91–95 of 95 posts
It's amazing the lengths to which people will go to avoid Windows programming. I know I have :)
I prefer it and I'm a lot faster programming using C#/Visual Studio than I am with Javascript + framework + text editor.
>>Paul : It is actually a trick for interviews. If someone asks you a boring question, just answer the interesting one they might have asked, and nobody complains. That's classic... An example of how to actually live "your" own life in this world...not paying a great deal of attention to uninteresting things that others bring up; rather molding those same things so that they become interesting, and illuminate parts o…
Reading about how his original motivations were purely pecuniary, he was keen to sell his company as quickly as possible and his ambition was to go back to essay-writing and hobbyist programming, I can't help thinking young PG probably wouldn't get accepted into YC these days ...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, this is so important to communicate. I think "waiting for inspiration" is a bad approach and bad advice for anyone who want to do something professionally. Unless you are inspired 20-40 hours per week, only hobbyists have the luxury of waiting for inspiration. Also, how will you ever improve in something if you only do it while inspired? And how will your inspired work be any good if you have no practice and exp…
The main thing is that getting 4 masterpieces is extremely likely if you produce 10,000 works, and next to impossible if you produce only 4.
Yes and no. Once you succeeded in creating a masterpiece it can become incredibly hard to ever create something worthwhile again because success (especially when rewarded by the markets) can screw up your mind for good. You loose your sense of wonder, you feel the pressure to have success again and so on. It could very well be that you just create more of the same or get worse due to this. I think bands that are considered one hit wonders might provide a good example.
It's a bit like an optimization algorithm that found a local optimum but can't escape its current neighborhood.
I also wonder now, that what I think (and say to friends) of as my life style business tech startup, is actually a Zombie? Did we really manage to hit the magic break even (revenue = comfortable salary + expenses). Hmm...But something in me tells me that, there's more to it, as my effort has been ongoing, although its little less than thrice of the time PG spent on Viaweb.
One motivation, which also contributes to make me keep working in it, is my earlier partners, who still have a stake, and they contributed a lot, to this in the early years. Somehow, there's a feeling in me that they should get a good return on that effort. Which also means that my returns will be more, so its not a pure selfless line of thought there.
Just some musings, after reading the very good interview transcript. And just want to assure that there is no irony/sarcasm in my post (I think, it may come across like that in the early part). And also no "sympathy" replies please. As I actually feel quite upbeat about things.
Apologies for being tangential (if I have been), just felt like writing this.