Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hahaha that was one of the most ridiculous (and succinct) 180's I've ever seen online.
It's OK for people to realize they made a mistake and change accordingly.
My bad. Sorry if anyone thought my comment was rude.
Advice
101–110 of 223 posts
Re: Advice
#102Advice for SF people: Stop talking about changing the god damned world when what you're actually working on is a middleman payment processor. You sound like your head is planted so far up into your ass you can see daylight again. E: Just to point out what I actually believe so I’m not just doing a drive-by insult - let capitalism and self interest be just that, like how a pizza delivery guy or payday loan provider pr…
That's the magic of the whole setup. When you present the situation as "making the world a better place", it's easier to swallow ethical transgressions and other illegal or immoral behaviors (Uber is a great example of this)
Re: Advice
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry, but this is real bad advice. Stalking people in front of Google is not going to work.
Sorry, but that's just not true. Silicon Valley is filled with stories of successful stalkings. For example, in 2007, I loitered outside Facebook HQ on university ave until I had a chance encounter with someone who also attended my alma mater (!) and was starting his first day of work, so he took me inside with him[1]. I tried to meet with Zuck but they sicced Dave Morin on me. I ended up getting incredible access to…
It's terrible that friendship these days is based on superficial/selfish character features like confidence instead of more socially beneficial features like altruism.
If evolution keeps going in this direction then there will be a point where capitalism won't be able to support it anymore. Capitalism was designed for a certain kind of species and we are no longer it.
Re: Advice
#104Advice for SF people: Stop talking about changing the god damned world when what you're actually working on is a middleman payment processor. You sound like your head is planted so far up into your ass you can see daylight again. E: Just to point out what I actually believe so I’m not just doing a drive-by insult - let capitalism and self interest be just that, like how a pizza delivery guy or payday loan provider pr…
That's the magic of the whole setup. When you present the situation as "making the world a better place", it's easier to swallow ethical transgressions and other illegal or immoral behaviors (Uber is a great example of this)
My favorite is how if you check out any oil companies website, pretend you knew nothing about them and you’d think they were green peace by the messaging on their site.
Re: Advice
#105> Why San Francisco? San Francisco is the Schelling point for high-openness, smart, energetic, optimistic people. Global Weird HQ. This could describe Seattle, Portland, Austin, Denver (from my experience) in the US, and a myriad of other places worldwide.
Seattle is (or was) great at many things but as someone who has lived here all my life, I disagree with this categorization. From what I know of Portland, it describes that city even less well.
We're politically liberal (sometimes to a fault), not any more optimistic than average (and quite possibly less), and definitely not what I'd call "energetic". It'd be more accurate to say the PNW has positioned itself as the laid-back alternative to SF. I've known a couple companies who have left the area because they couldn't find enough people here in their particular field who wanted to really work hard.
On these particular axes (which may or may not be important to you), Seattle/Portland simply aren't in the same league as San Francisco or New York City. People in those cities are mercilessly open, optimistic, and energetic.
Re: Advice
#106For some of us who are in 20~30, I recommend Sam Altman's "The days are long but the decades are short"[0].
[0]: http://blog.samaltman.com/the-days-are-long-but-the-decades-...
Re: Advice
#107> If you think something is important but people older than you hold don't hold it in high regard, there's a decent chance that you're right and they're wrong. Status lags by a generation or more. I winced a little bit at this one, though it's worded strangely so I may be misinterpreting it. The way I took it is poor advice -- when there is a mismatch between yourself and another in terms of "what's important" or wha…
You can disagree with someone about whether a piece of technology is important or not without regarding them a moral failure.
Where did the OP limit his claim to be about a specific thing like technology? And why did you interpret my comment as having universal applicability? There are categories of things which if you firmly believe that you are right and the other person is wrong in ascribing importance to them (following the OP's heuristic) you'd necessarily assume that person is a moral failure. For example, if I highly regard the ideas of a specific political philosophy, and others dismiss them as bad ideas that have been disregarded, it seems like a bad idea for me to conclude I'm correct in respecting them simply because people in my age group similarly hold those ideals in high regard.
My point was that a heuristic that urges one to have confidence that they have "correct" value judgements simply due to their age is a bad rule to have in your mental model of how to navigate differences with others, even if it's not a hard one.
Re: Advice
#108Advice for SF people: Stop talking about changing the god damned world when what you're actually working on is a middleman payment processor. You sound like your head is planted so far up into your ass you can see daylight again. E: Just to point out what I actually believe so I’m not just doing a drive-by insult - let capitalism and self interest be just that, like how a pizza delivery guy or payday loan provider pr…
I agree with you in theory but I feel that Stripe is an exception in that they have made it vastly easier for people to start businesses that will change the world.
Related to this is the talk the founder of Asana gave at Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders. If you can make the people that are on the front lines of doing good a bit more efficient then you are doing good yourself.
Re: Advice
#109"People who did great things often did so at very surprisingly young ages". This is very true, Gates was 19 (BASIC), Linus was 21 (Linux), Wozniak 25 (Apple I), Ada Lovelace 27 (first algorithm), Bill Joy 21 (vi), Andreessen 21 (Mosaic), Turing 24 (Turing machine) and so on.
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Re: Advice
#110One thing that I didn't do at that age and very much regret is to be really conscious of being healthy and physically fit. That's the right time to learn what you should and shouldn't put in your body, and how to be constantly active. There's a million different ways to accomplish that but it's important to find one. People at that age often don't really understand how closely linked physical fitness and mental healt…
"Youth is wasted on the young"