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Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?

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Re: Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?

#201

Post by gtf21 »

miguendes wrote: post #80
gtf21 wrote: post #67

As a founder / CTO the best money I have spent is on a really good coach. My coach (my cofounder's too, and now some of our leadership team) doesn't have particular expertise in founding or leading companies, but works with many founders, and she's not technical, but the things I think I have found hardest to learn are mostly around people management and leadership, which I think are underrated skills that require se…

I'm considering hiring a coach to improve my soft skills. The problem is finding the right person. Do you have any tips on how to find such person? Edit: software -> soft I mean stuff like better communication, goal setting, learning strategies, negotiation skills...

Those are all things I've found coaching to help with. I had tried other coaches before settling with mine, she was recommended by an investor who had worked with her closely for years. To be honest, so much of it is deeply personal. She works brilliantly for me, but I'm sure others might have different experiences (although she coaches many founders).

I think the best thing to do is to get recommendations / referrals from people you know, and try a few sessions. It really takes time (in my experience) to find a good rhythm with a coach, and to learn how to work with that person. An important indicator for me was that I felt really comfortable really quickly, and that my coach didn't just prescribe solutions, but instead helped me think through problems.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?

#202

Post by dredmorbius »

kristopolous wrote: post #145
randomNumber7 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If this is out of some people's budgets, check eBay. Just google "library genisis" ;)

Back in the 90s tech futurists were talking about having "the library of congress on the size of your finger nail". Now we actually could do something in that realm (LoC is about ~10tb and there's 1tb microsd cards; we're probably talking "within 5-7 years" without any exaggeration) but there's so many courts and laws stopping it from happening, the great cambrian explosion of knowledge has been held back.

Every local library could store the full digitised book contents of the LoC[1] for about $5,000.

That this isn't happening is a crime.

________________________________

Notes:

1. I get about 200 TB based on 40 million books, OCRd at 5 MB per book. A 2 TB SATA 5200 RPM drive runs about $100, and the full collection would fit on 50 such drives. Full optical scans are ~10x larger. The LoC's collection includes another 130 million non-book items. https://www.loc.gov/about/general-information/

Re: Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?

#204

Post by locochef »

The single best thing I did for professional development was see a therapist. In tech, our jobs are knowledge-based. You can't hammer a nail into a board while you're sitting on the couch with your child, but you can certainly think about software architecture. I've found that my job bleeds into my personal life, and vice versa, and I believe it is far more common than most people realize. Stress piles up and it affects not only your home life, but your work life.

Taking the time to talk to a professional and become introspective and conscious of my own mental health has provided me with more value than all the books and conferences and talks I've consumed put together.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?

#205

Post by gtf21 »

rdtwo wrote: post #194
miguendes wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm considering hiring a coach to improve my soft skills. The problem is finding the right person. Do you have any tips on how to find such person? Edit: software -> soft I mean stuff like better communication, goal setting, learning strategies, negotiation skills...

Best way to learn is through doing different challenges for yourself. A good psychologist can help you setup a plan and program without any out of pocket expenses besides co pay. Problem is finding one that uses evidence based therapy and isn’t a quack. Look for someone with a degree from a good university that specializes in anxiety

I don't know if I really agree -- I have found having a coach extremely valuable (and mine is totally unqualified in terms of psychology degrees, but has heaps of experience of coaching founders). Having someone to help you think through problems who can do so objectively, and doesn't get fascinated with the detail because she's removed from the problems to a degree, is great.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?

#206

Post by rdtwo »

orzig wrote: post #171
paulgb wrote: post #17

I've enjoyed having an O'Reilly Safari subscription for random access to books. In particular, the Pragmatic Programmer and Designing Data-Intensive Applications. I've also had good experiences with SCPD courses from Stanford, if your budget would cover those (they are at the other end of the price spectrum).

I frequently muse about whether Safari, which is valuable, is worth the $399/y Pro: I like being able to sample the same topic from many prospectives (one chapter from each of 3-5 books) Cons: I wouldn't spend /that/ much on books in a year, the quality of the videos is widely variable, the search (including quality filtering) is _terrible_, and the inability to bookmark specific talks within a conference is infuriat…

I have a work subscription and never use it. The interface is so terrible I’d rather pay for the book

Re: Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?

#207

Post by boogies »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #103

If your budget is a few hundred, an IntelliJ Ultimate license. For me it's a force multiplier. Built-in highlights of things that can be improved (e.g. linting) is a bonus. In the end, things like VS Code are just text editors. I mean, you can't get a warning that the `[]` syntax isn't available in your old codebase's flavor of PHP (5.2) in VS Code. I think. Alternatively: Take time off. If you have enough money to l…

> I mean, you can't get a warning that the `[]` syntax isn't available in your old codebase's flavor of PHP (5.2) in VS Code. I think.

You can get warnings when syntax isn’t available in your script’s flavor of shell in [neo]vi[m], emacs, or GNU ed with shellcheck, I’d be mildly surprised if there wasn’t a similar editor-agnostic linter for PHP.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?

#208

Post by gtf21 »

radihuq wrote: post #76
gtf21 wrote: post #67

As a founder / CTO the best money I have spent is on a really good coach. My coach (my cofounder's too, and now some of our leadership team) doesn't have particular expertise in founding or leading companies, but works with many founders, and she's not technical, but the things I think I have found hardest to learn are mostly around people management and leadership, which I think are underrated skills that require se…

How did you find your coach?

Recommendation from an investor and mentor I really respected. She had worked with my coach for years.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?

#210

Post by rsync »

A few computers, some digiboards, a bocaboard, 12 modems and a T1 to my first apartment in Boulder.

Of course the BBS only lasted 18 months and never made any money but it provided an early (1995) and very in-depth window into what running an ISP would be like and eventually a PaaS/IaaS (or whatever rsync.net is).

In second place for "best money you have spent on professional development?" would be hotel/flight costs for Defcon 6-10.

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