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People Who Are Obsessed with Success and Prestige

bennettnotes.com

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Re: People Who Are Obsessed with Success and Prestige

#131

Post by barry-cotter »

philbarr wrote: post #56
akhilcacharya wrote: post #9

> Got a FAANG internship? Well it wasn’t one of the good FAANGs, so if you really think about it, you really didn’t accomplish anything. This is funny because I’ve been straight up told this by multiple people. It’s not neuroticism, it’s the simple fact that hierarchies exist.

Which ones are the "bad" FAANGs?

I believe Amazon has much more variable hiring standards than Google so probably Amazon. Don’t know enough to think of any other candidates though I doubt Google or Netflix are among them given the former’s ludicrous hiring process or the latter’s policy of firing fast with very generous severance for people they don’t think reach their standards once hired.

Re: People Who Are Obsessed with Success and Prestige

#132

Post by throwawayhhakdl »

beaconstudios wrote: post #121
WilliamEdward wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feeling better about yourself is not useful? Influencing a large number of people is not useful?

Marcus Aurelius being a writer on stoicism, I feel I have to point out that stoicism would suggest that you control how you feel about yourself and are only tying your feelings to external factors. You can feel good about yourself without external validation. Influencing others is only practically useful in your lifetime, so posthumous fame doesn't really do you anything.

How this reads to me:

“You can feel good about yourself eating tasteless food. Eating delicious food is only useful while you’re eating it, so once it’s consumed it doesn’t really do you anything”.

Re: People Who Are Obsessed with Success and Prestige

#133

Post by _4ziu »

beaconstudios wrote: post #121
WilliamEdward wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feeling better about yourself is not useful? Influencing a large number of people is not useful?

Marcus Aurelius being a writer on stoicism, I feel I have to point out that stoicism would suggest that you control how you feel about yourself and are only tying your feelings to external factors. You can feel good about yourself without external validation. Influencing others is only practically useful in your lifetime, so posthumous fame doesn't really do you anything.

But it does other people good after i die, and i care about other people even after i die.

Re: People Who Are Obsessed with Success and Prestige

#134

Post by barry-cotter »

ken wrote: post #84

It seems so bizarre to me that there is an r/cscareerquestions at all. And the only other r/__careerquestions are computer-related (IT, UX, DS). It's not like dentists and architects haven't discovered the internet yet. Computers are the new gold rush. It seems like most people today got into this field just looking to strike it rich.

Dentists and architects have laws to stop people practicing their trade. I don’t know about dentistry; it seems too boring to get people spanning the range from enthusiastic amateur to journeyman but if it was still possible to work your way up from draftsman to architect with no qualifications whatsoever there would probably be an equivalent for architects.

What’s special about computers is that the associated profession hasn’t won the rent seeking race.

Re: People Who Are Obsessed with Success and Prestige

#135

Post by [deleted] »

astuyvenberg wrote: post #7

This post also resonated with me, especially the quote from /r/cscareerquestions > Got an awesome internship at an interesting company? Well, it wasn’t FAANG, so who cares? Got a FAANG internship? Well it wasn’t one of the good FAANGs, so if you really think about it, you really didn’t accomplish anything. Got into a “Good FAANG”? Well, the other intern works on his own startup idea when he goes home. Why aren’t you…

[deleted]

Re: People Who Are Obsessed with Success and Prestige

#136

Post by foldr »

Random chain of associations, but I'm reminded of this: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%93%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%BA%D0%B0...

The thesis of the movie is apparently that that Donald Crowhurst (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Crowhurst) was driven insane by the anxieties of late-stage capitalism. I'd rather have those than the anxieties of late-stage Communism, but I can see where they were coming from.

Re: People Who Are Obsessed with Success and Prestige

#138

Post by tmh88j »

wwwdonohue wrote: post #110
0x445442 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know I hear this argument a lot and I don't buy it because it ignores a baseline at the lower end. I think there are a lot of people that are not concerned with the luxuries you reference but are deeply concerned with their base needs and random setbacks life throws at them. They basically want to save for a rainy day so as avoid stress when they encounter bumps in the road. It's like asking someone who works for…

I think 350k is a safe "lower end" baseline from which to build a rainy day fund, though.

Is this a joke? $350k annual income puts you in the top 1% of earners in the US. Surely you don't believe less than 1% of people in the US can live comfortably and have a safety net, do you?

Re: People Who Are Obsessed with Success and Prestige

#139

Post by upstandingdude »

salex89 wrote: post #129

On a side note, didn't know about the whole Siraj Raval "controversy". I always found him shallow and more form over function, just stopped following him and didn't speak about it because everyone was raving over him. Looks like there was something after all...

Yeah at first I liked him but after exery video I felt stupid and had learned exactly nothing, so I stopped. Glad its not me :D sweating

Re: People Who Are Obsessed with Success and Prestige

#140

Post by devdas »

philbarr wrote: post #49
wsxcde wrote: post #6

Thought-provoking article. I got over my obsession with emulating others' success when I realized that a lot of supposedly successful people were successful primarily because they were also lucky. Once you accept that a big factor in whether you'll end up "successful" is just chance, it becomes easier to accept that it may not be entirely under your control and so there's no reason to obsess about it. PG's advice, wh…

> At least you'll have had fun doing your thing. Whilst working 40+ hours a week for someone who was lucky enough that "the rest did follow."

That assumes that running a business is your thing..
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