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Ask HN: What was your big failure? How did you get around it?

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Re: Ask HN: What was your big failure? How did you get around it?

#2

Post by dd-sharma »

There's no failure if you keep doing what you really believe in. I feel labeling an outcome as a binary success or failure is not fair. For my first tech startup, I had lofty goals - a large scale company within a few years. It didn't get to that point and after a few years, it felt like it was becoming a lifestyle company. So, from the perspective of that specific goal, I failed and I felt that way at that time. But I feel I set that goal without considering what will happen on the journey, what all factors will be in my control and what won't. Even if I considered them, I wouldn't have known numerous factors. I faced some unforeseen challenges - some real big ones e.g. the great recession and investor capital drying up overnight. It was a real grind for a few years. But looking at that journey, I acquired at least 3x learning/experience what I would have learnt in my corporate job for the same duration. I acquired confidence in my ability to create money. And I feel it also made me a more humble person. So, my suggestion is if you really believe in what you're doing, don't give up. Besides the end goal, try to enjoy the journey too. Good luck!

Re: Ask HN: What was your big failure? How did you get around it?

#4

Post by barrenko »

I can give you a couple just in regards to my programming career:

- Got my first dev job after several bootcamps and then just decided to YOLO and move to a different country (??), thinking stuff will just work out in regards to my budding coding career. It did not.

- Couple of years after, managed to secure an almost goverment type secure C++ job, and was then stupid enough to try to negotiate for the tiniest bit higher salary after all was said and done (???), the HM find it hugely disrespectful

I'm still alive, and have made almost a dozen of these, but in a honest way I've never "recovered" from a single one. It's like you die a little bit, and a new you (career-wise) continues on.

Re: Ask HN: What was your big failure? How did you get around it?

#5

Post by adityaathalye »

My 0.0000002 BTC...

But first, hang in there, and please try to not be alone in this. Let your people help, or at least be there in spirit (share your feelings with them).

Please read the Following as sharing, not advice (how could I, a total stranger know anything about your life).

Details private and personal (soul-crushing endings / losses / grief / damage etc.), but lesson public, learned the hard way over about the last 20 years. An incomplete list:

- Learning to think of, and do, the "betting" on myself thing, as construction rather than moon or bust, based on how I am wired. So for me, that is prioritising my sense of agency and curiosity, community and surroundings (I am a creature of my environment), independence of thought (skepticism, but not cynical fatalism --- let's call it scientific thinking mindset),

- Learning self-care, so that I can keep going as well as give care to others when they are in need. Learning to say yes and say no with grace and self-awareness. This has been crazy hard. Let me just say talk therapy saves lives.

- Luckily, surviving long enough to realise that, if I catch myself thinking; "Well, f#@! me, some really bad shit is happening to me... again? Is this the end? Finally?" ... realising that, oh right, lol, it was the same the last time and the time before that and... Well, I guess I ain't seen nothin' yet. Let me phone a friend and ask for help, or at least talk to someone who still loves me about nothing in particular.

- Being intelligent about money + material resources. Use cash and credit to solve problems, but also learn to have a great time with almost nothing... the less one needs, the freer one is, and more resilient.

- When programming as well as building large-scale systems, keeping state at bay and all them functions / subsystems pure / referentially transparent.

Restated another way, I guess my life has become a bunch of cliches (and it's not bad at all): airline announcement + SEALs motto + pithy sayings:

- Love thy neighbour / community and so forth, but please wear your own oxygen mask before helping others.

- Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.

- Health is wealth. (Sleep enough, eat real food, exercise enough, seek wiser counsel and/or therapy, be with kind people.)

- But also, Cash is King/Queen.

- Sharing is caring (and man is it also cheaper and just more fun overall)... Try as much as one can to play non-zero-sum games.

cf. some related meta stuff I blogged:

- My `now` page (needs a 2026 update, but enough to give colour commentary) https://www.evalapply.org/now.html

- On curiosity: https://www.evalapply.org/posts/what-have-you-been-curious-a...

- On orienting one's point of view, when surrounded by inescapable software tech business hustle culture and the concomitant "go big or go home" work/professional pressure: https://www.evalapply.org/posts/systems-scale-value/

- Rare personal share, from a very dark time in the recent past (the post is heavy stuff): https://www.evalapply.org/posts/dont-hurry-dont-stop-sad-ver...

And finally...

If you want to talk in private, I am open to an email conversation, per my "standing invitation". BUT there is a caveat. Please first talk to someone who cares about you. And then, if you so feel, email this total internet rando: https://www.evalapply.org/about.html#standing-invitation

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