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I find your comments to be spectacularly useful. I'm a twenty something machine learning developer with a functional bent and high expectations for rewarding st

I find your comments to be spectacularly useful. I'm a twenty something machine learning developer with a functional bent and high expectations for rewarding stimulation in VC-land, and you've recapitulated many of my own thoughts and conclusions spectacularly well. Would you mind if I bent your ear about a dilemma over private channels?

jamesaguilar 13y ago
You might be better off asking someone who has accomplished more than blog posts and hn comments. Sounding like you know what you're talking about and actually knowing it are not always the same. Results are often a better signal of the latter. Just my 2c.
- nitrogen 13y ago
  On the other hand, only talking to those who have been wildly successful, or giving their advice more weight, sounds like a great way to get trapped by confirmation and survivorship bias.
  - jamesaguilar 13y ago
    Good point. But if I were looking for an unsuccessful person to get advice from, I'd pick someone who looked within for mistakes/opportunities for improvement, rather than exclusively blaming external factors.
    - nitrogen 13y ago
      Even if they are largely external, we can't say that michaelochurch hasn't been providing suggestions for improvement. His overall message doesn't strike me as complaining just to complain, even if some of his individual posts are a bit over the top.
      - jamesaguilar 13y ago
        His overall message is how companies and management can improve -- advice for a position he's never been in and has no experience with. If he's said things that represent a serious acknowledgement of his own shortcomings as an employee -- i.e. a frank discussion of why such a high proportion of his employment experiences have been bad compared to typical HNers or engineers -- I'm not aware of them. He seems to be fairly self-congratulatory on that front, which is at odds with the results so far.
        michaelochurch 13y ago
        I checked your profile. One of those. Still butthurt that I exposed calibration scores and embarrassed "your" company? His overall message is how companies and management can improve -- advice for a position he's never been in and has no experience with. Wait, so watching idiots incinerate hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars of value through horrible business decisions when I could have done their jobs better at 17 is not direct experience? I'm good at learning from failures-- my own (I've made plenty of mistakes, despite your claim that I don't acknowledge error on my part) and other peoples'. a frank discussion of why such a high proportion of his employment experiences have been bad compared to typical HNers or engineers What has astonished me is to learn that my horrible experiences are not atypical. I thought I was the only person to be screwed over so badly, and found out that there are hundreds of people with similar stories. I won't claim that it's the norm, but it's not shockingly rare. People just don't fucking admit to these experience because they internalize their losses when the reality is that most people have shitty careers not because they are human garbage (as their bosses want them to think) but simply because they have been lied-to, exploited, and fucking robbed blind by their extortionist, criminal managers who have demolished their careers through bad work allocation and political malfeasance. I wouldn't put myself so far out there on these issues if I hadn't realized that there's a whole corrupt system whose malignancies are underreported. If it was just me having bad experiences, I wouldn't go out there and point out how awful it is. Too embarrassing, no point. Unfortunately, the abuses of talent by the well-connected criminals are commonplace and it's time to fight back. Technology is our territory by rights and we should take it back from those assholes.
textminer 13y ago
(Just in case my comment sounded parodic because of my self-description, or contrarian because of your call for public bravery, it wasn't meant to be either.)
oz 13y ago
I've spoken with MOC over private channels, and he's * stunningly* helpful.
michaelochurch 13y ago
Go for it. I'm michael.o.church at gmail.

jamesaguilar 13y ago

You might be better off asking someone who has accomplished more than blog posts and hn comments. Sounding like you know what you're talking about and actually knowing it are not always the same. Results are often a better signal of the latter. Just my 2c.

nitrogen 13y ago
On the other hand, only talking to those who have been wildly successful, or giving their advice more weight, sounds like a great way to get trapped by confirmation and survivorship bias.
- jamesaguilar 13y ago
  Good point. But if I were looking for an unsuccessful person to get advice from, I'd pick someone who looked within for mistakes/opportunities for improvement, rather than exclusively blaming external factors.
  - nitrogen 13y ago
    Even if they are largely external, we can't say that michaelochurch hasn't been providing suggestions for improvement. His overall message doesn't strike me as complaining just to complain, even if some of his individual posts are a bit over the top.
    - jamesaguilar 13y ago
      His overall message is how companies and management can improve -- advice for a position he's never been in and has no experience with. If he's said things that represent a serious acknowledgement of his own shortcomings as an employee -- i.e. a frank discussion of why such a high proportion of his employment experiences have been bad compared to typical HNers or engineers -- I'm not aware of them. He seems to be fairly self-congratulatory on that front, which is at odds with the results so far.
      - michaelochurch 13y ago
        I checked your profile. One of those. Still butthurt that I exposed calibration scores and embarrassed "your" company? His overall message is how companies and management can improve -- advice for a position he's never been in and has no experience with. Wait, so watching idiots incinerate hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars of value through horrible business decisions when I could have done their jobs better at 17 is not direct experience? I'm good at learning from failures-- my own (I've made plenty of mistakes, despite your claim that I don't acknowledge error on my part) and other peoples'. a frank discussion of why such a high proportion of his employment experiences have been bad compared to typical HNers or engineers What has astonished me is to learn that my horrible experiences are not atypical. I thought I was the only person to be screwed over so badly, and found out that there are hundreds of people with similar stories. I won't claim that it's the norm, but it's not shockingly rare. People just don't fucking admit to these experience because they internalize their losses when the reality is that most people have shitty careers not because they are human garbage (as their bosses want them to think) but simply because they have been lied-to, exploited, and fucking robbed blind by their extortionist, criminal managers who have demolished their careers through bad work allocation and political malfeasance. I wouldn't put myself so far out there on these issues if I hadn't realized that there's a whole corrupt system whose malignancies are underreported. If it was just me having bad experiences, I wouldn't go out there and point out how awful it is. Too embarrassing, no point. Unfortunately, the abuses of talent by the well-connected criminals are commonplace and it's time to fight back. Technology is our territory by rights and we should take it back from those assholes.

textminer 13y ago

(Just in case my comment sounded parodic because of my self-description, or contrarian because of your call for public bravery, it wasn't meant to be either.)

oz 13y ago

I've spoken with MOC over private channels, and he's * stunningly* helpful.

michaelochurch 13y ago

Go for it. I'm michael.o.church at gmail.