redschell

Sure, I could learn most of what I need to know on my own time, but this might be a great way to get it done quickly in a batch and then move on to applying it in a very practical way with my customers.

Some people have been offering web consulting services in exchange for stellars, but no details yet on how this guy built his wealth.

On the bright side, he may have saved his former company's life by parting ways with it when he did. Early stage ventures past the incubator/accelerator stage don't seem to weather cofounder disputes without taking significant damage.

http://www.usnews.com/science/articles/2012/01/17/phsycists-...

A full-body CT scan results in 12 mSv; a mammogram 0.13 mSv—a hundred times less. The risks from these procedures, according to AAPM, are too low to have been determined reliably, and may be "nonexistent."

Looks like this debate has been going on for a while now.

In fact, older LTU workers could learn from the tech strategy of consulting and freelancing when "gaps" in their careers emerge. So long as you have something to show for it, such as a new skill or someone in your network that can raise their hand and say, "Oh yeah, she mentored me through this big project my company is working on" then you can help yourself out a bit.

I want to know how much of this is HR's fault. What the hell are they looking for, and why? Everyone admits this is a problem, but HR goes on as if they're oblivious to it. And then you read about how they're dismissing candidates that don't have an adequate social media presence, and you begin to wonder why on earth these goons run hiring.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1rutkt/bitcoin_is_f...

I'd wish you good luck, but you don't need it. It sounds like you've already got a wonderful family. That makes you a pretty lucky guy when you think about it.

Just keep your head up, and know that you've got a lot of people rooting for you.

Earlier in the article, it mentions the statistic that I'm familiar with, which is that roughly 75% of venture-backed companies fail.

What gives?

It's just that, when you're taking moonshots, you should expect to miss most of the time. When you're tired of failing, you can go back to school, or start in a new career field. The gaps in your resume are there, but they're forgivable. You were hungry and foolish then, but you're ready to eat and learn now.

As others have noted, those gaps hurt a lot more when they appear later on. It's not fair, but it's just the way it is, unfortunately. Even if you were on your way to 20 years of employment at your stable dream job, layoffs can happen. Shit can happen. Count on it.

The best thing you can do is acknowledge its presence and build your defenses by prudently saving and spending.

Of course, we look pretty stupid at this particular moment, but who's to say it won't all go to shit next week?

Easy, friend. There will be many more waves to ride.

That sounds like an exciting setup to me. Also gives me hope for all the fresh PhDs you hear about lamenting their career options outside of academia. Then again, I suppose these ventures are quite limited, and risky, so you can't expect "MIT Startups" to serve as sanctuaries for Ivory Tower escapees.

Hopefully they'll attempt to negotiate for better salaries and more reasonable hours, but, according to all my Wall Street friends, this tends to be an effort in futility.

The best of the best will always put in absurd hours doing the tedious work you describe. They need to show off this way to win distinction. In theory, hacker types could buck the system, but that system in high finance, which awards face time and man hours like few other places, is pretty damn robust.

Google, on the other hand, appears to have done away with them, and now prefers to evaluate potential hires without giving too much weight to GPA or test scores: http://qz.com/96206/google-admits-those-infamous-brainteaser...

If you fail, you're an arrogant idiot who thought she was too cool for school.

What's fascinating about Holmes is that she's a drop out in the biotech/health care realm. This has long been considered a protected area, one where heavy education is a must, as lives are on the line. Founders are expected to be PhDs or MDs with decades of research and/or clinical experience.

Holmes has a decade of experience, and no degree. This is going to be a lot of fun to watch.

What happens to the failures? Can they go back to work and fall back in line? Or are we going to have "Professional Founders" or "Business Engineers" down the line that have a decade or two of experience starting and running companies, none of which survived past infancy.

It's hard to imagine in the very positive atmosphere that most young entrepreneurs live in. What are you supposed to do when you want to keep building companies, but they just keep failing? Are you prepared to say "I can't do this very well" and move on? Where will you go?

I personally don't think startups are the tech equivalent of starting a band or going Hollywood, but I can understand why some would employ the analogy.

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2013/01/...

I know it's a bit demanding to ask what are usually a bunch of unskilled supporting staffers to become proficient in analytics, but you can't expect to solve a problem without putting in some work.

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/12/03/for-buffett-the-long-...

If you go on to read anything about activist investors, like Carl Icahn, you get the feeling that the only way to beat the market is to tamper with it.

1.) Demography: Who is the ideal MBA candidate? From what I've gathered, the historical answer would be: "Someone from outside a business education about to move into a business role." So, of course, your average MBA is going to be someone who studied Biology or Mechanical Engineering as an undergrad, right? Well, they're in there, but they're surrounded by people who studied Business and Economics as undergraduates, often from elite schools! What could a Wharton undergrad possible gain from a Wharton MBA? Social proof? A two-year vacation? It's unsettling, and it leads to the second problem.

2.) Intent: What sort of work is the MBA cut out for? Well, they're masters of administrating businesses, so...management? Nope. Consulting and banking. Like lemmings, they go right off the cliff into these fields. All of them. Even the ones who came in there looking to simply move up the ladder in their chosen field, like biotech or energy, will feel pressured into becoming some sort of banker or consultant. So, the MBA ends up becoming a launching pad for people outside of consulting and banking to get in, and for people on the inside to move up.

I don't know how business schools would go about rectifying these flaws. Even if they were to shut out business types, that second flaw is so deeply ingrained in the b-school ethos that anyone seeking to be a better manager in their original field would likely be derided by his or her peers as an underachiever.

Interestingly enough, I hear the Executive MBA is a far better experience, simply because the students are too far along in their careers to make a pivot into something else. They're just there to get better. And maybe for the two-year vacation thing as well.

Does anyone know of a Coursera for older, working professionals that have begun to fall behind in their skill development? I know that Coursera and other learning platforms are not necessarily designed for young people, but I'm sure the academic design/nature of it turns a lot of professionals off.

Might be an interesting startup idea (though I'm sure someone's already on it).

It might be nice place to discuss the legal ecosystem for startups, too.

All of the smartest Americans are going into more lucrative fields like finance, medicine, and law. As much as you think the creme-of-the-crop engineers are getting paid, they aren’t making as much as investment bankers, and even the best computer programmers don’t make as much money as an average surgeon.

The market is flooded with mediocre Indians willing to work cheap, and that’s what every IT department wants, cheap labor.

It amazes me that people can still say things like this in post-crisis America. As if finance, which is still reeling, isn't already flooded with Indians and Asians with tech backgrounds, as if they aren't in law (horrifying debt, anemic job market) and medicine (even more horrifying debt, massive commitment) as well.

Hell, I wonder if the quote here, supposedly from the WSJ comments section, is even real, or if he's just looking to rile people up.

Ageism in engineering, especially software engineering, is a real issue worthy of vigorous debate, but I'd like to think there are better pieces we can argue around than this dubious anecdote.

http://raregeneticdisorder.blogspot.com/2012/09/fop-skeleton...

Wonderful article, as expected from Carl Zimmer, who does such a great job of exploring biological mysteries like this.

Wonderful! I'd love to hear about them. I also have a few go-to poems for those days I feel unbalanced. The two I've probably digested the most would be "If--" by Rudyard Kipling, and "Desiderata" by Max Ehrmann. They're not exactly hidden gems, and I've even seen them floated around HN from time to time, but man do they work.

http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~gongsu/desiderata_textonly.html

http://www.kipling.org.uk/poems_if.htm