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Comment by z-tech | Hacker News Reader

What have I gained from reading this other than learn that the author is a high achieving person? I'm a software engineer in my late twenties in America. I would guess this blog is geared toward people like me, yet the author seems comedically unaware that very few, remarkably close to zero people, have opportunities like pursuing a PhD at MIT. So you chose MIT... I think most people would have. This is just a self congratulatory story with a cheap facade of wisdom.

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"My career choices were amazing, it was hard to pick between all the fantastic options. I made a decision to pick the better option and am happy with what I chose. You should do all these things too"

As someone with lots of options too, I think hes trying to say-

>Dont do something comfortable or high paying for those reasons alone

>Think through decisions

>Set yourself up for the future

I sold out and took the money, but I had a future of building my personal projects and my job got me into electrical engineering where I was chemical prior.

I think this can apply in other fields, but consider it a list of things NOT to do.

And "I'd like to share three lessons I learned while building my startup, which is called ___ and includes innovative features such as ___ and here's where you can sign up for the email list..."

I kind of got the same feeling, though I'm not discounting that there is a lesson in there someone. But this line in particular got me:

> ...then pursue only jobs that will reward you with these traits if and when you master rare and valuable skills.

In my experience, most folks don't really have this luxury.

You're almost right. But it's also a perfect story and excuse to write a self congratulatory story masquerading as entrepreneurial wisdom.

Being able to do that is kind of the definition of success. Revisionist founder narratives are like the Epics of Giglamesh; personal myths perpetuating egos and archetypes.

I like individualization; unique interesting people who don't just have 1 or 2 opportunities like this in their life but infinite and dimensonless opportunities.

Everyone's life is like this. Every moment is infinite as long as you don't define it solely by Establishment-confining paths like academia or high finance.

Hackers and painters.

On the other hand, in 2004, I was... not that much older than the author... and making not that much less than the author said microsoft was offering them (of course, instead of 4 years of school, I had ~6 years of post highschool work experience) I totally would have qualified for the next tier down from the author in industry... while in school? I'd have qualified for the very bottom tier.

The point may simply have been that while the microsoft job might have seemed special to someone without family/friends in the industry, it wasn't that much better than what was available to someone the educational establishment would see as bottom-of-sight, while a computer science PhD at MIT is certainly something very special, something I almost certainly will never have the opportunity to get.

(I am currently trying to get into a good school... and it's super interesting and different from anything I've ever tried before, in that the good schools? they judge you as much on your failures as on your successes. In industry? it seems to be the other way around; my failures, if anything, are bonuses. I failed at this that or the other and I learned these things and you should hire me because of it. In getting into college, though? as far as I can tell, they want someone who hasn't failed, because they are afraid of you failing at this, too, and ruining their stats. Of course... I guess that's part of why I want to get into an elite program, too; I figure that if you have a 90+% graduation rate, you are setup so that people don't fail. I mean, I know you pick good people on the frontend... but I know these people from work, and they aren't superhumans who don't fail in the real world when it comes to tasks that I personally consider quite a bit easier than academia.)

Don't Know What to Do with Your Life? Go to One of the World's Most Prestigious Universities, things will probably work out

I am glad you wrote this comment. I had a pretty bad feeling when I read the article but I thought maybe I am just too cynical. Most of us can be happy if they ever encounter one good option in life. They never have to deal with choosing between two very good options.

I wanted to cheer to this because I'm plainly jealous of the author. There is nurture, and there is nature. And there is privilege (of many kinds and hues) and luck. Some people get an unreasonable amount of it, some others make the best of what they got, but the majority of the world simply struggles against both externalities and self-imposed limitations.

But this is Cal Newport, and he's shared what made him successful by heaps of writing - both his blog and his books, esp. "Deep Work" and "So Good They Can't Ignore You". You can't get his genes or his upbringing, but he's generous enough to teach what makes him tick. And if he's ostentatious, it is of the intellectual variety, and not of power or wealth, which is a minor lapse that doesn't deserve attention.

> generous enough to teach what makes him tick

Or opportunistic enough to cash in on his privilege by both obtaining a fruitful career and then writing aspirational self-help books about it.

This is the same fundamental flaw that dooms Paul Graham's startup essays to near irrelevance for 99% of people. He was seemingly oblivious to how much financially security and Ivy League pedigree assisted him at every turn of his startup founding and investing career.

The lesson to learn is that good advice applies to your situation and bad advice does not.

Cal Newport writes like this. His stories read like, "Joe Bloggs was a loner, a drifter. When he pulled up his beat-up truck, moving back to his parent's swamp ranch in the summer of 2006, he had no idea what to do with his life. Two years later, when he had completed his PhD in automated high-frequency trading at Caltech, he was still wondering what to do with his life."

With that said, it doesn't make him terrible. He's just a somewhat-elitist, academically-focused, motivational writer. He has literally written a book on how to be a straight-A student in college. It's not much help to someone who can't even break into those circles, but his ideas still have a place for those who can.

Yeah I was going to say he probably didn't have a big student loan and a kid to support.

This is the stuff we really need to fix together as a community. This article says next to nothing but name drops a couple prestigious companies and universities? I don't want to value things of little substanance simply because they feel elite.

"I don't want to value things of little substanance simply because they feel elite."

You realize that you're posting this on a forum run by Ycombinator, right?

Lol. You're right.

I don't think he was focusing on the opportunities themselves but the choice between them and why he chose what he did.

It could apply to a broke high school dropout too. Choose the path that provides more opportunities to grow. Don't choose based only on the starting pay.

While I agree that it's sort of self congratulatory, I have a similar anecdote where I chose poorly. I'd been offered an internship with a CS prof when I was an undergrad, after doing what I thought was trivial extra credit on an assignment. I never took him up on job because he was offering was only paying minimum wage, and I was already making more than that. It was extremely short sighted of me at the time. It would have opened way more doors and even way more salary if that was actually all I cared about. It was a decision that probably set me back a decade in my career alone, never mind the chance to work with an amazing researcher. I just couldn't see it at the time, because I wasn't thinking in terms of future potential. Which is sort of just saying I was young and foolish.

This is similar to the "advice" you see in sports criticism that boils down to "Just recruit good players and have those players play consistently well! Easy!"

The part that's actually difficult is in the omitted details, privileges, and luck involved in getting the author to where they are now.

First, the whole blog is about trying to be the best you can be. To a small extent, it is targeting people who want to be high achievers.

Second, how do you think it would sound if an MIT PhD started giving examples using underprivileged folks? I think many would equally dismiss him for being way out of touch.

Third, I see nothing in the advice given that limits it to privileged folks.

My point is that I don't think he's given any advice that isn't painfully common sense. "Choose the path you think will be best for you." I read more intellectually stimulating bullsh*t on the back of a kumbucha bottle at lunch.

But mix in the letters M, I and T and people suddenly think he's tall engineer Confucious. People need to think about who they idolize and what it says about them.

But mix in the letters M, I and T and people suddenly think he's tall engineer Confucious. We as the tech community need to think really carefully about who we choose to idolize and what that says about us.

>Choose the path you think will be best for you.

I'm not going to defend his phrasing, because it isn't clearly written. However, this is not what he is saying. He did not know if the job was a better or worse option than grad school. His point is to pick the option that provides for more flexibility. With a job, your options to change to something different 3-4 years down the road are limited. With a PhD, you have many more options open to you (or at least, the flexibility to create those options).

He took a gamble and is writing about how it worked out for him. If you have doubt, I can assure you I know people for whom taking that route ended up worse. Especially folks who went to a school like MIT for their undergrad.

>I read more intellectually stimulating bullsh*t on the back of a kumbucha bottle at lunch. But mix in the letters M, I and T and people suddenly think he's tall engineer Confucious. We as the tech community need to think really carefully about who we choose to idolize and what that says about us.

I see no indication that this is getting posted to HN due to his MIT affiliation, and you are essentially attributing intentions to people, which is almost never a good route to go. I do not see anyone here idolizing him. In fact, to be honest and blunt, most people I know who idolize him are non-achievers (sorry for the judgment!). Finally, and this may get me into trouble, the implication that the tech community should be uniform and consistent in who they idolize and who they don't is the most troublesome to me. I sincerely hope the tech community never becomes a community so easy to characterize.

A $28,000 MIT stipend and PHD does not seem that great..it's not that much money. The odds of producing ground-breaking research are slim even for someone brilliant, as the author evidently is. The $85k Microsoft offer would probably be just enough to cover rent and other expenses, although there is room for promotion. Its not like these are huge sums of money. Then again, I am assuming Seattle living expenses.

85K in 2004 would cover more than "just rent and other expenses" or I'd eat my hat. It was a different time, with different costs, and a much less inflated market. The author even calls it "about as much as you could possibly earn right out of college."

MIT is obviously about the prestige and academic opportunities more than the money.

If you're saying these aren't great options for a college senior in 2004 you need to talk to a lot of college seniors to get some perspective. Your comment sounds like "this college student hasn't made millions of dollars or groundbreaking research, I don't know why you think he's any different than the average kid."

People in their 20s don't remember before the banking coup. They think it has to be like this.

Shit, 85K as a college grad TODAY still puts you solidly into the upper ranges of your demographic.

If you think that's "just cover rent and expenses" money, how do you think the people you buy coffee, food, or anything else from live??

The author also doesn't seem to discuss what he did the 8 following years, which seems baffling.

> I didn’t know which traits I ultimately wanted in my career, but I appreciated that MIT would offer me more options for the career capital I generated.

So which traits did you build?! Tell me up front why I should listen to you if I wanted to build a career (it's not cause you had two nice offers coming out of college - that's why I'd listen to you if I was a high school senior).

Assuming Seattle living expenses which are higher than national average

Back then, Seattle/Redmond was much, much more affordable. In 2004, the Case-Shiller Index for Seattle was 125, while the national index was 140 (!). Today Seattle has a 250 index while the national index is 195.

In other words, Seattle housing went from pretty well below-average to wildly more than average in ~15 years.

So $85k in Seattle in 2004 then would be roughly like $160k in Columbus today.

A single person in Seattle can comfortably live(not own a home, mind you) on 85k assuming they don't have any massive debt obligations- not to mention we're talking about Seattle in 2004.

It's interesting that you said.. "that's why I'd listen to you if I were a High School Senior".

That's exactly who his intended audience was...

http://calnewport.com/books/straight-a-student/

https://cognitomentoring.org/blog/a-summary-and-broad-points...

> If you think that's "just cover rent and expenses" money, how do you think the people you buy coffee, food, or anything else from live??

Since 2000, mostly through consumer debt. Wages have been stagnant in the face of increased cost of living; you can get financing for literally anything these days. Walmart dropped their layaway program in favor of pushing credit cards. Aaron's will rent you furniture for low monthly payments that add up to 5x the retail price. You can even take out a loan specifically to go on vacation.

$85k was worth a lot more in 2004 than it is now. It's still a king's ransom in rural/middle America but it doesn't get you far on either coast anymore if urban proximity is a requirement.

Conversely, us people in our 40's look at a comment that calls 2004 "a different time" and get profoundly, if temporarily, confused.

Yeah tell that to my buddy working the night shift at a Chrysler plant, or 99% of working America for that matter.

I'm assuming Seattle living expenses. which are higher than national average

It takes one minute to find that you can live alone in a basic apartment in the hottest part of Seattle for $1150/mo: https://seattle.craigslist.org/see/apa/d/capitol-hill-studio...

You can walk to the Microsoft Shuttle, which covers the cost of your commute, and walk or take transit or a bike or a cab to the rest of Seattle, for maybe $100/mo in transportation expenses.

Eating well can be a couple hundred a month if you know how to cook for yourself, $1000/mo if you're spending $30/day on food.

None of these numbers come close to hitting $85k, especially when you pay $0 state income tax.

Obviously things are different as a sole provider for a family, but most 22 year olds aren't that.

"Huge sums of money" isn't well defined so I can't comment on that. But the idea that $85K is only enough to cover rent and other expenses is wrong.

I'm assuming Seattle living expenses, which are higher than national average. Also it's not like he keeps all the $85k. Taxes take a chunk of that . I keep reading stories of how hard it is to live in Bay Area on low six figures, so I assume that $85k in 2004 in Seattle would also be somewhat hard.

$85k adjusted for CPI is something like $113k today. Microsoft is in Redmond not Seattle. Hard is certainly relative but living in the suburbs of Seattle, fresh out of college making $113k is nearly objectively not hard.

Don't know about 2004, but Redmond housing is now more expensive than Seattle!

No, I easily supported a family of 3 on that in 2016 in the Seattle area. For a single guy, he'd be living well.

You can find a decent room in a share for $1500 in any city in the USA, and significantly less than that in most. When you're 22, that's pretty much 100% of your mandatory expenses, beyond maybe $200/mo in food and $100/mo for an unlimited transit pass or $10/mo to own/operate a bike.

Everything on top of that is gravy, especially when you're working at a tech company that pays for your healthcare and a lot of your food and coffee and maybe your commute.

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