51–60 of 89 posts
The most relatable piece of this article, as a college kid in Bangalore, is this > For some reason Bangalore is crawling with people who first want to form a community and then start learning/working/whatever. These efforts almost invariably peter out uselessly. First do the work. Then if you feel like "communing" talk to others who are also working hard.
This is nice but I like this advice much better: Ira Glass quote: > Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is st…
This is nice but I like this advice much better: Ira Glass quote: > Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is st…
I've seen this interview pop up several times but I've always lacked the context to properly understand it, because I don't know who Ira Glass is and what he has done. I don't deny that it's good advice, but who is this guy and why should I listen to him?
Shouldn't you listen to it because it's good advice, regardless of who the guy is?
And isn't it a Google search away from knowing everything about the person?
This is nice but I like this advice much better: Ira Glass quote: > Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is st…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've seen this interview pop up several times but I've always lacked the context to properly understand it, because I don't know who Ira Glass is and what he has done. I don't deny that it's good advice, but who is this guy and why should I listen to him?
> I don't deny that it's good advice, but who is this guy and why should I listen to him? Shouldn't you listen to it because it's good advice, regardless of who the guy is? And isn't it a Google search away from knowing everything about the person?
It's like leaving comments in code. I know what the code does, but I don't know why you did it this particular way. Google tells me he's a famous/important person, it rarely doesn't explain why he's more famous/important than other famous/important people.
The most relatable piece of this article, as a college kid in Bangalore, is this > For some reason Bangalore is crawling with people who first want to form a community and then start learning/working/whatever. These efforts almost invariably peter out uselessly. First do the work. Then if you feel like "communing" talk to others who are also working hard.
It's sad that we have such a terrible education system. It's an insult to injury that the "BigCo" consistently fuel these learning groups as a marketing stunt.
I can't begin to describe the sheer amount of bright peers that think using the GCP/Amazon web interface is equivalent to real programming.
"For some reason Bangalore is crawling with people who first want to form a community and then start learning/working/whatever." Seattle is the same. Probably the same everywhere. It's easier to talk and drink coffee than to challenge yourself way outside your comfort zone for hours at a time, day after day.
When I was a fresh MBA, I was looking all over for things to do. I looked into the local startup scene, especially those in the extremely early stages - and discovered that the _actual_ startups are a very small part of any local startup scene.
The majority of people seemed to just sit around and talk about their ideas with like-minded people, but with close to zero experience or critical skills.
You could go this weekday entrepreneurship workshop, and not a single person in the room had started a venture, or worked for any - not even the speakers.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sounds like every IRC channel ever. The topic is some open source project or programming language, but eventually it just becomes a clique of regulars who stopped caring about the topic a long time ago, and now just tell people who want to discuss it to go read the manual.
I mean, we're mostly all programming because it's interesting. Answering the same questions over and over isn't interesting, that's why it's in the manual. Asking an interesting question will usually get an interesting result. For example, I tried X, the manual said it should do Y, but Z happened instead, what's going on?
I have mentored people for many years and I recognise what you are saying here.
This is the part where the person being mentored have to do their homework first. If you want to have useful mentoring advise, you should read books, experiment and even google first. Asking stupid questions (lack of insight) are okey, but asking simple questions (lack of research) is just lazy.
As a mentor, you need to move on to mentor people who you find it interesting to mentor. You are usually not forced to mentor someone, it is your choice. So choose wisely. When you find someone who is thirsty for your knowledge, the mentoring process is very rewarding. It is like being an intellectual parent. You help someone grow, you watch them excel and you feel pride. You grow yourself from the experience.
There has been a significant devaluation of the term "mentor" over the past 15 years or so. The word used to imply a mutual respect and commitment that it no longer does. A mentor's counterpart used to their "protege". However, since that word has not been devalued, we've invented "mentee". I'm not claiming this is a good or bad development, but it's interesting how quickly the meanings of even quite important words…
The mentor-protégé relationship has been deconstructed. The coaching and development part is called the mentor - mentee relationship, and the career promotion aspect is called sponsorship (sponsor-sponsee.) From experience, this is probably a good thing organizationally- I've successfully coached and mentored people I wouldn't sponsor, leading to a net benefit.
It seems to me that the current meaning of "mentor" is the result of the term's (mis)use by VCs and accelerator programs to make coaching sessions seem like something more than they really are.
I've never heard the term "sponsee" used in this context, but like I said, meanings change pretty fast, don't they?