15 ms·

Career Advice (2013)

326 points by hypertexthero 3y ago

raister 3y ago
"...if I were you, I’d hitchike to Alaska this summer instead." Read this book first though: "Into the Wild", a 1996 non-fiction book written by Jon Krakauer.
hypertexthero 3y ago
> As a young person, though, I think the best thing you can do is to ignore all of that and simply observe the older people working there. > They are the future you. Do not think that you will be substantially different. Look carefully at how they spend their time at work and outside of work, because this is also almost certainly how your life will look. It sounds obvious, but it’s amazing how often young people imagine a different projection for themselves. > Look at the real people, and you’ll see the honest future for yourself. … > This is all just to explain why, when people write me for career advice, I’m as likely to respond with something like “if I were you, I’d hitchhike to Alaska this summer instead.” > My career advice usually falls within the framework of doing the absolute minimum amount of work necessary to prevent starvation, and then doing something that’s not about money, completely outside of supporting structures, and not simply a matter of “consuming experience” with the remaining available time.
- bradley13 3y ago
  Honestly, that seems really naive. While you probably shouldn't work a job you hate, the fact is that money enables a lot of positive life choices. If you work the "absolute minimum", you are going to be stressing about a roof over your head, about where your next meal is coming from, about how to pay those unexpected medical expenses, or whatever. Find a job you like that pays decently. Use the money to live a good life. Instead of hitchhiking to Alaska, you can take a plane.
  - obruchez 3y ago
    I've read "Die With Zero" by Bill Perkins recently. I think Perkins would say in that case that there's a time for everything. At 20-25, it's maybe a good idea to hitchhike to Alaska. At 45, married, with children and a mortgage, it's probably a bad idea.
climatekid 3y ago
The Stanford prison experiments are pretty well debunked at this point
- foobarqux 3y ago
  Were they debunked? I thought that they only had some methodological mistake which made them inconclusive.
  - caesil 3y ago
    I think the main problem is they weren't really "experiments" in the sense of proving anything meaningful, and serious attempts to do so did not replicate.
  - helloplanets 3y ago
    > Zimbardo and his assistants ordered the guards to become cruel, and, moreover, that guards and prisoners alike knew what Zimbardo was trying to prove and were eager to help. [1] [1]: https://www.wired.com/story/beware-the-epiphany-industrial-complex/ https://www.wired.com/story/beware-the-epiphany-industrial-c...
  - 93po 3y ago
    An experiment that has no scientific rigor can never have any meaningful results to draw conclusions from.
- miguelazo 3y ago
  True, but the larger point stands: your job has a huge influence on who you become. And the organization's mission and culture also will impact your identity. I have seen a lot of former colleagues make a lot of gross compromises for career advancement over the years. People who wanted to make a positive difference in the world who end up working for weapons manufacturers and the intelligence agency cutouts that create the conditions for our forever wars.
  - threeseed 3y ago
jasfi 3y ago
My interpretation when watching Fight Club was that Tyler Durden meant you become your job. But at that point, when you're a working adult, you are that job, so you may as well say that you are your job.
kwar13 3y ago
That was amazing to read. > Be careful not to discover a career before you’ve discovered yourself. Words to live by. > There is a tremendous amount of support for these decisions, and very little support for making any deviating choices.
whiddershins 3y ago
I didn’t read the whole article because I stumbled on the Stanford Prison Experiment part. As far as I can tell this experiment was largely debunked, or at best widely questioned and not reproducible. It’s one of those stories that lives on because it’s simultaneously so implausible yet seems to say something believable about human nature. But I suspect it was between 90 and 100% b.s.
- batguano 3y ago
  Agree 100%. First of all, this is much more of an “anecdote” or “dinner theater” than an “experiment.“ But even more so, when you take a bunch of people and _tell them to play these roles_, why are surprised when they _play the stereotype of those roles?_
- arduanika 3y ago
  That's totally fine. You're allowed to have your own brown M&Ms. There's a lot of thinkpieces out there, and you need some means of deciding which to read. Citing a debunked experiment w/o disclaimer is a totally reasonable criteria for you to close one of those hundred tabs. But FWIW, I found the rest of the article pretty good.
  - OrderlyTiamat 3y ago
    Thank you! I wasn't going to read the article for the same reason, but your recommendation changed my mind, and it was actually a good read. It's definitely diminished by it's non qualified citation of Zimbardo, but there's some insight there regardless. Ultimately the point Moxie is making is served by the stanford prison drama play just as well as if it had been an actual experiment.
kstenerud 3y ago
No. What the experiment showed is that you can be TEMPORARILY coerced into certain behaviors in abusive environments (especially by authority figures - as was exemplified in the Milgram experiment), but it won't change who you actually are. The SPE is really a study in toxic workplaces and abusive relationships. I really wish people would stop quoting the SPE without researching what actually happened and why (and the fact that it was tainted due to Zimbardo's direct involvement and direction in order to get the results he wanted). Don't worry: You are NOT your job, and your job isn't going to change you forever. This is just a scare piece. The only thing you should keep in mind is: If it FEELS wrong to you, go with your gut, because sticking around will be traumatic.
- Atrine 3y ago
  This isn't what I took away from it. It's basically your environment really dictates a lot of who you are and what you become. From my experience, this is absolutely the case.
  - kstenerud 3y ago
    Your environment during your early formative years, yes. By the time you're in your mid-late teens, your moral reasoning is already pretty much solidified (and really it's more about clan loyalty than morality at that point - although we often conflate the two when it comes to inter-clan conflict).
    - matt_daemon 3y ago
      Maybe in an ideal world, but in practically any real world scenario this isn't the case. Spend enough time somewhere and the mechanics of that place inevitably influence the way we act, in the workforce and out.
      - ipaddr 3y ago
        You can change the work environment. The ability to influence goes both ways.
mberning 3y ago
It is career advice. Whether it is pretty good is debatable. To suggest that you look at people slightly ahead of you and use that as some kind of magic mirror is just so tragically flawed. First, it supposes that the you of now, inexperienced as you are, can properly evaluate not only what is going on in these older coworkers lives, but that you will also properly appreciate how your own tastes will change between now and then. Secondly, you are looking at pure survivorship bias. You aren't going to see the folks that did a 5 year turn doing development and then found some other direction to take their career in. If you are a new hire and look at the 50 year old dev on the team and assume your career might go the same you are taking a very narrow vision of the future.
- quickthrower2 3y ago
  I always found late 40s plus developers very nice people in general. Maybe the selection bias of those who didn’t become managers or leave the profession. I agree with you though.
fermentation 3y ago
I would love to hitchhike to Alaska, but I’m terrified of what would happen to my career if I did. I worked hard to get a good job, and the situation right now is bad. There are so many people waiting for me to keel over and die because they’re also good engineers who want good jobs.
- grecy 3y ago
  I quit my Software engineering job and drove up to Alaska for a whole summer. I continued south after that, all the way to Argentina. It took 2 years, through 17 countries. Paddled with icebergs, poked lava with a stick, climbed a 20,000 foot active volcano, learned Spanish, etc. etc. Adventure I had never dreamed possible, and adventure lifetime is an understatement. When I got back I got the first Software Engineering job I applied for, basically at the same level I was before (junior/mid). It was easy to explain the "gap" on my resume as working on myself, learning self-reliance, people skills, Spanish, etc. You just have to accept you won't climb the ladder as fast as people that stayed, but also you'll have two years of massive adventure instead of sitting at a desk every day.
  - zerobrainwash 3y ago
    Thank you for sharing this! Planning to embark on a similar adventure and having some fears, this is reassuring.
    - grecy 3y ago
      Many many thousands of people are doing it every year, you got this! Reach out if I can help in any way.
artiscode 3y ago
> Be careful not to discover a career before you’ve discovered yourself I feel it's possible to re-discover yourself more than once throughout your life. Right after finishing high school I thought that writing code is the real me. Now more than a decade has passed and I'm trying to find myself again. Our jobs define us, but we're in charge of how far we're willing to take it. There are engineers who are genuinely passionate about writing code and will happily do so outside of working hours, for free, with no intent for recognition or clout. And then there's me and the rest of average Joe's - sure our job has defined us, but it hasn't consumed us. Be careful about your career choices consuming you.
monero-xmr 3y ago
My advice: - If you don't come from money, and your personality desires security and safety, don't do risky stuff like wasting your 20's hitchhiking and being a ski bum. You should get skills and a career. I came from lower-middle class and have always had the nagging fear of being destitute. I am so much happier that I worked hard in my 20s (80 hours a week hard) so my 30s and 40s were more comfortable. - Your habits chart your trajectory. If you start working out 3x a week, you will continue doing this and be physically fit. If you drink alcohol 3x a week, you will continue to do this and become wrinkled and grumpy. If you get fired from a job 3x a year, you will continue to have this happen, no matter what your excuse is about why it isn't your fault you got fired. Try and work on good habits. - You are the company you keep. Cut out negative people who always are complaining and blaming others. Focus on wholesome, happy, well-rounded, good people who have goals that align with yours. - Your best advocate is yourself. How often do you go out of your way to advocate for other individuals? Don't be surprised when no one is putting in the extra effort to help you. Don't be a victim - your future is in your hands - don't blame others or society for your own failings. - Family, friends, health, purpose are all that truly matter. - No matter what your predicament is, someone has it worse, and someone has it better. You can always be valuable to society. Don't let your disabilities and frailties stop you from finding a purpose and way to benefit society.
- drewfis 3y ago
  > If you start working out 3x a week, you will continue doing this and be physically fit. If you drink alcohol 3x a week, you will continue to do this and become wrinkled and grumpy. What about working out 3x a week and drinking alcohol 3x a week? Potentially that could be a sweet spot for sociability and activity. Compared to doing neither 3x a week, what do you think would be better? Both drinking and exercise mean different things to different people. Running a 10k 3x a week with a glass of wine after would be fine. Blacking out 3x a week off cheap vodka while riding the stationary bike would be a different story.
  - badpun 3y ago
    Is the alcohol really necessary? Any social relation that requires alcohol to continue does seem low value.
throwaway_75369 3y ago
Should be labelled (2013). Would be nice if I didn't have to say that; in so many ways the bloom is off the rose of my (admittedly high paying) corporate job. I even recently reunited with some old friends who chose a more independent career path, and was jealous and nostalgic- they're definitely working far closer to their passions with more freedom than I've felt in a decade. But man, what a decade since 2013. I would be foolish to dismiss that I had stable employment through Covid, and I still have a paycheck through the current economic turmoil. I also have my corporate health insurance, which covers my stupidly expensive regular medication which I had no idea I would need in those nostalgic days when these friends chose their alternative careers (I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease in 2015, now in remission thanks to the meds) So I agree with the sentiment that it's dangerous (especially to your soul) to just blindly conform and follow the money, but it's not always unjustified. In my case it was at least a little bit justified, since my parents were more or less broke and I didn't have a safety net. I do wish I had hedged my bets better and been less of a workaholic, of course. Would be nice to be married now.
- saganus 3y ago
  Along those lines, one of the things that I still struggle with after 20+ years of working, is squaring this feeling of not working enough/earn enough money to have a comfortable retirement, while at the same time trying to live my life and not just work myself until death (very original, I know). So I've always had this conflict with the saying that goes something like "nobody regrets not working more, while in their deathbed". The thing is... I'm pretty sure lots of people actually do, e.g. if they didn't manage to do well enough to have a comfortable retirement, or leave their children in a good place. So sure, I'd love to spend my money traveling and enjoying the best years of my life... but I also see my parents struggling to get by with retirement funds that are suboptimal and I fear that I am not doing all I can to avoid the same fate. Hopefully I'll be able to make sense of this before it's too late.
  - danielmarkbruce 3y ago
    fwiw i think more people struggle with this tradeoff than it seems, and more people question the "nobody regrets... " quote. You are far from alone.
michaelguan666 3y ago
Moxie, this is an incredibly profound perspective on careers and the very essence of life decisions. I wholeheartedly believe that growth often happens in the uncomfortable zones. Thanks for the enlightening read.
synergy20 3y ago
do whatever to make money first, use that money to do what you love. 'follow your dream' is too risky for most of us and might be misleading for most young people in my opinion. make a living first, and never forget your dream in the process
- tayo42 3y ago
  Cal Newport has a whole book about this. So good they can't ignore you. The idea is what you pointed out, and you'll be happier if you just find something to be good at. There's more nuance in the book
  - jhatemyjob 3y ago
    Ditto. I wish I found Cal's writings earlier in my life. I followed the line of thinking in OP for 5 years. Since I was following my "passion", I wasn't making that much money and thus was obsessing over my career day in and day out. Then at one point I decided to sell my soul to big tech. After some time, I realized that I actually don't care about my career that much. Ultimately all I want is to increase my hourly rate as much as possible. Making money is a problem to be solved and minimized, not something to be passionate about
    - ornornor 3y ago
      I see the pragmatism of this, but can’t reconcile the cognitive dissonance. I personally hate when quality is a nice to have rather than a first class citizen because it results in so much more misery, stress, burnout, micromanagement that is 100% avoidable. By working someplace that (dys)functions that way, I feel like I’m enabling and contributing to ruining everyone else’s lives… and that makes me feel worthless, I can’t do it. I see the rationale reason for doing it the way you do it, but I don’t seem able to do it myself.
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      - 3y ago
foobarqux 3y ago
You can't apply the rule "look at the future versions of the people who make this choice" to criticize office drones and then not do the same to "Alaskan hitchhikers". It's perfectly plausible that most of those people's life outcomes are worse than the office drone, bad as that is. Worse, you probably only get to meet the "best" of the Alaskan hitchhikers, not a representative sample, many of which are probably in an invisible underclass.
sssilver 3y ago
Loved the piece, but to be frank at the time when I picked software engineering as a career, most older software engineers had had extremely different life trajectories than we do nowadays.
- hcks 3y ago
  How so?
imchillyb 3y ago
Personality defines, shapes, and limits personal choice. Those choices are further defined, shaped, and limited by experiences. Companies, organizations, groups and people further refine a personality. Our choices are arrayed by self, formed by both experience and circumstance and then refined by contact with others. We become our work because our personality led us to that original choice. Life then shaped that choice. And, finally, coworkers refine us. We’re molded by this process, fitting ourselves into the form with extreme prejudice.
caesil 3y ago
Sigh. Bringing up Zimbardo as being insightful about the human condition... I just... I gotta stop reading at that point.
- layla5alive 3y ago
  But... that experiment did show things about the human condition- even if not the things it purported to show...
hiAndrewQuinn 3y ago
Pretty good combined life+career advice I heard a long time ago and followed: If you're going to move countries, the best time to do it is right after college. Starting from scratch in an entirely new country, with no connections, no professional ability to speak the native language, and rapidly dwindling cash reserves, was one of the scariest and most thrilling things I've ever done in my life. I recommend it to no one, because if you're crazy or motivated enough to actually do it, no man's recommendation for or against it is going to stop you. You will become some kind of minor force of nature for a while and you will look back on that time years later and think "I had no idea I could be that hardcore." Sadly this is necessarily the opposite of most of Moxie's sentiments. "Throw yourself into the toughest situations you can find" is shared between us, but Moxie recs doing so amidst friends and comrades, while I merely remind you can hurl yourself into the ravine to learn to fly.
- jezzamon 3y ago
  Having done it myself, I would recommend it! Though I suppose it speaks to my personality type that I didn't find moving country and leaving everything that scary. I was moving to a job, so didn't have the dwindling cash reserves part.
- CalRobert 3y ago
  I did it myself, and right after college. It worked out OK, and I know now that making friends in your 20's is 10 times easier in your 30's, and in your 30's is ten times easier than in your 40's (though if you have kids in school that can help a little as you meet other kids' parents) But why not do it _in_ college?
  - hiAndrewQuinn 3y ago
    It's pretty hard to move between countries when you're in college. The credit transfer situation is pretty tough. People do it, though. That's why most of the foreign students at any given college beat the pants off of the locals. I speak from experience :D
    - 3y ago
abhnv 3y ago
Does this apply to 30 year olds who've been working for a while and feel lost?
- akaij 3y ago
  I would say that is a pretty good time to re-evaluate a lot of things: 20s behind you, slightly matured, more time alone, able to do healthier introspection. At least it was, in my own timeline! I didn't begin climbing out of my mess until 30 :)
  - jebarker 3y ago
    I'm 42 and I think it's relevant to me too
haltist 3y ago
Lots of good insights and quotes.
grecy 3y ago
> “if I were you, I’d hitchhike to Alaska this summer instead.” I agree 100%, best advice there is. After a couple of years working as a Software Engineer, I sold all my stuff and drove my little Jeep up to Alaska to a whole summer of camping, hiking and exploring. I hiked into the Magic Bus (of Into the Wild Fame), paddled with icebergs, and saw more bears, moose, bald eagles, salmon and mountains than I can count. It changed my life, and I'm extremely, extremely happy I walked away from the golden handcuffs and go away from that desk. Getting perspective and learning how I wanted to spend my life BEFORE I got saddled with a car loan or mortgage was paramount.
- barbs 3y ago
  That sounds fantastic! What are you up to now?
  - braunshedd 3y ago
    He's traveling around Australia! (Check bio, great YouTube channel)
    - grecy 3y ago
      Thanks! I actually finished up in Australia, I'm back in Canada saving and planning for the next one. I'm building another vehicle to tackle much colder climates, and parts of the world I've never been to before.
pnathan 3y ago
This is good advice. Looking at the future you _and_ at the idea of taking a leap of faith into the unknown. I am reminded of the Hebrew Lech lecha, which occupies a certain amount of commentary space and has some alignments. There is something to be said for being normie. But also it should be a choice, and moxie points out that it... often isn't, really. The spe, btw, I think has gotten much more popularly discredited since 2013.
aranchelk 3y ago
> Tyler Durden was wrong, you are your job. So cringe.
- monological 3y ago
  It’s ok to be cringe. Try expressing yourself sometime instead of always conforming.
  - drewfis 3y ago
    Agreed - you have a good perspective in a sea of internet pessimism.
  - somsak2 3y ago
    Is commenting on HN not a form of self-expression? Looks like the poster has a pretty extensive history of comments and posts.
  - aranchelk 3y ago
    > Try expressing yourself Okay. The reason I find that heading painful to read is it seems to miss the entire point of the quote. The line is said in the context of a world where everyone already is defining themselves by their jobs, possessions, etc. it’s not descriptive, it’s prescriptive. So it can’t really even be wrong. My memory of the book is it’s fairly philosophical, getting at modernity and the human condition. It’s quite traditionally masculine and violent and I get that that turns a lot of people off. Love it or hate it, quotes of it probably don’t belong in a LinkedIn-style “here’s some advice kids” article. Moreover, it’s just too easy — low hanging fruit, e.g. Tyler Durden said “once you you lose everything you’re free to do anything” but that’s not right because many activities are expensive and you’ll need money. Yuck.
throwaway290 3y ago
Some good points, especially around being influenced by what you do and people around. If a bit simplistic. But I feel like he's putting unnecessary pressure by treating first full-time job as "forever". Quitting is a thing...
farmeroy 3y ago
I spent my twenties riding freight trains across the US and cycling across Europe and Asia, living off of music. I'm not sure I would recommend that to anyone who is looking for career advice - Now I'm trying to build a solid career for myself as a software developer and I have no idea if it is easier with all that behind me or not. While I'm hoping that the soft skills and self knowledge I may have acquired over the years pay off on this new path, there is no guarantee. But there generally isn't. I certainly agree with this interpretation of Treyf and I'm glad that I have at least Moxie to look up to as freight hopping software engineer who has tried avoiding a lot of the same futures that I have, but it certainly is a path less traveled.
- hyperthesis 3y ago
  I think if you're engaged with what you do, you will learn and develop more than if not. OTOH there seems to be a developmental window for some specific skills, e.g. phoneme acquisition 6-12 months; (human) language acquisition < 7 years.
  - farmeroy 3y ago
    Alternative biography: "Concerned I would never know my authentic self, I left home at the age of 5 to live in the wilderness. Now, I am struggling to begin my career as a software developer due to my failure to acquire human language - all thanks to your 'career advice', Moxe."
    - farmeroy 3y ago
      But I mean, yes of course we can learn and grow and be many things in life. I think that it's always easy to follow well defined, structured routes, and easier to know if you are succeeding at it. But if you feel you have a calling to do something else, something unusual, there isn't much anyone can advise you on, and most people will probably tell you not to risk it.
- rubicon33 3y ago
  I wouldn’t necessarily expect that you gained some discrete skills that will help you in software. Probably what you gained is something more valuable: perspective, and peace. Now when you are 45 or 50, rather than a crushing feeling of having wasted your life behind a desk you will hopefully feel happy that you spent your good years living life.
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gcanyon 3y ago
> As a young person, though, I think the best thing you can do is to ignore all of that and simply observe the older people working there. > They are the future you. Do not think that you will be substantially different. Look carefully at how they spend their time at work and outside of work, because this is also almost certainly how your life will look. It sounds obvious, but it’s amazing how often young people imagine a different projection for themselves. > Look at the real people, and you’ll see the honest future for yourself. Maybe I'm the outlier, but this is 100% not true for me. My title, Product Manager, didn't exist 30 years ago. I was a developer 20 years ago, and 10 years before that I was managing and supporting a network of 200 Mac Pluses and the like. I've done other things besides, and at no point did the older people where I worked look the way I did years later. I do focus a significant amount of energy on keeping up with the development of technology, and that has changed so much that I couldn't help but be different. But I think that applies to everyone working in technology. The developers I work with now are using TypeScript and we organize using Notion. Ten years ago it was PHP and Jira. Ten years before that it was Java and Office docs. Who knows what it will be in ten years, but almost certainly none of those. Two week sprints have been a thing for fifteen years, so maybe that will still be true, but I doubt it. Plan for change. It's coming for all of us.
- mejutoco 3y ago
  > Ten years ago it was PHP and Jira. Ten years before that ... I recognize this is a matter of perspective, because to me the examples you mention are fundamentally not very different. A middle manager working in a programming language might be a way to put it that sounds the same as the old job. Which exact programming language, etc. can be seen as details, depending on the context. When seen through this lens the perspective of seeing the old worker still applies I believe.
  - gcanyon 3y ago
    Granted, Notion isn't that different from Jira experientially -- it is vastly more flexible. But there's no comparing today's "everyone has a ticketing/task management system" setup to how things worked in the ~2000 Java era. We produced massive word documents to describe what we were going to do, and then broke them down to gantt charts in excel, and agreed what we were going to build in advance with formal sign-off by all participants. It was a very different feeling.
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bad_username 3y ago
> But then, I register who is sitting in those seats. It’s usually almost all predominantly unhealthy looking middle-aged white men, who it is clear from a glance have spent literally hundreds of hours of their lives over the past year in these airplanes. Mentioning people's skin color unnecessarily should also be "treyf", I think
jatins 3y ago
> They are the future you. Do not think that you will be substantially different I don't remember exactly if it was this post or a similar advice somewhere else but this advice made me leave my job at BigTech back in 2015 In hindsight I lost a lot of money because of that :') because the company's stock 10x'd at it's peak. Overall, I still think it's a reasonable advice. The behaviours in these companies are largely driven by incentives and for most people this results in a replicable behaviour (almost like a dog being given treats) Though there will always be outliers. But another thing that struck me as I was reading this was how, based on your state of mind at that point, a simple blog post can make you take significant life decisions.
JohnMakin 3y ago
The stanford prison experiment has been thouroughly debunked and nothing should be taken seriously that references it.
throwaway892238 3y ago
The Stanford Prison Experiment was a fraud, please don't listen to rationale based on one unreproduced "study". "The context of one’s life defines not just what but how one thinks, and a job tends to dominate the context of one’s life — particularly when that job is considered to be part of a career. Your job will change you." Absolute and complete pseudoscientific bullshit. Everything in life changes you. Every. Thing. Your job, the old man that works at the fruit stand around the corner from your flat, the air you breathe. No one thing in your life is going to determine who you are, because your rational, conscious, decision-making brain is what chooses your path in life. Not some amorphous organization or position that supposedly has control over your cognitive pathways. You change you. Go ahead and chase a career. Will your life be any better or worse than if you didn't? There is absolutely no way to know that in advance. You know how you discover yourself? By living your life. By self-reflection, by seeking knowledge, and also by flipping a coin and walking wherever the coin leads. "Learn three chords, start a band, and go on tour. Ride a bicycle as far as you can. Go WWOOFing or start a community garden in your neighborhood. Put together a traveling puppet show. Build a drone to engage the emerging drones controlled by domestic police. Do whatever — but make it uncomfortable (like leaving prison!) and make it count." Or don't. It doesn't matter. You are going to become who you are going to be, no matter what you do or don't do. You don't have to be uncomfortable. Nothing you do has to "count". It can, if you want. But you don't need to live some noble life. Your life doesn't have to have meaning. You don't have to seek new experiences and become some dynamic, interesting renaissance man. It's your life. Here's my career advice: If you want a career, keep in mind that a career is basically a marathon, whereupon the end goal of the race is to have a high position, good pay, the respect and reference of your peers, interesting work, personal fulfillment, and a fat retirement account. If that's what you want, then most of your actions should be centered around becoming likeable, knowledgeable, useful, and constantly preparing for the next step on the path. If you do it really well, you can climb very fast, but that might work against you. If you do it poorly, you can end up not very far, without much money, or references, or prospects, when you need them the most. Careers are largely a political consideration. That said, even with this weird political focus around work, you can still have a personal life that revolves around whatever you want outside of work. You also have a very wide latitude of what kind of work you do, where you do it, who you do it for, what its results are, how long and how hard you do it, etc. There is a very, very wide spectrum of both career, and life, and you don't have to fit into anyone's mold. You can even give birth to your own career niche. The point of this comment, just like the point of Moxie's post, is to tell you that you have options. You can expand your horizons and do all kinds of things that you aren't aware of yet. But also know that, no matter where you go or what you do, you are still just who you are. Life doesn't get better or worse based on what you do. It's your state of mind that makes life worth living. You are not your job. You are yourself.
saloniGquickads 3y ago
This was extremely useful needed this today!
hcks 3y ago
This is all extremely bad advice. To sum it up: work is a long endless grind that will alienate you, therefore therefore left-libertarian flavoured YOLO. Without downplaying the existing structures of social oppression, you may be lucky to live in a country and a time where you have rights. In that case, you need to decide for yourself what you want in life (economically). You need to decide how much money you want, how many hours a week you want to work, how many sabbatical to take and when to retire (these choices can always be made within what the economic environment allows). You can refuse to think about these questions, this how you’ll get trapped working for someone else’s dream.
- badpun 3y ago
  That's exactly right. For example, I decided I prefer to live on $500-$1000 a month to having to work more years. So, I retired as soon as I could afford $1k till the rest of my life. It's not a life rich in material goods, but, in my experience, the stuff that brings me the most value is super cheap, and after that it's mostly diminishing returns.
  - FFP999 3y ago
    Interesting, if you don't mind sharing a little, what do you do with your time?
    - badpun 3y ago
      It's been only 10 months now. So far, I've played a lot of my favorite video games, read books, fixed some things around the apartment, learned a lot of new cooking recipes, tried my hand at new programming areas (however, I'm pretty spent there, as I've explored a lot in previous years already), watched a lot of youtube and tv shows. It's a bit boring, but beats working. All in all, not a very active lifestyle, but I think that's me. I just don't have a lot of motivation to do things beyond what's necessary, and was always like that.
graycat 3y ago
(1) What seem to be relatively small efforts, knowledge, etc. can yield big results. (2) Think. Continually try to understand what is going on that has any real chance of affecting you. (3) Get an education, at least a good education at the college level. As silly as this sounds, such an education does provide some discipline in thinking that can be a big advantage. Might apply the advantage just some one afternoon and get big results. (4) For first earnings, will about have to be an employee. So, do that. Live cheaply; save a lot of your money. As an employee, might find that if do some work that is especially good, nearly everyone else in the company will try to get you fired. Some business school courses call this goal subordination. (5) Own something that has a good chance of becoming valuable. One general approach -- real estate. Another approach, a small business that might grow. E.g., at one time could start a simple Web site for romantic matchmaking, as a sole, solo entrepreneur, grow the number of users, and sell out to a large company for $500 million. For owning a business, do start with a collection of the business basics: Maybe (a) Please the customer. (b) Have a barrier to entry, e.g., geographical. (c) Have something new, e.g., technology. (d) Study what successful entrepreneurs have done, not necessarily building Google or Amazon but, maybe, having 10 of the best BBQ restaurants in town.
ImPleadThe5th 3y ago
I love this advice. I think more people need to focus on personal capital and not just career. One of the traps I think this falls into is "I can either work on my career or be adventurous". I consider myself a "work to live" kind of person but still fall into this trap myself. I believe you can do both, it just takes a lot of effort, planning, and patience (more than a lot of people are willing to put in) to make it work.
SergeAx 3y ago
Why author and most commenters here associate "career" with sittng in the office? For me it is just an improvement my work skills towards bringing more value to the table and, as a result, getting more benefits from those who are in need of my skill. Author, for what it worth, could become large sailboat captain, be quite healthy (lots of fresh air, good climate and quality food) and still easily afford first class seats (or even be paid by boat owner). I'd still consider it a career.
JackMorgan 3y ago
Adventures come to those who seek them. One can find big expensive adventures for six months out in the mountains, or small free/low cost adventures like volunteer fire fighting, painting, rock climbing, cooking, dancing, acting, making music, deep friendships. Our lives are filled with exactly the richness we seek. Travel is just a catalyst to get us up off our sofas and make new friends. Having moved many times, I can assure you that one can do that today without moving. I've met many unemployed travelers who mope inside all day and watch Netflix. I've also met many hard working people who've lived in the same house for twenty years but live rich, incredible lives filled with small adventures.
- ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
  It made me happy to read this. Thanks!
- rmac 3y ago
  Keep writing Love your style and the comprehension ease
- em-bee 3y ago
  there is a third option. as others here mentioned, find jobs in interesting places. i have been all around the world while working or traveling to look for work opportunities.
dappermanneke 3y ago
didn’t really survive the test of time that well now the stanford prison experiment has been widely discredited
ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
I can't remember where (I think, maybe here), but I read that there was some real question as to the validity of the results of the Stanford Prison Experiment.
Monthstoday 3y ago
[flagged]
vario 3y ago
the only problem with Moxie's essay was the treyf reference to dogs. I love dogs. Dogs are better than most humans living around me.
da39a3ee 3y ago
> As a young person, though, I think the best thing you can do is to ignore all of that and simply observe the older people working there Ok hang on but there aren't any old people at my software company that's 4 years old. The author didn't seem to address this possibility, despite the fact that they were writing about careers in software.
sweetrobot2k 3y ago
[dead]

326 points by hypertexthero 3y ago

"...if I were you, I’d hitchike to Alaska this summer instead." Read this book first though: "Into the Wild", a 1996 non-fiction book written by Jon Krakauer.

hypertexthero 3y ago

bradley13 3y ago
Honestly, that seems really naive. While you probably shouldn't work a job you hate, the fact is that money enables a lot of positive life choices. If you work the "absolute minimum", you are going to be stressing about a roof over your head, about where your next meal is coming from, about how to pay those unexpected medical expenses, or whatever. Find a job you like that pays decently. Use the money to live a good life. Instead of hitchhiking to Alaska, you can take a plane.
- obruchez 3y ago
  I've read "Die With Zero" by Bill Perkins recently. I think Perkins would say in that case that there's a time for everything. At 20-25, it's maybe a good idea to hitchhike to Alaska. At 45, married, with children and a mortgage, it's probably a bad idea.

climatekid 3y ago

The Stanford prison experiments are pretty well debunked at this point

foobarqux 3y ago
Were they debunked? I thought that they only had some methodological mistake which made them inconclusive.
- caesil 3y ago
  I think the main problem is they weren't really "experiments" in the sense of proving anything meaningful, and serious attempts to do so did not replicate.
- helloplanets 3y ago
  > Zimbardo and his assistants ordered the guards to become cruel, and, moreover, that guards and prisoners alike knew what Zimbardo was trying to prove and were eager to help. [1] [1]: https://www.wired.com/story/beware-the-epiphany-industrial-complex/ https://www.wired.com/story/beware-the-epiphany-industrial-c...
- 93po 3y ago
  An experiment that has no scientific rigor can never have any meaningful results to draw conclusions from.
miguelazo 3y ago
True, but the larger point stands: your job has a huge influence on who you become. And the organization's mission and culture also will impact your identity. I have seen a lot of former colleagues make a lot of gross compromises for career advancement over the years. People who wanted to make a positive difference in the world who end up working for weapons manufacturers and the intelligence agency cutouts that create the conditions for our forever wars.
- threeseed 3y ago

jasfi 3y ago

My interpretation when watching Fight Club was that Tyler Durden meant you become your job. But at that point, when you're a working adult, you are that job, so you may as well say that you are your job.

kwar13 3y ago

That was amazing to read. > Be careful not to discover a career before you’ve discovered yourself. Words to live by. > There is a tremendous amount of support for these decisions, and very little support for making any deviating choices.

whiddershins 3y ago

I didn’t read the whole article because I stumbled on the Stanford Prison Experiment part. As far as I can tell this experiment was largely debunked, or at best widely questioned and not reproducible. It’s one of those stories that lives on because it’s simultaneously so implausible yet seems to say something believable about human nature. But I suspect it was between 90 and 100% b.s.

batguano 3y ago
Agree 100%. First of all, this is much more of an “anecdote” or “dinner theater” than an “experiment.“ But even more so, when you take a bunch of people and _tell them to play these roles_, why are surprised when they _play the stereotype of those roles?_
arduanika 3y ago
That's totally fine. You're allowed to have your own brown M&Ms. There's a lot of thinkpieces out there, and you need some means of deciding which to read. Citing a debunked experiment w/o disclaimer is a totally reasonable criteria for you to close one of those hundred tabs. But FWIW, I found the rest of the article pretty good.
- OrderlyTiamat 3y ago
  Thank you! I wasn't going to read the article for the same reason, but your recommendation changed my mind, and it was actually a good read. It's definitely diminished by it's non qualified citation of Zimbardo, but there's some insight there regardless. Ultimately the point Moxie is making is served by the stanford prison drama play just as well as if it had been an actual experiment.

kstenerud 3y ago

No. What the experiment showed is that you can be TEMPORARILY coerced into certain behaviors in abusive environments (especially by authority figures - as was exemplified in the Milgram experiment), but it won't change who you actually are. The SPE is really a study in toxic workplaces and abusive relationships. I really wish people would stop quoting the SPE without researching what actually happened and why (and the fact that it was tainted due to Zimbardo's direct involvement and direction in order to get the results he wanted). Don't worry: You are NOT your job, and your job isn't going to change you forever. This is just a scare piece. The only thing you should keep in mind is: If it FEELS wrong to you, go with your gut, because sticking around will be traumatic.

Atrine 3y ago
This isn't what I took away from it. It's basically your environment really dictates a lot of who you are and what you become. From my experience, this is absolutely the case.
- kstenerud 3y ago
  Your environment during your early formative years, yes. By the time you're in your mid-late teens, your moral reasoning is already pretty much solidified (and really it's more about clan loyalty than morality at that point - although we often conflate the two when it comes to inter-clan conflict).
  - matt_daemon 3y ago
    Maybe in an ideal world, but in practically any real world scenario this isn't the case. Spend enough time somewhere and the mechanics of that place inevitably influence the way we act, in the workforce and out.
    - ipaddr 3y ago
      You can change the work environment. The ability to influence goes both ways.

mberning 3y ago

It is career advice. Whether it is pretty good is debatable. To suggest that you look at people slightly ahead of you and use that as some kind of magic mirror is just so tragically flawed. First, it supposes that the you of now, inexperienced as you are, can properly evaluate not only what is going on in these older coworkers lives, but that you will also properly appreciate how your own tastes will change between now and then. Secondly, you are looking at pure survivorship bias. You aren't going to see the folks that did a 5 year turn doing development and then found some other direction to take their career in. If you are a new hire and look at the 50 year old dev on the team and assume your career might go the same you are taking a very narrow vision of the future.

quickthrower2 3y ago
I always found late 40s plus developers very nice people in general. Maybe the selection bias of those who didn’t become managers or leave the profession. I agree with you though.

fermentation 3y ago

I would love to hitchhike to Alaska, but I’m terrified of what would happen to my career if I did. I worked hard to get a good job, and the situation right now is bad. There are so many people waiting for me to keel over and die because they’re also good engineers who want good jobs.

grecy 3y ago
I quit my Software engineering job and drove up to Alaska for a whole summer. I continued south after that, all the way to Argentina. It took 2 years, through 17 countries. Paddled with icebergs, poked lava with a stick, climbed a 20,000 foot active volcano, learned Spanish, etc. etc. Adventure I had never dreamed possible, and adventure lifetime is an understatement. When I got back I got the first Software Engineering job I applied for, basically at the same level I was before (junior/mid). It was easy to explain the "gap" on my resume as working on myself, learning self-reliance, people skills, Spanish, etc. You just have to accept you won't climb the ladder as fast as people that stayed, but also you'll have two years of massive adventure instead of sitting at a desk every day.
- zerobrainwash 3y ago
  Thank you for sharing this! Planning to embark on a similar adventure and having some fears, this is reassuring.
  - grecy 3y ago
    Many many thousands of people are doing it every year, you got this! Reach out if I can help in any way.

artiscode 3y ago

> Be careful not to discover a career before you’ve discovered yourself I feel it's possible to re-discover yourself more than once throughout your life. Right after finishing high school I thought that writing code is the real me. Now more than a decade has passed and I'm trying to find myself again. Our jobs define us, but we're in charge of how far we're willing to take it. There are engineers who are genuinely passionate about writing code and will happily do so outside of working hours, for free, with no intent for recognition or clout. And then there's me and the rest of average Joe's - sure our job has defined us, but it hasn't consumed us. Be careful about your career choices consuming you.

monero-xmr 3y ago

My advice: - If you don't come from money, and your personality desires security and safety, don't do risky stuff like wasting your 20's hitchhiking and being a ski bum. You should get skills and a career. I came from lower-middle class and have always had the nagging fear of being destitute. I am so much happier that I worked hard in my 20s (80 hours a week hard) so my 30s and 40s were more comfortable. - Your habits chart your trajectory. If you start working out 3x a week, you will continue doing this and be physically fit. If you drink alcohol 3x a week, you will continue to do this and become wrinkled and grumpy. If you get fired from a job 3x a year, you will continue to have this happen, no matter what your excuse is about why it isn't your fault you got fired. Try and work on good habits. - You are the company you keep. Cut out negative people who always are complaining and blaming others. Focus on wholesome, happy, well-rounded, good people who have goals that align with yours. - Your best advocate is yourself. How often do you go out of your way to advocate for other individuals? Don't be surprised when no one is putting in the extra effort to help you. Don't be a victim - your future is in your hands - don't blame others or society for your own failings. - Family, friends, health, purpose are all that truly matter. - No matter what your predicament is, someone has it worse, and someone has it better. You can always be valuable to society. Don't let your disabilities and frailties stop you from finding a purpose and way to benefit society.

drewfis 3y ago
> If you start working out 3x a week, you will continue doing this and be physically fit. If you drink alcohol 3x a week, you will continue to do this and become wrinkled and grumpy. What about working out 3x a week and drinking alcohol 3x a week? Potentially that could be a sweet spot for sociability and activity. Compared to doing neither 3x a week, what do you think would be better? Both drinking and exercise mean different things to different people. Running a 10k 3x a week with a glass of wine after would be fine. Blacking out 3x a week off cheap vodka while riding the stationary bike would be a different story.
- badpun 3y ago
  Is the alcohol really necessary? Any social relation that requires alcohol to continue does seem low value.

throwaway_75369 3y ago

Should be labelled (2013). Would be nice if I didn't have to say that; in so many ways the bloom is off the rose of my (admittedly high paying) corporate job. I even recently reunited with some old friends who chose a more independent career path, and was jealous and nostalgic- they're definitely working far closer to their passions with more freedom than I've felt in a decade. But man, what a decade since 2013. I would be foolish to dismiss that I had stable employment through Covid, and I still have a paycheck through the current economic turmoil. I also have my corporate health insurance, which covers my stupidly expensive regular medication which I had no idea I would need in those nostalgic days when these friends chose their alternative careers (I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease in 2015, now in remission thanks to the meds) So I agree with the sentiment that it's dangerous (especially to your soul) to just blindly conform and follow the money, but it's not always unjustified. In my case it was at least a little bit justified, since my parents were more or less broke and I didn't have a safety net. I do wish I had hedged my bets better and been less of a workaholic, of course. Would be nice to be married now.

saganus 3y ago
Along those lines, one of the things that I still struggle with after 20+ years of working, is squaring this feeling of not working enough/earn enough money to have a comfortable retirement, while at the same time trying to live my life and not just work myself until death (very original, I know). So I've always had this conflict with the saying that goes something like "nobody regrets not working more, while in their deathbed". The thing is... I'm pretty sure lots of people actually do, e.g. if they didn't manage to do well enough to have a comfortable retirement, or leave their children in a good place. So sure, I'd love to spend my money traveling and enjoying the best years of my life... but I also see my parents struggling to get by with retirement funds that are suboptimal and I fear that I am not doing all I can to avoid the same fate. Hopefully I'll be able to make sense of this before it's too late.
- danielmarkbruce 3y ago
  fwiw i think more people struggle with this tradeoff than it seems, and more people question the "nobody regrets... " quote. You are far from alone.

michaelguan666 3y ago

Moxie, this is an incredibly profound perspective on careers and the very essence of life decisions. I wholeheartedly believe that growth often happens in the uncomfortable zones. Thanks for the enlightening read.

synergy20 3y ago

do whatever to make money first, use that money to do what you love. 'follow your dream' is too risky for most of us and might be misleading for most young people in my opinion. make a living first, and never forget your dream in the process

tayo42 3y ago
Cal Newport has a whole book about this. So good they can't ignore you. The idea is what you pointed out, and you'll be happier if you just find something to be good at. There's more nuance in the book
- jhatemyjob 3y ago
  Ditto. I wish I found Cal's writings earlier in my life. I followed the line of thinking in OP for 5 years. Since I was following my "passion", I wasn't making that much money and thus was obsessing over my career day in and day out. Then at one point I decided to sell my soul to big tech. After some time, I realized that I actually don't care about my career that much. Ultimately all I want is to increase my hourly rate as much as possible. Making money is a problem to be solved and minimized, not something to be passionate about
  - ornornor 3y ago
    I see the pragmatism of this, but can’t reconcile the cognitive dissonance. I personally hate when quality is a nice to have rather than a first class citizen because it results in so much more misery, stress, burnout, micromanagement that is 100% avoidable. By working someplace that (dys)functions that way, I feel like I’m enabling and contributing to ruining everyone else’s lives… and that makes me feel worthless, I can’t do it. I see the rationale reason for doing it the way you do it, but I don’t seem able to do it myself.
    - deleted 3y ago
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    - 3y ago

foobarqux 3y ago

You can't apply the rule "look at the future versions of the people who make this choice" to criticize office drones and then not do the same to "Alaskan hitchhikers". It's perfectly plausible that most of those people's life outcomes are worse than the office drone, bad as that is. Worse, you probably only get to meet the "best" of the Alaskan hitchhikers, not a representative sample, many of which are probably in an invisible underclass.

sssilver 3y ago

Loved the piece, but to be frank at the time when I picked software engineering as a career, most older software engineers had had extremely different life trajectories than we do nowadays.

hcks 3y ago
How so?

imchillyb 3y ago

Personality defines, shapes, and limits personal choice. Those choices are further defined, shaped, and limited by experiences. Companies, organizations, groups and people further refine a personality. Our choices are arrayed by self, formed by both experience and circumstance and then refined by contact with others. We become our work because our personality led us to that original choice. Life then shaped that choice. And, finally, coworkers refine us. We’re molded by this process, fitting ourselves into the form with extreme prejudice.

caesil 3y ago

Sigh. Bringing up Zimbardo as being insightful about the human condition... I just... I gotta stop reading at that point.

layla5alive 3y ago
But... that experiment did show things about the human condition- even if not the things it purported to show...

hiAndrewQuinn 3y ago

Pretty good combined life+career advice I heard a long time ago and followed: If you're going to move countries, the best time to do it is right after college. Starting from scratch in an entirely new country, with no connections, no professional ability to speak the native language, and rapidly dwindling cash reserves, was one of the scariest and most thrilling things I've ever done in my life. I recommend it to no one, because if you're crazy or motivated enough to actually do it, no man's recommendation for or against it is going to stop you. You will become some kind of minor force of nature for a while and you will look back on that time years later and think "I had no idea I could be that hardcore." Sadly this is necessarily the opposite of most of Moxie's sentiments. "Throw yourself into the toughest situations you can find" is shared between us, but Moxie recs doing so amidst friends and comrades, while I merely remind you can hurl yourself into the ravine to learn to fly.

jezzamon 3y ago
Having done it myself, I would recommend it! Though I suppose it speaks to my personality type that I didn't find moving country and leaving everything that scary. I was moving to a job, so didn't have the dwindling cash reserves part.
CalRobert 3y ago
I did it myself, and right after college. It worked out OK, and I know now that making friends in your 20's is 10 times easier in your 30's, and in your 30's is ten times easier than in your 40's (though if you have kids in school that can help a little as you meet other kids' parents) But why not do it _in_ college?
- hiAndrewQuinn 3y ago
  It's pretty hard to move between countries when you're in college. The credit transfer situation is pretty tough. People do it, though. That's why most of the foreign students at any given college beat the pants off of the locals. I speak from experience :D
  - 3y ago

abhnv 3y ago

Does this apply to 30 year olds who've been working for a while and feel lost?

akaij 3y ago
I would say that is a pretty good time to re-evaluate a lot of things: 20s behind you, slightly matured, more time alone, able to do healthier introspection. At least it was, in my own timeline! I didn't begin climbing out of my mess until 30 :)
- jebarker 3y ago
  I'm 42 and I think it's relevant to me too

haltist 3y ago

Lots of good insights and quotes.

grecy 3y ago

> “if I were you, I’d hitchhike to Alaska this summer instead.” I agree 100%, best advice there is. After a couple of years working as a Software Engineer, I sold all my stuff and drove my little Jeep up to Alaska to a whole summer of camping, hiking and exploring. I hiked into the Magic Bus (of Into the Wild Fame), paddled with icebergs, and saw more bears, moose, bald eagles, salmon and mountains than I can count. It changed my life, and I'm extremely, extremely happy I walked away from the golden handcuffs and go away from that desk. Getting perspective and learning how I wanted to spend my life BEFORE I got saddled with a car loan or mortgage was paramount.

barbs 3y ago
That sounds fantastic! What are you up to now?
- braunshedd 3y ago
  He's traveling around Australia! (Check bio, great YouTube channel)
  - grecy 3y ago
    Thanks! I actually finished up in Australia, I'm back in Canada saving and planning for the next one. I'm building another vehicle to tackle much colder climates, and parts of the world I've never been to before.

pnathan 3y ago

This is good advice. Looking at the future you _and_ at the idea of taking a leap of faith into the unknown. I am reminded of the Hebrew Lech lecha, which occupies a certain amount of commentary space and has some alignments. There is something to be said for being normie. But also it should be a choice, and moxie points out that it... often isn't, really. The spe, btw, I think has gotten much more popularly discredited since 2013.

aranchelk 3y ago

> Tyler Durden was wrong, you are your job. So cringe.

monological 3y ago
It’s ok to be cringe. Try expressing yourself sometime instead of always conforming.
- drewfis 3y ago
  Agreed - you have a good perspective in a sea of internet pessimism.
- somsak2 3y ago
  Is commenting on HN not a form of self-expression? Looks like the poster has a pretty extensive history of comments and posts.
- aranchelk 3y ago
  > Try expressing yourself Okay. The reason I find that heading painful to read is it seems to miss the entire point of the quote. The line is said in the context of a world where everyone already is defining themselves by their jobs, possessions, etc. it’s not descriptive, it’s prescriptive. So it can’t really even be wrong. My memory of the book is it’s fairly philosophical, getting at modernity and the human condition. It’s quite traditionally masculine and violent and I get that that turns a lot of people off. Love it or hate it, quotes of it probably don’t belong in a LinkedIn-style “here’s some advice kids” article. Moreover, it’s just too easy — low hanging fruit, e.g. Tyler Durden said “once you you lose everything you’re free to do anything” but that’s not right because many activities are expensive and you’ll need money. Yuck.

throwaway290 3y ago

Some good points, especially around being influenced by what you do and people around. If a bit simplistic. But I feel like he's putting unnecessary pressure by treating first full-time job as "forever". Quitting is a thing...

farmeroy 3y ago

I spent my twenties riding freight trains across the US and cycling across Europe and Asia, living off of music. I'm not sure I would recommend that to anyone who is looking for career advice - Now I'm trying to build a solid career for myself as a software developer and I have no idea if it is easier with all that behind me or not. While I'm hoping that the soft skills and self knowledge I may have acquired over the years pay off on this new path, there is no guarantee. But there generally isn't. I certainly agree with this interpretation of Treyf and I'm glad that I have at least Moxie to look up to as freight hopping software engineer who has tried avoiding a lot of the same futures that I have, but it certainly is a path less traveled.

hyperthesis 3y ago
I think if you're engaged with what you do, you will learn and develop more than if not. OTOH there seems to be a developmental window for some specific skills, e.g. phoneme acquisition 6-12 months; (human) language acquisition < 7 years.
- farmeroy 3y ago
  Alternative biography: "Concerned I would never know my authentic self, I left home at the age of 5 to live in the wilderness. Now, I am struggling to begin my career as a software developer due to my failure to acquire human language - all thanks to your 'career advice', Moxe."
  - farmeroy 3y ago
    But I mean, yes of course we can learn and grow and be many things in life. I think that it's always easy to follow well defined, structured routes, and easier to know if you are succeeding at it. But if you feel you have a calling to do something else, something unusual, there isn't much anyone can advise you on, and most people will probably tell you not to risk it.
rubicon33 3y ago
I wouldn’t necessarily expect that you gained some discrete skills that will help you in software. Probably what you gained is something more valuable: perspective, and peace. Now when you are 45 or 50, rather than a crushing feeling of having wasted your life behind a desk you will hopefully feel happy that you spent your good years living life.

deleted 3y ago

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gcanyon 3y ago

> As a young person, though, I think the best thing you can do is to ignore all of that and simply observe the older people working there. > They are the future you. Do not think that you will be substantially different. Look carefully at how they spend their time at work and outside of work, because this is also almost certainly how your life will look. It sounds obvious, but it’s amazing how often young people imagine a different projection for themselves. > Look at the real people, and you’ll see the honest future for yourself. Maybe I'm the outlier, but this is 100% not true for me. My title, Product Manager, didn't exist 30 years ago. I was a developer 20 years ago, and 10 years before that I was managing and supporting a network of 200 Mac Pluses and the like. I've done other things besides, and at no point did the older people where I worked look the way I did years later. I do focus a significant amount of energy on keeping up with the development of technology, and that has changed so much that I couldn't help but be different. But I think that applies to everyone working in technology. The developers I work with now are using TypeScript and we organize using Notion. Ten years ago it was PHP and Jira. Ten years before that it was Java and Office docs. Who knows what it will be in ten years, but almost certainly none of those. Two week sprints have been a thing for fifteen years, so maybe that will still be true, but I doubt it. Plan for change. It's coming for all of us.

mejutoco 3y ago
> Ten years ago it was PHP and Jira. Ten years before that ... I recognize this is a matter of perspective, because to me the examples you mention are fundamentally not very different. A middle manager working in a programming language might be a way to put it that sounds the same as the old job. Which exact programming language, etc. can be seen as details, depending on the context. When seen through this lens the perspective of seeing the old worker still applies I believe.
- gcanyon 3y ago
  Granted, Notion isn't that different from Jira experientially -- it is vastly more flexible. But there's no comparing today's "everyone has a ticketing/task management system" setup to how things worked in the ~2000 Java era. We produced massive word documents to describe what we were going to do, and then broke them down to gantt charts in excel, and agreed what we were going to build in advance with formal sign-off by all participants. It was a very different feeling.

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bad_username 3y ago

> But then, I register who is sitting in those seats. It’s usually almost all predominantly unhealthy looking middle-aged white men, who it is clear from a glance have spent literally hundreds of hours of their lives over the past year in these airplanes. Mentioning people's skin color unnecessarily should also be "treyf", I think

jatins 3y ago

> They are the future you. Do not think that you will be substantially different I don't remember exactly if it was this post or a similar advice somewhere else but this advice made me leave my job at BigTech back in 2015 In hindsight I lost a lot of money because of that :') because the company's stock 10x'd at it's peak. Overall, I still think it's a reasonable advice. The behaviours in these companies are largely driven by incentives and for most people this results in a replicable behaviour (almost like a dog being given treats) Though there will always be outliers. But another thing that struck me as I was reading this was how, based on your state of mind at that point, a simple blog post can make you take significant life decisions.

JohnMakin 3y ago

The stanford prison experiment has been thouroughly debunked and nothing should be taken seriously that references it.

throwaway892238 3y ago

The Stanford Prison Experiment was a fraud, please don't listen to rationale based on one unreproduced "study". "The context of one’s life defines not just what but how one thinks, and a job tends to dominate the context of one’s life — particularly when that job is considered to be part of a career. Your job will change you." Absolute and complete pseudoscientific bullshit. Everything in life changes you. Every. Thing. Your job, the old man that works at the fruit stand around the corner from your flat, the air you breathe. No one thing in your life is going to determine who you are, because your rational, conscious, decision-making brain is what chooses your path in life. Not some amorphous organization or position that supposedly has control over your cognitive pathways. You change you. Go ahead and chase a career. Will your life be any better or worse than if you didn't? There is absolutely no way to know that in advance. You know how you discover yourself? By living your life. By self-reflection, by seeking knowledge, and also by flipping a coin and walking wherever the coin leads. "Learn three chords, start a band, and go on tour. Ride a bicycle as far as you can. Go WWOOFing or start a community garden in your neighborhood. Put together a traveling puppet show. Build a drone to engage the emerging drones controlled by domestic police. Do whatever — but make it uncomfortable (like leaving prison!) and make it count." Or don't. It doesn't matter. You are going to become who you are going to be, no matter what you do or don't do. You don't have to be uncomfortable. Nothing you do has to "count". It can, if you want. But you don't need to live some noble life. Your life doesn't have to have meaning. You don't have to seek new experiences and become some dynamic, interesting renaissance man. It's your life. Here's my career advice: If you want a career, keep in mind that a career is basically a marathon, whereupon the end goal of the race is to have a high position, good pay, the respect and reference of your peers, interesting work, personal fulfillment, and a fat retirement account. If that's what you want, then most of your actions should be centered around becoming likeable, knowledgeable, useful, and constantly preparing for the next step on the path. If you do it really well, you can climb very fast, but that might work against you. If you do it poorly, you can end up not very far, without much money, or references, or prospects, when you need them the most. Careers are largely a political consideration. That said, even with this weird political focus around work, you can still have a personal life that revolves around whatever you want outside of work. You also have a very wide latitude of what kind of work you do, where you do it, who you do it for, what its results are, how long and how hard you do it, etc. There is a very, very wide spectrum of both career, and life, and you don't have to fit into anyone's mold. You can even give birth to your own career niche. The point of this comment, just like the point of Moxie's post, is to tell you that you have options. You can expand your horizons and do all kinds of things that you aren't aware of yet. But also know that, no matter where you go or what you do, you are still just who you are. Life doesn't get better or worse based on what you do. It's your state of mind that makes life worth living. You are not your job. You are yourself.

saloniGquickads 3y ago

This was extremely useful needed this today!

hcks 3y ago

This is all extremely bad advice. To sum it up: work is a long endless grind that will alienate you, therefore therefore left-libertarian flavoured YOLO. Without downplaying the existing structures of social oppression, you may be lucky to live in a country and a time where you have rights. In that case, you need to decide for yourself what you want in life (economically). You need to decide how much money you want, how many hours a week you want to work, how many sabbatical to take and when to retire (these choices can always be made within what the economic environment allows). You can refuse to think about these questions, this how you’ll get trapped working for someone else’s dream.

badpun 3y ago
That's exactly right. For example, I decided I prefer to live on $500-$1000 a month to having to work more years. So, I retired as soon as I could afford $1k till the rest of my life. It's not a life rich in material goods, but, in my experience, the stuff that brings me the most value is super cheap, and after that it's mostly diminishing returns.
- FFP999 3y ago
  Interesting, if you don't mind sharing a little, what do you do with your time?
  - badpun 3y ago
    It's been only 10 months now. So far, I've played a lot of my favorite video games, read books, fixed some things around the apartment, learned a lot of new cooking recipes, tried my hand at new programming areas (however, I'm pretty spent there, as I've explored a lot in previous years already), watched a lot of youtube and tv shows. It's a bit boring, but beats working. All in all, not a very active lifestyle, but I think that's me. I just don't have a lot of motivation to do things beyond what's necessary, and was always like that.

graycat 3y ago

(1) What seem to be relatively small efforts, knowledge, etc. can yield big results. (2) Think. Continually try to understand what is going on that has any real chance of affecting you. (3) Get an education, at least a good education at the college level. As silly as this sounds, such an education does provide some discipline in thinking that can be a big advantage. Might apply the advantage just some one afternoon and get big results. (4) For first earnings, will about have to be an employee. So, do that. Live cheaply; save a lot of your money. As an employee, might find that if do some work that is especially good, nearly everyone else in the company will try to get you fired. Some business school courses call this goal subordination. (5) Own something that has a good chance of becoming valuable. One general approach -- real estate. Another approach, a small business that might grow. E.g., at one time could start a simple Web site for romantic matchmaking, as a sole, solo entrepreneur, grow the number of users, and sell out to a large company for $500 million. For owning a business, do start with a collection of the business basics: Maybe (a) Please the customer. (b) Have a barrier to entry, e.g., geographical. (c) Have something new, e.g., technology. (d) Study what successful entrepreneurs have done, not necessarily building Google or Amazon but, maybe, having 10 of the best BBQ restaurants in town.

ImPleadThe5th 3y ago

I love this advice. I think more people need to focus on personal capital and not just career. One of the traps I think this falls into is "I can either work on my career or be adventurous". I consider myself a "work to live" kind of person but still fall into this trap myself. I believe you can do both, it just takes a lot of effort, planning, and patience (more than a lot of people are willing to put in) to make it work.

SergeAx 3y ago

Why author and most commenters here associate "career" with sittng in the office? For me it is just an improvement my work skills towards bringing more value to the table and, as a result, getting more benefits from those who are in need of my skill. Author, for what it worth, could become large sailboat captain, be quite healthy (lots of fresh air, good climate and quality food) and still easily afford first class seats (or even be paid by boat owner). I'd still consider it a career.

JackMorgan 3y ago

Adventures come to those who seek them. One can find big expensive adventures for six months out in the mountains, or small free/low cost adventures like volunteer fire fighting, painting, rock climbing, cooking, dancing, acting, making music, deep friendships. Our lives are filled with exactly the richness we seek. Travel is just a catalyst to get us up off our sofas and make new friends. Having moved many times, I can assure you that one can do that today without moving. I've met many unemployed travelers who mope inside all day and watch Netflix. I've also met many hard working people who've lived in the same house for twenty years but live rich, incredible lives filled with small adventures.

ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
It made me happy to read this. Thanks!
rmac 3y ago
Keep writing Love your style and the comprehension ease
em-bee 3y ago
there is a third option. as others here mentioned, find jobs in interesting places. i have been all around the world while working or traveling to look for work opportunities.

dappermanneke 3y ago

didn’t really survive the test of time that well now the stanford prison experiment has been widely discredited

ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago

I can't remember where (I think, maybe here), but I read that there was some real question as to the validity of the results of the Stanford Prison Experiment.

Monthstoday 3y ago

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vario 3y ago

the only problem with Moxie's essay was the treyf reference to dogs. I love dogs. Dogs are better than most humans living around me.

da39a3ee 3y ago

> As a young person, though, I think the best thing you can do is to ignore all of that and simply observe the older people working there Ok hang on but there aren't any old people at my software company that's 4 years old. The author didn't seem to address this possibility, despite the fact that they were writing about careers in software.

sweetrobot2k 3y ago

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