Advice for ambitious 19 year olds
blog.samaltman.com
Advice for ambitious 19 year olds
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Re: Advice for ambitious 19 year olds
#2Incidentally, don’t let salary be a factor. I just watched someone turn down one of these breakout companies because Microsoft offered him $30k per year more in salary—that was a terrible decision. He will not build interesting things and may not work with smart people.
This article is making the implication that big corporations and job security are bad; go risk your life for an endeavor with a less-than-5% of success!
Re: Advice for ambitious 19 year olds
#3Heads-up in counterpoint to the second footnote:
I was most definitely considering academia at 19 (I was near dead-set on it).
Then I got to university and got a good look at academics, doctoral students and the environment for myself - I'm no longer so sure that it's something I want to do, at least for now. :)
Re: Advice for ambitious 19 year olds
#4Incidentally, don’t let salary be a factor. I just watched someone turn down one of these breakout companies because Microsoft offered him $30k per year more in salary—that was a terrible decision. He will not build interesting things and may not work with smart people. This article is making the implication that big corporations and job security are bad; go risk your life for an endeavor with a less-than-5% of succe…
That is why the title is Advice for Ambitious 19 Year Olds, not Advice for 19 Year Olds Looking for Security
Re: Advice for ambitious 19 year olds
#5Incidentally, don’t let salary be a factor. I just watched someone turn down one of these breakout companies because Microsoft offered him $30k per year more in salary—that was a terrible decision. He will not build interesting things and may not work with smart people. This article is making the implication that big corporations and job security are bad; go risk your life for an endeavor with a less-than-5% of succe…
"The reason I suggested college graduates not start startups immediately was that I felt most would fail. And they will. But ambitious programmers are better off doing their own thing and failing than going to work at a big company. Certainly they'll learn more. They might even be better off financially. A lot of people in their early twenties get into debt, because their expenses grow even faster than the salary that seemed so high when they left school. At least if you start a startup and fail your net worth will be zero rather than negative. "
-Paul Graham
Re: Advice for ambitious 19 year olds
#6Incidentally, don’t let salary be a factor. I just watched someone turn down one of these breakout companies because Microsoft offered him $30k per year more in salary—that was a terrible decision. He will not build interesting things and may not work with smart people. This article is making the implication that big corporations and job security are bad; go risk your life for an endeavor with a less-than-5% of succe…
That is why the title is Advice for Ambitious 19 Year Olds, not Advice for 19 Year Olds Looking for Security
I don't see how the two are mutually exclusive.
Having a solid foundation for a life-long career with real-world experience is definitely ambitious.
Re: Advice for ambitious 19 year olds
#7Incidentally, don’t let salary be a factor. I just watched someone turn down one of these breakout companies because Microsoft offered him $30k per year more in salary—that was a terrible decision. He will not build interesting things and may not work with smart people. This article is making the implication that big corporations and job security are bad; go risk your life for an endeavor with a less-than-5% of succe…
It's not that big corporations and job security are inherently bad... it's that they're bad if you are young and ambitious. Which is perfectly true.
Re: Advice for ambitious 19 year olds
#8Incidentally, don’t let salary be a factor. I just watched someone turn down one of these breakout companies because Microsoft offered him $30k per year more in salary—that was a terrible decision. He will not build interesting things and may not work with smart people. This article is making the implication that big corporations and job security are bad; go risk your life for an endeavor with a less-than-5% of succe…
"The reason I suggested college graduates not start startups immediately was that I felt most would fail. And they will. But ambitious programmers are better off doing their own thing and failing than going to work at a big company. Certainly they'll learn more. They might even be better off financially. A lot of people in their early twenties get into debt, because their expenses grow even faster than the salary tha…
Sounds strange to me. I put alot of my own money and some of my parents into my startup, got seed financing and failed 2 years later. I am now 30 and still have to pay back my parents and havent saved a dime in my life while being a pretty decent software developer (not in the US).
I learned a ton, but financially it has been a disaster.
So a Big-Co job ist still not too bad when starting out imo, you probably wont learn as much but startups are high-risk if you take it seriously.
Re: Advice for ambitious 19 year olds
#9I'm 19, and just started as a software engineer at a startup in NYC. It's been absolutely incredible - I never thought I'd be here a year ago.
I'll admit that my situation isn't universal - luckily, I could get my foot in the door with many startups by being in the last batch of Hacker School - but if you, like me, hate academia and want to get to work, don't let your age stop you. Sure, there's companies that care about your schooling - the Googles, Twitters, Facebooks, and Palantirs of the world - but there are so many more that just want great hackers with awesome GitHub profiles and real-world chops.
(and, of course, make sure to never stop learning on your own time! You will, inevitably, have gaps in your knowledge you missed from school, but between Coursera, the availability of free textbooks and lectures, and other resources, it's not hard to remedy that on your own)
Re: Advice for ambitious 19 year olds
#10 > No matter what you choose, build stuff and be around smart people.