and really decide that they're willing to solve the problems. That means making radical, Marshall Plan levels of reform to zoning and property tax laws, establishment of strong regional metropolitan governments, and significant investments in better transportation.
And this will never, ever happen. California is going to continue it's slide into something resembling the third world, where the ultra-rich elite 10% live in their exurban gated communities with armed guards, and a permanent underclass of service workers provides for their every need while barely scraping out an existence. The incentives pushing things in this direction are simply too great for any kind of change to happen. I've been here for 4 years now and have seen it visibly getting worse in that time. The place is completely unlivable. I'm now just biding my time to save for a down payment in Seattle or Portland, because the thought of buying a house here has literally become a punchline for even high income earners.
Having lived there and now living in a cheaper real estate market I am grateful for having lived there, where I could not afford a house. I am now no longer interested in owning residential real estate no matter where I go!
The housing market is flooded with buyers right now, all-cash offers and waived inspections. It's obvious to me that most buyers don't realize the risks associated with their investment, don't understand how to monetize them against rents from long-term buyers, and are just generally thinking emotionally and irrationally. Terrible market to buy in if you don't like spending the rest of your life paying off a money pit, unless you're somewhere like Cleveland where there's a lot of decent supply and less demand (I saw some pretty solid houses there for ~50k).
Good general rule of thumb is your cost of housing shouldn't exceed 30% of your income.
To that I'd add if you buy make sure you are pretty sure you will be in the local market for work for 6-7 years, so even if the mortgage is below 30% and rent is more like 50% if you aren't confident you'll stay put for a while you still shouldn't buy. I think there is an irrational scramble to buy going on now too although I think it is not at the scale that caused the global financial crisis.
Not sure why you're getting downvoted... I've lived here the same amount of time and absolutely agree. It's maddening the complete inaction and lack of desire to fix the problem.
That quote just makes me sad. It feels like every time I visit a new city abroad, my understanding of the world expands twofold. SF is great if your life revolves around tech and startups, but I find it hard to perceive as the center of anything but money and hubris. I can't help but roll my eyes at the utterly self-absorbed and vapid conversations I overhear in cafés from day to day. Nothing remotely Weird about any of it.
"People who did great things often did so at very surprisingly young ages". This is very true, Gates was 19 (BASIC), Linus was 21 (Linux), Wozniak 25 (Apple I), Ada Lovelace 27 (first algorithm), Bill Joy 21 (vi), Andreessen 21 (Mosaic), Turing 24 (Turing machine) and so on.
Babbage 41 (Babbage machine), John Backus 30 (Fortran), Tim Berners-Lee 34 (World Wide Web), Fred Brooks 30 (IBM S/360), George Bool 32 (Symbolic Logic), Vannevar Bush 55 (memex, forerunner to hypertext), Vint Cerf 29 (TCP/IP), Alonzo Church 36 (Entscheidungsproblem) and so on.
I would love to see data on the age they decided to master a given field. For instance if you decide to master programming (w.e that means) and it takes roughly 10 years to achieve mastery then you should expect a great accomplishment 10 years after you've started diving deep in a field.
My assumption that it's rarer for those who are older is probably due to the fact that they have to worry about making a living and there aren't as many resources where you can engage with your peers outside of university, and also the fact that as a kid, making mistakes is not frowned upon but merely a process of discovery, whereas when you're older there is a lot of negative emotions associated with failure.
> In particular, try to go deep on multiple things...deep on languages, programming...
I fall under the target audience for this piece and by now I've dabbled with at least half a dozen of programming languages and their celebrated frameworks/libraries- from Front to the Back. I tried my best to go deep on all of them just for the sake of learning. But, now I feel lost and can't figure out which path am I supposed to pursue in this vast CS space. Where did I mess up ?
I can only speak from personal experience, but I have noticed that I easily get excited to learn a shiny new tool or skill, but once I have basic familiarity with it, my eagerness dries up because all that was driving my desire to learn was the intrigue of an unknown experience. Times where I felt like I actually went deep (and it didn't require superhuman discipline to spend time on something I had lost interest in) were when I was working on a problem I was passionate about that required deep knowledge of a certain set of tools or skills. Then I had reason to keep pushing and along the way I realized I had become halfway decent at that tool/skill set.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. True, it is in fact the desire to learn was the intrigue of an unknown experience sensation that makes me jump from one ship to the other, frequently. I guess I need to work on my discipline and focus on a single tech stack for a considerable period.
Languages are just ...tools, instruments. So desire to learn a language (or framework, whatever tool-kit) for the sake of learning .. isnt going to hold far. BUT.. once u have that half-tool, and the half-transparent-new-window that comes with it, u can use it (and bunch of others) to be able to desire to learn something completely different... AND then use that as a stepping stone for the next.. (repeat..) until u find what u want to do, and all those stones either become the polished fundaments or just mark your steps searching around for the way.
There's saying.. if u fall on your face, dont forget to take something as a souvenir...
My advice to my 20 year old self would be the opposite: Don't go deep on a thing unless you are absolutely convinced that it's going to be lucrative. You might bet your career on the wrong horse and find yourself with no other skills to fall back on.
For maximum flexibility, aim to be a jack of all trades, and learn to fluently translate between tech-speak and business-speak.
You’re taking the right approach for your age IMO. Breadth is good because it acquaints you with the solution space for any problem you may encounter. Depth is good because it enables you to build solutions. But you don’t need depth until you know you need it. Depth is rarely realized through academic exercise. You develop depth through trial and error while solving real problems with practical use cases. Once you have a problem, and you’ve used your breadth to identify a potential solution, then it is time to dive deep.
I like this point in particular -- "Don't stress out too much about how valuable the things you're going deep on are." The general stance of people is to stick to the practical stuff -- knowledge or skills that you can use right away. But, it's important to have a long view and given enough time the impractical could turn into something practical. Serendipity is underrated, and in my experience the impractical stuff is what enables serendipity.
Something I've thought a lot about is how to educate people, specifically on a larger scale. In general I think it's a really underrated thought-space for tech people, probably because it's a hard problem that most likely won't make you a billionaire. However, in my thinking/reading about this issue, I've discovered that especially at the 10-20 age a lot of time you have to work towards making kids curious and encouraging this behavior without explicitly demanding it. In other words, I think this article is almost better read by parents than the kids themselves.
The average 10 year old will most likely not go out of their way to "aim to read a lot" if it is hard to get books. Fortunately, I had a set of parents that highly valued education, and they really worked towards opening access to books for me and my siblings (we could go to the library whenever we wanted, and they prioritized driving us there). Obviously there will be the occasional 10 year old that will do anything to get more books but I don't think that is average, as are most things on this article.
This follows for most things on this list. Curiosity, taking hobbies you enjoy way way way too far (read that as "becoming an expert"), and "making things" are all things that I think happen better or exclusively under parental guidance. In addition to that, something I think I noticed (and I'd be curious if Patrick experienced this too) but doing most of these activities with my siblings significantly encouraged my habits. I built my first computer with the help of my siblings, and have read dozens of books I never would have without the suggestions of my siblings.
All these slightly random thoughts combine into the fact that my "resume education" did very little to get me to the point that I am today. I didn't learn how to program at school. I didn't write my first program at school. I didn't develop my love of reading at school. I didn't build my first quad-copter there, etc. So, rounding this out, I'd ask the question; what portion of these activities (listed here, or on Patrick's blog) should I have done at school vs at home? Should education move to a more Montessori[0] style to encourage this exploration? Should teachers merge more into parents as is the case in a lot of public schools? How can a company (non-profit?) garner enough of a child's time to encourage these behaviors?
On a more tangential note, have you done anything in the education/parenting space Patrick?
> If you think something is important but people older than you hold don't hold it in high regard, there's a decent chance that you're right and they're wrong. Status lags by a generation or more.
I winced a little bit at this one, though it's worded strangely so I may be misinterpreting it. The way I took it is poor advice -- when there is a mismatch between yourself and another in terms of "what's important" or what should be kept in "high regard", do not immediately assume the other person is a moral failure. This is the kind of thinking that leads to division and mistrust between people. The proper way to react to this is to make a good faith effort to understand why the person doesn't care about the issue you do, and be conscious that you may also change your mind one day. "Strong opinions, weakly held."
Agreed. The older I get the more I’ve learned to listen to other people and to question my own ideas. I’ve gotten to the point where I actually view people who listen to others and are open to changing their opinions when confronted with good advice as being much more intelligent than those who are sure they are right about everything all the time.
As the Bob Dylan song goes, “I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.”
Are you the co-founder and CEO of Stripe? Were you a millionaire at 19 and now, at 29, worth north of a billion dollars?
Why would anyone want to listen to your advice?
(/s Be careful about listening to people who are obviously statistical outliers, who are young and apparently have succeeded at everything they've touched.)
Because advice comes in many forms and is almost never universally applicable. Something that sounds great when applied to one case can usually be flipped on its head with a thousand counterexamples. I'd rather listen to someone who was an expert in whatever problem domain I was seeking advice in than someone who demonstrated massive success in a completely different area, yet I see people do this all the time. Mark Cuban is regularly on CNBC discussing his stock picks while he has actually underperformed the markets for many years. Yet his opinions and advice on stock-picking are highly respected because he top-ticked the sale of a startup that no longer exists and hasn't really created anything lasting since.
The Stripe founders I'm sure have incredible expertise in the payment and startup space and are clearly brilliant. Yet from reading this piece I can sense in a way that he himself probably can't, a sort of ignorance that comes from a lack of life experience. I wouldn't really be too interested in their ideas on most other subjects whereas I would be very interested in reading someone who (gasp!) hadn't created a 10-figure net worth before 30 if they had experience in that area. What a concept. I can't recall how many times I've looked back on a time I dismissed someone else's opinion only later to realize I was completely wrong. The realization that your opinions very often will prove incorrect and the associated behavioral change is what makes you wise, not the refusal to admit you are wrong and the dismissal of everyone who disagrees with you.
> I’ve gotten to the point where I actually view people who listen to others and are open to changing their opinions when confronted with good advice as being much more intelligent than those who are sure they are right about everything all the time.
I also find this to be a useful heuristic. Particularly "How seriously does this person take my ideas? When I'm wrong, do they make an effort to explain why? Are the open to me being right?"
This works best when you're a student or otherwise new to something Obviously, it won't work when you have status over the person; they'll listen to you anyway.
Where did the OP limit his claim to be about a specific thing like technology? And why did you interpret my comment as having universal applicability? There are categories of things which if you firmly believe that you are right and the other person is wrong in ascribing importance to them (following the OP's heuristic) you'd necessarily assume that person is a moral failure. For example, if I highly regard the ideas of a specific political philosophy, and others dismiss them as bad ideas that have been disregarded, it seems like a bad idea for me to conclude I'm correct in respecting them simply because people in my age group similarly hold those ideals in high regard.
My point was that a heuristic that urges one to have confidence that they have "correct" value judgements simply due to their age is a bad rule to have in your mental model of how to navigate differences with others, even if it's not a hard one.
Context. Patrick Collison is famous around here for building a SaaS business and writing a lot about helping others to do so. This is Hacker News which focuses heavily on business and tech.
> My point was that a heuristic that urges one to have confidence that they have "correct" value judgements simply due to their age is a bad rule to have in your mental model of how to navigate differences with others, even if it's not a hard one.
The entire world nudges young people in the opposite direction from the very moment they're born. That nudging is frequently incorrect when it comes to technology, so some nudging in the direction of young people believing in themselves is appropriate.
In 2006, there were a bunch of college students who thought Facebook was a pretty big deal. Most 50 year olds in 2006 probably would have disagreed and didn't see why it would be important to post pictures of your friends drinking online. The older people were wrong. It's not a value judgement. They weren't bad people because they were wrong about a technology trend. But they were still wrong.
When any new thing comes along there's always a few older, well respected people who dismiss it and say it isn't important. They end up being wrong. It you want to be the one bringing those new things about, you need to learn to ignore those people, even though they're older than you.
> In 2006, there were a bunch of college students who thought Facebook was a pretty big deal. Most 50 year olds in 2006 probably would have disagreed and didn't see why it would be important to post pictures of your friends drinking online. The older people were wrong.
This example falls apart for lots of reasons. First, the assertion that someone wouldn't find value in Facebook simply because of their age is demonstrably false. There are millions of 50 year olds who use Facebook today and because Facebook is 14 years old, that adoption happened very quickly. 50 year olds in 2006 wouldn't have found Facebook useful at that time and for a very good reason- it wasn't a community for them, it was a community specifically for college students. I doubt Mark Zuckerberg envisioned Facebook/Whatsapp/Instagram when he first created the site in his dorm room. The use case (and usefulness) expanded over time.
> It's not a value judgement. They weren't bad people because they were wrong about a technology trend. But they were still wrong.
Wrong about what? This seems like a straw man to me. Nobody other than college students at very elite colleges were able to use Facebook in its early days. Did that mean that students at community colleges didn't understand the value of sharing photos with their friends or was it just old people? I think it's a mistake to try and explain the complicated in such simple terms.
> This example falls apart for lots of reasons. First, the assertion that someone wouldn't find value in Facebook simply because of their age is demonstrably false.
This assumption would be false, but it's not the one I was making. The first people to recognize the potential of a new technology are usually young. Yes, Facebook is popular with older people now. It wasn't in the beginning, even when it opened up to everyone and not just college students.
Uh sure, but for every Facebook there are a ton of things that young people embrace as important, from tech products like the one you mention, to bits of pop culture and art, and even political ideas that ultimately they reject and so eventually agree with their elders who rejected them too. I mean, who didn't go through their "Ayn Rand phase?" My point isn't that these are unhealthy things or that the young are unable to see things others can't, my point was that telling the young that if they feel passionate about something and others roll their eyes, the fact they are young is an insufficient reason to them assume others must be "wrong" to not value it, and doing so will lead to negative consequences since it will undermine empathy for those who have more experience.
After being trapped in a rut at 30, I decided to rethink many aspects of my life just 4 months ago. I made a major overhaul of myself, and it worked out so well I couldn't imagine.
It's never ever too late to do anything, the important thing is whether someone's willing to admit they didn't know as much as they thought.
I totally would share it. I do write my blog at my profile. It will take a while for me to organize my thoughts to write this down (in a month maybe?), but it is coming :)
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[ 2.4 ms ] story [ 219 ms ] threadMost powerful statement in there. It's one thing to 'know' about Internet's power and another thing to utilize it to your personal best.
Internet can be an incredible personal force multiplier -- if used in a good way -- leading to never-before-imagined opportunities. This truly is an amazing time to be alive. [0]
[0] http://www.upworthy.com/4-awesome-how-we-met-friendship-stor...
Oh, and you guys were great on Bloomberg Studio 1.0!
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2018-05-31/john-patric...
That's a really overlooked point, and perhaps the most contrarian nugget of wisdom in this damn good piece of advice. Point is, whatever successful thing you do, it'll always end up gaining you a certain degree of prestige (which is ultimately a form of bullshit, but that's another topic).
That being said, I can see how -if you identify as a non-conformist in some way or the other- it makes sense to move to a place with a higher-than-normal ratio of other non-confirmists.
After all, even if they are not of the same bent as you, at least they are familiar with the feeling of not fitting in and, hopefully, as a result are more tolerant of other people who deviate from the norm - whatever that norm may be.
Granted, I am an introvert and don’t strike up conversations as much as I should, but it seems like saying visit SF is useless. Is there a club or some secret society or library or bar that everyone hangs out in? I’ll come back and visit if I have an address to go to. SF is way too broad.
Best way to meet CEOs is to become one yourself.
I’ll keep trying to search, but could someone post a note on what’s it’s about?
And the name is a throwback to the 2600Hz tone that was used to gain operator rights on pre-digital trunking phone lines.
For example, in 2007, I loitered outside Facebook HQ on university ave until I had a chance encounter with someone who also attended my alma mater (!) and was starting his first day of work, so he took me inside with him[1]. I tried to meet with Zuck but they sicced Dave Morin on me. I ended up getting incredible access to the FB engineering team and my app was ultimately acquired, and I partially attribute that to unfair advantage.
[1] I think he's now successfully retired.
Also it seems like you might be good at talking to people (based on the story above). The OP says they are an introvert and might find that more difficult.
If evolution keeps going in this direction then there will be a point where capitalism won't be able to support it anymore. Capitalism was designed for a certain kind of species and we are no longer it.
Second, just because it worked for you doesn't mean it works in general. I'm sure if 1,000 people did it, a couple of them would be successful. But that's definitely not the best way to get peoples attention. Some YC partner says in one of their Investor Startup School lecture that they hate it when people stalk investors at their favorite coffee shop or whatever and that it leads to an adverse effect.
- You can meet people by emailing them and asking for coffee. A cool thing about SV culture is that people are pretty open for that. - The favorite way I like meeting new people is through friends (friends of friends) at non-work related parties - You can meet people at networking events, but I find that there's a self-selection bias (i.e. interesting people usually don't go there, at least in my experience) - You can just meet people randomly at bars, etc. but that takes some time :-)
Note the advice about making friends over the internet. Do that and then ask to say hi.
Reply to the person on this thread who suggested places to go and ask to buy them a coffee.
Don’t go to places, go to people.
nl's advice seems to be broadly on the money. Get in touch with people online first, and also spend more time there so you don't have to pack the schedule too hard.
What's nice is it's somewhat less insular than other status-oriented hierarchies in that you can break into these circles by being reasonably good at generating value (particularly as an engineer/technologist) and even vaguely charismatic.
That said, in my opinion the primary focus should always be on figuring out how to create value. These days the upper echelons of the Bay Area are alarmingly saturated with talkers and bloviators, as opposed to doers.
Well, then, I'll get right on that! Sounds simple... I'm surprised I'm not already on Marc Andreessen's dinner list.
Besides that it helps to be around other similar people, but I wouldn't necessarily spend my day in Philz / Ritual / Sightglass / Four Barrel / a co-working space if the trip was for vacation. I came to SF for a pre-accelerator once that brought a similar crowd.
Staying in the HI hostel helps too.
I'd love to hang out with chill tech folks à la Homebrew Computer Club, but I get the feeling that kind of thing doesn't really exist anymore. Everyone is too busy peddling their wares.
And then less good specific but decently good networking at interesting side projects meetups.
I think the general purpose tech meetups can be hit/miss. It takes some work to find the best big one in a city. The best one in my city asks that only startup employees attend and not third party recruiters unless they're sponsoring.
It also helps if the meetup is hosted at an incubator or accelerator type space — one signal of quality vs a random place.
I might replace that advice with "be in the city", where "the city" is anywhere that isn't suburbs/rural.
The fact that you didn't step in it makes that a good day in SF
lol
>Austin
Texas.
>Salt Lake City
Mormons.
>Probably Portland.
Bingo.
Honestly I doubt it will be a city on the tier of Austin/Portland/Seattle, when San Francisco was still the obvious place to go for people who wanted to do weird things it was much cheaper relatively. The same goes for NYC back when it was a musical/artistic hotspot - living space was much much more affordable than any of these cities.
It definitely does, but to a lesser extent. Oregon is a reliably blue state because the population is extremely sparse outside of Portland, whereas Austin is just a bubble amid a sea of red. Oregon is also a lot less of the "southern redneck confederate" type, and more of the "libertarian don't tread on me" conservative, which is far more tolerable.
It's actually hard to be fully aware of the high levels of conformity one finds elsewhere until you have spent 6+ months in SF.
That's not to say that there aren't widespread prejudices held in SF.. the biggest one I have encountered is the belief that people living in "flyover" states are idiots and are less enlightened than those living in SF.
Saying SF is open to nonconformity is not another way of saying SF is "enlightened". It's just an aspect of enlightenment that SF culture does particularly well compared to other parts of the world.
This isn't even necessarily all kinds of nonconformity... it's just some that are rare elsewhere.
If you pick a person at random from anywhere in the US you'll find roughly equivalent levels of enlightenment and judgmental views. What's unique about SF is that being different is way more acceptable than it is elsewhere.
When you live in SF for a while and then go to other major cities and see how people dress it looks like they are all wearing a conformist costume, trying to look acceptable. But acceptable to whom? It's this instinct toward conformity that is so repellent about many areas of the country. The example I used about fashion is just an example, the same exists when it comes to life choices, values, etc.
I haven't found this to be the case at all, at least compared to LA/NY/Seattle.
< 30 Follow somebody. It's not which company you go, it's which boss you follow.
< 40 Work for yourself, if you realy want to be a entrepeneur.
< 50 Focus on things you are good at.
< 60 Work for the young people.
> 60 Spend time for yourself.
~Jack Ma's Advice to The Young People
Hitting 40 this year my advice to any young person is do what will make you feel happy and fulfilled. Whatever that is. It's hard to figure that out, but we only live once and the old adage "You'll regret the things you didn't do more than the things you did." is generally true.
The one sentence version is; say "Yes!" to more things.
My advice for any young person is to learn to think for themselves and figure out things for themselves. There is no magical advice out there that will work for everyone. The same thing that will transform someone's life in an amazing way will ruin someone else life.
EDIT: for life-changing choices
For many people, this is not true. Look at how common a second-act career has become.
I lol'd.
Most of my interests formed, solidified and shaped me in this range. 20-30 is more so improving aptitude. I am not saying people do not find new lifelong interests past this range.
in general i like that he scoped his advice to his own years though. very humble thing to do despite having done more than most of us will in our lifetimes.
I've always aimed to read a lot...but rarely manage to actually do it.
Also, doing it this way, it was an easy ritual -> brush teeth, shower, lie in bed and read, feel tired and can't focus anymore, set book aside, turn off bedside lamp and close your eyes and fall asleep quickly. This adds up to a lot of reading over the months and years.
I'll read waiting in line. During unproductive meetings. Riding in any sort of public transport/lyft/etc. In airports. On the toilet.
One of the things I like about getting old is I can let go of all those things I should be doing, in my case writing but in your case perhaps that's reading.
That's the right time to learn what you should and shouldn't put in your body, and how to be constantly active. There's a million different ways to accomplish that but it's important to find one.
People at that age often don't really understand how closely linked physical fitness and mental health are. But if you ignore it there will be consequences.
Going into a full blown mega health nut phase is not very helpful either because the end result is not going to be pretty anyways.
Now if/when we start making serious life extension progress beyond 120 years with high quality of life then we can start talking.
>Ikaria, Greece, three times more likely to reach 90 than Americans, almost no dementia
>residents stay active through walking, farming and fishing, but they also make sure to take time out to nap and socialize. In addition to their Mediterranean diet, they eat a lot of wild greens and drink an herbal tea that’s full of nutrients. Their community lifestyle also encourages good health habits and regular social engagement.
Yes, that's the greatest component of my regret. I cannot even make the excuse of "it was so hard, and I was focusing on other things".
I started weightlifting at age 40. I never seriously exercised or did sports regularly before. After one year of exercising 30 minutes a day, I am in a better physical shape than ever before. Those 30 minutes a day are totally worth it. And I regret not doing it twenty-five years ago, when I had much more free time than today.
Why did I even think it would be hard?
Seems to me that most people are bad at giving "80/20" advice -- an advice that is not literally best in the world, but is close enough to the best, and it easy to understand and remember. People often make things sound much more complicated than they are; for example there are dozen of exercise methods, and everyone says their own method is the best, and doing any other method is just a stupid way to hurt yourself. It all you have is contradictory advice of this type, it doesn't sound encouraging. Then some people say "well, it's a science, you have to study it", but I don't have extra 5 years of life to research exercise, then 5 more years to research nutrition, 5 more years to research finance, etc. for each important aspect of life.
(Then there is another line of useless advice, which is "just do what feels natural". Well, what feels natural for me is using internet all day long, and not exercise. Because that's what I have been doing most of my life. And of course, my natural shape is fat. But this is all because "feels natural" simply means "your habits". If you have good habits, following them is a good advice. But if you have bad habits, it is a harmful advice.)
If I tried to give advice to younger people, I would probably just give them one book per topic to read. "Convict conditioning" for exercise. "How not to die" for nutrition. "Early retirement extreme" for financial planning. I would have to think longer for books on other topics; perhaps some topics do not have the right kind of book. (The right kind = one you can read without much previous knowledge in the area; and which will give you advice that is maybe not perfect, but pretty good and not actively harmful.) I believe that sending these three books by a time machine to a 15 years old me would have dramatically improved my life.
Observing my family, I have realized how much exercise impacts your quality of life as you age. I've seen family blame "just getting old" for many symptoms of poor health choices, such as problems walking up stairs or type II diabetes. If they focused on health, they might be able to improve their quality of life significantly!
As a specific example - various studies have correlated the ability to stand up (or, doing a squat) not only with how long your life is - but also how long you will live independently. Extrapolating this - not only does exercise have the potential to extend your life, but it also extends how long you can continue to do what you want in life - such as traveling, walking, living alone, etc. Being specific - I know one 60-year-old who ran a half marathon last year, and another who can barely walk up the stairs to his bedroom.
I wish I had learned better health and exercise routines as a teenager!
I would say that I regret not doing these things earlier, but a large part of the issue is that it's somewhat expensive (both in terms of time and $$) to exercise and eat well, so it would have been hard for me to afford living like this (both in terms of time and money) when I was younger.
(Yes, you can eat well and exercise well without much money, but it's super challenging if you can't afford quality prepared foods and a decent gym membership: I don't see many 24 year olds that have a full time job, are in top physical health, but also still have time available for other interests...)
This could describe Seattle, Portland, Austin, Denver (from my experience) in the US, and a myriad of other places worldwide.
The type of folks you want to meet, if you're interested in doing something that will be seen as important in a generation, are generally fairly apolitical. Politics (at least the hyper-partisan variety pursued in the U.S. today) consumes a lot of energy for the purpose of opposing other people who are expending a lot of energy. It makes sense that neither one of them makes much progress, though they generate much heat and noise in the process. Real change comes from people working on stuff so weird that nobody bothers to oppose them.
We're politically liberal (sometimes to a fault), not any more optimistic than average (and quite possibly less), and definitely not what I'd call "energetic". It'd be more accurate to say the PNW has positioned itself as the laid-back alternative to SF. I've known a couple companies who have left the area because they couldn't find enough people here in their particular field who wanted to really work hard.
On these particular axes (which may or may not be important to you), Seattle/Portland simply aren't in the same league as San Francisco or New York City. People in those cities are mercilessly open, optimistic, and energetic.
The problem is that the Bay Area might be full of more creative, interesting people, but the quality and cost of life down there is terrible (and nobody's fixing it), and the problems associated with that more than mitigates the benefits.
You meet smart people, but in order to pay their exorbitant rent they need to work long hours for companies that can pay them an enormous salary, and that's usually the big ones you know about already. That financial burdon, combined with chronic transportation issues, prevents the congealing of people and free time required to form the really creative new ideas and companies, and you just end up with whatever the VCs want to throw a pile of money onto.
So naturally, the thing I do find the area useful for is companies that could be considered VC/10x plays. But I feel like most companies, even very successful ones, don't fall under that criteria. And it only works for companies VCs are willing to fund, limiting your ability to get creative and outside the box.
My advice would be to go there for 1-2 years after college, then decide if all the problems with the area are worth it. Anecdotally, most people I've known eventually get sick of it and leave. And infact the problems are so bad now that the area has started losing population.
I think in order for the Bay Area (and California in general) to really become good for creatives, they need to take a deep existential look at themselves and really decide that they're willing to solve the problems. That means making radical, Marshall Plan levels of reform to zoning and property tax laws, establishment of strong regional metropolitan governments, and significant investments in better transportation. I have zero confidence in the idea that the region will continue to be successful unless they aggressively tackle these problems.
And this will never, ever happen. California is going to continue it's slide into something resembling the third world, where the ultra-rich elite 10% live in their exurban gated communities with armed guards, and a permanent underclass of service workers provides for their every need while barely scraping out an existence. The incentives pushing things in this direction are simply too great for any kind of change to happen. I've been here for 4 years now and have seen it visibly getting worse in that time. The place is completely unlivable. I'm now just biding my time to save for a down payment in Seattle or Portland, because the thought of buying a house here has literally become a punchline for even high income earners.
Good general rule of thumb is your cost of housing shouldn't exceed 30% of your income.
The 40x rule in New York (annual income must be at least 40x monthly rent) conveniently works out to be 30% too.
https://www.nakedapartments.com/guides/nyc/beginning-your-se...
You can create complex things while young, but also you can pick up skateboarding at 40.
My assumption that it's rarer for those who are older is probably due to the fact that they have to worry about making a living and there aren't as many resources where you can engage with your peers outside of university, and also the fact that as a kid, making mistakes is not frowned upon but merely a process of discovery, whereas when you're older there is a lot of negative emotions associated with failure.
I fall under the target audience for this piece and by now I've dabbled with at least half a dozen of programming languages and their celebrated frameworks/libraries- from Front to the Back. I tried my best to go deep on all of them just for the sake of learning. But, now I feel lost and can't figure out which path am I supposed to pursue in this vast CS space. Where did I mess up ?
Edit: spelling errors
There's saying.. if u fall on your face, dont forget to take something as a souvenir...
have fun
For maximum flexibility, aim to be a jack of all trades, and learn to fluently translate between tech-speak and business-speak.
The average 10 year old will most likely not go out of their way to "aim to read a lot" if it is hard to get books. Fortunately, I had a set of parents that highly valued education, and they really worked towards opening access to books for me and my siblings (we could go to the library whenever we wanted, and they prioritized driving us there). Obviously there will be the occasional 10 year old that will do anything to get more books but I don't think that is average, as are most things on this article.
This follows for most things on this list. Curiosity, taking hobbies you enjoy way way way too far (read that as "becoming an expert"), and "making things" are all things that I think happen better or exclusively under parental guidance. In addition to that, something I think I noticed (and I'd be curious if Patrick experienced this too) but doing most of these activities with my siblings significantly encouraged my habits. I built my first computer with the help of my siblings, and have read dozens of books I never would have without the suggestions of my siblings.
All these slightly random thoughts combine into the fact that my "resume education" did very little to get me to the point that I am today. I didn't learn how to program at school. I didn't write my first program at school. I didn't develop my love of reading at school. I didn't build my first quad-copter there, etc. So, rounding this out, I'd ask the question; what portion of these activities (listed here, or on Patrick's blog) should I have done at school vs at home? Should education move to a more Montessori[0] style to encourage this exploration? Should teachers merge more into parents as is the case in a lot of public schools? How can a company (non-profit?) garner enough of a child's time to encourage these behaviors?
On a more tangential note, have you done anything in the education/parenting space Patrick?
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montessori_education
It's scale that seems to kill education, in fact I sometimes wonder if there might just be too much of it.
I winced a little bit at this one, though it's worded strangely so I may be misinterpreting it. The way I took it is poor advice -- when there is a mismatch between yourself and another in terms of "what's important" or what should be kept in "high regard", do not immediately assume the other person is a moral failure. This is the kind of thinking that leads to division and mistrust between people. The proper way to react to this is to make a good faith effort to understand why the person doesn't care about the issue you do, and be conscious that you may also change your mind one day. "Strong opinions, weakly held."
As the Bob Dylan song goes, “I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.”
Why would anyone want to listen to your advice?
(/s Be careful about listening to people who are obviously statistical outliers, who are young and apparently have succeeded at everything they've touched.)
I see this all the time and just wanted to point it out.
The Stripe founders I'm sure have incredible expertise in the payment and startup space and are clearly brilliant. Yet from reading this piece I can sense in a way that he himself probably can't, a sort of ignorance that comes from a lack of life experience. I wouldn't really be too interested in their ideas on most other subjects whereas I would be very interested in reading someone who (gasp!) hadn't created a 10-figure net worth before 30 if they had experience in that area. What a concept. I can't recall how many times I've looked back on a time I dismissed someone else's opinion only later to realize I was completely wrong. The realization that your opinions very often will prove incorrect and the associated behavioral change is what makes you wise, not the refusal to admit you are wrong and the dismissal of everyone who disagrees with you.
I also find this to be a useful heuristic. Particularly "How seriously does this person take my ideas? When I'm wrong, do they make an effort to explain why? Are the open to me being right?"
This works best when you're a student or otherwise new to something Obviously, it won't work when you have status over the person; they'll listen to you anyway.
My point was that a heuristic that urges one to have confidence that they have "correct" value judgements simply due to their age is a bad rule to have in your mental model of how to navigate differences with others, even if it's not a hard one.
> My point was that a heuristic that urges one to have confidence that they have "correct" value judgements simply due to their age is a bad rule to have in your mental model of how to navigate differences with others, even if it's not a hard one.
The entire world nudges young people in the opposite direction from the very moment they're born. That nudging is frequently incorrect when it comes to technology, so some nudging in the direction of young people believing in themselves is appropriate.
In 2006, there were a bunch of college students who thought Facebook was a pretty big deal. Most 50 year olds in 2006 probably would have disagreed and didn't see why it would be important to post pictures of your friends drinking online. The older people were wrong. It's not a value judgement. They weren't bad people because they were wrong about a technology trend. But they were still wrong.
When any new thing comes along there's always a few older, well respected people who dismiss it and say it isn't important. They end up being wrong. It you want to be the one bringing those new things about, you need to learn to ignore those people, even though they're older than you.
This example falls apart for lots of reasons. First, the assertion that someone wouldn't find value in Facebook simply because of their age is demonstrably false. There are millions of 50 year olds who use Facebook today and because Facebook is 14 years old, that adoption happened very quickly. 50 year olds in 2006 wouldn't have found Facebook useful at that time and for a very good reason- it wasn't a community for them, it was a community specifically for college students. I doubt Mark Zuckerberg envisioned Facebook/Whatsapp/Instagram when he first created the site in his dorm room. The use case (and usefulness) expanded over time.
> It's not a value judgement. They weren't bad people because they were wrong about a technology trend. But they were still wrong.
Wrong about what? This seems like a straw man to me. Nobody other than college students at very elite colleges were able to use Facebook in its early days. Did that mean that students at community colleges didn't understand the value of sharing photos with their friends or was it just old people? I think it's a mistake to try and explain the complicated in such simple terms.
This assumption would be false, but it's not the one I was making. The first people to recognize the potential of a new technology are usually young. Yes, Facebook is popular with older people now. It wasn't in the beginning, even when it opened up to everyone and not just college students.
When you feel old and curmudgeonly, that's the perfect time to take a deep breath and become a beginner in something new.
It's never ever too late to do anything, the important thing is whether someone's willing to admit they didn't know as much as they thought.