281–290 of 396 posts
Advice to my young self: put MORE effort into one of your 100 side projects, and stop messing around with other stuff.
If only you knew which one!
Usually there's one project that you just can't get out of your head. If you don't know which it is, try to take a break from all of them, and you'll quickly learn which one maters.
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Kudos on making something of yourself from humble beginnings. You are now privileged.
I am inclined to agree with the top comment, partly from my own experience. In college, I was a sub-3 GPA student with not-so-great internship experience, although I did cofound a startup. Yet I was able to reach out to some of the "privileged" you mention at the top of the totem pole - firm partners, founders, etc. Heck, I literally connected with MBB partners simply by shooting an email to them to meet and chatting…
To be clear, I would always 100% recommend trying your approach. It's how I even got my start, back when I was 17. It really does work.
But it's also more effective when you're a young, wide-eyed student. People see in you what they saw in themselves: a young person, eager to learn and to do a good job.
The older you get, the more strings that attach. And you lose the charm of being a young ambitious person. People have more history by which to judge you. No one expects a sub-3 GPA student not to have resume gaps, or a degree, or leadership experience, or any of the expectations that come with age. It's just a fact of life. Even if it's technically ageist, I'd rather play the game and win, not argue the game isn't fair or that it should change.
The moment I read bottom-feeder, "bottom-of-the-totem-pole, recruiter," etc, my recruiter buddy from St Louis immediately popped to mind. We weren't friends outside of work, but he placed me at two big financial companies over the course of two or so years. When I was fired from the first one solely due to showing up late (because undiagnosed narcolepsy), I was worried the recruiter's firm wouldn't want to do business with me anymore.
I shouldn't have been worried at all; they care about their cut, and I cared about not running out of money.
But I probably would have worried a lot more if I had secretly thought of him as some bottom-feeder loser, rather than a key who could open a door that was mutually beneficial. Because (a) business partners can sense when you think poorly of them, unless you're really, really good at hiding it, and (b) it would blind me to the fact that I needed him.
He was a cool guy on a personal level too. Had a house, dog, family, took me out to lunch a couple times, etc. He was doing better than I was at that point, for sure, even if I was in a stronger position long-term.
I guess the takeaway is, do the cold-email thing if you can (twitter DM works shockingly well for this); if not, try to find someone you know who might be looking; then recruiters as a fallback plan. But boy oh boy, if those "bottom-feeder recruiters" weren't there for me, I would have been screwed. :)
The privilege is simply thinking that you're better than the recruiter doing his job, or the woman at the store bagging groceries, or anyone else. A little twist of fate, being born to slightly different parents, not having the right mentor in your life, not having access to a computer when you were young... any of these things could easily have put you in their shoes, almost regardless of inherent ability. So it was just super shocking, I suppose, to hear such "honesty" about my cool recruiter buddy with a dog.
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impressing recruiters is downright stupid. Let's be frank: recruiters are bottom-of-the-totem-pole, lowest-common-denominator, bottom-feeders. My friend, this isn't personal, but a fact: you're privileged. I sense you've never been in a position where you have $3,000 in the bank, your wife is depending on you to get through college, and you have to get a job or you lose your apartment. Out here dropping stories about…
> My friend, this isn't personal, but a fact: you're privileged. Oh man, only if you truly knew how off-base this is :) My parents moved to the US with $2000, two kids (I was 11), and two carry-ons. But I'm not here to compete in the Victim Olympics. > Most people don't know any CEOs, PMs, or hiring managers. Good thing attending a hackathon is free. Good thing you can interact with literal SV royalty here on HN for…
Since it's an 'Advice to my young self'. I would say either forget side projects (to be boring as hell), or invest more in side projects (take some risks).
I have been haunted by sloppy side projects for many years because day job makes me both mentally physically exhausted. Until recently I realized if I quit my job and my life wouldn't fall apart that much, and I can spend more time on the projects I'm interested in without worrying about the return rate.
> First, most recruiters don’t care about your personal projects or how many meetups you went during the... Why are you trying to impress recruiters? I mean, the entire point of the post is wrong, but impressing recruiters is downright stupid. Let's be frank: recruiters are bottom-of-the-totem-pole, lowest-common-denominator, bottom-feeders. If you aren't trying to do your own thing (which, let's face it, is the most…
Boo! This is awful advice. I'm constantly commended on my side projects, and I excel at them because I enjoy them: - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x034jVB1avs - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XTi-jf-ans - https://vo.codes - https://trumped.com The laser stuff made me wealthy, and that wasn't even my intention. People at the time told me it was a huge distraction from my academic career and a waste of time. My cur…
Vocodes is super cool and fun to play with, well done. I wonder if it's possible to turn it into a text-to-speech donations service for Twitch streamers? The current TTS voices are rather monotone. Some donators test how their text donations would sound like on this website: https://textreader.pro P/S: Small typo on the first sentence on the about page.
And thanks for the bug report too :)
Boo! This is awful advice. I'm constantly commended on my side projects, and I excel at them because I enjoy them: - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x034jVB1avs - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XTi-jf-ans - https://vo.codes - https://trumped.com The laser stuff made me wealthy, and that wasn't even my intention. People at the time told me it was a huge distraction from my academic career and a waste of time. My cur…
The laser stuff is cool. If you don't mind me asking, how did it make you wealthy? Do you sell it as a service for events? Or maybe sold/licensed the tech to someone? Or maybe it just got you a really great job?
Boo! This is awful advice. I'm constantly commended on my side projects, and I excel at them because I enjoy them: - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x034jVB1avs - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XTi-jf-ans - https://vo.codes - https://trumped.com The laser stuff made me wealthy, and that wasn't even my intention. People at the time told me it was a huge distraction from my academic career and a waste of time. My cur…
I immediately put in the FUN song from spongebob and was slightly disappointed lol awesome project though! How did you build the voice encoder for each character?
This stuff has gotten a lot more accessible. You can download Tacotron and give it a try.
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I guess I'm a fan of the old adage: "Dress for the job you want."
Isn’t everyone always supposed to show up to an interview in a suit anyway? I guess maybe that’s counterproductive for a job as garbageman, but...