I see, that makes sense. The bytecode part still has to be implemented in a browser though, right?
114 karma · joined May 30, 2012
Not sure if I understood it correctly though.
I was thinking more along the lines of how a compiler works, translating into some kind of AST and then converting into JS from the AST.
I also asked if they'd be willing to introduce me to 1-3 people whom I can ask same question(s).
Lastly, I plan on spending a couple of weeks living out of an AirBnB and working, as if I already moved there.
Check out the various tourism forums, e.g. TripAdvisor - as they are great for telling you what some of the highlights are. I have found playing tourist in a city is a great way to get your bearings, figure out where you do and don't want to spend time, etc. And lastly, it can tell you how easy it is to get around town with various modes of transport. E.g. San Diego / LA - you need a car but Portland you can walk/bus/bike anywhere.
* Any plans to offer an app to purchase vs subscription model? I need support for Exchange and rules but can't justify the monthly price tag * Is the app downloading the messages directly or do you store them on your server? From your website, it implies the latter.
The idea of financial freedom is not a one-size fits all. It really depends on what you value and how you want to live.
However, that's another existential question without an easy answer, just lots of work on self-awareness.
First off, this is hard and very few (any?) have this figured out. It took me going through a major depression episode and other, significant, life changes to start to work on this.
About a year ago I've started to change some key habits and that has helped to alleviate this feeling. To start with:
* Reduced the amount of tech news / startup news I consume significantly. I cut down the number of blogs from ~ 300 to ~ 10. * I have a hobby (woodworking in my case). I tried a bunch of hobbies over the years and it took a while to find something that I'm sticking with, but just keep experimenting * Meditation and non-tech and non-business reading has helped. Instead of reading 10 business/startup/tech books for every 1 fiction/biography/history/fun-topic, I reversed that relationship. * Vacations. Not some huge travel-the-world stuff, but a weekend getaway with friends / significant other is amazing. Could just be to look at vintage stores, art galleries, sit on your butt by the pool, etc. Don't have goals, get lost and don't watch the clock
Lastly, the most important piece. Spend the time and the energy you're investing right now in projects and "growing" on figuring out what you want out of life. This is not some existential thing nor is it some grand plan. Starting a company is a goal and good one. Traveling 3 months out of a year is a goal too. Don't get hung up on it, it'll change and evolve over the years. Just start somewhere, you can "pivot" as you move forward.
Here's the most important piece though - how do you measure yourself? Forget realistic/unrealistic or external/internal - doesn't matter. Identify what are the metrics that you use to gauge your progress and what it means for you to have had a successful week (day - too short & month/year - too long).
Then, ask yourself: why that?
The answers to the questions above will help show you a path from feeling like you're spinning in one spot and what to do next.
Reach out if you want to talk about any of it.
It, should, give YC a more diverse exposure as well?
What if you could get a nanosat into the orbit you want, when you want it for about the same price?
I think the problem can be broken down into specific steps fairly easily.
Executing those steps is not easy though - it is rocket science after all.
YC doesn't seem to shy away from ideas that are really out there. I'm wondering if the lack of rocket "startups" is due to something from YC's end or if it's a matter of numbers.
That is, the number of people with skills to build a rocket ship startup is so small that there isn't a critical mass of founders starting these companies. As a result, people are not seeing enough of them to be accepted into YC.
The applications, outside of Space X (and friends), are still being figured out.
So for non-human flight, it's kind of like where drones were about 5 years ago. It is possible, it's expensive, regulations are unknown but there is a huge potential that seems to be there.
However, no one seems to be able to quantify it.
Also, the costs are quite hight, as things stand right now, to launch a satellite into orbit.
or
Yes, they have reasons not to back them
Last part is we have Go program (started with Bash) to do the joining.
It finds all the Consul server nodes (using tags) and then runs `consul join` until it succeeds.
There's a bunch of error checking and timeouts and such to make sure it works correctly.
I'm hoping to post a blog post about this in the next month or so.
I've started reading Inside Security and it's a good overview of news for someone not in the security industry.
Maybe my experience can give you another point of view or some ideas on figuring out what's next.
Happy to be a sounding board if you're looking more for that.
My email is in my profile.
Every time I get too far down the hole, I'm reminded of what Tony Robbins said in his TED speech. Sad people get sad, happy people stay happy, angry people get angry.
After too many burnouts, too many long weeks, too many days on the road, it's all in your head and your ability to recognize what you're feeling/experiencing and developing mental tools to handle that.
I've met people who swear by meditation, for others it's exercise. Find your habit, the thing that let's your mind "unclench".
On the burnout and working with jerks, spot on. Sometimes, there is nothing you can do. Sometimes you can even recognize it in time, other times you can't.
Best lesson, learn to recognize burnout and either take a vacation / get some distance and/or find a new gig.
I've been there twice now, in the last 5 years. I've been lucky to have someone talk about the underlying desire to quit with me. I've also been unlucky enough to just quit and join a startup.
Instead of outright quitting, can you take 1 month off? Can you take 2 months off? Can you take some unpaid leave that's several months long for "mental health"?
Let's assume you can only take a month off, that's actually plenty of time to answer your question based on your own situation. Spend the first couple of weeks traveling or doing something that does not involve entrepreneurship or tech, just go enjoy the world for a bit, even it just means spending all that time sitting on the beach and reading books.
Spend the next two weeks working through your idea, either building a prototype or networking to meet potential cofounders or doing customer development or whatever.
Then when you go to work, really think about how to carve out enough time for yourself.
I really want to reiterate that this sounds way too much like burnout. Please be careful and consider taking some time first, just to clear your head and to think, before you just quit.
Based on your statements in your question, the frustration is obvious, so is a sense of entitlement, like you've earned this right but it's not happening for you.
I am sorry that you are feeling like that, it's a terrible place to be and it can drive you to make some really stupid decisions. Hopefully, in simply asking this here has helped you relieve some of the stress, if not, maybe the following will be of some help.
This is not a direct answer, but should give you some ideas and thoughts to ponder, plus a couple of next steps.
Here are some of the themes I'm seeing in your question:
* Too much stuff to learn when it comes to coding
* Want to spend more time on personal projects instead of on technology treadmill
* Feel like you can complete coding tasks quickly
Let's address these themes:
I'm going to treat leadership / management interchangeably here, even though there are some serious differences between the two roles. For the purposes of being a line manager, they can be treated interchangeably.
Moving into a leadership role, whether you're looking for a tech lead or a management role, does not stop the first bullet point above. If anything, you have to be aware of all of the new trends enough to make a judgement call on it's validity, maturity and use-cases. You need to know this because you'll have your reports coming to you on a regular basis wanting to use some of these techniques / tools / languages / etc. How do you say no without offending your report? On the flip side, you'll have your manager(s) coming to you asking if something is a good idea. How do you explain the tradeoffs if you're a one-trick pony?
To the second bullet: you have, significantly, more time as an individual contributor than as a manager. As a manager, you have to make sure everyone is on target with what they need to do, run 1-1s to make sure the people are satisfied / happy and are not planning to resign shortly, report up the progress, report down the needs of the bosses. You are, perpetually, stuck between trying to communicate up, down and across the organization, while sitting in a lot of meetings (assuming a large org) and being on the hook to get more stuff done. This is doubly so if you are new to management. The hard truth is that the role doesn't matter, you have to know where to draw the line(s) and have a life. It's a constant tradeoff, do you pick up a new hobby or go out with your friends or learn the latest framework / language / algorithm / etc.
Your ability to code or get engineering tasks done quickly has very little to do with your ability to lead / manage. You need to learn new skills, mostly around communication, relationship building, messaging, ownership, delegation, accountability of others, etc. Just because you are a good developer does not mean you'll be a good manager. I would argue that most developers should never be allowed to lead as the skills and roles are so different, they are not transferrable. This means that you're starting from scratch, again. By the way, as you get promoted, you're constantly starting from scratch, unless you are, already, doing some of the things your manager is doing.
None of this directly answers your question, as there is no direct answer or how-to guide, it is very industry- and organization-specific.
Being a manager at a startup is very very different from being a manager at a large corporation. Moving into that role is, also, a different process. In some ways, moving into a leadership role at a startup has more to do with raw leadership skills then anything else; you see a problem, you own solving it - rinse and repeat, boom you're a leader now. By the way, replace __boom__ with months, potentially.
In a larger company, it's more involved as managers are expensive, both in terms of salary and training / knowledge acquisition. Imagine the disruption to the team, the delivery flow, unofficial communication channels (aka social glue), etc. when a manager leaves.
To be perfectly blunt, if you have ask the question, you need to really think about what it means to be a manager / leader. Look at how your role models came to be leaders, what paths did they take? Based on what you stated, your goals are position and money, that will make you a terrible manager, if you don't care about the people. You'll have a hard time retaining people or producing results in any high-performing organization as you won't be able to motivate anyone based on those drivers.
Another thought, position is meaningless in a high-quality tech environment. Power does not come, just, from the title, it comes from the group differing to you because of respect. Having worked at places where the position/title alone denoted power, it's a crappy place to be.
My suggestion, as to the next steps, is to:
* Reflect on the instances when you were put in charge of something and how people reacted to you, how they treated you and how you treated them
* Have several coffee dates with managers / leaders in your organization (don't go outside of your org) You are looking for people doing the role you would move into as your next step and their managers. Tell them you're interested in being a manager and what lessons they learned, what their day looks like, what keeps them awake at night, etc. You want to learn as much as you can from them and get your name out there. This is part of building relationships but also information gathering. This will tell you if you actually want the job and are willing to put up with the politics and dealing with people without the context of code to help you.
* Sit down with your manager in your next 1-1 and explain what you're seeking and ask for help to move into that role.
Also, read Managing Humans by Michael Lopp. It will give you a good idea about what it's like to manage engineers.
Feels like the mnemonic & advice can be applied to all manner of stories, not just about a startup.
I've, also, seen similar arc play out with individual contributors that are superstars one instance and then fall down to the level of "mortals".
The advice at the end is fantastic, too. The first two items: Don't get angry and Don't force anything (doing nothing is doing something).
Are key in all kinds of difficult situations. Doing nothing is not always a bad thing, I tend to forget that part.
Maybe this is getting too much into semantics. A leader, as I tend to think of that position, is about setting direction, guiding the vision, dealing with the culture, more strategic in whatever they are leading. This could be a company or a project or a product, doesn't have to be high-falutin, can be as simple as leading a project to completion. The focus, however, is really about the strategic view of whatever it is that's being led.
A manager is the tactical view. Making sure people have enough work and that work fits the project. Making sure that the people doing the work are the right ones to do that work (some crossover into leadership here, can't help that). A manager is really part communication traffic cop (in a positive sense, not "give you a ticket" sense), part nanny (reward & punish behavior), part mentor and part canary for the upper management of things going wrong.
As a side note, this is why I found 1-1s valuable at all levels of managing. When I was running several teams, making sure my leads were having 1-1s with their people and talking about how their teams are doing gave me a view I would not have had otherwise. I'm still learning about this though.
Part of my thinking about the original comment was about the role of management in an ideal scenario. If you remove the "human machine" from the conversation and look at what most of the time managers at all levels are doing, it's communication management. Yes, this is an overgeneralization to a great degree, but it helps me to think about management in that way.
If your manager built his/her interactions with you around things you need to know (communicating vision, direction, business needs, etc.) from above and took your feedback and communicated it up, then you get lots of conversations and feedback loops. This requires the upper management to listen to what the people on the ground are saying, which is rare in my limited experience.
Incidentally, what you get is managing the what and not the how, letting individual contributors deal with the how. Which opens up a whole can of worms for corporations and, sometimes, from a legal perspective too - think SOX & HIPAA as examples.
Bottom line, I believe management is to leadership as tactical view is to strategic view. Genuine communication is what management is all about, makes our work interactions human and makes it easier to give and receive feedback across the entire org.
Of course I just described a utopia, but it's nice to work towards that, even if it's just a person approach.
There's a lot of content, but chapter 3 alone is really helpful.
It seems like for any organization, some structure is required just for information dissemination. So making an enormous assumption that corporate leadership trusts their people to do the job and do it well, what does a structure that is not a "giant human machine" look like?
Thank you
One more question, did you build a multi-disciplinary team or did you teach yourself mechanical, electrical and software engineer?
I understand you can have a PCB fab house build a 4-layer board and have it to you in a couple of days for a large price, but I'm wondering if there are other alternatives.