Write about what you know.
Ask YC: What's the best advice you ever got?
31–40 of 101 posts
Re: Ask YC: What's the best advice you ever got?
#32 Don't pick at it.
Never trust a naked bus driver.
Re: Ask YC: What's the best advice you ever got?
#33I got two gems from my Grandfather. I think of both nearly every day.
1. It's a poor workman who blames his tools.
2. Hard work is never easy.
Re: Ask YC: What's the best advice you ever got?
#34I didn't follow the advice, but the best advice I received was "Don't move to Boston."
ha... I actually am visiting Boston right now, and lived here for about three years before moving to SF.
Boston/Cambridge area is great if you are going to school, as they are tons of students around, but after school is done, it becomes boring really fast, and winters are miserable.
There are lots of smart people around in here, but you are more likeley to meet the guy with the businness idea that just needs a developer, or the guy that worked for years, and has enough capital and connections to hire a bunch of code monkeys to implement stuff, than smart hackers getting together to do something. A lot of tech jobs around here are boring, (financial companies, enterprise stuff), and if you are young, it will be a great handicap on how VCs will treat you.
Boston is just too conservative to be fun.
Re: Ask YC: What's the best advice you ever got?
#35Choose your battles.
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Re: Ask YC: What's the best advice you ever got?
#36this above all: to thine own self be true...
- polonius, hamlet
Re: Ask YC: What's the best advice you ever got?
#37always tell the truth
Re: Ask YC: What's the best advice you ever got?
#38Steve Jobs gave a great commencement speech at Stanford a few years ago. The best bits were:
"Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it."
Re: Ask YC: What's the best advice you ever got?
#39Steve Jobs gave a great commencement speech at Stanford a few years ago. The best bits were: "Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it."
The best bit of that speech was the business of looking in the mirror every morning and asking if you want to do what you're going to do that day.
The trouble is, I'm going to college, I am saying "no" an awful lot of the time, but I'm not brave enough to quit.
Re: Ask YC: What's the best advice you ever got?
#40Three. The first is from a YC founder. I don't remember who, but he said "Always say yes." I tried that out for a while, and it has worked pretty well. A lot of where I am in my life is because I just said yes when I normally would have shrugged it off. The second is from an essay by paul graham. "When given two choices, always choose the harder one." This one has become a mantra I say over and over again to myself.…
"When given two choices, always choose the harder one."
Whenever I have been brave enough to go this route, I have been rewarded... either with an awesome prize or wisdom.
Now days I usually look for the harder option. It doesn't make sense all the time since you might just waste a lot of time but it makes a lot of sense if it will cause you to grow.
Good tip!