31–40 of 89 posts
1. If your work sucks, the criticism and reputational damage may make it worse than having not published at all.
2. Even if it's good, its unlikely that you will get enough traction for it to matter
3. the 'right people' are inundated with pitches, the odds they care what you have to say are tiny, and trying more times will not help of you're on the wrong track to begin with.
I love the concept of luck surface, and I believe it's a great mental model. However > FOR EVERY SNARKY COMMENT, THERE ARE 10X AS MANY PEOPLE ADMIRING YOUR WORK. This is the opposite of my modest experience. Negativity has outweighed positivity in most of my online interactions. For every encouraging or promising interaction you have, you'll receive more nasty ones that will sap the motivation out of you. I think it'…
I don't think that line disagrees with your experience. It's not saying you'll get 10x admiration comments. Just that there are 10x admiring people. It's a bit like HN comments, the discussion happens when someone disagrees, or adds more context. But if you like something you should just upvote instead of posting a trivial comment. Even the rules say so. I guess if you publish something where you can see the traffic…
I dislike the metaphor of luck. None of this is luck. All of this work is taking common opportunities and making them great. Does it increase your chance of being “lucky”? No, it increases your chance of being visible. Visibility is not luck. You’re not lucky, you are more visible. You are seizing the opportunity many others do not by building in public. Many do not because people online can suck and tear you down. B…
I agree with you that visibility is not luck, but I do think being visibility increases luck!
When someone _comes to me_ with an opportunity, of course I want to seize it. But I can't control them _coming to me._ I can control how visible I am, which increases the odds that people will know about me, know what I'm good at, think about me for an opportunity, etc.
Perceived from the outside, I am lucky! "Wow, I can't believe [XYZ] contacted you about writing that library for them, you're so lucky." And in a way, that is luck. Something unexpected and good (definition from the article) landed in my lap. Of course looking back I can tie it all together: I published Thing A and Person B saw it who forwarded it on to Company C. See, no luck involved, strictly causal. So maybe it's a matter of perspective or semantics, but I think using the word "luck" is a helpful way to communicate the idea!
> Many do not because people online can suck and tear you down.
Agreed.
The individual events in one's life are luck, but the overall arch of positioning yourself where luck can find you is a choice one makes.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
as an open-source developer, i can confirm this is a real phenomena best gigs i’ve got are because of relevant contributions and from companies depending on my software if you have a strong open-source profile, many companies will skip the screener and invite you straight to interview (i believe this is called “red carpet treatment”) public work makes you trustworthy and you will stand out among other candidates
Edit: I meant something more more like, "What would you say makes an OSS profile strong ?", but I'll preserve the original question below so that the responses still make sense. :) --- Where would you say a strong OSS profile begins? (Feel free to give a fuzzy low-stakes answer. Haven't experienced this but curious where the ballpark is.)
The path I took was to write libraries for a large ecosystem (Laravel) to solve gnarly problems I was having. The gnarlier the better. Pick the thing that nobody else wants to do and solve it. That's what I did, no guarantees that'll work for anyone else though!
It really hasn't resulted in fame and fortune; but that's mainly because I am not particularly interested in fame and fortune.
I generally think that it has been "successful." I mainly do what I do, to learn, and to develop the habit of excellence. I write the code that I want to use, and I write the prose that I want to read.
There was another posting, about "Giving A Shit As A Service," and that dovetails rather well, here (in my case).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The concept of "luck surface area" changed my life, no joke. It's the best framing I've ever heard for it.
I like the framing. I've been trying to blog more and publish more personal projects over the last ~4 years than I had before that, but speaking to the proverbial empty room is a little disheartening. I think it's because I'm pining for perspective, which is a fairly high-value thing. I can't say "luck surface area" has changed my life, yet, but I suspect seeing it that way provides a more stable and intrinsic (if sm…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I like the framing. I've been trying to blog more and publish more personal projects over the last ~4 years than I had before that, but speaking to the proverbial empty room is a little disheartening. I think it's because I'm pining for perspective, which is a fairly high-value thing. I can't say "luck surface area" has changed my life, yet, but I suspect seeing it that way provides a more stable and intrinsic (if sm…
Personally I use github issues / prs as documentation for future me. It's a happy side effect that it builds my portfolio (same for if someone actually finds it useful).
Or do you have a more ~personal/meta repo where you're doing this more broadly? If the latter I'd be curious to see an example (but don't feel pressured if you aren't comfortable dropping it in a busy thread).
Yes true, wow really really true... I should publish everything all the time... oh wait a sec.. this is a marketing campaign for CoPilot! Splat
Haha! Publishing doesn't always mean open source code. I defined tweeting a thread about building my shed as publishing too! By the way, you should look at the thread about me building my shed. It rules: https://twitter.com/aarondfrancis/status/1333866090573811723
Excellent shed! V happy for you :)