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Finding Time to Invest in Yourself
- abbadadda 7y agoToo much preamble. I stopped reading when the author started shilling his "How to Get Rich" article before he even started his point.
- lvturner 7y ago"If you’re a barista at the coffee shop, figure out how to make connections with the customers. Figure out how to innovate the service you offer and delight the customer. Managers, founders and owners will take notice." I stopped reading here, because... no, no they won't, and even if they do - they won't/can't reward you appropriately for it.
- SandersAK 7y ago“In many cases, the person is way overqualified. Someone with multiple graduate degrees might be running the CEO’s laundry because that’s the most important thing at the moment.“ These sort of ideas telegraph that the author knows they got rich but don’t actually understand how they got there.
- dang 7y agoOk, but please don't post shallow dismissals to Hacker News. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- SandersAK 7y agoThis isn’t a shallow dismissal. I’m literally quoting a part of the piece that is absurdly bad. Would it be edifying for you and others if I explained why I think suggesting that a smart startup employee should not be doing the CEO’s laundry?
- matz1 7y agoPlease explain, i think the idea make sense. The menial job id done to show that no job is beneath you and to open up greater opportunity.
- dang 7y agoIt's not edifying to cherry-pick the most sensational detail in an article in order to hammer it. What you wrote is shallow because you haven't engaged with the core idea of the post at all. That's exactly what that guideline is supposed to discourage. You seized on "CEO's laundry" because it sounds absurd; no doubt the fact that it sounds absurd is exactly why he included it. If you reduce his argument to that, you're breaking another site guideline too: "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith." What would be more edifying is if you delivered on the claim your comment makes for yourself, that you know how someone got rich better than they themselves do. How?
- SandersAK 7y agoIt's hard to edify and spend that time when you routinely flag and kill my comments. You claim that HN is "better than this" but Naval's post is totally devoid of insight. It is hackneyed and the commentary responding to it is a reflection of that. If you want better commentary on the front page, then do a better job of making the front page articles worth talking about. As to me claiming to know how Naval got rich - that's easy - he's a person who cashed in on a golden era of startups when it was easy to sell off bad properties for big money. Instead of realizing that he was extremely lucky to be at the right place and right time, with the privilege of having enough personal wealth to take those risks, he instead spends the rest of his career trying to justify his wealth and position. That's why all his advice and "insight" are the sort of trite self-help aphorisms that anyone can say and make it sound true. You always ask others to be better on HN, but maybe take a step back and ask yourself if maybe the state of HN is a reflection not of the community but of the guidelines and leadership that drives it today. as for me? I gotta get back to my day job ;)
- tyre 7y agoI think this is generally true of Naval. He tweets these vague pseudo-philosophical koans, things that look fine as 280 character retweets. It's fine for self-branding and he's certainly played the genre well. But that middle ground between advice directly relevant to a practical question and a nuanced, deeply investigated ethical framework isn't as self-helpful as marketed. It's those things people read and _feel_ like they've done some life-work today (and perhaps that's what people really want.) As you point out, much content by well-known, materially successful people is a post-hoc constructed narrative to explain why they are where they are.
- ditonal 7y agoFounders want employees to have the founder mentality without giving them founder equity. AngelList (which this author is shilling) salaries and equity grants are pathetically low. So they write fluff pieces about how you’ll learn so much doing a founders laundry. I learned a lot more, faster, as an employee at big tech than at early stage startups. Startup VCs and company need to get out of the business of writing fluff pieces about how great it is to be a startup employee and get into the business of fixing early employee equity grants. The “standard” is pathetic.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- ProAm 7y agoIt's similar to getting an artist to do commissions for free because of the all 'exposure' they will get.
- dang 7y agoI've been wondering about this for a long time. On average, what equity level would you say counts as "pathetically low" and what range would you say counts as fair? It seems to me that early employees are underpriced these days, the way that founders used to be, so a correction is probably inevitable. At the same time, there's no way seed-stage startups can match FB levels of compensation—the math just doesn't work. So what would a correction look like?
- throw_14JAS 7y agoI generally see <1% for first engineer hires. In order to hire someone who can 1) do the work initially and 2) grow the team, I think a 5-10% grant with a salary that's 60-80% of market is appropriate. At least, that's what it would take for me to join a startup as first engineer versus starting my own business.
- dang 7y agoWhen you say 'first engineer' do you mean literally the first employee, or early (say 1 thru 5)? If the former, what do you think would be appropriate levels for, say, employees 2 thru 5? If the latter, are you arguing that the first 5 employees should be offered 50% of the company? Just to be clear, I'm not disputing the point and don't have a strong opinion. I'm curious where HN users—who include many prospective early engineers—think the market needs to go. The comments about startup compensation are routinely so negative that it seems clear it needs to move; the question is what range would start to be fairer.
- productfella 7y agoAlthough I love Naval's ideas, I don't think there is a singular model to accountability and skin in the game. It is to compete with yourself every day given the constraints you have as an individual. As an example, I would rather find the best happy me than copying a so-called successful person. To me, owning a business is the ultimate experience for people skills which you can never learn in a classroom. But I would rather do it on my own individual terms than copying a mental model.
- CPLX 7y agoThe first example is basically find a successful person and take a menial job sucking up to them and doing their laundry. Welcome to America 2020
- opportune 7y agoThat’s the VC mentality. Use your purse strings as a way to get people to stroke your ego and make you feel powerful. When in reality most founders just want to take your money and have you GTFO
- dang 7y agoCome on, you guys. HN comments need to be better than this—much better. Please read and follow the guidelines: "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith." "Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html I don't care about the author's argument one way or the other, but I care a lot about degraded discussion on HN.
- alexpetralia 7y agoOn the other hand, I feel Hitchens' razor is useful here: "What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence." In other words, the "low quality" of comments may actually reflect a patent and blithe dismissal of a perceived "low quality" post. I think you must acknowledge, given the community's reaction, that this is potentially a low quality post. In that case, such a reaction seems appropriate.
- woozywu 7y agolol
- brenden2 7y agoI really wouldn't want to work for someone who's so full of themselves that they can't even do their own laundry. Worse yet, someone who'd make their employees do their laundry for them. I personally find Naval and his platitudes to be overly simplistic, and his "get rich quick" advice is mostly impractical (and often bad) for normal people.
- ccthr 7y agoI feel like this is promoting wantrepeneur lifestyle and taking low paid long hour start up jobs to get on the ladder. Whilst innovation is important, and earning your stripes too, I get sick of this unspoken attitude that anyone who doesn't work for a "cool" startup must be unambitious and lack talent. Big tech are dominating most of the interesting problems. Startups likely can not compete with google - if they choose to let you exist it is because they have decided the problem isn't profitable enough.
- dang 7y agoIf that argument is correct, then startups are toast and it's big conglomerates from now on. I think that's going too far. Not everyone wants to work for a big company; not everyone wants to work for an ad company; and so on. What I'd like to know is whether startups can narrow the gap enough to be worth it for early engineers, once these non-compensation factors are included.
- genbit 7y agoDisclaimer: worked only in startups as early-stage engineer. I feel like early stage startups are getting closed to be toast, at least in bay area, from different angels conglomerates are better at non-compensation factors as well. And in current environment, when startups stay private longer, any engineer has a better chances to go to mid or late stage startup, wait till IPO and repeat. It is better from money, career, networking. If put aside equity, as a decision factor, I think, early engineers can go to a startup because it's a faster growing environment with more freedom. Faster for career, business skills, networking, engineering skills... But founders are focused on growing a startup (or stock price) at all cost, short term, from round to round. And people personal goals are usually longer term and founders don't have time/will for that. More thoughts on non-compensation factors that startups could get right if they want: 1. Advance in career faster. Some go to startups because they feel they can progress faster in career ladder. In reality early engineers do not have enough experience for management/lead positions, and there is not enough experience to gain in early days (not enough people, tasks). Founders usually end up bringing ex-big corp/cool startup management, because "they worked at scale". For management career development working at big corps are usually better, since there is a clear path you can take to grow, and you can estimate how much it will take you to do it. Founders could be upfront about they goals and as part of offer could promise people a chance at management, some management coaching. Organizations like YC could offer early engineers management/leads coaching programs to their portfolio companies. 2. Grow as engineers Startups usually don't have enough scale and tech is not perfect. More like a different peaces "glued" together in a hurry, and always constant change. Anyone working at startups as early engineer and trying to go to big-corp for money will hear "yeah cool, but we are looking for tech experience at our scale of usage" Startups can compete in this area (if they don't have scale) by allowing people to develop as public figures, encouraging blogging, talking at conferences. 3. Unlimited vacations. Flexible time. Early engineers are always on, and harder to take long vacation, or completely disconnect. Compare to big corps, there are some where you can take several months sabbatical. 4. Full business transparency Founders can be fully transparent in terms of business, funding in front of employees. This can go long way in developing loyalty and trust. Compare it to big corps, where there are layers of management. 5. Remote-first More startups allow people to travel and work from whatever hours, location they want - more employees/engineers they will attract. Founders could be upfront about it: we pay 80% of market comp, but we don't care where you work from, as long as you available from some reasonable time online. 6. Networking I feel like startups suck at this. It's expensive to send people to conferences, startup team is small. Working at FAANg you have better networking opportunities. YC/VCs could have a networking events not only for founders, but for engineers as well. From YC perspective it's better if engineer leaves for another YC company and stay in ecosystem, than to leave to FAANg. 7. Family friendly I feel like big corps are more family friendly: insurance, time off, activities. Startups figuring out how to make it or compensate for luck of it — could help.
- teachrdan 7y agoThis fluff piece was written so quickly that the author did not correctly comprehend a two-word quote that he uses: > Coming out of college, Warren Buffett wanted to work for Benjamin Graham to learn to be a value investor. Buffett offered to work for free, and Graham responded, “You’re overpriced.” What that means is you have to make sacrifices to take on an apprenticeship. No, what that means is that, as a fresh college graduate, Buffet added negative value to Graham. (Hence, even at $0 he was too expensive.) Blog posts are often a bit like code: They take more effort to read than they do to write. In this case, the author spends so little time trying to produce something worth reading that I couldn't finish the article. Even for free, this post was overpriced.
- marmaduke 7y agoI like to think of reading as as a transformation which has a null space where all the dumb shit goes. This one went there. It doesn't mean you can't pull out other interesting tidbits like scaling better by growing a team instead individual contributions. This correlates with other blog posts which I can't recall now.
- neonate 7y agoIt seems to me that the author comprehends the quote perfectly well. His point is that since Buffett was adding negative value to Graham out of the gate, he'd have needed to do something extra to make hiring him worth Graham's while. And that doing that something extra would have been a good investment because of the learning opportunities it would bring. That's the apprenticeship part. Disagree with the argument if you like (I do too), but don't read it unfairly and then rip him for it.
- teachrdan 7y agoPerhaps what we disagree on here is semantics. When I read, > you have to make sacrifices to take on an apprenticeship I understand that to mean that in order to even apply for / commit to an apprenticeship, you have to make sacrifices. In the context of the rest of his narrative, that means sacrificing a safer, better paying, more conventional career for being a gopher for a would-be titan of Silicon Valley. Obviously, if you have the chance to be the gopher for an actual titan of industry, it's probably worth any reasonable sacrifice. But that's not what the author is promoting. He's promoting the "hustle 24/7" mentality even as a barista in the hopes that your manager will reward your entrepreneurial sprit--or, more likely, a newbie founder who will at best will exit their startup somewhere in the high six to low seven figures and leave you with little more than a few hundred thousand dollars of opportunity cost.
- whalesalad 7y agoLots of negative reactions to this post but I find it to be a very accurate and fresh take.
- SandersAK 7y ago"Now, persuasion is a generic skill—it’s probably not enough to build a career on. You need to combine it in a skill stack, as Scott Adams writes." Naval quotes Scott Adams, dilbert creator who has on the record said things like this: "But in general, society is organized as a virtual prison for men's natural desires. I don't have a solution in mind. It's a zero sum game. If men get everything they want, women lose, and vice versa. And there's no real middle ground because that would look like tweeting a picture of your junk with your underpants still on. Some things just don't have a compromise solution." "Naval: Tony Soprano was a businessman who had to enforce his own contracts. That’s a very complicated business." Just for others' edification, I'd like to point out that Tony Soprano is not a real person. source: https://jezebel.com/dilbert-creator-scott-adams-weighs-in-on-rape-5813290 https://jezebel.com/dilbert-creator-scott-adams-weighs-in-on...
- auston 7y agoI think the takeaway here is that no matter your circumstance, you should find a way to gain "specific knowledge". It boils down to: - If you can afford to apprentice / intern under someone success or on a trajectory to success, do it. - If you can't, then work your paying job, whatever that is, but feel around for opportunities that no one else is looking to own yourself. Not bad advice, but IMO, not exactly "finding the time to invest in yourself". I actually think finding the time to invest in yourself is getting better at time management: 1. Instead of reading tweets, opening instagram, swiping on tinder, etc - go start an essay, article, etc. 2. That time you'd normally zone out and listen to music on the bus/train - read or watch something that you learn from in a big way. 3. Instead of staying in and watching netflix, hulu, etc get out to a meetup of people that are interested in the same thing you are. But these - I think - are all obvious things to people that are reading this. ️
- gdubs 7y agoI avoided Stephen Covey’s “7 Habits [...]” for years and years — but when I finally read it, it was much deeper than I’d imagined, and less superficial than a lot of “self help” books out there. One central habit in the book is around “saw sharpening” and essentially making time to invest in yourself, so ultimately you can invest in interpersonal relationships. It’s kind of a “hierarchy of needs”. You need time, and money — and sometimes neither seem to be available. I can’t do the whole thing justice here, but for the sake of advancing my point — it begins with sorting out what’s urgent and important from what’s trivial and unimportant, and learning to be proactive. Personal finance is something to consider as well, because saving and reducing expenses can buy you some additional flexibility in your life. With some spare time and money, you get to the question of — what do I do next? How do I learn, where do I start? Personally, I think the best way to learn is to build something! Build something that you’re passionate about, and try to solve a problem. Then, see if you can demonstrate value to others — speak to real people who use your product, empathize, and try to make it better. In terms of big company vs startup, both — like anything — have their ups-and-downs. In my experience, if there’s something worth optimizing for it’s this: try to work with great people. Kind, brilliant, considerate people.
- chrisweekly 7y agoGreat comment. Finally reading 7 Habits and couldn't agree more.
- christiansakai 7y agoThese kinds of articles that talk about hustling, startup life, versus the other kinds of articles that talk about FAANG salary and perks are like the yin and yang of HN articles. Always popular, always divisive enough, no clear compromise in sight. I think it speaks of how actually a lot of HN readers really want to work at startups (including me) but these days they cannot find any justification to do it, financial wise.
- the_gastropod 7y agoOh, wonderful. Another Naval article that's ultimately about how awesome and knowledgeable he is, and none of his success has anything to do with luck. He's truly self made! I find his writing reeking of arrogance and axe body spray. Have some damn humility.
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 7y agoIt's incredibly depressing that "finding time to invest in yourself" is about furthering your career. Sure that's part of it, but it's just one piece. I'm so lucky that I've almost forgotten how lucky I am to have an employer who lets me work on myself in job related aspects at work. They give me time to get better at my job at treat me well enough for me to stay. It sure as hell pays dividends to them as I get better at making stuff for them. Meanwhile, that means that outside of work, finding time to invest in myself doesn't have anything to do with career. I've got that covered at work. Now it's about finding time to make myself feel fulfilled. This is what I'm happiest to be able to invest time into, and it's not even mentioned in a post about finding time to invest in yourself? It feels like another symptom of the broken work-life balance culture I see in the early stage startup community. More like work=life balance.
- sjg007 7y agoTake time every day to invest in yourself. Your employer is lucky to have you.
- HNLurker2 7y agoI don't buy this Naval guy he is too pseudo scientific
- unlit_spark 7y ago> People will say, “Well, I’m not the founder. I’m not being paid enough to care.” Actually, you are: The knowledge and skills you gain by developing a founder mentality set you up to be a founder down the line; that’s your compensation. Basically what I understand is that I should care as much as the founder even though I don't get paid enough. It's about other skills I gain by doing this. I highly disagree. No matter what I'll do it's all about the short-term compensation when working for others because I can get other skills both if my pay is low or high. And I prefer having a high pay and also getting soft skills. This guy sounds like he's a founder and tries to convince readers to be a good employees and care about others' businesses.