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> Like any bright-eyed engineer fresh to the Valley, I wanted to start a company. I wanted lots of followers on Twitter. God help us if what bright eyed engine

• denton-scratch 4y ago
  > God help us if what bright eyed engineers want, is lots of followers on Twitter. That was my reaction. But on reflection: he says he's changed, and is now much happier. I wonder if he's painted his earlier self in a hyper-critical light? The person he described seemed to me to be horribly shallow - it was all about wanting to be cool, popular, and to hang around with other cool people. That's a sort of Kardashian mindset. Anyway, by the time he flipped and relaxed into doing what interested him, he had already achieved his influencer-like goals. I also felt I had to prove myself; but not in terms of who I got to hang around with, or how many followers I had. I felt that I had to prove to myself that I was a reasonably good software developer. It took me a decade. There's this claim (not sure where it comes from) that to get really good at anything difficult takes a decade - learning an instrument, skippering a boat, even cooking. I'm inclined to agree.