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I was on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list this year, and five alums from the org I run have also made the list over the years, as well as two friends of mine. They a

I was on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list this year, and five alums from the org I run have also made the list over the years, as well as two friends of mine. They are all are pretty reasonable people who have done cool things. I'm not surprised they were able to find a few that were crazier, though. It's not substantially different from an obsession with getting into YC or raising VC money. I've done both of these things as well, and I met many of the same people. They will always find something to be obsessed by. And for what it's worth, all the recognition I've gotten over the years has never really translated to much of a business advantage, but it's still pretty neat to be recognized for something you've been putting a lot of work into.

permutation-- 7y ago
I enjoyed reading your articles below: https://tyler.vc/dropping-out https://tyler.vc/dropping-out https://tyler.vc/education https://tyler.vc/education https://tyler.vc/dropping-out-revisited https://tyler.vc/dropping-out-revisited Is there anything you would have done differently in your career trajectory / educational path if you started over?
- tylermenezes 7y ago
  Thanks! :) It's been a while since I've written anything so I'm glad to hear you thought they were interesting! More than anything I wish I'd explored more "unrelated" fields like bio, finance, medicine, cooking, (...) when I had the free time of a student. There are a lot of very interesting problems that don't fit neatly into a single career path. But it's much harder to make time for learning for the hell of it at 28 than it was at 18.
  - OJFord 7y ago
    That's a depressing comment to read at nearer-28-than-18. I'd hate to be older than 28 and read it!
    - bguerra 7y ago
      >28 year old here. There is actually quite a bit of reassurance in that comment. I'm a full time developer and part-time student. I read through the articles linked above because I'm trying to decide on continuing my studies in the fall after receiving a promotion at work. The return I get from my work projects far outweighs what I've learned in school and I'm getting paid for it! That comment shares a feeling I _don't_ want to have. If I have any motivation to learn something, why waste it on forced material that may not be relevant to me. I'm leaning towards not taking classes. Instead I can focus on learning technologies to integrate into systems I've built. I can read more for fun (which I was able to do this summer). I can finish that game I've been working minutes at a time for the last few years. I can build that bookshelf that I desperately need, to replace the particle board one that's falling apart in my room. No hate here. If you're younger than 28 (or not) and you have regrets after reading it, you can still change that path. It might just take a bit more work or motivation that you were putting elsewhere.
    - nostrademons 7y ago
      I'm 38. It only gets harder. I'm glad that I read/learned/experienced a whole lot in my early 20s, so that at least I have that broad background of history, economics, finance, culture, etc. to draw on now that most of my attention is split between my kid, marriage, and startup and reading ~5 books/year is much more likely than reading ~5 books/week. (It does remain possible, though, and I'd like to think that I haven't totally stagnated in my learning.)
  - keiferski 7y ago
    I quit my full-time job at 28 to embark on a rigorous self-education plan, precisely because I felt the same way as you. Sure, you will lose out on optimizing your salary if you jump off the career path train. But is that really a good strategy for living an interesting life? Even then, you may find that broadening your educational base leads to deeper and more lucrative opportunities in the future. If you make something a priority, it’s possible.
    - kenneth 7y ago
      I'm 28 and at the height of my career, but I've just started making education a priority again. Still working full, but also taking 3h of intensive classes every day in something completely unrelated to my work (learning Chinese). Learning again feels good!
      - keiferski 7y ago
        Nice! Good luck with Chinese.
171243 7y ago
Interesting. As an informal evaluations of the premise of the top comment in this thread I read your bio. I am posting the comment and your bio here for other interested individuals: The comment: >I know two people on the “30 under 30” list. Both of them are incredibly charismatic and charming in person. Their Instagram and Twitter accounts churn out constant brand building material. They both have pseudo-startups with noble causes and vibrant websites. Their startups have a list of impressive advisers, including B-list senators and industry executives. However, neither of them have made any progress on building an actual business. One of them has supposedly been developing the same simple product for almost 7 years now, but they’ve never been able to produce even a proof of concept prototype. I thought I was missing something for the longest time, until I let go of the idea that they were really trying to build a company. They’re not. They’re building their personal brand, and succeeding wildly thanks to publications like the “30 under 30” list that have an insatiable appetite for underdog success stories. Surely some of these companies are legitimately successful with great business models, but they’re mixed into these lists with the brand builders who know how to game the system. I’d be interested in reading an honest “Where are they now” follow up series that checks in with these founders at the 5-year mark after they make this list to see who the real successes are. And your bio: >Tyler Menezes is the Executive Director at SRND, where he works to increase diverse Computer Science enrollment across North America by inspiring underrepresented students to give coding a try. Born in Canada but raised in the Pacific Northwest, he briefly attended the University of Washington before dropping out to start a Y Combinator and venture-backed social video startup in 2011. This, combined with stints working in machine learning at Microsoft Research and as a programmer at several Seattle startups, led to his work finding data-driven solutions to increasing CS diversity and enrollment since 2014. In his free time, Tyler helps run the Projects in CS class at Garfield High School, and organizes the public speaking event Ignite Seattle.
- tylermenezes 7y ago
  I don't really understand what you're trying to suggest from my bio??... >Their Instagram and Twitter accounts churn out constant brand building material. >They’re building their personal brand I don't even have an Instagram? And literally I made two business-related tweets in the last month, one of which was a RT of someone commenting on how the org I run is valuable. Which brings me to... >They both have pseudo-startups I run a nonprofit that's had about 42,000 students attend mostly physical, in-person events in 53 cities, over the last 10ish years. We are profitable and have employees. Our programs have a NPS of 70-80 and we get grants from a bunch of big companies on the basis of our outcomes. This has been my full-time job and only livelihood for the last 5 years. >I’d be interested in reading an honest “Where are they now” follow up series that checks in with these founders at the 5-year mark We've been around for 10 years, and I've been the ED for 5. We have continued to grow and improve our key metrics although we're not a startup and I'm not going for meteoric growth.

permutation-- 7y ago

I enjoyed reading your articles below: https://tyler.vc/dropping-out https://tyler.vc/dropping-out https://tyler.vc/education https://tyler.vc/education https://tyler.vc/dropping-out-revisited https://tyler.vc/dropping-out-revisited Is there anything you would have done differently in your career trajectory / educational path if you started over?

tylermenezes 7y ago
Thanks! :) It's been a while since I've written anything so I'm glad to hear you thought they were interesting! More than anything I wish I'd explored more "unrelated" fields like bio, finance, medicine, cooking, (...) when I had the free time of a student. There are a lot of very interesting problems that don't fit neatly into a single career path. But it's much harder to make time for learning for the hell of it at 28 than it was at 18.
- OJFord 7y ago
  That's a depressing comment to read at nearer-28-than-18. I'd hate to be older than 28 and read it!
  - bguerra 7y ago
    >28 year old here. There is actually quite a bit of reassurance in that comment. I'm a full time developer and part-time student. I read through the articles linked above because I'm trying to decide on continuing my studies in the fall after receiving a promotion at work. The return I get from my work projects far outweighs what I've learned in school and I'm getting paid for it! That comment shares a feeling I _don't_ want to have. If I have any motivation to learn something, why waste it on forced material that may not be relevant to me. I'm leaning towards not taking classes. Instead I can focus on learning technologies to integrate into systems I've built. I can read more for fun (which I was able to do this summer). I can finish that game I've been working minutes at a time for the last few years. I can build that bookshelf that I desperately need, to replace the particle board one that's falling apart in my room. No hate here. If you're younger than 28 (or not) and you have regrets after reading it, you can still change that path. It might just take a bit more work or motivation that you were putting elsewhere.
  - nostrademons 7y ago
    I'm 38. It only gets harder. I'm glad that I read/learned/experienced a whole lot in my early 20s, so that at least I have that broad background of history, economics, finance, culture, etc. to draw on now that most of my attention is split between my kid, marriage, and startup and reading ~5 books/year is much more likely than reading ~5 books/week. (It does remain possible, though, and I'd like to think that I haven't totally stagnated in my learning.)
- keiferski 7y ago
  I quit my full-time job at 28 to embark on a rigorous self-education plan, precisely because I felt the same way as you. Sure, you will lose out on optimizing your salary if you jump off the career path train. But is that really a good strategy for living an interesting life? Even then, you may find that broadening your educational base leads to deeper and more lucrative opportunities in the future. If you make something a priority, it’s possible.
  - kenneth 7y ago
    I'm 28 and at the height of my career, but I've just started making education a priority again. Still working full, but also taking 3h of intensive classes every day in something completely unrelated to my work (learning Chinese). Learning again feels good!
    - keiferski 7y ago
      Nice! Good luck with Chinese.

171243 7y ago

Interesting. As an informal evaluations of the premise of the top comment in this thread I read your bio. I am posting the comment and your bio here for other interested individuals: The comment: >I know two people on the “30 under 30” list. Both of them are incredibly charismatic and charming in person. Their Instagram and Twitter accounts churn out constant brand building material. They both have pseudo-startups with noble causes and vibrant websites. Their startups have a list of impressive advisers, including B-list senators and industry executives. However, neither of them have made any progress on building an actual business. One of them has supposedly been developing the same simple product for almost 7 years now, but they’ve never been able to produce even a proof of concept prototype. I thought I was missing something for the longest time, until I let go of the idea that they were really trying to build a company. They’re not. They’re building their personal brand, and succeeding wildly thanks to publications like the “30 under 30” list that have an insatiable appetite for underdog success stories. Surely some of these companies are legitimately successful with great business models, but they’re mixed into these lists with the brand builders who know how to game the system. I’d be interested in reading an honest “Where are they now” follow up series that checks in with these founders at the 5-year mark after they make this list to see who the real successes are. And your bio: >Tyler Menezes is the Executive Director at SRND, where he works to increase diverse Computer Science enrollment across North America by inspiring underrepresented students to give coding a try. Born in Canada but raised in the Pacific Northwest, he briefly attended the University of Washington before dropping out to start a Y Combinator and venture-backed social video startup in 2011. This, combined with stints working in machine learning at Microsoft Research and as a programmer at several Seattle startups, led to his work finding data-driven solutions to increasing CS diversity and enrollment since 2014. In his free time, Tyler helps run the Projects in CS class at Garfield High School, and organizes the public speaking event Ignite Seattle.

tylermenezes 7y ago
I don't really understand what you're trying to suggest from my bio??... >Their Instagram and Twitter accounts churn out constant brand building material. >They’re building their personal brand I don't even have an Instagram? And literally I made two business-related tweets in the last month, one of which was a RT of someone commenting on how the org I run is valuable. Which brings me to... >They both have pseudo-startups I run a nonprofit that's had about 42,000 students attend mostly physical, in-person events in 53 cities, over the last 10ish years. We are profitable and have employees. Our programs have a NPS of 70-80 and we get grants from a bunch of big companies on the basis of our outcomes. This has been my full-time job and only livelihood for the last 5 years. >I’d be interested in reading an honest “Where are they now” follow up series that checks in with these founders at the 5-year mark We've been around for 10 years, and I've been the ED for 5. We have continued to grow and improve our key metrics although we're not a startup and I'm not going for meteoric growth.