Career advice for people with bad luck • Hacker News Board

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#411

Post by pmiller2 » Fri, Apr 24, 2020, 9:22 PM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #112

efficax wrote: post #100

The point made in here about how your company is not your family cannot be emphasized enough. Corporate culture, and especially tech startup culture, likes to make you believe that we're all family and best friends and love each other. That attitude stays up right until the day they lay you off without warning. It's great to work with great people that you enjoy being around, and we should treat each other all with h…

But I think there can also be too much negativity around "the company is not a family". At this point, with 3 major crashes in the past 20 years, I feel like only bad companies say the company is a family. Good companies say, and act like, the company is a team. People can work hard together, they can be friends, but they are clear that the reason for the team is to accomplish a goal, and if the structure of the team…

Exactly. If a company says "we're a family," then, either they are (a family business), or they're lying. I always say "you don't fire your brother," when people say something like this.

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#412

Post by opportune » Fri, Apr 24, 2020, 9:23 PM UTC

foreigner wrote: post #236

jorblumesea wrote: post #194

> Your equity package is a lottery ticket with expected value of zero. While this is true, it's vastly more true for startups and privately owned companies vs publicly owned. Amazon's stock price might fluctuate but the chances of it being worthless are slim.

But equity packages are typically stock options , not stock. So they're only worth anything if the stock price goes way up.

Not for any big US tech company I've heard of! I think that is only for startups. FAANG (well, Netflix doesn't do equity comp normally), Microsoft, etc. it's all direct equity that vests over time.

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#413

Post by pmiller2 » Fri, Apr 24, 2020, 9:25 PM UTC

throwaway5752 wrote: post #306

efficax wrote: post #100

The point made in here about how your company is not your family cannot be emphasized enough. Corporate culture, and especially tech startup culture, likes to make you believe that we're all family and best friends and love each other. That attitude stays up right until the day they lay you off without warning. It's great to work with great people that you enjoy being around, and we should treat each other all with h…

Your boss can absolutely be your friend. You should be a good friend back and recognize you have two relationships, and if they are a good person with integrity they won't make professional actions on the basis of personal relationships. That's just basic professionalism. I've been friendly with many of my bosses during and after the term of employment I've worked for them. I would never, ever have expected any favor…

There's a bit difference between having a "friendly" relationship and being a friend.

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#414

Post by friendlybus » Fri, Apr 24, 2020, 9:26 PM UTC

danbolt wrote: post #393

friendlybus wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really isn’t the same mindset as intolerance. Why would it remove agency? Do you dislike children? It’s about setting a boundary where it is most productive, children who are not socialised by the age of four hit problems in later life. Parents and kids who go to war help no one.

I think it comes from that the rule is titled "Do not let your children do anything that...". The language states to restrict the child's agency if you disagree with it. I was fortunate enough to grow up with good parents, but there were times where they were misguided and myself disobeying them helped us both in the long run.

Language policing one line without the backing context is missing the point.

Those times you disobeyed were also met with decades of limiting your agency. Not letting you cover yourself in peanut butter or fight with other kids, or mistreat pets, or spend infinite money.

Jp sees resentment and pride as the ultimate source for being a rapscallion or monster, putting responsibility on the parent to keep their child in the ‘liked’ category is a very elegant way to keep a kid from destroying your house but also make a parent confront/channel any resentment or excessive pride into productive directions.

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#415

Post by pmiller2 » Fri, Apr 24, 2020, 9:31 PM UTC

WhompingWindows wrote: post #209

The concept of "bad luck" is reinforced by endless self-comparison with those who had extremely good luck. It's MUCH more valuable to compare yourself to those who are unlucky: the mentally disabled, those who died from COVID at age 29, those born/raised in North Korea. Compared to these people, we've all hit the fucking jackpot. Adjust your mindset and you'll notice you're luckier than you thought you were.

Comparing yourself to people born in North Korea, etc. isn't actionable though. In other words, so what, other people are more unlucky than me? I know that already.

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#416

Post by brudgers » Fri, Apr 24, 2020, 9:35 PM UTC

taurath wrote: post #333

blululu wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Read some philosophy. Buy a reliable used car. As the proud owner of a 2004 Toyota Corolla and a 2011 Philosophy Minor, this line made my day. Honestly it is just plain good advice.

How many miles does your Philosophy Minor have on it? I've heard they're not very reliable

It varies by brand. Plato pretty much runs forever. Kant, even property maintained, will leave you scratching your head. People keep Aristotle running, but it’s not pretty. For what you spend Hume is a bargain—you can even take it off road in the forest...assuming there are unfallen trees. For the DIYer, Wittgenstein will keep you busy but Russell is known to have a computational design flaw. I recommend a late model Singer if you can afford it because they’re still making parts.

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#417

Post by pmiller2 » Fri, Apr 24, 2020, 9:36 PM UTC

jerzyt wrote: post #139

It maybe too cynical, but I'm fond of the saying that I'm loyal to the company as longs as the paycheck doesn't bounce.

I think you're not cynical enough. You should definitely keep an eye out for a bigger paycheck elsewhere. Your company wouldn't hesitate to cut you loose if they thought it would make or save them a dollar in the long run.

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#418

Post by achillesheels » Fri, Apr 24, 2020, 9:38 PM UTC

Pamar wrote: post #353

mywittyname wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't philosophy kind of like CS minus the computers? I remember my sister talking about how much she hated her philosophy class and what she described was essentially discrete math-lite.

This is interesting. Can you expand it a bit, please?

Possibly it is because philosophy is a lot like being bothered by a bug in your code, and you stress and strain to resolve it which provides growth in wisdom after the objective is completed.

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#419

Post by CM30 » Fri, Apr 24, 2020, 9:41 PM UTC

quesera wrote: post #224

mdorazio wrote: post #67

I really want to see more articles like this on HN. However, this is really "career advice for people at struggling companies." The luck part doesn't get discussed in the way I expected. To me, bad luck is things like: - You're in the wrong place at the wrong time. Ex. you graduated in 2008-2010/now or your business sector got wiped out by COVID - Despite your best efforts at networking, you simply never meet that ma…

This is not bad luck. This is the normal state of life. It may be depressing (non-clinical), it might be disappointing, it might be discouraging, but it is 100% bog-standard ordinary . The feeling that you are suffering more than other people is the true harm caused. Your points: * Graduated at the wrong time: How many thousands of people graduated between 2008 and 2010? That is by definition ordinary. * Never met th…

Yeah, I think it's definitely worth remembering that the people and organisations making millions/billions of dollars and 'changing the world' are in the news because it's rare. Most musicians don't reach number 1, most film stars and YouTubers don't become millionaires, most startups don't become the next Facebook and most games on Steam or app stores just get buried.

A combination of press coverage and social media has basically convinced an increasingly large percentage of the population than the outliers are the norm.

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#420

Post by pmiller2 » Fri, Apr 24, 2020, 9:45 PM UTC

rwmj wrote: post #35

sys_64738 wrote: post #33

My advice is to do a startup as early in your career as possible. Then you'll feel failure and the emptiness as it hits the skids. It's a life lesson in a few months because startups that fail usually tip over the cliff real fast.

In my experience the worst start ups don't hit the skids fast. They kind of keep bumping along, often for years. Neither growing much, nor dying, nor making much money, nor losing enough to go out of business. I even co-founded one of these a few years ago. If you're in one of these my advice is to recognise it and quit.

Even worse: they succeed wildly, to the extent they never need funding again after a series C, buy out the VC's, and stay private. This is roughly what I'm expecting from one of the startups I worked at. I already know they'll never need to take another dime in funding, so I'm just waiting for them to tell me how my shares are going to become worthless.