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Advice for ambitious 19 year olds

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: Advice for ambitious 19 year olds

#111

Post by ruswick »

kayoone wrote: post #14

"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." That quote drips so much of elitism its disgusting. MS still has many brilliant engineers and is building alot of really complex stuff, probably mo…

Besides merely being an offhanded dismissal of Microsoft employees, it operates under the presumption 1) salary is a factor that can be disregarded by people and 2) high salary is negatively correlated with exposure to smart people.

In the case of the former, the author is clearly myopic. One needs money to live, and the majority of technology companies reside in cities in which the cost of living is substantially higher than the mean. I'm not sure that it's fiscally tenable to exit school with tens of thousands in debt while being subjected to a massively inflated cost of living, and go right into taking a below-average salary at a startup. If anything, one should take a job at an established company, pay off their debt, then take on risk.

In the case of the latter, the author is simply being needlessly dismissive and arrogant. Large companies host hundreds of great engineers and do incredibly meaningful work. Frankly, Microsoft is one of the strongest innovators in the market at the moment. Even if one isn't constructing the most alluring product, one can at least take pride in the fact that they are working on a product with a scope many orders of magnitude larger than most startups. Working on Windows might not be the captivating notion, but it is still meaningful to tens of millions of users.

Re: Advice for ambitious 19 year olds

#112

Post by ruswick »

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.

>risk-seeking, ambitious, 19-year old

The article isn't explicitly directed at "risk-seekers," but merely at ambitious people. It's incorrect to conflate the two. Ambition can just easily manifest itself as a desire to seek a large salary, climb the corporate hierarchy, and seek a nice lifestyle. As a member of the cohort at which this piece was directed, I don't know why everyone assumes that we want to expose ourselves to risk, or why everyone asserts that we ought to.

Why does everyone exhort the necessity of risking everything in an attempt to change the world? What is so bad about simply pursuing a nice life?

Re: Advice for ambitious 19 year olds

#113

Post by ruswick »

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…

While this sort of exploitation is egregious, I think that part of the responsibility lies with the employee. At the end of the day, the company is simply using the employee's labor to further its own ends and enrich its shareholders. In the same way that one would hire an accountant to minimize their tax burden or clip coupons to save money at the grocery store, a company will go out of their way to pay as little as possible for labor. The idea of trying to maximize value is certainly nothing new. What more do you expect?

Ultimately, one can only expect companies to do what is in their best interest, which is often antithetical to the employee's interests. One has to take responsibility and ensure that they get paid fairly. The employers certainly won't.

Re: Advice for ambitious 19 year olds

#114

Post by beat »

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've shown her exactly what "entry level graphic designer salary" is on the 'net. Moreover, she's been told that if she isn't delivering 100%, I'll let her go, because the company needs that full-tilt startup delivery. She knows what she's getting into. She's actually thrilled with it - she instinctively understands the value of giving 100% as a measure of self-worth.

Keep in mind she has no education beyond high school, no professional experience, and some pretty serious holes in her skill set. She's simply not equipped to land a $50k job on her own right now, even if that is "entry level". Her choice is between taking this, or bagging groceries, or taking tens of thousands in loans to go to college (which may or may not get her a job after). And when her skills are rounded out and the money is there, I'll pay her going rate, and gladly.

Moreover, she's not just my employee - she's my friend, and my daughter's friend. I'm not hiring her because she's cheap. I'm hiring her because I have faith in her talent, her drive, and her taste. I'd rather take her on and spend a few months polishing her skills than take my chances with a "better" employee whose taste I don't yet trust.

So yeah, far from exploiting her, I'm trying to groom and mentor her to build the kind of career I believe she should have.

Re: Advice for ambitious 19 year olds

#115

Post by armenarmen »

ritchiea wrote: post #23
jamesaguilar wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you waste a year or two, nothing will run away and your opportunities will still be there when you're 25. Something tells me this is an aspirational claim rather than a statement with empirical support. On the other hand, there is a lot of data to support the view that being out of work for years is very bad for finding a job when you finally do want one.

I disagree. There are lots of different types of venturing out into the world that aren't necessarily just bumming around on the beach. I went traveling when I was 20 and ended up spending months at a hostel in exchange for building them a new website. And not only was I working, but I was also spending time with people older than my peers in the US and hearing about their life experiences. If you travel with the rig…

I did the same thing, but was copywriting for a now moderately successful hostel booking site. Loved it and learned a whole lot.

Re: Advice for ambitious 19 year olds

#116

Post by enraged_camel »

beat wrote: post #114
shazow wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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've shown her exactly what "entry level graphic designer salary" is on the 'net. Moreover, she's been told that if she isn't delivering 100%, I'll let her go, because the company needs that full-tilt startup delivery. She knows what she's getting into. She's actually thrilled with it - she instinctively understands the value of giving 100% as a measure of self-worth. Keep in mind she has no education beyond high sch…

>>So yeah, far from exploiting her, I'm trying to groom and mentor her to build the kind of career I believe she should have.

Yes, I'm sure this is what you're telling yourself.

Re: Advice for ambitious 19 year olds

#117

Post by FakeSamAltman »

selimthegrim wrote: post #95
throwaway10001 wrote: post #75

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. Interesting things....like making people click on ads? Microsoft products are used by billions of people worldwide and by virtually every Fortune () company. And then we have Microsoft Research…

I've met and had the opportunity to learn from top people at Microsoft Research in Santa Barbara. I guarantee you Sam Altman isn't fit to tie their shoelaces. No disrespect to him and not saying he couldn't get there, but they're just in a totally different ballpark and level of problem solving and execution. They're solving problems people don't even realize they're going to have yet.

They are solving problems people won't ever realize they're going to have.

Re: Advice for ambitious 19 year olds

#118

Post by argonaut »

emiliobumachar wrote: post #99
rgbrenner wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you said... plus: "I just watched someone turn down one of these breakout companies ... that was a terrible decision" What is this company? How does he know that it's a breakout company? Is he able to tell the future? Because there's an EXCELLENT chance it's not a breakout company. There's an excellent chance it WILL go bankrupt. Microsoft + 30k more.. or a startup that has a fantastic chance of failing. Anyone…

"What is this company?" is a very good question. I speculate whether the writer left this information out on purpose, to mitigate the risk of looking silly if the company goes bust next week.

Please stop wildly ascribing negative intentions. Even if you think Sam is talking out of his ass, matching him does not improve your situation.

Re: Advice for ambitious 19 year olds

#119

Post by argonaut »

rgbrenner wrote: post #58
sama wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with that--for example, I think Microsoft Research has some of the smartest hackers I've met. However, other divisions of MSFT (and where this person was going) have some of the worst people I've met.

Microsoft has 100,000 employees (42k in WA).. of course SOME of them are bad. http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/inside_ms.aspx

This is overly nitpicky. Of course some people are bad in any company. Clearly the blog author means to say that there tends to be more "bad" engineers at MSFT than you would expect from its outward reputation. The problem with that is that if every blog author hedges in exacting detail their every argument, discussions would devolve into technicalities.

Re: Advice for ambitious 19 year olds

#120

Post by FakeSamAltman »

ruswick wrote: post #112
mitchcolleran wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> risk-seeking, ambitious, 19-year old The article isn't explicitly directed at "risk-seekers," but merely at ambitious people. It's incorrect to conflate the two. Ambition can just easily manifest itself as a desire to seek a large salary, climb the corporate hierarchy, and seek a nice lifestyle. As a member of the cohort at which this piece was directed, I don't know why everyone assumes that we want to expose ours…

Three kids, a safe job and an Audi is not ambitious. And it certainly isn't netting you a YC partnership at 25.
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