I want to give you my applause instead of condolences. You can't lose something without taking risks, and taking risks is what makes life interesting and worthy of living.
I'm sorry you lost your wife - it's one of the hardest things we can go through, but like all bruises and cuts, it's not gonna be permanent. All the best wishes for you.
Well said. Although I think part of the article is saying that as people, we shouldn't be afraid of stepping outside of our comfort zones to try something new, even if on the surface it doesn't immediately look like it's gonna be "greener pasture".
I think another thing to remember is that no matter how hard we try, it's not really possible to guarantee that our lives will always be "improving". Somewhere sometime we would all be better off learning to take the good with the bad - this will free us up to experiment and try new things without being completely reckless. As a result, I believe we'll all live more fulfilling lives.
Having read a bunch of the comments and the OP, I think everyone has shared something that makes good sense. The problem is, though, that as much as these "lessons" make sense to us when reading them, it makes absolutely no sense to try and apply these lessons to ANOTHER PERSON.
Each and every one of us have formed our own opinions about things, shaped by each and every one of our unique life experiences. To try and apply it to someone else is pointless, and futile.
Instead, be happy. Do whatever it takes to find happiness. Apply whatever lessons are necessary to find the motivation behind YOUR happiness, and go after it. Strong, focused motivation is the most scarce resource for a human's life, and the path to finding that motivation is different for every one of us.
We live for nothing else but the pursuit of happiness, and there's an infinite number of shapes it can be. Find yours.
I think the problem is the fact that we have two types of engineers: the academic geeks, and the creative geeks.
I wouldn't give anyone a pass if they show no personality, creativity and out-of-the-box thinking with good product intuition during my interview. Vice versa, I don't think any academic geeks would give me a pass if I couldn't solve their math puzzles with a proof.
I could be just talking out of my ass here, but it is nonetheless how I see this situation. I don't like it, but I don't see any evidence of it changing anytime soon.
While there's some truth in what you say, the glass ceiling is mostly within yourself.
In my experience, it's been the case that if you are actually taking actions to pursue females be it white or yellow or brown or red, rather than taking a backseat to complain and/or victimize yourself, you'll get somewhere. Provided that you are self-aware enough to learn lessons and improve your game. Also, a lot of white girls by way of social expectations might say things like they are not into Asian guys, but very few of them will actually turn you down if you pursue them, have some game and are not a complainer - certainly no more than the number of rejections white guys will get trying to woo Asian girls.
Also, most Asian females are not automatically more attracted to white males - it's highly dependent on their upbringing and aspirations. But if you are mainly into the barbie-doll type of sorority girls, then it's not exactly a surprise that girls like that are shallower than average and are more into money, status and how things look from the outside - all of which are more easily associable with the dominant ethnic group of the country - whites. There's also another subtle detail which is the fact that as Asian Americans males, we've done our fair share of suppressing our women in an environment where they have alternatives, but I'm not going into that in this comment.
One last thing I'd also like to add: make sure you are actually Brad Pitt before you go in hot and heavy trying to sweep Angelina Jolie off her feet. Actually even if you are Brad Pitt material it's likely that you'll have to work your way up to Angelina. I've seen too many Asian American guys who were brought up with too much of an introverted ego such that they won't go for the girls who are at their level whom could be a good match but are not 8s, 9s, or 10s. As a result, they flop and flop and flop again and start to believe that they are cursed by their Asian American identify.
background: I'm a Chinese guy who came to the US at age 15 not knowing how to speak much English at all with a single mother who was busting her ass getting a Doctorate from UC Berkeley. My current gf of 3 years is of Irish, English and Italian heritage.
I'm really happy with what Microsoft has been doing lately, but this presentation is kind of failing. It's not really getting the audience that excited. This doesn't affect my opinion of the new products, but it's not helping Microsoft's competitive mission, and that makes me cringe a bit.
Benioff is very very good at playing the publicity game. What was said is not important, that wasn't the reason why he said it. He said it in order to make front pages, and he did.
I really really hope that results like this will serve as a wake-up call to the community that is the valley. We've gone from creating microchips, putting a PC on every desk, opening up and connecting the web to the whole world with pioneers and visionaries, to nowadays creating low-quality browser games which are used to scam users out of private information/money led by ex-wall-street banker deploying sweatshop-like environments, and stealing stock back from employees while scamming public investors at the same time.
Allowing things like this to happen, accepting that this kind of behavior is okay and enabling these kinds of characters to thrive is exactly why the valley has become so frothy. The transformation of Silicon Valley into Hollywood, where anyone with a big enough mouth and large enough ego can thrive is nearly complete. But I'll sure fight tooth and nail until the day I get squeezed out of this place - voting with my dollars and my labor, and a small but convinced voice in what is right and what is wrong.
Is there any existing service out there that is not a 24hr hack? I for one find something like this extremely valuable and helpful and I'd pay money for one that has some traction and is more than just a demo.
Absolutely amazing and a rare voice of reason in our industry. If only more companies would adopt this kind of mentality of building sustainable businesses.
Exaggerating your connections to others to try and hustle favors and more connections is one thing, but photoshopping yourself into photos with celebrities is pretty damn creepy no matter how you look at it.
I was way too naive to expect a Facebooker to not actually be drunk on the cool-aid and actually bother to offer a comprehensive good/bad overview of FB.
I'm sorry you lost your wife - it's one of the hardest things we can go through, but like all bruises and cuts, it's not gonna be permanent. All the best wishes for you.