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Ask HN: What 60 folks can give career and general life advice for 40 folks

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Re: Ask HN: What 60 folks can give career and general life advice for 40 folks

#51

Post by 4gotunameagain »

quonn wrote: post #47
kmarc wrote: post #21

Not 60, but trying to somewhat predict where I will be at that time... As a non-native English speaker I used to say: 20 years ago I knew that if I wanted to have a great career today, I had to learn English. Today, if I want to have a great career 20 years from now, I should learn Chinese. (since then I left the telco bubble, maybe other parts of the tech industry are not that Chinese-heavy)

People said the same 20 years ago and it‘s not going to happen for many reasons. - The language of science remains English. - Only a small part of the Asian countries has languages with a similar structure. Meanwhile, North and South America, Europe, Australia, Russia and India are within the Indo-Germanic language family. - English has both simple grammar and a simple alphabet. To succeed a language also has to be e…

*Indo-European

Also the language of science remains English because still the west is the most prevalent economy. As history has shown, science follows the strong economies. Let's see how that plays out, if we manage to not implode, because we sure are heading there right now.

As much as I hate American foreign policy and large parts of the culture as well, it sure as hell beats Chinese.

Re: Ask HN: What 60 folks can give career and general life advice for 40 folks

#52

Post by kmarc »

quonn wrote: post #47
kmarc wrote: post #21

Not 60, but trying to somewhat predict where I will be at that time... As a non-native English speaker I used to say: 20 years ago I knew that if I wanted to have a great career today, I had to learn English. Today, if I want to have a great career 20 years from now, I should learn Chinese. (since then I left the telco bubble, maybe other parts of the tech industry are not that Chinese-heavy)

People said the same 20 years ago and it‘s not going to happen for many reasons. - The language of science remains English. - Only a small part of the Asian countries has languages with a similar structure. Meanwhile, North and South America, Europe, Australia, Russia and India are within the Indo-Germanic language family. - English has both simple grammar and a simple alphabet. To succeed a language also has to be e…

It's quite much possibly my (previous) bubble.

> The language of science remains English.

While I agree with you, born and raised in the Eastern block, they also had their common blanket statements. Looking from the other side, they turned out to be wrong.

I'll keep an open mind, in case I'm again on some other sides.

Re: Ask HN: What 60 folks can give career and general life advice for 40 folks

#53

Post by meghan_rain »

robga wrote: post #46
GianFabien wrote: post #9

For me the biggest factor has been understanding how the hedonistic trap limited my options. It works like this: you start a new job with a nice big bump in salary. You buy a new car, go to fancier restaurants, take dates to "in places", move into a nicer apartment. With each increment of income, expenses increase. Pretty soon you are trapped in an awful job but the pay is too good and you have no savings. Getting of…

Exactly. When I realised a $4 coffee is actually $14 dollars in todays money if I put it in a boring index tracker and leave it 30 years until I’d need to spend it, that was a massive mental switch in my head. I’m always aware of balancing hedonism/asceticism.

Yeah I think balancing is importanr. You don't want to die at 60, the first day of your retirement, after living 100% ascetically your entire life. It would be too risky of an investment. I think something 20/80 (20 spending) is roughly a good idea.

Re: Ask HN: What 60 folks can give career and general life advice for 40 folks

#54

Post by badpun »

epicureanideal wrote: post #16
gigatexal wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This should probably be enshrined on tablets somewhere. I too am worried about either moving into management or starting my own company or something else because there’s no way I’m going to be a worthwhile IC into my 50s. I need to do something more.

I sure hope I have a big exit sometime before 60 (20 years from now), because the cost of living in the Bay Area is crazy. It would be awful to work as a "well paid" (but most of it goes to living expenses and raising kids) software engineer for many years, and then need to retire in some rural area on social security, with bare minimum quality of life...

You should be able to sell your Bay Area house for millions by then.

Re: Ask HN: What 60 folks can give career and general life advice for 40 folks

#55

Post by swah »

haspok wrote: post #34
gigatexal wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This should probably be enshrined on tablets somewhere. I too am worried about either moving into management or starting my own company or something else because there’s no way I’m going to be a worthwhile IC into my 50s. I need to do something more.

Some people do like coding until retirement and are / were quite happy about it. (Recommended reading is thecodist.com - who recently started blogging again!)

Thanks for the blog suggestion - didn't know that one. In the topic of getting old, just bought a couple split keyboards to solve some wrist issues.

Re: Ask HN: What 60 folks can give career and general life advice for 40 folks

#56

Post by jowdones »

chalcolithic wrote: post #31
jowdones wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, you're wrong. Japan's stock market dropped 90%. For 15 years straight, and never recovered above 80% of it's peak. US is only "special" until it isn't. This didn't mean society collapsed and they started living in a Mad Max universe as people defending "stocks can't go to zero" argue. Stocks industry is just a massive gambling machine. It can and will wipe out all your capital in completely unpredictable ways. B…

It's very interesting, thank you. Retrospectively what alternatives to the stock market (aside from stock markets outside the country) would be a good investment in just-before-the-crash Japan?

Well, you never know it's gonna be a crash so there's never "just before crash".

But definitely "never keep all your eggs in one basket". At most a quarter of all your net worth in stocks and that only if you enjoy having heart palpitations and have mentally resigned to kissing good bye to that capital. Stocks is gambling, advising someone to "invest" is same as "go gamble your money in Vegas". Would you still put your hard earned money in it if you realized what a sham the stock market is?

Real estate, land, ca$h in the bank. Stay out of gambling. But of course the establishment will never give you the last part.

Re: Ask HN: What 60 folks can give career and general life advice for 40 folks

#57

Post by gigatexal »

emodendroket wrote: post #19
gigatexal wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This should probably be enshrined on tablets somewhere. I too am worried about either moving into management or starting my own company or something else because there’s no way I’m going to be a worthwhile IC into my 50s. I need to do something more.

> I too am worried about either moving into management or starting my own company or something else because there’s no way I’m going to be a worthwhile IC into my 50s I'm curious why you say this.

I’m not sure I’ll be able to keep up but also worried I might not be able to compete with the young guns and make the kind of money I’ll need to put away so I don’t retire destitute.

Re: Ask HN: What 60 folks can give career and general life advice for 40 folks

#58

Post by jaybrendansmith »

- The amount of calories you need after 50 drops almost in half. You slowly become allergic to many foods. Regulate your diet better. - Use it or lose it. That means the ability to climb stairs, walk, run, pushups, jumping jacks, but also play an instrument, type, write, do math. Go out of your way to keep doing these things. Get a personal trainer if you can afford it. - Travel as much as you can now. It's more fun when you're young. Money spent now is worth more than money spent later in more ways than one. - For your career, find your masterpiece, something only you can do that will either live beyond you or perhaps help many others. You may need to take some risks to find it, if you don't do that in your 40s it might be too late in your 50s. - You can't time the market, but start saving now for your kids college or retirement. Just take the money out of your paycheck if you can and pretend like you never got it ... your living standard tends to expand to your income. - If you don't have one, find a partner. It gets harder to find one after 40, and after 50 you may stop caring. It takes two.

Re: Ask HN: What 60 folks can give career and general life advice for 40 folks

#59

Post by HardwareLust »

jaybrendansmith wrote: post #58

- The amount of calories you need after 50 drops almost in half. You slowly become allergic to many foods. Regulate your diet better. - Use it or lose it. That means the ability to climb stairs, walk, run, pushups, jumping jacks, but also play an instrument, type, write, do math. Go out of your way to keep doing these things. Get a personal trainer if you can afford it. - Travel as much as you can now. It's more fun…

>You slowly become allergic to many foods.

You got a source on that?

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