Advice • Hacker News Board

Re: Advice

#151

Post by eldavido » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 7:14 PM UTC

mcguire wrote: post #126

dkrich wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. The older I get the more I’ve learned to listen to other people and to question my own ideas. I’ve gotten to the point where I actually view people who listen to others and are open to changing their opinions when confronted with good advice as being much more intelligent than those who are sure they are right about everything all the time. As the Bob Dylan song goes, “I was so much older then, I’m younger th…

Are you the co-founder and CEO of Stripe? Were you a millionaire at 19 and now, at 29, worth north of a billion dollars? Why would anyone want to listen to your advice? (/s Be careful about listening to people who are obviously statistical outliers, who are young and apparently have succeeded at everything they've touched.)

I find it interesting that it's accepted in our culture, that "Having money" means "Someone worth listening to".

I see this all the time and just wanted to point it out.

Re: Advice

#152

Post by tedmiston » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 7:16 PM UTC

sudhirj wrote: post #18

pc wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

I would scout specific meetups of interest on Meetup.com before you go next time. You can definitely find several good ones in the same week in SF.

Besides that it helps to be around other similar people, but I wouldn't necessarily spend my day in Philz / Ritual / Sightglass / Four Barrel / a co-working space if the trip was for vacation. I came to SF for a pre-accelerator once that brought a similar crowd.

Staying in the HI hostel helps too.

Re: Advice

#153

Post by dang » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 7:23 PM UTC

java_script wrote: post #98

Advice 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…

Please don't sling insults on HN. It degrades this place and encourages worse. As your edit shows, it's easy to make fair points without doing that.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Advice

#154

Post by aphextron » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 7:25 PM UTC

sincerely wrote: post #147

aphextron wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Orange County (if that zoning bill ever gets passed) lol >Austin Texas. >Salt Lake City Mormons. >Probably Portland. Bingo.

If "Texas" is a downside for Austin, then surely Portland has the same problem? Isn't the rest of the state strongly conservative? Honestly I doubt it will be a city on the tier of Austin/Portland/Seattle, when San Francisco was still the obvious place to go for people who wanted to do weird things it was much cheaper relatively. The same goes for NYC back when it was a musical/artistic hotspot - living space was muc…

>If "Texas" is a downside for Austin, then surely Portland has the same problem? Isn't the rest of the state strongly conservative?

It definitely does, but to a lesser extent. Oregon is a reliably blue state because the population is extremely sparse outside of Portland, whereas Austin is just a bubble amid a sea of red. Oregon is also a lot less of the "southern redneck confederate" type, and more of the "libertarian don't tread on me" conservative, which is far more tolerable.

Re: Advice

#155

Post by yakshaving_jgt » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 7:32 PM UTC

fellowniusmonk wrote: post #118

ritchiea wrote: post #74

I wish someone would write a useful version of this for the question “what should I do to make the most of my life when my family is poor or somehow less fortunate?” A lot of this would still apply but there’s a huge percentage of the population that has to deal with major difficulties in life before they can heed the kind of advice Patrick offers.

I come from a considerably poorer background than you based on your other posts, poorer than most, with birth defects that have caused me constant problems and... I could add a bunch of things to this list but it's quite accurate, I'm just past 30 now and by being poor, smart, open, hardworking and going where the energy/money is you end up ticking all of these boxes. You'll end up more closely identifying with first…

I feel relatively successful now at 28 as a programmer, speaker, founder etc after having had to eat with the homeless every day when I was 20, so this comment hits pretty close to home.

Re: Advice

#156

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 7:34 PM UTC

kyledrake wrote: post #150

jonbarker wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having lived there and now living in a cheaper real estate market I am grateful for having lived there, where I could not afford a house. I am now no longer interested in owning residential real estate no matter where I go!

The housing market is flooded with buyers right now, all-cash offers and waived inspections. It's obvious to me that most buyers don't realize the risks associated with their investment, don't understand how to monetize them against rents from long-term buyers, and are just generally thinking emotionally and irrationally. Terrible market to buy in if you don't like spending the rest of your life paying off a money pi…

[deleted]

Re: Advice

#157

Post by hluska » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 7:35 PM UTC

jakecrouch wrote: post #145

> But having good social skills confers life-long benefits. So, don't write them off. Get good at making a good first impression, being funny (if possible... this author still working on it...), speaking publicly. I would be careful with this point. Young people who don't have great social skills already tend to feel that they are somehow missing out on something important. But those who have good social skills in ou…

> But those who have good social skills in our culture will have a hard time forming new and unique ideas, and will often get talked into believing big, fundamental ideas that are wrong or crazy. I'd compare it to being a smoker in the 1960s.

I can assure you that having good social skills is absolutely nothing like being a smoker in the 1960s. And, there is no absolute relationship between having good social skills and getting talked into believing crazy ideas.

I have absolutely no idea where you get those ideas, but they are completely and demonstrably wrong.

Re: Advice

#158

Post by nextstep » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 7:39 PM UTC

>>>Figure out a way to travel to San Francisco

Hahahahahahaha is this for real?

Re: Advice

#159

Post by fiveoak » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 7:40 PM UTC

jakecrouch wrote: post #145

> But having good social skills confers life-long benefits. So, don't write them off. Get good at making a good first impression, being funny (if possible... this author still working on it...), speaking publicly. I would be careful with this point. Young people who don't have great social skills already tend to feel that they are somehow missing out on something important. But those who have good social skills in ou…

I don't really think there are any negative effects to having good social skills. If anything, being able to effectively communicate with others probably helps with coming up with new/unique ideas. Very few great ideas are created in a vacuum. But, I do agree it's important that people don't feel afraid to be an independent thinker, and it's easy to fall into the trap of forced conformity in order to feel more socially accepted.. but I don't think that is really necessarily a product of having good social skills.

Re: Advice

#160

Post by fiveoak » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 7:45 PM UTC

CPLX wrote: post #32

One 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…

Same here, I actually lost 200 lbs in my mid-late 20s and it's amazing how many positive ways it has affected me beyond the physical health benefits. Growing up I never had an interest in sports/physical activities but I wish I had.