41–50 of 101 posts
I wouldn't advise people to try to start startups before about 23. Before that you should be exploring. ------
------ Most people are not suited to it. I'd be surprised if more than 1% of people are. And even for those few, it's a mistake to start too young. If a startup succeeds, it takes over your life in a way that cuts off lots of other opportunities. It's a mistake to do that sort of pruning before you understand what you're losing by it. I wouldn't advise people to try to start startups before about 23. Before that you…
> "don't start before 23"
Oh Silicon Valley. I've been in tech in the Bay Area for about 5 years now, regularly attending various events and being a part of the community, and most startup founders under 30-35 are ridiculously naive and boring, with very little to show over time. People over 30 with a decade or so of industry and work experience tend to be much more realistic and methodical about what they're doing (I'm 25).
PG is very successful and has some interesting things to say, but it's important to keep in mind that taking advice from someone whose vision of startups in the last 10 years came exclusively from manning YCombinator is going to be deeply biased.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
At one time, not everyone automatically agreed that everyone should learn to type, or learn basic computer literacy. Or to look back even further in history, at one point not everyone could read and write. Imagine if we could expect a basic level of programming skill from everyone. Not the ability to write an operating system kernel from scratch; just the ability needed to put together a shell pipeline to get a job d…
"just the ability needed to put together a shell pipeline to get a job done, or a twenty-line script to automate some tedious task. Imagine how much that would change everyday life." Well unfortunately like learning a foreign language if you don't constantly use those skills they are near worthless. Especially as you get older. And in one way it's quite a bit different than learning a foreign language. There is a gre…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_Machines_380Z
Then a ZX81, then a BBC Micro
What would now be utterly useless skills if I was suddenly in need of adding some code to my work years later.
Ten years ago AJAX was just appearing [1], Web 2.0 was the buzz, and the iPhone was 2 years away. What would you teach kids today to equip them for their work in 2025 ?
[1] http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2005/11/javascript_a...
------ Most people are not suited to it. I'd be surprised if more than 1% of people are. And even for those few, it's a mistake to start too young. If a startup succeeds, it takes over your life in a way that cuts off lots of other opportunities. It's a mistake to do that sort of pruning before you understand what you're losing by it. I wouldn't advise people to try to start startups before about 23. Before that you…
> "it's a mistake to start too young" > "don't start before 23" Oh Silicon Valley. I've been in tech in the Bay Area for about 5 years now, regularly attending various events and being a part of the community, and most startup founders under 30-35 are ridiculously naive and boring, with very little to show over time. People over 30 with a decade or so of industry and work experience tend to be much more realistic and…
Anyway this was interesting to me because most people tend to overly support youngster's into entrepreneurship but this looked more realistic and practical.
But it's a decent interview regardless.
Is there anything else that isn’t taught to young students that you wish would be incorporated into the material, or any other thoughts on education? I can't comment on the US education system, but back home I think one of the most important ingredient missing from my school education was _Critical Thinking_ [0]. I happened to stumble upon this field by happenstance and was baffled why this is not integral to our edu…
I wonder if they make those anymore. Now I only see books of crosswords (they had those too when I was a child) and Sudoku (that fad was still a decade or two out).
"The combination of forces that produced the default curriculum was so random" This seems true and sad. What would be a first principles approach to "What should every kid learn" if we were to start from scratch you think?
If we were to start from scratch? Every kid should learn to be themselves. Let their individual educations naturally sprout forth from that.
I agree with the rest of your comment.
I would say that every kid should be exposed to enough experiences to support their natural human quest to understand themselves. But there are people who don't have much capacity or desire for introspection, so that breaks down quickly.
I don't think every kid needs the same things. Which is why the industrial education system fails for most. There is no perfect curriculum, there is no perfect law, etc.
Is there anything else that isn’t taught to young students that you wish would be incorporated into the material, or any other thoughts on education? I can't comment on the US education system, but back home I think one of the most important ingredient missing from my school education was _Critical Thinking_ [0]. I happened to stumble upon this field by happenstance and was baffled why this is not integral to our edu…
It was really unpopular because: "I think philosophy is stuff you kinda already know deep down. So why study it?" And now it's no longer mandatory.
Apparently analyzing a poem is important, but analyzing an argument is not.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> "it's a mistake to start too young" > "don't start before 23" Oh Silicon Valley. I've been in tech in the Bay Area for about 5 years now, regularly attending various events and being a part of the community, and most startup founders under 30-35 are ridiculously naive and boring, with very little to show over time. People over 30 with a decade or so of industry and work experience tend to be much more realistic and…
I'm kinda confused. It looked like you are also confirming PG's observation but you ended with a skeptical tone. Anyway this was interesting to me because most people tend to overly support youngster's into entrepreneurship but this looked more realistic and practical.
Both of these things are necessary on HN if you want to maximize the number of upvotes.