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Advice for ambitious 19 year olds

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: Advice for ambitious 19 year olds

#81

Post by enraged_camel »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #70
beat wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Future career prospects"... well, that depends. What does he want that future career to be? More work as a peon in other giant corporations, climbing the ladder to middle management? That sort of thing can lead to looking back twenty years, thinking, "Why on Earth did I waste all that time?" Believe me, I know. I often quote Mr. Morden from Babylon 5 , asking "What do you want?" Most people don't have the nerve to e…

You aren't cast into one thing for life unless you choose to be. I'm sure startups would be happy to hire someone with Microsoft experience. Out of people I know working for startup type companies, one cut his teeth building enterprise Java stuff at a bank and the other spent time in the military.

>>I'm sure startups would be happy to hire someone with Microsoft experience.

More importantly, a lot of them would be happy to hire someone with Microsoft connections.

Re: Advice for ambitious 19 year olds

#82

Post by Selfcommit »

jtbigwoo wrote: post #47
Selfcommit wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please understand that my intent here is not to begrudge you in any way - I think it's wonderful that you're working as an SE at such a young age - but.. I'm 10 years older than you. I code in the evenings, I spend my morning commute listing to any computer science online course I can find... I have over 5 years experience as a Systems Admin... I've interviewed with a number of big companies and startups but I don't…

He's probably very clever, but his definition of "great hacker" is vastly different than your definition. His definition is probably "someone who makes stuff work." Yours is probably "an expert in his field."

I'm not sure I follow the distinction you're making. I can make things work, but I don't know if that makes them a good product.. I guess that's your point?

Re: Advice for ambitious 19 year olds

#83

Post by corin_ »

sevenironcows wrote: post #38
peter_l_downs wrote: post #10

> No matter what you choose, build stuff and be around smart people. I'm 19, and this rings true for me. I put off my admission to MIT to take a "gap year" and work at a tech startup in SF. The most interesting and enjoyable moments have come from building with and learning from my co-workers, all of whom are brilliant. Other young people reading this: I've found taking a gap year to be a good hedge between "I want t…

Me too! Spent my gap year working at an awesome startup in London and learned a crazy amount. Sadly one now needs to work out whether taking up that place at University is worthwhile. For me, whilst staying in "the real world" is an attractive option, going to Uni seems like the choice which will open the most doors long run. Very happy to be proved wrong on that on, however.

I have no idea what the right answer, if there is one, would be for you, but here's the question that helped for me: Rather than thinking about what opportunities either might give you, looking 10-20 years ahead which option do you think you might most regret chosing?

Re: Advice for ambitious 19 year olds

#84

Post by arizzitano »

"working at an already-massively-successful company means you will learn much less, and probably work with less impressive people."

Not true. I learned more in my first month at a "big company" than in the two years I spent in the startup world. I started out working for startups, and while it was fun at first, it was a big mistake. My development skills ended up stunted and patchy from churning out MVP after MVP. I never learned how to maintain or scale an application, since most of the time I was just pounding code as fast as I could, hoping to score more funding. Since most of my coworkers were also young and inexperienced, I learned little of value and picked up a lot of bad habits. Maybe I just wasn't enough of a "smart young person" to pick ideal companies, but really, who is?

That's just my personal experience, but my point is that startups don't necessarily equal prime education. If you really want to learn and grow, find a team of disciplined people who understand and enjoy their work. Maybe it's a startup, maybe it's MSFT -- the size of a company doesn't necessarily dictate its viability as a learning experience.

Re: Advice for ambitious 19 year olds

#85

Post by cperciva »

“I’m an ambitious 19 year old, what should I do?”

This is an interesting question, in my experience: The sets of "most ambitious people I know" and "people who describe themselves as ambitious" seem to be entirely disjoint. The most ambitious people I know just go out and do things, rather than sitting around thinking (and talking) about how ambitious they are.

This may be a cultural thing -- self-describing as "ambitious" is the sort of thing which I find tends to happen thanks to high school career preparation programs (along with "organized", "reliable", and "good with people"), and it's entirely possible that those school programs are subtly different in the US than in Canada. However, I can't shake the feeling that there's a kernel of truth here.

Re: Advice for ambitious 19 year olds

#86

Post by gregpilling »

I was once an ambitious 20 year old (1990). I found that I had an overpowering urge to do something, and the only part that held me back was that the old people didn't wan't me to. So I wore them out until I could. I certainly didn't ask for advice - all the unsolicited advice I was given told me I was on the wrong path.

So I got a franchise at 20, then ran it as best I could, made a some money and won some awards. If I was 20 today I would probably make some sort of SaaS product. I certainly wouldn't be asking “I’m an ambitious 19 year old, what should I do?”

Of course, some people don't have an overpowering urge to do anything. So maybe these are the people who ask that question. I once employed a mechanical engineer like that - at 30 he had no ambitions, no dreams. He didn't last long at my company because he also lacked skill and was slow.

I am 43 now, and the urge is subdued but still there. I think if you have a drive in you to make something, then you should go make it. Don't ask for permission and certainly don't wait for permission. Just go do it. When you fail, if you fail, pick yourself up and try again. You only really fail when you stop trying.

My advice for ambitious 19 year olds? Just go do what drives you. If nothing drives you, find someone who is driven and help them.

Re: Advice for ambitious 19 year olds

#87

Post by acuozzo »

intrazoo wrote: post #5
minimaxir wrote: post #2

Incidentally, 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…

> But ambitious programmers are better off doing their own thing and failing than going to work at a big company.

I wish I could have told this to my wife when we were 22!

"I'm sorry, babe! You need to pay the bills and support me while I work to get my startup off-the-ground! You'll see! We'll be raking in the money in no-time. Our 130K of student loan debt will be paid off before you can say `boo'."

Re: Advice for ambitious 19 year olds

#88

Post by j_rogers »

freyr wrote: post #72
enraged_camel wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are free to believe that. Historically, the stock market has returned 7% on average. That is after inflation and takes into account the several terrible crashes that have occurred.

Do you know why the stock market has returned 7% on average? Or do you just think that, since it returned 7% on average in the past, it must do so in the future? The U.S. has held a very privileged position in the world economy over the past century, which has fueled tremendous growth. You're basically betting that the U.S. continue to be a "growth" stock over the next 25 or 50 years, and continue to see huge gains i…

Regardless, it is surely better to bet on the stock market continuing to rise, even if more slowly than in the past, than it is to bet that the startup you're working for is going to be successful.

Re: Advice for ambitious 19 year olds

#89

Post by meowface »

freyr wrote: post #72
enraged_camel wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are free to believe that. Historically, the stock market has returned 7% on average. That is after inflation and takes into account the several terrible crashes that have occurred.

Do you know why the stock market has returned 7% on average? Or do you just think that, since it returned 7% on average in the past, it must do so in the future? The U.S. has held a very privileged position in the world economy over the past century, which has fueled tremendous growth. You're basically betting that the U.S. continue to be a "growth" stock over the next 25 or 50 years, and continue to see huge gains i…

Barring a massive crisis, catastrophe, or war, it is indeed likely that the US will continue to be a growth stock for many decades to come.

It's a much safer bet than many other things.

Re: Advice for ambitious 19 year olds

#90

Post by sama »

bdcravens wrote: post #48
sama wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still said that when I had a negative checking account balance while starting my company. I think you should worry about money, but that you should take a long-term view of it.

Having money is more than your checking account balance. If you ran out of money, did that mean foreclosure? repossession? homelessness? starvation? If not, then you weren't broke. Obviously I can't speak to your situation, and if you're a true bootstrapper, then kudos. However, I think you can agree there's a ton of 19 years old running around driving the cars mommy and/or daddy bought, with the iPhone and MBP also…

It's true--I absolutely had a safety net from my parents. I really didn't want to ask them for it, but it undoubtedly affected my decision making.
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