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Advice

patrickcollison.com

11–20 of 223 posts

Re: Advice

#11
post #5

I'm a bit amused by the advice to move to SF because that's what all the other nonconformists are doing.

Advice is to visit, not to move!

Re: Advice

#14
post #11
post #5

I'm a bit amused by the advice to move to SF because that's what all the other nonconformists are doing.

Advice is to visit, not to move!

do you really think people are that interesting in SF? there are a lot of people trying to make a lot of money by building tech startups in SF, but are those the kind of people that are interesting to meet? Yes, if your aim in life is to build a startup or invest in one, probably no otherwise?

Re: Advice

#16
As far as "changing the world" goes; the reality is you mostly have to be very lucky. The amount of people setting out to do world changing things vs. the ones that are successful is a staggering ratio.

Hitting 40 this year my advice to any young person is do what will make you feel happy and fulfilled. Whatever that is. It's hard to figure that out, but we only live once and the old adage "You'll regret the things you didn't do more than the things you did." is generally true.

The one sentence version is; say "Yes!" to more things.

Re: Advice

#18
post #11
post #5

I'm a bit amused by the advice to move to SF because that's what all the other nonconformists are doing.

Advice is to visit, not to move!

I was in SF for the last WWDC, mostly to see and visit these people I keep hearing about. But I couldn’t for the life of me figure out where they were or how to talk to them. I went to WWDC, a couple of meetups, the Computer History Museum, walked through Stanford, ate hummus in Palo Alto, took only public transport or shared Lyft rides. But other than a chance meeting with the CEO of Mode Analytics in one can ride that lasted three minutes, basically zero interaction with the type of people mentioned.

Granted, I am an introvert and don’t strike up conversations as much as I should, but it seems like saying visit SF is useless. Is there a club or some secret society or library or bar that everyone hangs out in? I’ll come back and visit if I have an address to go to. SF is way too broad.

Re: Advice

#19
post #11
post #5

I'm a bit amused by the advice to move to SF because that's what all the other nonconformists are doing.

Advice is to visit, not to move!

... and because of what is to be found there not because other people are also visiting it.

Re: Advice

#20
I think it takes a bit more time to cultivate lessons learned from the past decade. There were things that made sense to do ten years ago, but twenty years, thirty years, forty years (or more) on it becomes more obvious of the validity of the choices made.

EDIT: for life-changing choices

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