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Late bloomer, not a loser. (I hope)

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Re: Late bloomer, not a loser. (I hope)

#41

Post by logical42 »

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

-- Teddy R.

Re: Late bloomer, not a loser. (I hope)

#42

Post by Timothee »

joshmlewis wrote: post #33
Timothee wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hell yeah you have time! You're only 19 and you seem to know what you want to do for the foreseeable future, have co-founded a company, worked at two successful startups… I have yet to do any of these. (well, maybe I do know what I want to do? Maybe…) You're so ahead of most people, it's almost tempting to downvote you for humblebrag. It's like people who complain because they do only [good measurement of self in a d…

Yes, like the gorgeous girls that call themselves fat, it pisses me off. I feel like though I've done this, but I'm still not financially secure, I worry about a paycheck, and people still don't respect what I do and think I should be in college. So it just makes me wonder, ya know?

Don't get me wrong: I'm not blaming you. I think a lot of people, if not most, are insecure or at least unsure about their accomplishments.

I feel that it's not really discussed: you might receive kudos from the family, but they're often outside your domain, so "it doesn't count". You might have some kind of role model: "I want to be like that guy", but that guy rarely looks back to acknowledge your accomplishments. (and he's probably looking up to somebody else too) If anybody does, it's mostly people "lower than or equal to" you that do: at best your peers, at worst people who don't really know what they're talking about.

So it's hard to see yourself in the proper referential…

Re: Late bloomer, not a loser. (I hope)

#43

Post by unimpressive »

powerslave12r wrote: post #36
auston wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I humbly disagree: As a writer, I'd like my design handled for me. I just want to be able to write the best piece within reach & present it to the world in a way that will gain mass distribution. Besides that, as a reader, it's easy to detect the Svbtle "look" & know that this article will probably be worth my time.

This is exactly right. As soon as I see that blog theme, I recognize it as 'this is gonna be a good article.' The only nitpick I have about the site is I think the font is 'too wide.' That's just a personal preference of course.

> This is exactly right. As soon as I see that blog theme, I recognize it as 'this is gonna be a good article.'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batesian_mimicry

Such a signal is vulnerable to knockoffs.

Re: Late bloomer, not a loser. (I hope)

#44

Post by [deleted] »

powerslave12r wrote: post #36
auston wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I humbly disagree: As a writer, I'd like my design handled for me. I just want to be able to write the best piece within reach & present it to the world in a way that will gain mass distribution. Besides that, as a reader, it's easy to detect the Svbtle "look" & know that this article will probably be worth my time.

This is exactly right. As soon as I see that blog theme, I recognize it as 'this is gonna be a good article.' The only nitpick I have about the site is I think the font is 'too wide.' That's just a personal preference of course.

[deleted]

Re: Late bloomer, not a loser. (I hope)

#45

Post by ygmelnikova »

Are these things the compass to success? That's rather depressing.

I can relate a little. I dropped out in grade 11. Built N. America's first fully graphical ecommmerce site (1992), Canada's first Windows IIS webserver (sorry), country's first 56K internet access, $10M IPO in 1998, client list includes Eckhart Tolle and Oprah.

So what.

I recommend you learn success from those that who mastered it over the eons, and they don't live anywhere near Silicon Valley.

Here's one example;

"For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" -- Jesus Christ

Re: Late bloomer, not a loser. (I hope)

#46

Post by taybin »

cglee wrote: post #38
waterlesscloud wrote: post #2

The irony is that to 95% of Americans he's led a very successful life. Not that I don't understand the point. It's all relative.

When you're in SF/Bay Area and trying to compete with the likes of LinkedIn, Yammer, etc, you're constantly bumping into that top 5%.

There's a tendency to overrate the talent at these well known companies. Remember, LinkedIn didn't salt its passwords...

Re: Late bloomer, not a loser. (I hope)

#47

Post by elssar »

I was with you when I read the title, I was with you upto the point you mentioned that you weren't ready for the consistency & hardwork college requires, and then you went from "someone like me" to "someone who hasn't done as well as the people around him".

Re: Late bloomer, not a loser. (I hope)

#49

Post by einhverfr »

prayag wrote: post #21

Dave's dilemma is far too familier to a lot of people in the tech scene in general, and bay area in particular. Bay area attracts the brightest minds from across the globe. All of them have been at the top of their high school classes. They have all been told from a very young age that they are destined to doing something great in life. They not only expect themselves to do better than themselves but pretty much dema…

Exactly.

As I have been doing a lot more financial planning I have started to second-guess whether I want to look for funding in the Valley or bootstrap with a partner.

Yes, I think we can be a billion dollar company in 20 years or less with a couple million in investment. Yes, I think we could bring open source ERP into the mainstream.

However we aren't in the hot areas of the day. We are entering a market which is dominated by an increasingly small number of vendors (which we see as an opportunity). And according to my model, if we are willing to make a lot less on the first three years, we may be able to reach the billion dollar mark at most 10 years later, and we could do this without losing the freedom of operation--- without pressure to be acquired or go public.

So the delimma here is pitching ERP to VC's for money we might not really need that badly, in the hopes that taking money will get us there faster and build new connections, or going on our own.

We aren't going to be the next Facebook. We do however expect to become as big as RedHat, perhaps significantly bigger.

I don't know what we will do. It will depend on discussions with others on the team yet.

I do know though that the decision has become harder than it was before.

Re: Late bloomer, not a loser. (I hope)

#50

Post by neilk »

Wow, I sure do hope he finally does that one thing that nobody, absolutely nobody can deny is important -- something as big as, say, a Twitter knockoff for the enterprise. Then he'll never have any nagging doubts about himself ever again.

Hey, far be it from me to criticize someone who's trying to make a mark in the world. I myself am just past 40, a former child prodigy, not very successful in Silicon Valley, and still feel I have some creative works in me which are yet to be realized.

Where I have sincere worries for Dave is that he doesn't seem to have a specific idea of what would count as success -- other than, maybe, it would be big enough and impress enough people that it would silence his demons. I don't know Dave, but I have a strong suspicion that this is also what led him to slack off at university -- rebelling against this idea that if he isn't the smartest and most successful, he's nothing. Because it makes every minor setback a bitter failure, and even success turns to ashes in your mouth.

His mission statement shouldn't be that he wants a better epitaph. Other people get to write his epitaph, and by that time he'll be fucking dead. It's out of his control. What is in his control: whether his life was meaningful to himself. Did it express his unique talents, did it give him and others joy, did it help others? Did he make his own rules about how to evaluate his life or was he a slave to the caprices of fame and fortune? And this is about so much more than just a career.

I think I'll just leave this here. A clip from The Wire.

"The job will not save you."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b54EEpdv9q8

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