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Build Personal Moats

eriktorenberg.substack.com

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Re: Build Personal Moats

#61

Post by carlmr »

neogodless wrote: post #56
dzink wrote: post #37

For the sake of good discussion about moats from different angles: The moats in the article seem to be for a public personal brand tied to a niche skill that could make you a go-to expert for a while (a tool for others to use). That may work if you want to be the next Jason, Tim Ferris, Naval, etc to attract people, jobs, deal-flow, or funding, but what if you don’t want to give up your privacy or be subject to const…

Just for my sanity, I assume "prompted" is a typo for "promoted"?

O and P are neighbors on QWERTY/Z sp I think it's very likely.

Re: Build Personal Moats

#62

Post by base698 »

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #3

Blah blah blah, of course, it would be amazing if everyone could build personal moats, but guess what, very few people can. There's one Elad Gil. One Tim Ferriss. If 10,000 people try, perhaps one of them could roughly replicate Tim's success. Personal moats are great. And incredibly tough to build. I prefer advice that is actionable, and can bring results for most people following that advice. This one is not advice…

This advice has made many millions of dollars. A decade ago knowing a little design, front end, and backend development would go a long way and give you and edge. Lots of people I know that are quite successful mixed opportunities in unique ways: construction and software, design and backend knowledge.

Talent stacks are valuable.

Re: Build Personal Moats

#63

Post by nobody2323 »

The whole idea of an efficient cmpany is that everyone in it is doing something other people can't . The problem is, what if the person doing X dies tomorrow or starts making unreasonable demands. Becaue of this, companies like to design their positions so everyone is expendable.

Really great companies, for a while at least, actually do assume something close to the perfect efficient company posture. It's how they enter a market, survive and thrive.

Then the suits show up.

Re: Build Personal Moats

#64

Post by [deleted] »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #10

I found this article difficult since "personal moat" is used as a target rather than as the side effect of a behavior. My experience here is limited of course to engineers and academics, generally technical people I've known over the years as they have grown professionally. The ones who have "moats" are the same people whose career choices have been deliberate rather than opportunistic. When I meet people who are del…

[deleted]

Re: Build Personal Moats

#65

Post by troelsSteegin »

Moats are about switching costs, towards protecting existing customer relationships. From a career perspective, your services are a product. Ideally your service offering is understood in your market to be valuable, and differentiated. The idea of the article is to be better than the next alternatives to your service in your market. I don't agree with "moats" as an image here; "ikigai", frpm the article is far more interesting. I think overall professionally you don't want to be associated with moats. You want to be a bridge - predictably useful. Bridges are easily understood, and get somebody someplace they would not otherwise get to.

Re: Build Personal Moats

#67

Post by rocqua »

dcl wrote: post #38
mettamage wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> get financial freedom How? In The Netherlands, I don't know how to do this other than working in the HFT industry.

How big is the HFT industry in the Netherlands? Is this just something you can chose to do?

Decently big because of the Amsterdam Internet Exchange I think. There are 2 pretty big players, Flowtraders and Optiver.

From what I know getting in requires a decently impressive resume and passing some tough tests. I also expect it requires a masters or even PhD in a very mathematical field. That is the context where I saw them at the very least.

I feel like I'd stand a decent chance at getting in if I could bring up the required enthusiasm in the interviews. But I do have a decently high opinion of myself.

Re: Build Personal Moats

#68

Post by underdeserver »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #48
dzink wrote: post #37

For the sake of good discussion about moats from different angles: The moats in the article seem to be for a public personal brand tied to a niche skill that could make you a go-to expert for a while (a tool for others to use). That may work if you want to be the next Jason, Tim Ferris, Naval, etc to attract people, jobs, deal-flow, or funding, but what if you don’t want to give up your privacy or be subject to const…

> “Don’t ever become irreplaceable, because when you can’t be replaced, you can’t be prompted.” This is a little bit context dependent. I’ve spent a large portion of my career as a contractor. I’ve never tried to make myself irreplaceable, but it usually happens. Being seen as irreplaceable when your contract has to be renewed every 3 months can be pretty profitable.

The immediate corollary is that sometimes you need to actively work to make yourself replaceable. I imagine a good CEO would appreciate a clean handoff when your contract is complete.

Re: Build Personal Moats

#69

Post by mettamage »

tralarpa wrote: post #52
WJW wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know you just want to bitch about the vermogensbelasting, but: - Go work in the HFT industry. :P - A good freelance dev can pull in about 80-100 euro/hour which leads to a monthly pretax income of >10k euro. This is almost four times the median monthly household income. Even if you maintain a level of spending double that of the median, you can still save 50% of your income. - Even a "normal" senior dev in the Amst…

> A good freelance dev can pull in about 80-100 euro/hour which leads to a monthly pretax income of >10k euro When I did free-lancing work in the early 2000s, the rule of thumb was that a freelancer income of 1000 euro corresponds to an employee income of 500 euro, if you factor in expenses, sick days, holidays, time to do accounting, time between projects,... Is that still true? If yes, the 10k euro don't sound that…

The 2x is a bit unfavorable because it depends on your situation.

IMO, if you're young, healthy, single and can command 100 euro/hour, then you're in a much better position then if you need: a secure cash flow, a lot of sick days or have a demanding SO that doesn't allow you to work weird hours, then 2x seems like a much more reasonable multiplier.

In my particular case, it felt much more like 2.5 to 3x

Re: Build Personal Moats

#70

Post by [deleted] »

rocqua wrote: post #67
dcl wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How big is the HFT industry in the Netherlands? Is this just something you can chose to do?

Decently big because of the Amsterdam Internet Exchange I think. There are 2 pretty big players, Flowtraders and Optiver. From what I know getting in requires a decently impressive resume and passing some tough tests. I also expect it requires a masters or even PhD in a very mathematical field. That is the context where I saw them at the very least. I feel like I'd stand a decent chance at getting in if I could bring…

[deleted]
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