timewarrior

It took almost 50 years to starting to debunk health issues created by Sugar. It took decades to accept the health issues created by Lead and Asbestos.

Sometime I wonder if chemicals from bottled water, radiation from Cellular/Wifi/Bluetooth pose health risks and we will find it out decades later.

Stallman has done a great service to OSS. However his personality and stances might be detrimental. I happened to meet him around 12 years back and that meeting turned me away from associating with anything which he is involved. I was helping organize the biggest software event in India and as a part of that we had invited him to speak. I was responsible for his arrangements and he was very rude to me throughout. He kept making fun of me because of my accent (which apparently was sufficient to get a leadership role in US at one of the Fortune 15 companies). Needless to say it was very childish and a complete turnoff.

You don't need to know Java to use Clojure. Give it a try, you might like it.

When I started using Clojure, the first two weeks were mess. I was trying to fit everything in procedural way of thinking and boy was it a mess. I felt really miserable and maybe that is how it felt when I first started to walk. And then suddenly everything clicked and the world was beautiful.

Clojure has a steep learning curve when you start. After about a year and a half there is another much steeper curve and if you cross it, I have heard it feels like you have super powers. I am probably 4/10 on Clojure and 9.5/10 on Java. However I take around 10% of time to get better results with Clojure vs Java.

I can try taking a shot at listing why I love Clojure however for me it is as difficult as explaining why I love someone:

1. Computers are functional. You give them a massive subroutine and they execute it. All procedural languages have built semantics to make it supposedly easy for humans to write code but end up with a lot of hacks. Only you start writing functional you feel finally connected to the computer.

2. Immutable structures: With most languages it's difficult to have assumptions about how your code will work. You pass your data to a function, can they change the data due to a bug or bad design. Do you create a copy before sending it to them? All those issues go away. It's better to understand expectations and stupid errors go out of the way.

3. Reusable code: because it's functional and without side effects it's much more easier to create reusable code as a part of standard library. You have functions like butLast (give me all elements of an array except last), even?, rest (return all elements of array except first). Imagine how much less boiler plate would it be. Check out some of the functions here: http://clojure.org/api/cheatsheet

4. Encourages you to write smaller chunks of functions, not 2000 line long functions. Improves code reusability and testing.

5. Doesn't allow bad design practices - circular dependency.

6. Because the language is built on a very few core constructs, you or anyone else can enhance the language. I have seen situations where someone had a proposal to extend the language, they just releases it as a library. If people like it and use it, it would get included as a part of core framework.

7. The quality of available talent - Because there is a steep learning curve almost everyone Clojure programmer that you meet is likely to be very smart.

8. Has inbuilt support for magical stuff like macros, STM. You can Google it to find out more.

9. Imagine all the java libraries that were very complicated to use and with their confusing java docs. Clojure community has built a lot of super easy to use wrappers on top of it and you could easily write one too.

10. In other languages if I see a library on github which hasn't been updated for years, it feels like it has been abandoned and I would not consider using it. With Clojure, because of functional and no side effects - a code which works now is likely to keep on working with it's current contract. It is not uncommon to see libraries which were built by some of the rockstars in the community within a day and not updated for years but still they work great.

11. Because of being functional and no side effects, code hot replace actually works. Many other languages have attempted it, but it always comes with a bit of caveats. With Clojure it just works. My developer code flow was that I would use an IDE and which I am writing code, it would hot replace the code in VM, find the tests which depends on the changed code and run just them. So I can see the code I am breaking while I am writing code. This is unbelievable. When we had an issue, I used this to connect to a REPL (a commandline for VM) - hot swapped a code to add logging, figured out the issue, fixed the code locally, copied the function to replace the code on running server, fixed the code and pushed it again (I wouldn't recommend people do this, but explains the power at your fingertips).

This list could go on and on. In my current job, I am building a big team where any set of people could come together and build a startup. Like Google's Area 120, but started more than an year before that. Unfortunately I am not encouraging people to use Clojure here, because it would set them back by months. I really love my current job, however I keep getting impulses of quitting everything and just code Clojure full time.

I hope people can see that I am smitten. Give it a try and I promise you wouldn't regret.

edited: for readability

One more thing to add. Having a CEO who takes a salary of 180k/year after seed round (which was almost half of the seed round) and apart from this also charges part of his house rent to the company. Those were fun times.

I completely agree. Silicon Valley talked about the reality.

I founded a startup and headed engineering for another. I have seen more than half the things there as follows: Getting money in tranches. Investors making you spend invested money for personal gain. Having a business CEO who has no product insights. Board control issues. Employees trying to overthrow founders and getting fired because of that. Being forced to hire friends and family of investors. Lawyers represent the company and not you. Founding company with someone whom you do not trust. Investors getting involved in day to day running.

Luckily each of the startups had an happy ending. But it took a lot of hard work and a few miracles.

Thanks Craig. Just dropped you an email.

Agreed on Canada. I have seriously considered moving to Canada. Only barrier is that I need to give and English written test and I haven't used pen and paper in a while. If EB-1 doesn't work, Canada here I come.

L1-EB1 is a good idea if I can do it through one of my startups. Working for a big corp outside US for a year, and then moving back and doing the Green card work would involve lot of uncertainties and a commitment of at least 2 years to this process.

EB-5 is a good idea. That is the plan after giving EB-1 a shot.

It's unfortunate to have to go through so many hoops just because of your country of birth. I owe a good part of my success to US and want to contribute back. However, the system is making it very very difficult.

Thanks Karan. Appreciate you reaching out on LinkedIn.

Thanks. Got multiple recommendations for Chris Wright. Will reach out to him ASAP. Thanks once again :)

Agreed that O-1 is a good option for starting a company, for which H1 is really unsuitable. However you won't believe the kind of paperwork and stress that goes on with doing the USCIS paperwork, Visa application, answering stupid questions at the border. After dealing with this for almost 6 years now, if I can't find a way to get Green Card sooner, I would rather move out. Really appreciate the time you took for your thoughtful response :)

This article has an interesting point. I am from India. Built the biggest social network from India, sold a startup to Dropbox. Not sure if this is sufficient to get an EB-1 green card. With EB-2, I won't get Green card for another 5-8 years.

My next option is to invest a million to get EB-5, which is a waste of time. Or move outside US :(

Agreed. Wrote my story below. Not sure how ranking works on hacker news, it towards the bottom. Wish someone compiles these.

tldr; In spite of motivation, talent and hard work; financial situation and immigration (in my case) play a big role in your entrepreneurship journey.

Excellent article by the writer. Apologies for the long post, however hope it is helpful for someone in similar situation. I can relate to many things that he has faced and feel incredibly lucky to not have faced some things that he had to.

I grew up in a small town in a poor family in India as eldest of four siblings. Our monthly budget was 20 dollars and things were really tight. However my dad worked really hard 16 hours every day and made sure that my studies do not get hindered. He told me every single day that with hard work I can achieve anything that I can dream of.

I got into IIT Bombay (one of the most prestigious colleges in India). However it was obvious to me, that I need to get a decent paying job right after school to support siblings and my dad who couldn't do 16 hours any more.

It took my the next 8 years working for others, to save enough to pay for the studies and marriage of me and my siblings and to help my dad retire.

During these 8 years, I built and ran the biggest social network to come of of India. Apart from this also built something which is now the Twilio of India. I was also the part of the team which built the current mobile offering at LinkedIn.

If I had financial stability, I would have started working on mine own ventures 3 years into my career. But it took 5 more years. As soon as I had financial stability, I quit LinkedIn (with 2.5 years of stock unvested) to start a company.

I started a company, where we had incredible opportunities. We built something like Slack for consumers around the same time as Slack. However, being on H1 visa, I was a minority stake holder in the company. And it is a bad situation to be in, if your traction is not already proven. It made sense to exit the company, so we sold it to Dropbox in an acqui-hire.

Dropbox treated me really well. I met some of the smartest people I have ever met over there and it can be a great place to work for many people. However, I soon realized that it wasn't a good fit for me. Such companies are very top driven, there is little creative freedom, and most of the work is cleaning up the tangled code developed over 7-8 years. So I quit Dropbox after an year.

Now I am in a job that gives me more creative freedom and I am pretty happy on that front. Meanwhile, I have been sole advisor for a few companies over the past 2-3 years and they are all profitable and didn't need to raise any money. The entrepreneur in me, keeps me raring to go and start another company. However, because I am on H1 visa, I do not want build another company with minority stake at formation (USCIS rules). To fix this, I would need to get a Green Card. However if you are from India, it will take you 8-10 years to get a Green Card in EB-2.

So the next steps are either move from US, or find a way to get a Green Card on EB-1. If anyone knows any good immigration lawyers, please help introduce.

However, related to the original post. In spite of motivation, talent and hard work; financial situation and immigration (in my case) play a big role in your entrepreneurship journey.