I let a divorce ruin me mentally during a pivotal year of my company. Had a rough valuation of ~100MM and blew my top 3 market position because I let my ex convince me that it was all my fault that our relationship failed. In reality she was just struggling with being gay. I stopped paying attention at work for about 18 months in an attempt to “save my family” but I just ended up losing everything. Oh well.
Ask HN: What's Your Biggest Regret?
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Re: Ask HN: What's Your Biggest Regret?
#12I wish I had asked my dad more things and recorded/wrote them down.
My old man is in for stage 4 cancer and it gets harder to ask him things. Every little tidbit of info he gave me over the years I cherish greatly, but I often times (read: nearly always) forget the context or nuance of the statement, meaning that, of the thousands of moments I’ve had with him, only a select few are ones that provide me any insight into who he is/was and/or advice for my life. The rest are just passing thoughts that make me think “damn my dad was cool”, which is good in its own regard, but certainly not the same.
Re: Ask HN: What's Your Biggest Regret?
#13Bitcoin. I knew about it from the very beginning.
If it's any consolation, you probably would have lost it all in Mt. Gox's blowup anyway. (At least that's what I tell myself :))
Re: Ask HN: What's Your Biggest Regret?
#14I was always interested in IT, but studied business instead because my parents thought IT would be too stressful.
Ended up programming a distributed simulation optimization tool for my master thesis (in business), while already doing multiple online startups.
Do I regret not studying CS and following a SWE career? I really don't know because many skills from the business side have served me well too. Would I have started those companies without understanding customers, marketing, accounting, taxation, investing?
So I try not to regret things because I don't know the alternate timeline. Could be better, could be worse.
Re: Ask HN: What's Your Biggest Regret?
#15I am 33 years old haven't gotten a programming job yet. I could be making so much money now if I'd done it years ago. I'm hoping to finally make that change in the next few months. But I couldn't stick to one language or specialization, I have a bunch of half-working projects and nothing finished. I kept switching depending on what interested me at the time. And I kept putting it off due to poor mental health and tra…
I’ve been a software engineer for many years, I stick at it because I enjoy it. Paying well is secondary. It requires a lot of focus, but the enjoyment of solving problems and being creative, is what drives me, not financial. That’s why I still do it. If you can find that enjoyment, don’t worry about not catching up, it will come.
I read the number of developer jobs doubles every 5 years. So with 5 years experience you’d be in the top 50%
Re: Ask HN: What's Your Biggest Regret?
#16Not maxing out retirement savings early in my career. Compound interest FTW.
Re: Ask HN: What's Your Biggest Regret?
#17Letting myself get burned-out to the point of considering the s word. Every time I just thought “things will get better, it’s probably just me”.
I’ve since switched jobs after a break but I still struggle with focus and attention span. Hoping that improves over time.
Re: Ask HN: What's Your Biggest Regret?
#18I am 33 years old haven't gotten a programming job yet. I could be making so much money now if I'd done it years ago. I'm hoping to finally make that change in the next few months. But I couldn't stick to one language or specialization, I have a bunch of half-working projects and nothing finished. I kept switching depending on what interested me at the time. And I kept putting it off due to poor mental health and tra…
Same here. Mid thirties. Friends are running successful companies, making 6 figures, in early retirement. I'm still living in a small apartment struggling with a Swiss cheese resume. My advice to others: don't think "I'm still young, there's still time." Push push push today! You will rapidly run out of time. All through my twenties I did various jobs, I thought that great software job was just around the corner. Tur…
Why not study medicine and become a doctor? The web dev industry is too ageist and mostly runs on churning new-grads, whereas as a doctor, gray hair is an advantage not a perceived "disability".
Or try less hip domains in SW development popular with gray beards like embedded. Pay isn't as hot as web dev, but age is not a problem.
Edit, since I'm comment throttled and can't reply: In my country studying medicine is free/vey cheap. And SW devs don't make six figures here so studying to become a doctor is way better for your bank account and job security than competing with thousands of new-grads in an ageist industry.
Re: Ask HN: What's Your Biggest Regret?
#19going to an Ivy League university under a government scholarship, which I then regretted so badly I had to break my 6 year required work contract and pay back ~400k including interest. probably set my life back at least 10 years.
i shouldve tried harder to evaluate my options but at 16 i just went with what everyone said was a good enough path.
Re: Ask HN: What's Your Biggest Regret?
#20Interesting question, and it really boils down to "given what you know now, what would you have done differently in the past?"
Most regrets stem from poor information or prediction capability such as the story of the one that went into game development during college instead of a better course or the one that didn't focus on programming until late in life.
I think the biggest regrets doesn't come from lack of prediction or information but just from the lack of willingness to take risks.
Life is finite and so whether we take risks or not, we all end-up in the same place; but to those who took risks and it paid-off, the journey is much more pleasant and the reckoning at the end is much more fruitful.
Of course this is just a platitude and isn't really that helpful, since there are a lot of risk-takers that just end-up dead or worse-off.
But the idea is that a person can't win by not taking risks since we're all dead anyways and so maybe a calculated risk is the answer.