211–220 of 375 posts
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The Aurelius quote is a bit ironic since Aurelius is still remembered despite the passage of many generations.
On a long enough timeline the memory of Marcus Aurelius will extinguish.
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Gates did. Not sure either Musk or Jobs had rich families. You may want to check that.
Doing your homework for you: Jobs had an unusually international background; was born to highly-educated parents who made sure he went to a suitable family when they put him up for adoption; grew up in a relatively wealthy, highly-educated community that was the hotbed of a nascent industry; and was able to do drugs, an experience here considered life-altering, without being arrested or sent to jail. I know the word…
He had a wonder years middle class life.
> She would say, “Dave, you only got one award this year. Remember when you won seven last year?” > If it wasn’t that, maybe it was also because I am gay. My mother was never really happy about this Ah, the absolute pinnacle of neurosis parenting. That's a solid one-two punch to the child's psyche, which gives them a drive to please while at the same time ensuring it can never be met. Well done; you ensured your chil…
The phenomenon of disliking one's parents for being too harh is much more prevalent in the West. And yet, parents in China and India are harder on their kids, while those kids are growing up to loving their parents more frequently, than being distraught.
My point is, there is some social conditioning in the West that is leading people to dislike perfectly good, well intentioned parenting. Wanting and preparing one's kids for generally accepted notions of success isn't bad parenting, it's love, because it's easier to simply not put the ground work into imbibing a culture of success
I think there's also an element of insecurity and lack of identity among those kids. They've been measured and held to high standards all their lives, and they have close and clear references of success. Maybe their parents, grand-parents, or other family members.
They get pushed to ace their school works, they get pushed to do stuff that pads their school applications and resumes. This seems to be even worse when your parents come from cultures where there are a handful few of "correct" careers to choose between.
These kids sacrifice a lot, so the obsession with clear-cut goals could be some rationalization or their sacrifices and lack of identity.
But then again, we're all driven by different things. Some set their mind at 17 to be retired by 30, and will do whatever it takes to accelerate that process.
Others may not need money at all (due to things like inheritance), but want to fit in with their peers - so chasing prestige becomes just another case of keeping up with the Joneses...if nothing else for the bragging rights.
With that said, in my later years I've realized that chasing prestige (for my own part) was nothing more than vanity, and a need for external validation.
But it turned out that I did not have passion for the things that were prestigious, and I felt miserable pouring all my focus and energy into something I did not care for.
In the end, I took a stand with myself, and figured out that it's better to be happy and create something I love, and create value for others (as well as myself) - and if success comes with it, then that's a bonus.
Not having a cloud of professional / career anxiety hanging over me is great.
> Unfortunately, after a year of purposely trying, I was still not becoming Elon Musk nor any other “successful” person. Despite reading everyday, meditating, getting up early, taking cold showers, and many more things. But what makes these guys successful anyway? Their fame? Money? Contribution to society? And wearing grey t-shirts won't make you Zuckerberg [0]. You don't become a 0.00000001%er by mimicking the most…
Also, it's unlikely there will ever be another Musk or Zuckerberg in tech. Technology is a largely established industry and it's very unlikely that a single person is going to found and maintain control of another trillion dollar company. Zuck-a-bees need to get in on the ground floor of the next, next big thing, which barely exists right now.
Everyone always thinks they're at the end of history in one way or another. Saying that current big tech companies have reached a critical threshold and will remain static for a certain amount of time is like watching a stock price go up - you may think it's a sign that it will continue growing, or that it's peaking and will go down, but you can only say that with certainty in hindsight. Nassim Taleb would go as far to say that there are much less actual underlying trends, and that more is governed by randomness than you think.
In terms of emerging technology, growth and consolidation is a pattern that happens throughout history, and the current state does appear to match that pattern, but this situation is more volatile because the big companies don't have as much physical assets which vastly changes the ability for smaller companies to compete (source: capitalism without capital).
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> Doing the same in SFBA would probably require at least $250K. Maybe more. Why? Each child might consume, generously, an extra 5k of food and 2.5k of clothes and other inputs per year. This is an increment of $30k on top of housing. For housing, you could add one or at most two bedrooms for four children. This does substantially raise housing costs, but there are still places in Sunnyvale for $1M or just above that…
Cheap homes in the Bay Area have terrible schools. You’ll need to factor in private school if you go that route. That’s $25k per kid per year.
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But the person earning 150% more than _them_ isn't purchasing a Tesla. It's a Lamborghini or a Bugatti. It's not a 3br home in SF - it's a summer home in Napa, or a chalet in Tahoe. The person earning 150% more than _them_ is coveting the latest Bell Jetranger, or Gulfstream G700. The obsession for more is the same at all levels.
Strictly in my case, even 4 or 5 levels of these jumps is still FAANG total compensation, so no Lamborghinis or Summer homes. Ultimately the super-rich that can afford those things are still orders of magnitude richer than people that just save/conservatively invest.
Of course, my bread costs about as much as their bread, so they could probably getaway with a bit more. It's all about making good financial decisions, right?
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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?
Startups in tech aren’t paying close to family raising salaries in the Bay. FANG does albeit reliant on stock continuing to grow like it did last decade. I am personally studying math/algos/leetcode and getting good at interviews. Its sad because it takes up all of my free time that I could spend building. It sucks to make $170k and feel like you can’t make it somewhere.
I finally had a breakthrough with my fiance last night and we are talking about moving to Salt Lake City! My current job would allow me to go remote and there does seem to be a scene there. $170k is more than enough.
OT, and possibly unpopular here, but this really gets on my nerves: > In Paul Graham’s essay on, How to Do what You Love* he warns us about the prestige trap: (...) you have to like the actual work of novel-writing if you’re going to be good at it; you have to like making up elaborate lies* PG's contempt for anything literary pervades in many of his essays, which may reveal some kind of unhealthy obsession, esp. for…
If anything this bizarre attitude that literature "may be the only way to gain an actual comprehension of human nature" might be an artifice of people's desire for success and prestige--puffery motivated by a personal insecurity about the significance of one's interests or work. You want to gain an actual comprehension of human nature? Read history. Go to the bar. Have some kids. Sit down on the curb and talk to a homeless person. Travel. Put yourself in extreme situations with other people (like joining the military or something). You'll learn a hell of a lot more that way than by reading novels.
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…
For every person who negotiates top-decile compensation, there are nine people who don't.
There are too many employers offering $100k for a senior dev with 10+ years of everything, leadership experience, and a winning smile.