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Paul Buchheit: Serendipity finds you

paulbuchheit.blogspot.com

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Re: Paul Buchheit: Serendipity finds you

#41

Post by ramkalari »

michael_nielsen wrote: post #3

A closely related story, from HN user kenjackson ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1647146 ): "How long will you need to find your truest, most productive niche? This I cannot predict, for, sadly, access to a podium confers no gift of prophecy. But I can say that however long it takes, it will be time well spent. I am reminded of a friend from the early 1970s, Edward Witten. I liked Ed, but felt sorry for him, to…

Thanks for sharing this. While Ed might not have been clear about his goals, he tried stuff and moved on quickly if he didn't like something.

Re: Paul Buchheit: Serendipity finds you

#42

Post by jseliger »

joshstrike wrote: post #13

Meh. Lucky people always love to talk about how easy it is if you just do what they did - though they usually have a hard time explaining exactly what it was that they did. How does he explain all the happy-go-lucky young fliberdygibbits who ended up serendipitously taking their first job offer in 1998 from Pets.com? Or those of us who labored under the impression that "as soon as DataPower takes off" there'll be bon…

Lucky people always love to talk about how easy it is if you just do what they did - though they usually have a hard time explaining exactly what it was that they did.

I just posted an interview with the writer and professional asshole Tucker Max, who said almost the same thing: http://jseliger.com/2010/10/22/tucker-max-interview-assholes... :

Tucker Max: People create all these narratives explaining away why they haven’t had the courage to take their personal path, or explaining away my success, or anyone else. Anyone who succeeds in anything, there’s always going to be people who don’t have the courage to do that. They get upset about it, either explain it away, or dismiss it away.

JS: It sounds like you almost found out by accident. In Assholes Finish First you say that when you and your friends graduated from law school, “We were slowly realizing that the ‘real life’ we’d chosen really fucking sucked. A lot.” Sounds like you’re trying to tell people how not to do that.

TM: As much as I’d like to sit here and be like, “Yeah, I had the courage to do all this stuff, and I had the vision to see where I was gonna go and I knew I would get there.” That’s fuckin’ bullshit. That’s not true. That’s the narrative I might tell when I’m 70, and I can’t remember all this stuff.

JS: Trying to inspire your grandkids?

TM: Right. The true, true story is it’s a combination of some determination and some talent on my part. Some talent, a lot of determination, a lot of luck, and a lot of serendipity. And a lot of failure. I was fired—

JS: There’s a section about failure in the book.

TM: I was fired from the legal profession, basically. I wasn’t just fired from Fenwick and West—you read the first book, the story’s in there. I got fired in such a public way that there was almost no way I was going to get back into law. I would have to go back and be a public defender or something if I wanted to be a lawyer. Seriously.

Re: Paul Buchheit: Serendipity finds you

#43

Post by nostrademons »

donaq wrote: post #37

Eh, I just got approached by Google via LinkedIn and went for it even though I was sure I wouldn't get it. Sure enough, I did not get it, but it was nevertheless a valuable experience. I have learned two things: 1) An n^2 algorithm runs in polynomial time, but it is no longer good enough when n ~= 100000000. Assuming 1000000 operations a second, that is still a few hundred years. I have never thought of it because I'…

1) There's nothing quite like looking at your MapReduce status page and seeing "Estimated completion time: 79 years."

Re: Paul Buchheit: Serendipity finds you

#44

Post by nl »

dschobel wrote: post #40
joshstrike wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying the guy isn't smart. Just throwing out a little "outliers" to grease the wheel for the rest of us donkeys. Sometimes reasons to hope are not best expressed by those who have nothing to regret. This is one of those times.

I'm with you on this one. After the initial 'serendipity' of google, PB's reputation was sealed and he could pick his title and company. While it's interesting to speculate if PB had chosen a pets.com instead of google what would have happened to his career, it's not particularly constructive. The idea that our success is largely beyond our control is sufficiently pernicious that we're all better off just pretending…

If PB had been at Pets.com then I'm guessing FriendFeed would have involved feeding dogs?

Re: Paul Buchheit: Serendipity finds you

#45

Post by hotmind »

"The program for eliminating ego-fear and unblocking serendipity is very simple: seek ego-fear. Hunt it down and soak in it. Steal its energy. This is, by definition, scary. That's good."

Jason Shen is an excellent example of hunting down ego-fear: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1811868

Re: Paul Buchheit: Serendipity finds you

#46

Post by drgath »

donaq wrote: post #37

Eh, I just got approached by Google via LinkedIn and went for it even though I was sure I wouldn't get it. Sure enough, I did not get it, but it was nevertheless a valuable experience. I have learned two things: 1) An n^2 algorithm runs in polynomial time, but it is no longer good enough when n ~= 100000000. Assuming 1000000 operations a second, that is still a few hundred years. I have never thought of it because I'…

Interviewing for jobs you know you won't get is one of the best things you can do in your career. The insight you gain on both their hiring process as well as their expectation is priceless. I've interviewed with 5 big web companies, failed many, but landed one (after a failed first attempt). I credit my experiences learned from the failed attempts as the reason I was eventually hired.

Re: Paul Buchheit: Serendipity finds you

#47

Post by johnmick62 »

"The program for eliminating ego-fear and unblocking serendipity is very simple: seek ego-fear. Hunt it down and soak in it. Steal its energy. This is, by definition, scary. That's good."

Jason Shen is an excellent example of hunting down ego-fear: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1811868

Re: Paul Buchheit: Serendipity finds you

#48

Post by caseyalbert »

There is a game called rejection therapy that is all about capitalizing on chances and getting out of your comfort zone: http://www.rejectiontherapy.com . I've tried it and it works.

I've found most chances come only once, and never again. That job interview, the cute girl right beside you in the produce section (etc) are opportunities we need to instinctively take (instead of instinctively shy away from).

Re: Paul Buchheit: Serendipity finds you

#49

Post by lmx »

michael_nielsen wrote: post #3

A closely related story, from HN user kenjackson ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1647146 ): "How long will you need to find your truest, most productive niche? This I cannot predict, for, sadly, access to a podium confers no gift of prophecy. But I can say that however long it takes, it will be time well spent. I am reminded of a friend from the early 1970s, Edward Witten. I liked Ed, but felt sorry for him, to…

I've experienced going down the wrong path to a lesser extent. I wanted to study physics or computer science. My parents wanted me to be a doctor or go into biotech, and I caved to their will. All through college I struggled, hating my major and what I was learning. I even continued to grad school down the same route.

I had been depressed for years, but then one day, it dawned on me that I should drop out and pursue what I knew I wanted in life. I picked up programming again, am now an aspiring web developer, and I'm quite happy now.

Sometimes I think of how much better things would've been if I had started on the right foot, but Ed's story goes to show it's never too late to discover your calling. And when you find it, you may be destined to do great things.

That was quite a motivating story. Thanks for the share.

Re: Paul Buchheit: Serendipity finds you

#50

Post by joshstrike »

dannyr wrote: post #39
joshstrike wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I know. Meanwhile, there's now an industry built on telling children their dreams really can come true if they accrue enough ycombinator karma. Way to harness that aptitude, baby. edit: yeah, rate me down for telling you what you didn't want to hear. I'm not the one who throws $18k at a time down a well just to get a high school kid to suck up to me and think I'm a god.

I seriously don't want to live in your world. So what would you tell kids? Do not aspire for anything because chances are, you will likely fail. You can choose how you look at things. "For every good story, there is a bad story." "For every bad story, there is a good story." I choose the latter.

"There is no such thing as luck, serendipity or synchronicity. Those are illusions. Luck is the outcome of good planning; the other two exist only in your brain and only affect how you choose to look at things. Hard work is the only thing that can make you both successful and happy. People who have to struggle harder to get somewhere enjoy it more when they arrive."

Also:

"There is no such thing as a selfless action."

"Question authority."

"Don't believe anything you hear unless you can empirically prove it."

I think that's the responsible approach. Not telling people to accept chance and fate, which if you think about it is tantamount to telling them to just be happy with their lot. Nice, coming from a billionaire.

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