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The lessons here are two-sided: First of all, don't write off experienced tech workers just because they don't have the spark of youth. Second of all, don't write yourself off just because you haven't had your breakthrough yet.
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Your characterization doesn’t make any sense anyway. A nepo baby how? He wasn’t in the construction business, working a cushy job in dad’s company. He sold cars and did PR work while trying to write. His family’s past seems to have conferred him no advantage whatsoever.
Sure, Slaughterhouse Five was Vonnegut's big financial breakthrough, but by that time he was a very well-known writer with several classics, including Player Piano and Harrison Bergeron, and a Guggenheim Fellow, and made a decent living from writing full time. Not glamorous for sure, but in line with most very good writerd.
Far from demonstrating the author's thesis that "failure can ripen into art", his story is the story of a man that had no notable failures in writingy, who consistently produced great work, and continued to do so until he made it big.
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All the more impressive that he turned out the way he did. "Vonnegut definitely had survived a lot. His once wealthy family was impoverished by the Great Depression, causing grim strains in his parents' marriage. His mother committed suicide. His beloved sister died of breast cancer, a day after her husband was killed in a train accident. But the defining horror of Vonnegut's life was his wartime experience and survi…
It may be true that youth confers certain physical and mental benefits, but I feel it's generally under-appreciated what a massive amount of value older people can still easily bring to society around them. I grew up as a young 20-ish programmer in a FOSS community that had multiple people in their 60s and 70s act e.g. as module maintainers and similar, and you can be productive and matter and contribute to greater t…
Some solutions require an entirely new perspective while others require a lifetime's worth of information and experience to be properly collated I guess.
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Taylor Swift works hard and has talent and all, but also her parents could afford both the money and time required to get her to music and acting lessons in NYC, get her to auditions in Nashville to try to get a foot in the door, et c. They were a rich enough family that they "summered" in an expensive shoreline New Jersey zip code and her dad had a Christmas tree farm as a hobby. One wonders how many might-have-beens as good as her, or better, are instead waiting tables at Waffle House because they grew up in a mobile home and their parents couldn't even afford once-a-week piano lessons from the old lady who plays for services at the local Methodist church. I don't mean to knock her—it's not like it's her fault she had advantages. Parents with money are a key ingredient in tons of stories like hers, is all, and she's a good example of that in action.
Tons of successful actors are children of parents who were in the business. Actors themselves, directors, producers. Money, connections, and maybe existing name recognition go a long way. You can see the extreme (and extremely forced) version of this pretty often, with famous and/or rich parents playing key, credited roles in financing and putting together lead role debut vehicles for their actor kids.
Colonel Sanders started KFC in his 40s and didn’t come up with the signature recipe until he was 50. KFC as we know it didn’t exist until he was 65.
Truth is, most successful business owners start in their mid 40s or around 40.
It may be true that youth confers certain physical and mental benefits, but I feel it's generally under-appreciated what a massive amount of value older people can still easily bring to society around them. I grew up as a young 20-ish programmer in a FOSS community that had multiple people in their 60s and 70s act e.g. as module maintainers and similar, and you can be productive and matter and contribute to greater t…
Agreed. The child prodigy is overvalued in popular perception. It is a subject of fascination precisely because it is uncommon. Most really great work is done by people with plenty of experience; it's just not that interesting when an experienced person does good work.
40 is the new 30s and life really starts after 50. Until then you’re spinning your wheels trying to pay back loans, raise kids, work, save, and not fall victim to vices. Colonel Sanders started KFC in his 40s and didn’t come up with the signature recipe until he was 50. KFC as we know it didn’t exist until he was 65. Truth is, most successful business owners start in their mid 40s or around 40.