quietthrow

For a startup you need to convince them that you can help them 1) solve their problems in the role they are offering the job 2) you can wear multiple hats and do things that are on the periphery/adjacent of the role they are offering 3) you are willing to given them an almost unlimited amount of your time and energy towards their day to day needs. You can’t do this thru your resume. You have to do this via your interview and other interactions with them. The resume, then, is simply a tool that allows you to potentially interact with them. Degrees from prestigious universities, or prior jobs at impressive companies or roles etc all are proxy mechanisms of signaling to your potential employer they should have a “interaction “ with you.

I know this sounds extremely cynical, but most(not all) startups are somebody’s grand efforts to make a shit ton of money for themselves (and smaller but meaningful sums for some people who join on that effort). There is nothing wrong here inherently just calling a spade a spade and if You are failing to see this reality you may not understand how resume is just a tool that allows you get to a starting point of convincing someone that they should go be you some amt of money in return for your experience, skills etc. they are going to give thst money to someone and there are many takers. So they will try to maximize their ROI by giving it to the person who is most promising for “their endeavor “. As such while no two startups are alike you can abstract out the common needs across them and optimize your resume (and your interactions) to that end.

Dosnt running your own server all the time and having it available over the internet then open a whole additional layer of management of security?

Layoffs allow companies to reduce their cost. Labor shortages can stem from various sources - lack of skills need, not paying a fair wage etc. And layoffs and shortages can and often are orthogonal.

For example: In the US, the layoffs are largely in tech sector. These companies took advantage but perhaps too much (humans and greed etc) of low interest rates for more than a decade + the crescendo of the pandemic money injection which all made it easy to borrow capital and hire more people than needed. It’s like you don’t realized you have had too much alcohol till the next morning. The night of the party, In the moment you can justify “just one more” drink a few times. That’s your layoffs.

On the other hand, I keep hearing that there is a massive shortage of restaurant staff these days. None of these restaurants owners want to pay their employees a fair wage. They don’t realize that at the receiving end of their employer - employee relationship is also a human who is just like them. Who simply wants a better life for the most part. Tipping culture is out of hand - restaurant owners say that if they pay their staff a fair wage they have to raise their prices. So these morons think that keeping the prices low will attract more customers but the reality is that the customer still pays more for their food as they will need to tip. That’s your shortages.

One of the big problems here is real wages in America have been stagnant for 30+ years [1]. People are being asked to do more as cost of living keeps rising while making the same amount of money. Nobody wants to address it let alone talk about it. The biggest irony in America is there is lobby for almost any kind of business. But there is no lobby for the people of the country. So what ensues is a rat race. People trying their hardest “make it” as that’s what is in their control.

[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2018/08/07/for-most-...

I keep talking to my older kid (pre teen) about the harmful effects of phones and screens. Kid seems to get it(for now) But the real test is yet to come - middle and high school where most kids have a phone. I am hoping that my kids will be ok being mavericks. I realize that hope is not a plan but the reality is that my environment is against me so there isnt a sure fire way to protect children unless you are ok with sheltering them to a point where it eventually becomes debilitating for them to operate in the real world.

To the OP: people typically have a herd mentality. HN is no different in that way. All you can do is try to instill trust between you and your kids and hope they will listen to you. You should also be super transparent with them about why you take the position you take. Give examples of people’s addiction to their screen/social media and how it’s distorts their view of reality to only make them feel bad about their existence. I am sure you can find a few in your own extended family or surroundings. Generally speaking , going against the grain takes a high degree of belief in something. Overcoming one’s minds transient desires requires strong intellect. That can be developed but it’s not an overnight thing and it’s certainly extremely hard when most People barely have any time to themselves or their kids - at least in USA (where real wages have been stagnant for 30+ years but cost of living has not[1]. The US deserves the birth rate decline it’s facing. It’s going to be a while before free markets and capitalism can evolve to solve this one)

[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2018/08/07/for-most-...

Would like to hear opinions of people who are actually CEOs or leaders of large orgs today.

I think it’s a generational thing and that the next Google or Apple when it arrives will be fully remote and that will be one of its differentiating advantages as an employer. It will show that things can be done differently and then set the direction for other employers of that time. Until then, the current mentality of “you can only be productive when you are in person” will prevail.

Everything just worked magically during the pandemic. Once it was gone it don’t work. It doesn’t really sound logical.

@paulg look in to this: https://spectrum.ieee.org/brain-implant-speech

I think this has a lot of potential. Specially for the female demographic as a safety “device”. Think of the security uses when it can be put in “security or guard mode” as an always on, always recording , gps enabled, in communication with law enforcement guard dog. Heck stick a taser or gun on it and see the baddies run.

I think this post and some of the comments confuses work with job. Work is a means to a kind of satisfaction that cannot be achieved via leisure. And people need that and need work. Job on the other hand is everything most of the comments is talking about. Job is what you end up with when you working in a capitalistic system where profit is the sole motive (competition is what drives the need to keep costs down and labor is part of cost. We need capitalism to evolve so that practices are more sustainable call it capitalism 2.0 or whatever). So unless you are the job creator which very few of us are we are resorted to having a job. This is the case generally unless you are part of the smaller segment of people who have been lucky enough to call their job also their work.

That’s not the real issue. You are confusing a side effect with a root cause. The root is capitalism. Btw ,for the record, I am not against capitalism. I am very much for it. It’s just that this is the side effect of capitalism. A capitalistic environment begets competition. Competition begets survival. Survival begets perpetual need to contain costs. People for most business are a big part of its cost structure. Unless you are a monopoly (think google etc) there is little incentive to give your employees a fair wage. Labor market supply and demand play a part in this too but all things equal to survive in competition keeping cost as low as possible goes a very very long way.

I think just like everything evolves capitalism needs to evolve too. “We need capitalism 2.0”Profit cannot be the sole focus. We need to shift to capitalism with a heavy bent on sustainability. Sustainable profits, sustainable for the community it serves in etc. we live in an evolved society where we curb our raw instincts for the general good. There used to be a time when all humans simply acted on their r as emotion and instincts and from that we evolved on. Same need to happen with how we organize and structure our economies and businesses.

Genuine question: What is an egocentric data set? Eli5 please? What can this be used for?

What does an analyst do at a vc firm? is it like a smart “admin” (chief of staff) to the principal? I.e. whatever the principal needs you to do - do it now, do it fast and do it well kinda like an investment bank analyst? Or something more specific?

At a high level, Very simple:

1) find people who will give you their hard earned money to invest. 2) invest said money in startups

Now remember simple doesn’t mean easy. Also in this case it “not easy” also doesn’t mean meritocratic either.

For eg.

1) nobody will give you their money (at least the first time) unless you can signal successfully you are capable of convincing them that you can do a great job at investing their money and potentially giving back a great return. This is similar to judging startups ideas and their founders in their early stages. There is nothing to judge so early, so people (typically) use the founders education institutions as a proxy. If you have something different that you can use to signal and that is a generally acceptable proxy that works too. Until you have a good exit you will need to win the signaling game. Just like repeat founders once you have once success this becomes your new signal replacing the old one. Repeat founders are easier to back than virgin founders.

Look at existing VCs in their early careers and you will see a pattern - either they were already known due to domain expertise (eg: Marc Andreessen etc ) or unknown till first success and then blew up (eg chris sacca etc). I am sure the latter did have to “work hard” until they had their first success.

It’s a lot of posturing in a sea of real and wannabe intellectuals. Sometime the posturing is supported by substance sometimes it’s not and in those cases you fake it till you make it.

Yes! I failed on subjects consistently in school. College I went to would be laughable with my peer group. I attribute any and all professional or other success I have had in my life to my curiosity. I work at the biggest of bigtech in the valley and feel proud to have made it here on my own and my luck. Although the imposter syndrome is something I carry every minute of my work life. Anywhere you go here you have people that are academically superior to me. But I seem to go toe to toe with some and that has helped me a little bit in dealing with the syndrome.

I learned very late in life that there is “smart” and there is academically strong. You can have the former without the latter. For years I believed both to be the same and until I grew up and met academically strong people who extremely clueless in most aspects of their lives.

I am not saying I am Good Will Hunting here. Far far from it. All I am trying to say there is hope. Don’t let other people and/or societal and cultural norms define you. Let your skills and your knowledge define you. Education and grades more about winning the signaling game and I fully admit that it does give one a little bit of a leg up. But that’s not the only way. Good luck!

I think you all might have it wrong as to why it’s ten minutes. Here is how I see it:

YC is playing a numbers game. Their whole play is to give money to those N founders who they think have the highest probability that their idea could become a very big business and very quickly. They also know that they will have may be handful of “winners” and that even the most promising founders and their ideas are most likely to fail. So to ensure that they really only pick the most promising ones based on what they can see/tell today, they are ruthless about anything less than ones that look extremely promising. In a way they are looking for extreme and obvious standouts. To borrow an analogy they are looking at the waveform and identifying the spikes. As that’s the best they can do(regardless of if they admit to it or not). That why it’s a numbers game. And 10 minutes is plenty for that.

If anything, if they spend more than ten minutes they not only lose on the numbers game as their “pool” size becomes smaller but also diving into more details will add more noise to the signal and will work against them. they just want extreme standouts from the get go and not the standouts they rationalize after a big deep dive. The deeper the dive the more they risk their biases affecting them.

Finally this is not their first rodeo - imagine if you have interviewed hundreds or thousands of founders to evaluate their ideas. You’d have a decent understanding of what a “spike” looks like on a waveform.

Would (genuinely) love to hear a counterpoint

I don’t think people felt dread when ev’s came onto the market first or as we transition to a sustainable energy future.

Point being not all progress is equal. Some progress is more equal than other ;)

Does it bother anybody that he is promoting his own article by posting it? I have seen this and many other comments by this user as what seems like a funnel to book time with him and eventually be a paying customer. I am not sure how I feel about this.

OP (or others) can you please share how you are using chatgpt instead of Siri on iPhone and Apple Watch?

Can you recommend websites of some good ones who excel at charting career paths?

Look into Orgmode.

The challenge you are describing is of the cost of context switching between multiple tools as all your information that you need to recall to do your work (say about a project or a topic of what have you) is living in different places. Your tasks may be in todoist but it’s not great for writing notes to preserve context. Trello etc all have similar problems. Notion is too powerful in the way you can do a lot with it and it’s easy to fall into the paradox of choice there. Unfortunately there is no good solution today. Even orgmode that i mention has its challenges (mobile usage for 2023’s world is pretty poor)

Most of the time you end up using something setting up a system to take notes manage work only to move on to the next thing which is when you realize that data portability matters and you don’t like being locked into a tool. Enter plain text which has its own limitations in terms of tooling ,collaboration. Etc.

Not the answer you were looking for but a long winded way of saying there isn’t one tool/silverbullet. Start with something simple and stick to it. The more data in there the more valuable it starts to become.

The real question you want to ask and answer is why do you take notes. And the answer more than likely is going to be you need notes for different things which result in realizing you need diff types of notes and that note taking is more nuanced. And that you may be able to use something like orgmode as one solution to it all but it lacks mobile, collaboration support etc. you may then have more clarity on which tools you need to use for which type of notes. Or if you can live with one tool that does it all but trading off some other qualities you desire.

Beg to differ. Whether you like it or not the world does not operate on idealistic standards. Most people when hiring for certain higher levels are looking for (among other things) a steady growth trajectory in candidates and unfortunately titles are the only way to show that on linked in and resumes. When somebody is a principle engineer prior and moves to software engineer title it’s hard to parse this dip without the person being able to provide context. As such people who are career minded ambitious will likely have a problem with this and pass.to box everybody under software engineer might be great for the company but demonstrates one sided thinking. Lot of candidates are not ok with that.

Bingo! Came here to post the same.

How is this different from planet labs? planet labs actually makes their own satellites.

Are you saying that we will see more startups being formed as people get disgruntled from big tech and realize they might as well take their own risks( like those who are in a position to do so?)

I didn’t crack it but found this guy has some very interesting ideas on how to attack procrastination

https://alexvermeer.com/getmotivated/

I think procrastination is ultimately a mental/emotional problem and no amount of “productivity systems” can solve it. Turning inaction into action is where the rubber meets the road and What prohibits it from meeting is the incongruence inside you. One part of you wants something but your mind is fighting you all the time when you try to do it/get it

See:

1) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33701371

2) https://matthewtejo.substack.com/p/why-twitter-didnt-go-down...

I agree with virtueman's comment here that there is something messed up with environment (using that term quite liberally here) where you have material luxury but can't quite share it with anybody. However in every problem lies an opportunity. And allow me to share it as how I -an outsider- sees it.

When you say `software developer quickly approaching 30 with no direction in life, no hobbies, no friends, no family, and no idea what I even want to change.`

I see the following facts: a person who can earn a reasonable amount of money to live well and who does not have pressing personal obligations to others at this point in their lives. This allows this person to do things that a lot of people can't do and as such he/she should try somethings that are well suited for said person as described by the facts.

Some actionable ideas: 1. Volunteer - ideally through physical labour. 2. Leave the country you are in work in a different place/culture. 3. Leave the country you are in and travel while keeping your job (this requires you have a remote job) 4. Explore new hobbies. People typically make friends around shared interests. 4.1 - eg: photography but of type that requires doing something new like, sports photography - forces you to go out to events and capture action; astrophotography - forces you to go out explore the night skies and be a part of that group; macro photography - forces you to see things that most people miss, Microscopic photography - get a microscope, stick a camera on it and stick a small piece of whatever you are having for lunch or dinner under it; bird photography - forces you to chase birds and the next thing you know you will meet interesting members from the Audubon society. 4.2 Arts: drawing, painting, sketching.. take some classes - ideally in person- see if anything sticks. 4.3 Creating something with your hands: wood working, ceramics etc 5. Last but not least - start listening to your inner voice. Most people feel lost (including myself when I was - more before than now) when for one reason or another have stopped listening what they wanted. I think this typically happens during childhood/yound adulthood and progresses over time to a point where what you want is completely overshadowed by your conceptions of what the society/environment/culture thinks of what somebody your age/type should want. This is usually years in the making and take some time to undo but with perseverance can be undone. Start small with little things like lunch - what do you want for lunch and not what you should be having for lunch. ask yourself such questions at various time during the day everyday to see if there is an incongruence between what you are doing in that moment / timeframe and what you want to do ideally (even if its impractical). this is how you listen yourself and over time learn to listen to you 'voice'

Good luck and the best is most definitely yet to come for you!

Wait - this actually works? Are you saying having a air purifier will reduce the dust that accumulates on open surfaces and that one will not need to dust any more (or can go for longer periods that usual before they need to dust)?

The book already resonates based on your description of it as I through my own experiences and have come full circle wrt to emotions. As a child and till very recently I always considered myself a rational person who has to do things by reasoning. Always thought emotions muddled things and emotional people are volatile as they are extremely capricious and do things that make no sense if you were to broaden the timeline in which their actions and consequences play out. However I have now learned that our emotional system is something that is extremely useful and should not be ignored wholesale. Emotions are a fantastic source of signals that can point us in the right directions and when introspected can reveal a lot about who we are and what we desire. I now pay close attention to emotions and they often help me make choices that are more in congruence with my inner self. Using the rational and emotional parts of the brain can be spectacularly powerful. Since I have found this for myself your desc of the book seems to affirm that.

Will definitely check it out. Thanks for suggesting.

Agree as I can relate. Not listening to what you want for years results in having no inner voice. You can work towards practicing learning to listen for it but it takes commitment and some time. My psychologist told me you start with the smallest things like what would you like for lunch etc and then over time you learn to hear your voice loud and clear for things small and big. you certainly risk displeasing other people which can be extremely be hard/difficult given you were raised to think of others before you. This is especially true if you are from the east where the culture values collective good before individual good (generally speaking). The west has a generally opposite value where individuality comes first and foremost. Swinging to either ways on extreme is not good and certainly a recipie for a miserable life. I think one needs to stike a balance between utter selfishness and no individuality. And there in lies the power of values. If you have a set of values that are not universal destructive and are more constructive it can act as a North Star that guides one in making balanced choices in life

Inspired by your post I decided to ask the deeper question to the hive mind.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33683106