Ask HN: What advice would you tell yourself ten years ago?
22 comments
You don’t get to choose whether to care about athleticism, appearance, social graces, etc. They aren’t decorative garnishes. They’re fundamental to being accepted and desired by the people around you. You may not think that’s important, but your lizard brain does, and the hellscape it’ll build for you when you cross it is unimaginable. A little nausea or shortness of breath is nothing. Play a damn sport.
Don’t even think about joining those couple startups as early employee, go straight to FAANG, work on amazing tech and gain your financial freedom.
I've spent the first five years of my career at two FANGs, and I think the grass is greener in terms of amazing tech. Maybe I've been unlucky, but so much of my time is fighting with the enormous weight of the infrastructure to do anything. Builds, deployments, running tests, getting support from internal teams, using internal frameworks are all so stressful and unsatisfying to me. Not to mention I've never even sniffed any fun javascript framework or python work. It's been 99% Java.
Don't get me wrong--I've been lucky enough to work with and learn from some incredibly brilliant people, the work pays insanely well and lifted me from the bottom quintile to the top, and I don't have to worry about VC funding running out. But I also feel10% of the flow that I do when I'm at home cobbling together a javascript or python whatever. I understand that it isn't fair to compare my toy apps with the insane size of these companies, but still, I don't think your decision was that terrible in terms of just tech. Shoot, there are acquaintances who joined bitcoin startups when we graduated in 2015 and those people are probably worth a few million right now.
I wonder if there is anyone here who works at a unicorn and can tell me if Airbnb, Uber, Lyft, etc are a happier medium?
Don't get me wrong--I've been lucky enough to work with and learn from some incredibly brilliant people, the work pays insanely well and lifted me from the bottom quintile to the top, and I don't have to worry about VC funding running out. But I also feel10% of the flow that I do when I'm at home cobbling together a javascript or python whatever. I understand that it isn't fair to compare my toy apps with the insane size of these companies, but still, I don't think your decision was that terrible in terms of just tech. Shoot, there are acquaintances who joined bitcoin startups when we graduated in 2015 and those people are probably worth a few million right now.
I wonder if there is anyone here who works at a unicorn and can tell me if Airbnb, Uber, Lyft, etc are a happier medium?
This sounds like Amazon, Amazon isn't at all comparable to F/N/G or any of the companies you're asking about with the exception of Uber.
Amazon and Google, which I have found to be similar in a lot of respects. Personally I prefer Amazon's versionsets to the monorepo at Google.
Curious why you think Amazon is so different from the other FNG+?
Curious why you think Amazon is so different from the other FNG+?
Amazon's culture is very different. It is more microsoft crossed with shark tank and with this strange hint of moneyball guiding projects/promotions.
Yes, I agree with that, but I guess I thought we were discussing more of the engineering culture. I think at both places the biggest factor is your specific manager team, but that the average team at Google is more relaxed and enjoyable with higher QOL.
None. That person had plenty of available advice that he didn't listen to. What he needed was better role models and people to emulate, not advice.
Start lifting weights and exercising.
Note this is not dependent on some historical events happening like Apple stock or bitcoin. If you aren’t into fitness now I highly recommend you get into it.
Note this is not dependent on some historical events happening like Apple stock or bitcoin. If you aren’t into fitness now I highly recommend you get into it.
Do a few small things daily, consistently, 365 days a year, for the next decade. E.g., learning three new words/phrases in a foreign language per day takes about 5 minutes yet adds up to over 10,000 in a decade - essentially the number it takes to pass a C1 exam.
This kind of slow steady progress is useful for virtually anything: learn foreign alphabets one letter a day, read the encyclopedia one entry a day, etc.
This kind of slow steady progress is useful for virtually anything: learn foreign alphabets one letter a day, read the encyclopedia one entry a day, etc.
I took French classes from 5th grade all the way through college and could speak basically zero actual French. For maybe six months now I’ve been doing about 20-30 minutes a day using the “Fluent Forever” method and I’m already able to converse with native speakers and watch movies in French. It’s really opened my eyes to how inefficient learning “sprints” are compared to small but consistent progress.
Yep, this is called the spacing effect and it’s really powerful.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacing_effect
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacing_effect
The 10000 hour rule has been debunked.. https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2019/8/23/20828597/th...
Like a few other Malcolm Gladwell's claims...
Like a few other Malcolm Gladwell's claims...
I didn’t say anything about 10,000 hours...
Don't get involved with web development.
Why
Many reasons; like it's a bit dull but primarily we are creating user hostile software and thats the norm.
I am in my late twenties. All the other advice seems to come from people my age. I would also have similiar advice:
- Focus on your relationships, they take work. Manage your input and your expectations.
- There are probably easier ways to make money. It's okay to take an easy route and improve from there. Time is valuable and interests compound.
- Which inner desires are your goals feeding into. Is there an easier way to get there?
This thread is full of advice like this and there were probably similar threads 10 years ago. Have we listened? I would not have. I learned it the hard way and now believe in it.
A better question probably would be: What advice would your future self give you in ten years?
For me it would probably be around health. Maybe family and friends.
- Focus on your relationships, they take work. Manage your input and your expectations.
- There are probably easier ways to make money. It's okay to take an easy route and improve from there. Time is valuable and interests compound.
- Which inner desires are your goals feeding into. Is there an easier way to get there?
This thread is full of advice like this and there were probably similar threads 10 years ago. Have we listened? I would not have. I learned it the hard way and now believe in it.
A better question probably would be: What advice would your future self give you in ten years?
For me it would probably be around health. Maybe family and friends.
Pay attention to your health, don't eat junk food, get more sleep.
I've seen this on ycombinator's yt and it has improved my wellbeing dramatically: https://youtu.be/LH1bewTg-P4
I second this.
Get diagnosed for adult ADHD.
How did you realise that something was wrong and that you needed to go to the doctor?
What made you feel like something was wrong and that you needed to go see a professional for help?
Can you tell me how did you go about this, and the impact in your life?
Get out of academia
Did you do it? More details on why this advice would have worked for you?
You can do that job, and you can be good at it. But it would take you a lot less time to get good at it and you’ll do a lot less damage in the interim if you hired an executive coach now.
Travel more.
If i went back to myself ten years into whats turned into a twenty year career of travel I could agree and also advise travel less...
Value your time and health more. Give time to your family (kids)
Practice / learn
Don’t get angry.
Start meditating sooner
You will be alive in 10 years!
Ask yourself what do you want/like and why.
Don't complete your master's degree
Don't rely on other's
But do learn how to avoid the grocer's apostrophe.
They mean other's advice. Does one own one's advice?
I could be wrong too. :)
I could be wrong too. :)
Get a colonoscopy asap.
Do not ask clickbait questions?
funny1jan(1)
Buy bitcoin. Sell 10% stake each year (dollar cost averaging per day) starting 2015.
Also get ripped sooner.
Also get ripped sooner.
I feel like this is a cheating way to answer the question. Of course hindsight works, but in 2010, what's the way to spot good investments in general, like Bitcoin and Facebook?
Both of those things were not only known about by hacker newsers but spoken about a lot (a lot!) They were sometimes dismissed for very petulant reasons, "fb is just a php site" etc.
I think an amusing piece of investment advice to consider is to do the opposite of whatever the sentiment about a paticular asset is on hacker news.
How did they talk about Snap in 2018? Twitter in 2017?
Generally, people on hacker news do not really know anything other than what a server is etc. Hacker Newsers are also made up of the sort people that fall victim to Authority Bias most frequently. If you want to spot good investments you have to think for yourself. You have to make the decision. If you are prepared to do that you already have an unfair advantage. But, if you are wrong, you are wrong.
To answer your question more directly... Have a reliable stream of information (reuters deals) as your core...then it is up to you.
I think an amusing piece of investment advice to consider is to do the opposite of whatever the sentiment about a paticular asset is on hacker news.
How did they talk about Snap in 2018? Twitter in 2017?
Generally, people on hacker news do not really know anything other than what a server is etc. Hacker Newsers are also made up of the sort people that fall victim to Authority Bias most frequently. If you want to spot good investments you have to think for yourself. You have to make the decision. If you are prepared to do that you already have an unfair advantage. But, if you are wrong, you are wrong.
To answer your question more directly... Have a reliable stream of information (reuters deals) as your core...then it is up to you.
I think large cultural appeal and integration e.g. everyone and their dog having iPhone might be a good indication of value. I’d actually see Facebook as the most likely of the FAANG to not exist in 10 years, unless they find and purchase the next Instagram.
Edit: I’m saying apple is a better long term bet than Facebook because it has a much better cross generational appeal.
Edit: I’m saying apple is a better long term bet than Facebook because it has a much better cross generational appeal.
10 years ago, when you saw an those as an investment opportunity, and thought, "Who would be stupid enough to use this thing?" You and most other people (myself included) had a high enough opinion of humanity that we thought that number would be low.
The people who got rich asked themselves the same question but had a lower opinion of humanity.
The people who got rich asked themselves the same question but had a lower opinion of humanity.
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