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Tom Williams: Hired by Apple at 14. His full story.

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Re: Tom Williams: Hired by Apple at 14. His full story.

#21

Post by jacquesm »

zimbabwe wrote: post #20
jacquesm wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the funny thing here is my own career path was not exactly textbook either, and still I worry about my son. As for yourself keep an open mind, definitely not everything about 'regular' education is bad, but some people have a hard time adapting to the system and the system definitely won't adapt to them, if you are one of these then go ahead and carve your own path, I'm sure we'll be hearing great things about…

I'd love to hear your story when you've got time. WW isn't a site we hear a lot about on HN, and I've always been a little curious.

ok, I'll write it up and post it as a separate link, otherwise I'd really be hijacking this thread.

Re: Tom Williams: Hired by Apple at 14. His full story.

#22

Post by fogus »

erlanger wrote: post #10
fogus wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have hopes for your son to be hired by Apple? :) -m

You don't have to sign your comments like that, you know.

I've been singing like that for so long I don't even realize I'm doing it anymore.

Re: Tom Williams: Hired by Apple at 14. His full story.

#23

Post by 10ren »

zimbabwe wrote: post #18
fogus wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have hopes for your son to be hired by Apple? :) -m

-5 because he signed his comment with an initial? That's silly. He asked a question that led to a set of useful comments. Signing a name is a little silly, but I don't recall its being against HN etiquette and it's too minimal to be considered spamming.

Just FYI: Please don't sign comments, http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Tom Williams: Hired by Apple at 14. His full story.

#24

Post by xenophanes »

10ren wrote: post #23
zimbabwe wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

-5 because he signed his comment with an initial? That's silly. He asked a question that led to a set of useful comments. Signing a name is a little silly, but I don't recall its being against HN etiquette and it's too minimal to be considered spamming.

Just FYI: Please don't sign comments, http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

What if the signature contains information?

- Concerned American Citizen

Re: Tom Williams: Hired by Apple at 14. His full story.

#25

Post by zimbabwe »

10ren wrote: post #23
zimbabwe wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

-5 because he signed his comment with an initial? That's silly. He asked a question that led to a set of useful comments. Signing a name is a little silly, but I don't recall its being against HN etiquette and it's too minimal to be considered spamming.

Just FYI: Please don't sign comments, http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Whoops!

-admonished zimbabwe

Re: Tom Williams: Hired by Apple at 14. His full story.

#26

Post by stanleydrew »

zimbabwe wrote: post #14
jacquesm wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hehe, no, I have hope that he's going to find his 'groove' in life, right now just about everything seems to be against him. Most of the stuff there applies word-for-word to him. I'm not hoping for him to get hired by anybody any time soon, but at least it seems there are alternative paths other than the regular ones.

I wish kids were taught this at a young age. I learned it at seventeen; two years later, I'm still struggling with a lot of the things I've needed to unlearn. I have friends my age who still don't believe this, who are forcing themselves on generic career paths because they don't think anything else is an option. I worry for them pretty often.

A lot of people here are very good at learning things on their own, and very quickly at that. This is most definitely not true of a lot of the population. Having a talent for picking up new things helps a ton in giving you the confidence to pursue "non-generic" career paths, and I don't know that teaching kids that they can pursue these kinds of paths will make much difference if they don't have a talent for it.

Re: Tom Williams: Hired by Apple at 14. His full story.

#27

Post by granvillebob »

I met this guy in 2004.

He talked about himself for 20 or 30 minutes before I got a word in.

He had a couple of ideas at the time, some about charitable giving, and others were about fighting spam with the technique of charging strangers to receive their email. (This is such an oft-repeated idea it's listed in the "You Might Be An Anti-Spam Kook" page). I told him that there were a few things wrong with his approach, and he clapped his hand on my shoulder and said that he could just get someone else to do this.

Overall I felt a bit sorry for him. He was a pretty interesting guy who had great talents and great ambitions. He wasn't limited by a lack of confidence. Unfortunately he has had a lot of early validation that he was a genius, and such overconfidence can be just as crippling.

Re: Tom Williams: Hired by Apple at 14. His full story.

#28

Post by ed »

> However, I wasn’t the youngest. It was Steve Espinosa, who was actually employee number seven at Apple.

I assume the author is thinking of Chris Espinosa, employee number eight, who also joined the company at the age of 14. Chris was one of the early guys on the Macintosh team -- pretty fascinating as well.

http://www.folklore.org/ProjectView.py?project=Macintosh&#38...

Re: Tom Williams: Hired by Apple at 14. His full story.

#29

Post by quizbiz »

granvillebob wrote: post #27

I met this guy in 2004. He talked about himself for 20 or 30 minutes before I got a word in. He had a couple of ideas at the time, some about charitable giving, and others were about fighting spam with the technique of charging strangers to receive their email. (This is such an oft-repeated idea it's listed in the "You Might Be An Anti-Spam Kook" page). I told him that there were a few things wrong with his approach,…

I do feel obligated to remind myself that your impression is limited in the fact that the scope is narrow, just one experience with him seemed to form the impression.

That being said, this makes me even more curious about his story as it is a representation of many similar stories, countless young people (my role models) persisting and working their ass off, being rewarded as a result, but then after they seem to just feed off of the initial success or seem to fall short of the "initial promise". ie: Farrah Gray.

What sets those that persist only early on apart from those that continue to challenge themselves? When I start doing really successful things, I don't want that to spoil me and turn me lazy.

Re: Tom Williams: Hired by Apple at 14. His full story.

#30

Post by [deleted] »

quizbiz wrote: post #29
granvillebob wrote: post #27

I met this guy in 2004. He talked about himself for 20 or 30 minutes before I got a word in. He had a couple of ideas at the time, some about charitable giving, and others were about fighting spam with the technique of charging strangers to receive their email. (This is such an oft-repeated idea it's listed in the "You Might Be An Anti-Spam Kook" page). I told him that there were a few things wrong with his approach,…

I do feel obligated to remind myself that your impression is limited in the fact that the scope is narrow, just one experience with him seemed to form the impression. That being said, this makes me even more curious about his story as it is a representation of many similar stories, countless young people (my role models) persisting and working their ass off, being rewarded as a result, but then after they seem to jus…

[deleted]
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