91–100 of 406 posts
Are we really at the point where a 30 year old can offer sage advice on living life? Wow. As a counterpoint to "be the best you can be in your profession": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIJdFxYlEKE [PyCon keynote by Jacob Kaplan-Moss on 'mediocre developers'].
Could a 30 year old give good advice on being a programmer?
It's not the length of time, it's the amount of experience.
Sam seems so wise, even for somebody so young! Everything he writes is a pleasure to read. Calm, considered, sometimes controversial, but always worth digesting.
Many 20 yo liberal arts students (sorry, exaggerating here) could come up with a list like that but nobody would care because they're not the head of YCombinator. With Status comes authority, with authority comes self confidence and with that comes the feeling of wisdom. This is a good list, worth reading and talking about it; but for me wisdom means non-trivial, sometimes contraintuitive deep insight. Wisdom needs i…
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He was young (as was I), and trying hard to be a good boss. Married but no children, short on philosophy and long on business school theory.
I admire your empathy and that you evidently examined the situation versus reacted. Props to you.
I was 5 minutes late to work every morning, because of taking my son to school in the neighborhood where our new house was being built. I didn't want him to have to move schools in the middle of the year. Boss said "This won't do. You'll have to examine your priorities." I thought about it all day, that night. Next morning I got to work (5 minutes late), went in his office, said "I examined my priorities. Work is #12…
Assuming you were effective at your job, said boss needs to examine what is important to him, slavish respect-mah-authortai-style following of rather arbitrary rules, or having a "bird-in-the-hand" competent employee who gets shit done (perhaps 5 minutes later than the boss-man would like). It is kind of sad how many boss/manager types still fail miserably on this point, and then complain about not being able to hire…
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Father of two here. It's true that having a child forces any responsible adult into revisiting their priorities, and some things that seemed important before parenthood suddenly aren't . I don't think it eliminates a desire to be successful: I think that it changes the parameters by which you determine success. And having a child throw up/mess on your nice clothes and shower the inside of your nice car with food and…
> It is worth it, and anybody without kids who says otherwise knows not of which they speak. That's some gross generalization. Any childless bachelor could know what the "path" is like by staying over with a friend that has a child and helping out for some time. On the other hand, parents that walk the path and later find out they're not cut out for it, have to suffer quietly, and can't voice their true opinions, bec…
Those of you on HN that are past the 30+ mark. What would you add to this list?
34yo here. Experience something horrible. I grew up in a ridiculously perfect fantasyland. My parents, who have an ideal marriage, told me I was the best at everything, encouraged every dream I had, paid for college and insulated me from all of life's difficulties re: money, stress, etc. To make matters worse, I excelled right along with the praise -- made good grades, got into a top-10 college, started a company aft…
Related to this: if you have kids yourself, or you're in a position of providing guidance for kids, keep providing a safe and consistent environment for them yourself, but teach them that the world is not fair, that adults are not always right and not always consistent, that they themselves are not always the smartest person in the room (nor should they always want to be), and that other people care about themselves much more than them.
Or, in short, don't just teach them that the world is awesome (though it can be); teach them how to get what they want out of a world that's not out to hand it to them.
How do you fix this? For the last 10 years of my life I've basically woken up each morning and wished I hadn't. I don't like what I do. I can't afford to not do it anymore. I don't even know what, if anything, I would actually enjoy waking up for.
ponder over the internals (design) of your own self at least once in your life.
Are we really at the point where a 30 year old can offer sage advice on living life? Wow. As a counterpoint to "be the best you can be in your profession": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIJdFxYlEKE [PyCon keynote by Jacob Kaplan-Moss on 'mediocre developers'].
I can't say I'm surprised to see this as the top comment, but I think it's sad that you (and apparently many other upvoters) don't think 30 year olds can offer valuable advice on life. It's also wrong as proven by history. Many writers have produced some of their best works at the same age. One example is Kirkegaard who wrote "Fear and Trembling"[1] at age 30. If you think that Sam's advice is narrowminded or bad as…
It simply struck me as odd that this (not particularly revelatory list) could be passed off as worthy of note. What, other than his work with YC, makes Sam's musings worthy of our time?
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Having a child relativizes everything else and makes life so much easier because you don't need to figure out the meaning of your life anymore and you don't even need to be successful, neither personally nor professionally. This does not mean you won't be or you can't be, it just does not matter that much anymore. And this is friggin' liberating.
I have an amazing father and grandfathers, all of whom I am close with. I've dreamed of being a father for many years (26M) and think I'll make a great one someday based on the examples I was fortunate enough to have. But I don't like the thought that as soon as you have a child, you instantly have to be defined by that. Is reproduction really the meaning to life? (Biologists say absolutely). And saying you don't hav…