4 ms·

I wish I could upvote you more than once for this. It also doesn't matter if something in life derails you from the game for a few years. I have the situation

I wish I could upvote you more than once for this. It also doesn't matter if something in life derails you from the game for a few years. I have the situation where the first several years of the life of my special needs child required a different approach to things. Am I any worse at doing startups than 5 years ago. Hell know, I am more experienced than ever. I've done startups for over a decade. I have had some real successes. No home runs (the one exit I got was small 7 figures and the acquirer tanked shortly afterwards), but I can show a track record of knowing what I'm doing. But I'm now 41. Given that the route to startup success now seems to go through angels, unless you are a superstar who can go straight to a big Series A with a VC. Many angels - not all - are young and made their money being in early in someone else's startup. Their comfort leve is investing in younger and less experienced people. VCs themselves are looking to find Zuckerberg cos they missed him first time around. No point complaining. It's the reality I live in. Just means I have to bootstrap longer and find revenues earlier. I am hoping this just means I build a stronger company. Getting funding to grow is never easy. It's not supposed to be, but the system is broken when it completely discounts experience in favor of youth and an ability of strings enabling you to work 100-hour weeks living on Ramen.

adrianbye 14y ago
value in any form will be rewarded. IMHO you have this completely backwards - your age is an advantage, not a disadvantage
- michaelochurch 14y ago
  I don't know. I've gotten in more trouble in my career for being too good and overperforming than vice versa. I can name two instances of managers who fucked me over specifically because they saw my technical skill and intelligence as threats. (One put me on bad projects till I quit. The other tried to get me to fire people who didn't deserve it and I told him to fuck off.) I may be an outlier, but one of the things I like about the HN community is that I'm less of one. The danger of being too good is quite real. So if you take someone like me, add 15 years of badassness (to age 44) but somehow fuck up that person's career on paper so he's stuck in junior-level jobs, you have someone who's a complete mess: an incorrigible overperformer. I think that once you're 1.5-2.0 sigma, in capability, above the social position that's available to you, your goose is cooked because it's hard to condescend in the right way and, once the discrepancy is vast enough, it becomes an impossible task.
  - tossacct 14y ago
    >>>I think that once you're 1.5-2.0 sigma, in capability, above the social position that's available to you, your goose is cooked because it's hard to condescend in the right way and, once the discrepancy is vast enough, it becomes an impossible task. I think that software is a great field for these talented individuals. The necessary tools(other than luck) to produce profitable software products are: 1)talent, 2)experience, 3)a powerful enough computer to develop your software, and 4)an economically feasible way to distribute your software. It seems like your "1.5-2.0 sigma, in capacity" individuals possess 1) by definition. 4) is ubiquitous now that the internet and payment processing are cheap and ubiquitous. 2) seems achievable for anyone who has 1). 3) is affordable to most interns I know in the software industry! That said, I agree with your observations(in this and other comments) in reference to corporate structure and social positions and managers and etc. Managers shouldn't be managing their underlings, they should be managing away all of the bullshit that makes their underlings less successful.

adrianbye 14y ago

value in any form will be rewarded. IMHO you have this completely backwards - your age is an advantage, not a disadvantage

michaelochurch 14y ago
I don't know. I've gotten in more trouble in my career for being too good and overperforming than vice versa. I can name two instances of managers who fucked me over specifically because they saw my technical skill and intelligence as threats. (One put me on bad projects till I quit. The other tried to get me to fire people who didn't deserve it and I told him to fuck off.) I may be an outlier, but one of the things I like about the HN community is that I'm less of one. The danger of being too good is quite real. So if you take someone like me, add 15 years of badassness (to age 44) but somehow fuck up that person's career on paper so he's stuck in junior-level jobs, you have someone who's a complete mess: an incorrigible overperformer. I think that once you're 1.5-2.0 sigma, in capability, above the social position that's available to you, your goose is cooked because it's hard to condescend in the right way and, once the discrepancy is vast enough, it becomes an impossible task.
- tossacct 14y ago
  >>>I think that once you're 1.5-2.0 sigma, in capability, above the social position that's available to you, your goose is cooked because it's hard to condescend in the right way and, once the discrepancy is vast enough, it becomes an impossible task. I think that software is a great field for these talented individuals. The necessary tools(other than luck) to produce profitable software products are: 1)talent, 2)experience, 3)a powerful enough computer to develop your software, and 4)an economically feasible way to distribute your software. It seems like your "1.5-2.0 sigma, in capacity" individuals possess 1) by definition. 4) is ubiquitous now that the internet and payment processing are cheap and ubiquitous. 2) seems achievable for anyone who has 1). 3) is affordable to most interns I know in the software industry! That said, I agree with your observations(in this and other comments) in reference to corporate structure and social positions and managers and etc. Managers shouldn't be managing their underlings, they should be managing away all of the bullshit that makes their underlings less successful.