398 karma · joined October 2, 2014
The CEO track sounds nice. I've done the middle management stuff before and was quite successful at it. In my last job I was heading up the software team for a software/hardware startup, as well as taking on partial management of the support team and the data entry team. I have been C-level at two companies but both were early stage when they went belly up so this is more a bullet point on a resume than something I can point to and say "look there it is". Currently I work for a small enough company that there isn't any more upwards mobility here. I am basically working as an individual contributor directly with clients. The projects are boring but the pay is good and the people I work with are excellent. How would you suggest making a leap from here to something bigger? I live in an area with lots of banks and insurance companies, but not much in the tech world.
On the finance side, again, how do you go about this? What kind of companies do you suggest and what jobs in them? Are hedge funds a good idea? Or do I need to commute to something like NYC and apply for something with a large investor? What qualifications should I focus on before jumping into this? Is mostly reliant on knowing the right people? Is it about technical knowledge of the subject? Or is it about impressing the right interviewer?
With the current pandemic I am doing very little going out. That doesn't mean my expenses are better off though. I am directly supporting two kids and my life partner who works but her career is very low paying. She takes care of most of her expenses but housing is on me. I indirectly support two other people because I care about them and their well being. I am stuck living where I am because I am divorced and my ex won't move. If I move I don't get to see my children, which isn't an option for me.
For #2, again, any specific advice? Are blogs still a profitable thing? What platform do you use to buy/sell blogs and/or plugins?
For #3, yeah already working on that one. Pandemic doesn't help with that.
I have done projects of passion. Last one was completed in February and the business opened in March. For five days. Being a new business, it isn't even eligible for any kind of assistance, so what I did there was to sink a bunch of money and sign a lease so that I have the privilege of adding an extra $1200 a month to my expense list. Decreasing expenses is absolutely something I've been working on, but investing my wages will take decades to build enough wealth to be meaningful.
- Switching careers to work closer to where the money is. For example, working for a douchey hedge fund that can pay half a mil a year if things are going well.
- Putting together a pitch deck, flying out to CA and pitching it to every VC who will listen. I have a decent idea for a dating app that solves a lot of the problems with the current crop of dating apps. A VC paying my salary for a year while I develop something like that would work well for me.
- Networking my way up until I am rubbing elbows with the ultra rich and looking for opportunities to help them spend their money.
- Playing the lotto until I'm broke.
What do you mean by TC and what is Blind? The rat race is pretty much what I'm trying to escape.
- Software engineering. I am a full stack developer. I can and do program things from embedded devices, to medium scale web apps, to front end stuff. My graphics skills are sub-par, but I do UX well and can whip up a software solution quickly or architect a complex system. Hardcore comp-sci is not my core skill set as I didn't study it, so I won't be coming up with the next great ML algorithm or factoring large integers, but I can do lots of non-trivial things well nonetheless.
- System administration. I grew up on Linux/BSDs and am pretty good at old school systems administration. I don't need to use Heroku to run my apps if I don't want to.
- Electronics development. I am not an electrical engineer but I studied physics. I have manufactured custom PCBs that actually worked and am pretty good with a soldering iron. One of the products I was working on in the past required a custom enclosure and a Wi-Fi connected embedded system that ran on batteries for several years. I designed and put together prototypes from scratch on my own for this, though the product ended up not taking off for other reasons.
- Leadership/management skills. I am good at organizing work and motivating people. People like working with me. I have led major projects in my career and feel like I can do that again. I would be happiest leading a team of 6-10 people if working in this role.
- Communication skills. I connect with people easily and quickly, especially in person. I didn't start out this way (if this was a thing where/when I grew up, my parents might have had me evaluated as autistic for my inability to feel empathy; I have swung way in the other direction with lots of work on myself over the years). I can often convince people to do things for me even if it goes against their self-interest. While I know I can do that, I am very cognizant of this ability and try to find outcomes that are win-win for everyone even if that means a worse outcome for me. I am good at negotiating (salaries, prices, contracts, etc.). I have no problem approaching a stranger, knocking on doors, asking for or offering help, etc.
- Interviewing skills. I am good at being interviewed (in my career I got many more job offers than been turned down). I am very good at interviewing others for jobs. I have almost always been able to tell who would fit in well and who wouldn't for any given situation.
- Writing/public speaking/teaching. I am a decent writer and a good public speaker. I am told that I am a very good teacher/mentor. People who I have taught in the past have all been very happy with the time and energy they spent in my classes and most have gotten very good at what I was teaching them.
- Photography. I am a decent amateur photographer. I mostly do boudoir photography with friends for fun, but can do portraits well. I have sold a few prints for several $100 each at a couple of art shows I entered on a whim, but due to the nature of what I typically photograph I don't think it has wide appeal.
- Mechanical, construction, plumbing, electrical. I am not a professional in any of these, but have done enough work on my vehicles and homes I've lived in to know what I'm doing. I fix my own vehicles routinely and have redone plumbing for a whole house and have done some electrical work.
- Woodworking. I'm learning how to do some woodworking, just for fun. I mostly make practical things, not art. For example, I built my own motorized sitting/standing desk from hardware store parts.
- 3D printing and small scale manufacturing. It's a hobby, but I'm pretty good at it.
Probably a few others I am forgetting, but these are the main ones.
Theft: you have a painting. I took it.
Copyright infringement: You painted a painting. I took a picture of it and sold/gave away prints to all my friends.
Violation of privacy: I got into your phone and looked at all your dick pics.
Warrantless search: The police got into your phone and looked at all your dick pics, possibly finding evidence of a crime.
They are different issues which can look similar at times, but are actually completely separate. Pretending like they are is just adding muck to this discussion.
It's not a porn site, or at least not primarily a porn site. The UX is a lot closer to that of Facebook but specifically for kinky people. If you go to a kink conference and meet someone, they will likely ask for your FL name to connect with you (incidentally Twitter is the other popular mechanism for communicating with fellow kinksters).
FL has a subscription model, and the main benefit you get out of that is the ability to view other members' posted media better. There is a section of the site called Kinky & Popular which is similar to Reddit's front page. Since people can Love (e.g. like/heart/etc.) their friends' pictures and videos, some become popular and land on this front page. Viewing more than the top 200 or watching the videos requires a subscription of $5/month. This section is dominated by media of pretty, skinny, submissive women, and can be seen as having porn-like content. Note that what ends up here is purely moderated by the community and is not promoted by the FL staff. The people whose media ends up here do not get paid for it.
FL until recently has had a very loose content policy. Things like blood play, consensual non-consent, rape fantasies were all allowed. Illegal things were not: no underage media, no snuff, etc. But people were free to discuss their fantasies, their kinks, etc. without much restriction. Whether you agree or disagree with stuff that gets someone off, you were free to discuss what you want and fantasize about what you want, as long as what you are posting violates no US laws.
FL serves an important purpose to our community: it is a place to share events and local community knowledge, to keep up with people, and importantly to identify abusers. This is the main benefit I see in it and it would be the biggest loss if FL went under.
These latest developments have obviously put a damper on things at FL. They have contacted several groups that are able to advocate for them and give advice, and even the EFL at one point was involved. However, the outlook is bleak. Sadly, the community is not united in supporting FL due to seemingly arbitrary content restrictions, and FL is unable to provide a reasonable level of service without those. If someone knows a way to help this community, please post it here and I'll do my best to point it out to the powers that be there. I am not affiliated with the FL staff, just a user, but they do talk to the community freely and frequently.
There's also https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/cubic-your-personal-ai-wi....
And finally there's Facebook M.
That said, vim is great because it makes you more producitve than not vim. I moved to it from the likes of NetBeans, Notepad++, etc. years ago. It took me about a day to become as productive in vim as I was in Notepad++. After that I got much more productive than I could have been with Notepad++ over the years. It's possible I would have been even more productive with Emacs, but I picked vim because that's what was installed on the system at the time.
> The few of us who still remain in San Francisco have no choice but to live in sub-par conditions like mold, windows that don't shut, rodents and countless other issues because there is no other choice, because the rents are so high you can't move so you don't.
This is what you get when you set the price artificially below market value: subpar product. Has anyone here seen Soviet-era apartments? They were exactly like this. So in the long run, the place will fall apart around the renter, and they will be pretty much powerless to do anything about it. And the bit about "can't move" because it's too expensive just means that the area is now too expensive for you and rent-control is the only thing allowing you to stay here.
If the excuse is that your job is here, well maybe your job is not paying you enough to live in SF. Perhaps founders should stop starting companies in this incredibly expensive area, and explore greener pastures.