If you have a bit of a safety net, by all means give it a try. I wish I could.
Ask HN: 10k hours rule to master anything. Could I switch career when I am 43?
121–130 of 305 posts
Re: Ask HN: 10k hours rule to master anything. Could I switch career when I am 43?
#122Just do it. I'm planning to switch jobs from Software Engineer to General Contractor, just working on saving up capital for heavy equipment and materials. I took a great training course and now just have to pass the licensing exam. If your passion changes, just change fields, life is short.
This is cool. In construction? Do you plan on doing residential, industrial, or commercial? Do you have previous experience?I would love to build physical things for a living.
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Re: Ask HN: 10k hours rule to master anything. Could I switch career when I am 43?
#123In my admittedly still short life, I have started to notice something: you can broadly divide the world into two groups - those who do things and those who keep wondering if they should have done things. So for what’s worth, here is my advice to you: drop Gladwell and self-help books, if you want to and can switch to a new job, do it. Should it work or fail, you will have experienced trying. If you don’t feel like it…
Agree 100%. Either do it or dont’t, otherwise you’ll be wondering if it’s too late to change in another ten years. Anytime someone asks me how I made the leap to building startups the answer is pretty simple: failure doesn’t scare me that much, I have failed many times, but I’ve learned and don’t repeat (most) mistakes. That and I hate anyone telling me what to do. YMMV.
Reminds me of the classic yoda quote "do or do not there is no try".
Re: Ask HN: 10k hours rule to master anything. Could I switch career when I am 43?
#124I know this is just one person who was in a different time and under different circumstances, but I've found it inspirational to put age into perspective. Grace Hopper first entered computing at age 38, completed the first compiler at age 46, influenced the design of COBOL at age 53, wrote COBOL for the Navy through her 70s, retired from the Navy aged 80 and only then became a consultant for DEC. So for me , at least…
Thanks for mentioning in this, which I hadn't seen before. I collect stories of successful aging because I am now 66 and hope to keep creating software, and ideas that can be implemented in it, for some time to come!
I admire you. I hope that I could be healthy to code at 66. Wish you all the best
Re: Ask HN: 10k hours rule to master anything. Could I switch career when I am 43?
#125In my admittedly still short life, I have started to notice something: you can broadly divide the world into two groups - those who do things and those who keep wondering if they should have done things. So for what’s worth, here is my advice to you: drop Gladwell and self-help books, if you want to and can switch to a new job, do it. Should it work or fail, you will have experienced trying. If you don’t feel like it…
The older I get the more I recognize that most of the people I've encountered, in one way or another, have a great lack of confidence and courage.
Re: Ask HN: 10k hours rule to master anything. Could I switch career when I am 43?
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are two good reasons why Grace Hoppen should not be used as an example. 1. You are (likely) not Grace Hopper. 2. Computer science was, in a way, much easier back then. At least very different. Listen to the Brian Kernighan being interviewed by Lex Fridman; he keeps repeating that you didn't have to be as awesome back in his days, using himself as an example. Saying "If Grace hopper can do it, then so can I" is…
The good news is Quake was an exception to game develop experiences (in many ways!), not the rule. So the mindset “If Carmack can make Quake, then I can QA Subway Surfers for iOS” seems imminently reasonable.
Not just Quake, though.
I remember it as first there was Wolfenstein 3D, and people went crazy not believing their eyes. Then they learn about the technology, and go "ok, well that's cool, but can't do real 3D".
Then that cycle repeats for Doom.
And then Quake, except this time it really was 3D. Quake didn't even really have load times!
Ok, so these people can be inspirations. But probably should not be used as an example that should be expected to be followable.
Re: Ask HN: 10k hours rule to master anything. Could I switch career when I am 43?
#127I know this is just one person who was in a different time and under different circumstances, but I've found it inspirational to put age into perspective. Grace Hopper first entered computing at age 38, completed the first compiler at age 46, influenced the design of COBOL at age 53, wrote COBOL for the Navy through her 70s, retired from the Navy aged 80 and only then became a consultant for DEC. So for me , at least…
There are two good reasons why Grace Hoppen should not be used as an example. 1. You are (likely) not Grace Hopper. 2. Computer science was, in a way, much easier back then. At least very different. Listen to the Brian Kernighan being interviewed by Lex Fridman; he keeps repeating that you didn't have to be as awesome back in his days, using himself as an example. Saying "If Grace hopper can do it, then so can I" is…
Even beyond Grace Hopper being an outlier, software/computer science is probably something of an outlier more broadly.
You can find a ton of people in their 50s through 70s today who ended up in some flavor of computers and software even though they barely touched a (non-typewriter) keyboard until college or even later. But at least part of the reason they were able to do so was that a lot of computer science was still relatively young and, even if you majored in CS undergrad, what you got was probably more of a mix of math and electrical engineering than what a lot of people learn today. (Or, for that matter, what a lot of programs expect someone to already know before showing up to their first CS class.
And then, on the other side, a lot of people jumped onto the first dot-com bubble when a front-end web designer didn't really need to know much. (And arguably the situation is somewhat in play today--at least for the time being--with bootcamps etc.)
Which is a long-winded way of saying, I'm not sure how applicable the situation in the software industry is applicable to technical fields more broadly.
Re: Ask HN: 10k hours rule to master anything. Could I switch career when I am 43?
#128You will definitely be an expert when you spend on something 10,000 hours.
However, to change a career, you need much less.
To get a very junior tech/programming job I would say it's something like 500-1000 hours.
That's about the same as most coding bootcamps. And a lot of people who went through a coding bootcamp were able to get a job in tech.
Re: Ask HN: 10k hours rule to master anything. Could I switch career when I am 43?
#129The Gladwell book is so bad it's laughable. It's a gross misrepresentation of the work of Anders Ericsson, with completely unfounded extrapolations. So bad it prompted Ericsson to get a non-academic writer to work with him to write his own popular science version of his work, which is titled "Peak". Outliers is the worst example I know of of popular authors bending facts to make a narrative they want to tell. In a nu…
I like your opinion. I founded a startup at 40 as a part time job and it was a correct decision during covid19 crisis. My company is quite successful. It takes about 3000 hours to be sustainable. 10000 hours is an overrated term
Re: Ask HN: 10k hours rule to master anything. Could I switch career when I am 43?
#130I know someone who in his 40's, after working in the navy, then went to medical school and became a doctor! You can certainly do it if you are willing/able to put the time into it.