And with talented kids like him around, Obama decides to give work permit, financial aid, and legal status to illegal immigrants?
This teenager is hot property in Silicon Valley
21–30 of 90 posts
Re: This teenager is hot property in Silicon Valley
#22I've notice that these articles are good at generating one thing: envy. The problem with comparing oneself to the person portrayed in an essentially random article are many. But first and foremost is the utter lack of context: I'd argue that Lachy's peers at his high school would be better off comparing themselves to him. And even then I would hesitate, as luck really does count. The rest of us fall prey to a kind of assumption of universality: that his context is roughly the same as ours, and so the only difference are variables we can control. That's not true!
The one quote that I really like in the article was from his "fan" headmaster, David Gee. "I think he’s a great example of someone who has followed his passion, hasn’t let age be a barrier and hasn’t said ‘well I can’t do this because I’m 17’" That's a fantastic sentiment, and I share it. The most tragic reason to fail is because of some delusional belief that failure is tied to some innate quality like age.
Note that these two sentiments are not at odds! It's true that context can prevent your success, but we don't usually know which part of that context is to blame.
Re: This teenager is hot property in Silicon Valley
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm 30. If I can give you advice to live by: don't measure yourself by others' accomplishments. If you focus on what other people have done, you'll end up chasing your tail trying to compete with an idealized notion of 20 different people. Blaze your own trail. Find the things you do well and double down on them. You'll get to where you want to be. It may not be by 18, so don't be impatient. Just keep doing the thing…
Hm, that does make sense. I see what you're saying. Thanks for the advice. I think I'll try to blaze my own trail. Though it seems kind of hard. There's lots of external pressure. Mainly having to do with college. Then again, focusing on what other people have done is sort of a way of putting pressure on myself so steering clear of that will help. Being a teenager is weird.
Let me suggest that a lot of the pressures you feel in high school probably have little to do with "real life." It's amusing to think back to all the things I (and authority figures around me) worried about when I was in high school, because it's all long since irrelevant to me now. I can't really comment on college pressures because I didn't go to college until I was over 30, so I don't know what it's like to be a real college student.
My own experience suggests this: If you've learned to work hard when necessary to meet your own internal standards, and make sure you keep pushing those standards up, you'll probably wake up one day to find you're way more competent than most people in at least one area. That can be really fun (and sometimes lucrative), even if at the same time you're self-aware enough to know you're not a world-class expert that somebody would find interesting enough for an article.
Re: This teenager is hot property in Silicon Valley
#24Would you consider staying in Australia? I suppose the startup scene here is nothing like it is in Silicon Valley/New York/etc., but it's not non-existent either.
I feel at home here in San Francisco. There are a multitude of companies I'd love to work for.
Interesting that you would want to work for a company rather than start your own (optionally taking part in YC, etc.).
What is your reasoning behind that?
Re: This teenager is hot property in Silicon Valley
#25As a 17 year old, this makes me feel under accomplished. While I do have skills in regards to computery things, I'm hitting a block when it comes to developing backends to sites. I know HTML and CSS decently but programming languages that I'd need to learn just seem to bounce off. On the plus side, I'm good at other things too, like photography / producing electronic music (no Madeon though. He makes me feel under ac…
I'm 30. If I can give you advice to live by: don't measure yourself by others' accomplishments. If you focus on what other people have done, you'll end up chasing your tail trying to compete with an idealized notion of 20 different people. Blaze your own trail. Find the things you do well and double down on them. You'll get to where you want to be. It may not be by 18, so don't be impatient. Just keep doing the thing…
I'm 37. And if I can give some life advice, it would be to always start from the end. If you're building sites, start with the host. Make sure you understand how to deploy your thing. Then work backwards, and setup your build-test-debug loop with deployment as the final goal. Once you get something working, you can incrementally improve your process - but you need to start with some way to get your stuff online.
Note that you must be very careful to define the scope of your project. "Putting something on the public internet" can be achieved with a blogger blog - no programming necessary. Or a hacker news comment, for that matter. But if you want to do arbitrary things with web browsers on the web then I highly recommend getting a VPS - I like linode, but there's plenty of other options. Another interesting option would be something like Google App Engine, which takes a lot of the pain out of system administration, while still allowing you to serve arbitrary applications (and it's cheaper than linode, too).
Re: This teenager is hot property in Silicon Valley
#26As a 17 year old, this makes me feel under accomplished. While I do have skills in regards to computery things, I'm hitting a block when it comes to developing backends to sites. I know HTML and CSS decently but programming languages that I'd need to learn just seem to bounce off. On the plus side, I'm good at other things too, like photography / producing electronic music (no Madeon though. He makes me feel under ac…
(Throaway so I can be more candid) I'm approaching 21 in a few weeks and I've been making 6 figures since 19, I could have articles written about me but I choose to remain relatively quiet about my "success", millions of people use the things that I produce. My advice to you would be just do it, just do whatever it is you want. It's probably unique to each individual but I personally find that when someone tweets abo…
Hm, interesting points. In particular, the part about age being hollow. Hm. And also, the poor programmer part. HN does sometimes seem to convey a message that if you aren't a good programmer, your code won't succeed in what you make, if that makes sense.
Lamenting isn't good, true. It's just so hard to be motivated sometimes.
Also, I like your name. I have an account on HN but my usual passwords aren't working on it. So this name it was.
Re: This teenager is hot property in Silicon Valley
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel at home here in San Francisco. There are a multitude of companies I'd love to work for.
Interesting that you would want to work for a company rather than start your own (optionally taking part in YC, etc.). What is your reasoning behind that?
Currently I don't have an idea I'd REALLY love to work on. Something I'm passionate, knowledgeable and enthusiastic about. So until then, keep gaining skills.
YC is definitely something I'd love to do.
Re: This teenager is hot property in Silicon Valley
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel at home here in San Francisco. There are a multitude of companies I'd love to work for.
Interesting that you would want to work for a company rather than start your own (optionally taking part in YC, etc.). What is your reasoning behind that?
I was going to ask the exact same thing: Why would you want to work for another company, given that you seem to have the knack for doing your own things? Experience?
Re: This teenager is hot property in Silicon Valley
#29I've notice that these articles are good at generating one thing: envy. The problem with comparing oneself to the person portrayed in an essentially random article are many. But first and foremost is the utter lack of context: I'd argue that Lachy's peers at his high school would be better off comparing themselves to him. And even then I would hesitate, as luck really does count. The rest of us fall prey to a kind of…
I live in Perth where this guy is from, and Wesley is one of the most expensive and most highly regarded schools around. Given the sentiment of the headmaster, I'm not surprised it's doing so well... Seeing beyond "get my school's average up" and seeing genuine talent and potential, then fostering it - that's the sort of school I'd send my one-day kids to.
Re: This teenager is hot property in Silicon Valley
#30[deleted]
I'd love to apply for the O-1, but I'm not sure I'm ready yet. No other visas are suitable.
I am in NY on on O-1.
Basically you will need to show that you are a celebrity (in the widest sense of the word) in your own country or internationally.
They basically look at three things.
1. Significance You will need to get other (4-6) people in your industry to write a letter about you.
2. Fame You will need to show awards, books you were in, exibitions you did, magazine and articles about you and so on.
3. Critical Role You will need to get 4-6 clients to write about your critical role in helping their company go where they are.
Pretty laborious, but the good thing is that you are not bound by some quota.