Your own company? You can do it
jacquesmattheij.com
Your own company? You can do it
1–10 of 47 posts
Re: Your own company? You can do it
#2Best read along with http://jacquesmattheij.com/The+start-up+from+hell as the next chapter ;-)
Re: Your own company? You can do it
#3A great story. Now you should go make a movie out of it.
Re: Your own company? You can do it
#4You know what - actually the story does not make me feel like I can do it. It makes me feel like he's probably hundreds of time cleverer than me. He was handrolling assembler as a teen - back then I was doing VB6.
All these programmer stories about how they developed OS kernels in x86 MMX extensions when they were 4 years old on Sinclair machines while skipping 4 grades and making hundreds selling lemonade never make me feel like I could do the same. They just make me feel like those guys will always be ahead of me - they started so much earlier.
I want to hear about the talentless hack who used VB6 to clone some popular software and convinced a big company to purchase it for a few hundreds of thousands after he spent most of his teen years reading science fiction and watching movies. That would make me feel like I could do it.
Re: Your own company? You can do it
#5You know what - actually the story does not make me feel like I can do it. It makes me feel like he's probably hundreds of time cleverer than me. He was handrolling assembler as a teen - back then I was doing VB6. All these programmer stories about how they developed OS kernels in x86 MMX extensions when they were 4 years old on Sinclair machines while skipping 4 grades and making hundreds selling lemonade never make…
The day I built my first VB6 program ranks as one of the happiest days--circa 6th grade!
At the time, I couldn't believe I can build a calculator that looked just like the Windows calculator.
Re: Your own company? You can do it
#6You know what - actually the story does not make me feel like I can do it. It makes me feel like he's probably hundreds of time cleverer than me. He was handrolling assembler as a teen - back then I was doing VB6. All these programmer stories about how they developed OS kernels in x86 MMX extensions when they were 4 years old on Sinclair machines while skipping 4 grades and making hundreds selling lemonade never make…
I want to hear about the talentless hack who used VB6 to clone some popular software and convinced a big company to purchase it for a few hundreds of thousands after he spent most of his teen years reading science fiction and watching movies. That would make me feel like I could do it.
Then I suggests you read one out of many salesletters from people trying to sell their e-books to get rich quickly. They are specifically written for people who want to get rich with no innovation and quality at all.
If I read stories like these, it reminds me I have to work a little bit harder to be able to compete with the talent out there who have an edge on me. Why? Because these stories tell me that hard work, curiosity and dedication pay off.
Re: Your own company? You can do it
#7"If a high school drop-out with nothing but a typing diploma could do it, so can you."
I want to believe it, but not necessarily true. We all have different abilities. The author is very talented and has acquired (and/or was born with) the ability to do business.
On the other hand, there is no way of really knowing, unless you try.
Re: Your own company? You can do it
#8You know what - actually the story does not make me feel like I can do it. It makes me feel like he's probably hundreds of time cleverer than me. He was handrolling assembler as a teen - back then I was doing VB6. All these programmer stories about how they developed OS kernels in x86 MMX extensions when they were 4 years old on Sinclair machines while skipping 4 grades and making hundreds selling lemonade never make…
Agreed. Additional parts that I can't see myself doing:
- Finding guys doing cutting-edge work like eye tracking software in the 80s
- Convincing those guys to invite me into their workshop and look at their code
- Glancing over any unfamiliar code--let alone math-heavy code--and making useful optimizations while the author looks over my shoulder.
And I find that unimaginable in Python. I can't even imagine considering the idea in assembler.
Re: Your own company? You can do it
#9You know what - actually the story does not make me feel like I can do it. It makes me feel like he's probably hundreds of time cleverer than me. He was handrolling assembler as a teen - back then I was doing VB6. All these programmer stories about how they developed OS kernels in x86 MMX extensions when they were 4 years old on Sinclair machines while skipping 4 grades and making hundreds selling lemonade never make…
The temptation of seeing this depressing bullshit upvoted is too much to resist.
> You know what - actually the story does not make me feel like I can do it. It makes me feel like he's probably hundreds of time cleverer than me.
I'm not, it was just hard work. Lots of it. I suck at math and plenty of other subjects that would come in quite handy as a programmer, probably I'm very much unsuited to the job based on my 'talents'. It's all about persistence.
> He was handrolling assembler as a teen - back then I was doing VB6.
When I was a teen VB6 didn't exist for another decade or more, and assemblers were too expensive but an opcode list could be had as a 'datasheet' for free from the local electronics store.
> All these programmer stories about how they developed OS kernels in x86 MMX extensions when they were 4 years old on Sinclair machines while skipping 4 grades and making hundreds selling lemonade never make me feel like I could do the same.
Such stories do not exist.
> They just make me feel like those guys will always be ahead of me - they started so much earlier.
Yes, just like all those hardworking kids that started even later only to go to even bigger successes.
> I want to hear about the talentless hack who used VB6 to clone some popular software and convinced a big company to purchase it for a few hundreds of thousands after he spent most of his teen years reading science fiction and watching movies. That would make me feel like I could do it.
Why would you like to hear about that? Maybe this article wasn't for you? It is targeted specifically at people currently stuck in jobs held back by peer pressure wondering if they have what it takes to work for themselves and to pursue their own goals in life even if they're not born in to wealth or have a natural talent for 'X', whatever 'X' is.
Way to go to take a positive thing and to try to twist it around into a negative and a depressing thing.
Really, stop being a negative influence and try to see that talent is in large part offset by dedication and time put in. If you want to succeed at something, anything, that does not require some kind of genetic component then go and pursue it relentlessly and be excellent, or at least as good as you can do it, whatever it is.
And with that I will sink back in to retirement, congratulations to those that bet with me that I would get sucked back in, be assured this is a one time affair but I did not want to see Max undo my work.
Re: Your own company? You can do it
#10Great post. Thank you for showing me(I already knew but it's nice to see an example) that for most people business ownership is not something that happens overnight. I too work in a job I hate and burn the midnight oil learning how to program. Continued success to you and per the instructions in the article, I'm now following your tweets as well. Take care. :)