> The last thing I’ll say is it takes time to be good at each role. When you’re in college there is this idea that you should take your 20s to discover yourself

> The last thing I’ll say is it takes time to be good at each role. When you’re in college there is this idea that you should take your 20s to discover yourself and the find the work that is most enjoyable to you. The problem is that if it takes 5-10 years to truly get good at something and you spend 10 years discovering what you want to get good at…it’s going to take a long time for you to feel like a highly skilled productive person (and to recieve the rewards that come with this). It’s not that you shouldn’t explore, it’s that you need to understand the costs of that exploration and plan accordingly. --- This is an understatement that I see many new or junior developers completely missing. You don't magically become a rockstar. Working with rockstars is helpful, but it won't make you a rockstar. Company name/brand is irrelevant to becoming a rockstar. It is all about practice solving hard problems, which takes lots of time and concentration. This is the only factor that separates the amazing developers from everybody else, and honestly most people don't have the discipline or personality to get there. Actually, now that I think about, becoming an awesome developer is similar to the advice for becoming a successful founder. You, counter-intuitively, have to spend a lot of time doing things that don't scale. A good example is ignoring all those frameworks and abstractions so that you can really learn how the code actually works. If you expect tools to do your job for you or grow reliance upon some temporary artifact you aren't as strong or self-reliant developer. In order to be a great executive you have to be a great employee. The military flavor of this is that you have to learn to follow before you can learn to lead. You have to know what your people are going through and be willing to step in and assist your people if the situation calls for it. At some point a founder has to transition from founder to executive if their company is to grow or they are to keep their job. Promoting, building, and marketing a new production or solution is great, but at some point other people will do that for you. You must be able to lead these people, build confidence in the team, and provide proper direction. You have to be a leader.