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Advice for ambitious 19 year olds

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: Advice for ambitious 19 year olds

#101

Post by JackFr »

beat wrote: post #66
jiggy2011 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, most decent development jobs will pay you enough to feed and shelter yourself especially if you are a healthy 19 year old with no dependents. So the difference the extra money makes is likely to just mean lifestyle changes like taking the bus instead of driving a new car and less ambitious holidays. If you can put up with that for a few years then it makes sense to take a lower paying job if you believe i…

When I hired my 18 year old designer, we talked salary come funding time (she's not getting a salary now, just token $$ I toss her way to keep her from getting a grocery store job). Even underpaying her relative to the entry level designer market, she'll be making more than her mother does.

So she works for free now, and if you get funded she'll get an underwhelming salary, and if you don't she gets nothing. You're a helluva guy.

Re: Advice for ambitious 19 year olds

#102

Post by lettergram »

My intent is a mixture of both, I'm taking the safer route. Go to college, work on projects (in school and out), then i'm going to (hopefully) get paid at a corporation, get some experience. Then when I have a life settled when i'm 25-26 start a company, with a bit of financial backing, no student loans, it makes more sense than going out with no support and no experience (in my view).

Re: Advice for ambitious 19 year olds

#103

Post by michaelochurch »

pchristensen wrote: post #79
michaelochurch wrote: post #45

Becoming employee number 50 at a company that still has a good chance of failure is the wrong kind of risk. I agree. Actually, those VC darlings aren't likely to fail in the classic, pink-slips-for-all, sense because the VCs have already worked out an emergency acq-hire and a backup emergency acq-hire. They are, however, likely to fail you , which is worse. Now you have to explain a bad separation from a company that…

company on a breakout trajectory I think he's talking about companies like Square now, Groupon a few years ago, Facebook a few years before that, Google a few years before that. $1B+ valuations, positive glowing aura, disproportionate talent attraction. The kind of company where you can tell almost anyone you work there and they say "Wow, what's that like?"

Sure, but by the time companies are at that point, the equity they give out is trivial (sub-0.01%) and the important positions are already filled.

Re: Advice for ambitious 19 year olds

#104

Post by cabinguy »

mitchcolleran wrote: post #93
enraged_camel wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. $30,000 more per year is nothing to balk at. It is a serious amount of money. In addition, working for Microsoft is fantastic for a resume. The person in question probably improved his future career prospects by an order of magnitude by taking the job. And let's not even forget the fantastic benefits that Microsoft offers its employees that most startups cannot afford to.

This quote from the post was pulled and is now being criticized without the most important context of the article. Sam isn't giving general career advice here -- read this advice as if you're giving it to a risk-seeking, ambitious, 19-year old (the title of the article...). In that context -- his advice makes perfect sense.

Taking an engineering job at Microsoft at 19 y/o makes perfect sense, too.

Re: Advice for ambitious 19 year olds

#105

Post by nostrademons »

sama wrote: post #92

ok, last comment on this. this was meant to be more about how to have the biggest impact with your life than how to make a little more money. and it certainly doesn't apply to everyone--hence the title. many people will me much happier not following it. on the money side, there is nothing wrong with taking a job that pays you $30k more. most people ramp up their spending and don't save that ~$20k (post-tax) extra, bu…

The part that rang false for me was equating "learning more" with "earning less". In my experience that's been a false dichotomy. If it's obvious that you'll learn more in one job, then yes, take that one. But if you're choosing between two jobs and you can't decide which one will teach you more, pick the one that pays more, because:

1.) Paying you more indicates that they have more to pay; their top-line is higher, which means they're probably in a more lucrative and dynamic industry.

2.) Paying you more means they value you more, which indicates they may have more work for you to do and be willing to give you more responsibility.

In my first job out of college, I had a choice between 3 jobs. One was a public radio non-profit that needed a techie. One was a VC-funded financial software startup. One was a bootstrapped financial software startup. The last offered me about $15K/year more than the others. When I left it two years later, I'd seen two products through from idea to launch. The VC-funded startup actually had a better outcome for the company (they got bought), but I wouldn't have seen much if any of that cash, and since their product was already pretty set in stone by the time I was interviewing, I wouldn't have had nearly as much of a chance to learn and make decisions.

Re: Advice for ambitious 19 year olds

#106

Post by beat »

JackFr wrote: post #101
beat wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I hired my 18 year old designer, we talked salary come funding time (she's not getting a salary now, just token $$ I toss her way to keep her from getting a grocery store job). Even underpaying her relative to the entry level designer market, she'll be making more than her mother does.

So she works for free now, and if you get funded she'll get an underwhelming salary, and if you don't she gets nothing. You're a helluva guy.

Which sounds exactly like a startup employee to me.

You forgot to mention the part where she could earn enough in equity to pay for private art school without working.

Re: Advice for ambitious 19 year olds

#107

Post by jiggy2011 »

shazow wrote: post #97
beat wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I hired my 18 year old designer, we talked salary come funding time (she's not getting a salary now, just token $$ I toss her way to keep her from getting a grocery store job). Even underpaying her relative to the entry level designer market, she'll be making more than her mother does.

This worries me. I've met all too many designers and engineers who started out exactly like this, and years later come to realize that they've been underpaid by more than 50% below market rate for half a decade, and have little more to show for it than one entry on their resume and a case of Stockholm syndrome. That's a home they could have bought if they knew their real value and weren't being exploited by a greedy…

I'm sure she would be capable of researching this for herself. An employer doesn't have an obligation to point out that the guy over the road is paying more. Besides there are other factors that come into play besides salary.

Re: Advice for ambitious 19 year olds

#108

Post by davelocity »

jonnathanson wrote: post #94

It's often dismissed as cheesy, but it's the most important career advice there is: find your passion. Ninety nine people out of 100 never have a great answer to the question, "Where do you want to be in 10 years?" Instead, they treat their careers in ad hoc fashion, hopping opportunistically from job to job. The best way to succeed is to have a very clear answer to that cheesy question. Such a clear answer that you'…

great comment. a lot of people don't take the time to step back and think what they really want.

Re: Advice for ambitious 19 year olds

#109

Post by taurath »

Selfcommit wrote: post #82
jtbigwoo wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Its a founder/CEO/Top brass job to figure out the product and whether its a good one. Its an engineers job to make the thing. If you think you can make the thing, then you can get a job as an engineer. If you think you can LEARN to make the thing, you can get a job as an engineer.

Re: Advice for ambitious 19 year olds

#110

Post by gms »

sama wrote: post #92

ok, last comment on this. this was meant to be more about how to have the biggest impact with your life than how to make a little more money. and it certainly doesn't apply to everyone--hence the title. many people will me much happier not following it. on the money side, there is nothing wrong with taking a job that pays you $30k more. most people ramp up their spending and don't save that ~$20k (post-tax) extra, bu…

Why don't you use capital letters? The rest of your grammar and punctuation is rather standard, so this sticks out.
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