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Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus on your job

manuel.darcemont.fr

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Re: Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus on your job

#381

Post by d10r »

Mandatum wrote: post #252
dvt wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

You really think your experience works at scale? You're the product of hard work, smart decisions, awesome parents and something often forgotten - luck. If you think for a minute your experiences can be translated and reproduced by the masses, you're kidding yourself.

you're omitting something very important in your list of related aspects: health

Re: Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus on your job

#382

Post by boyobo »

rimliu wrote: post #340
boyobo wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people are using the word in different ways. The person you are responding to is using it as a description of the current state.

So the person is misusing it.

It's certainly different from what seems like the standard usage in the past few years, but I woudn't say it's a misuse. Here's is google's dictionary definition

"a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group."

In this case, the "advatange" would be 'able to find job without going through recruiter' and the 'particular person or group' would be 'the group of people who (through their hard work or otherwise) are sufficiently talented/and or secure enough in their career'

Anyway it's sad this this word has such a negative smell attached to it now, thanks to people using it to shame people on the opposing side of internet arguments.

Re: Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus on your job

#383

Post by [deleted] »

kyawzazaw wrote: post #308
dnautics wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

nobody is claiming that my experience is extrapolatable ad infinitum. However, if it was such a rare thing, what are the odds that someone like me would exist? > An individual example is useless when the question is about if something works at (even minor) scale That is incorrect. The plural of anecdote is data.

It's the rare thing. I bet that if you go to any big tech companies, you will find that pretty much none of the engineers got hired by impressing a CEO

[deleted]

Re: Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus on your job

#384

Post by scsilver »

rconti wrote: post #270
titanomachy wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect "clear a certain kind of bar" is the biggest part of this. Imagine you're a recruiter at Facebook. You reach out to thousands of candidates, convince hundreds to come in for interviews, and almost all of them fail because the interviews are hard and test skills that need to be specifically trained. If you convince a Googler to come in for an interview, they probably have a nearly 50% chance of passing since…

My favorite econ professor at my (private) university often pointed out that our eventual diploma was far more about signaling qualifications rather than education; that you won't necessarily get a better education than at the state school down the road, but it proves you can play the game; get the good grades in secondary school, do the things you need to do to get into the university, get the grades, do the work. I…

I know when I see a fellow alumni of my almamater, I think, well they are probably not much dumber than I am.

Re: Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus on your job

#385

Post by techsin101 »

binarynate wrote: post #14

The most transformative change in my career was turning my side project into a profitable company, which I now work on full-time. This was a huge step change in terms of my personal happiness and wealth. So, I generally disagree with the advice of forgetting side projects.

howd you find the idea

Re: Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus on your job

#386

Post by dnautics »

boyobo wrote: post #295
dnautics wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

nobody is claiming that my experience is extrapolatable ad infinitum. However, if it was such a rare thing, what are the odds that someone like me would exist? > An individual example is useless when the question is about if something works at (even minor) scale That is incorrect. The plural of anecdote is data.

> However, if it was such a rare thing, what are the odds that someone like me would exist? Someone wins the lottery every week. What are the odds of winning the lottery? Is playing the lottery a good strategy to make money?

Did you not see the "n=5" bit?

Re: Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus on your job

#387

Post by dnautics »

kyawzazaw wrote: post #308
dnautics wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

nobody is claiming that my experience is extrapolatable ad infinitum. However, if it was such a rare thing, what are the odds that someone like me would exist? > An individual example is useless when the question is about if something works at (even minor) scale That is incorrect. The plural of anecdote is data.

It's the rare thing. I bet that if you go to any big tech companies, you will find that pretty much none of the engineers got hired by impressing a CEO

Not all CEOs are CEOs of big companies. I went to a middle class high school in the US and no less than 5 of the students in my class of 70 are or have been CEOs.

Re: Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus on your job

#388

Post by dasb »

enos_feedler wrote: post #45
maverickJ wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you go about choosing that one project?

I would choose the one you can't stop thinking about. Or the one that many of the other side projects eventually lead to. If you feel similarly about all 100 side projects, probably none of them are worth doubling down on.

I can't stop thinking about creating my own operating system from scratch --similar to what Andreas Kling is doing with Sereneity OS-- but arriving at a usable state would probably take me 15 years, since I'm not even 10% as knowledgeable as Andreas.

I often think I should forget about this project altogether and focus on a viable one.

Re: Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus on your job

#389

Post by jamil7 »

artembugara wrote: post #34

I began my side-project [1] one year ago. I quit my very well-paid job 6 months ago to make my side-project my full-time job. It is going quite well (I am nowhere near making the same money). Just 2 of us at the moment. I've learnt so much over this period. Like what you would get over 10 years in a big tech company while jumping over all the hierarchy. Moreover, my very first side project turned me from a guy who kn…

I stumbled across your project recently while helping a friend with scraping project. I think the pricing is reasonable but I found that the non-commercial limitations of the free plan make it difficult for smaller developers to try it out in their projects. Just my 2c.

Re: Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus on your job

#390

Post by boyobo »

dnautics wrote: post #386
boyobo wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, if it was such a rare thing, what are the odds that someone like me would exist? Someone wins the lottery every week. What are the odds of winning the lottery? Is playing the lottery a good strategy to make money?

Did you not see the "n=5" bit?

Do you understand the concept of correlation?

"Usain bolt won the olypmic gold medal many times (n=8).

If winning the gold medal was so rare, what are the odds that people like Usain Bolt exist?"

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