4 ms·

When I look around Silicon Valley, I see a lot of 40-somethings and older who have been very successful in their technical endeavors, but now have narrow lives

by maj0rhn 12y ago

When I look around Silicon Valley, I see a lot of 40-somethings and older who have been very successful in their technical endeavors, but now have narrow lives because they never took the time to become complete persons. The best thing you can do as ambitious 19 year old is recognize that there is a lot more to the world than technology, and that college is effectively the only time in your life that you can, guilt-free, learn about the arc of civilization, or study Shakespeare in depth, or have a hope of learning biochemistry. Remember Henlein: "A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." Starting a company is rather a ridiculous thing to do when the entire world is open to you.

graeme 12y ago
As a counterpoint: if I could do college over, I would have taken something practical, like programming, and bootstrapped a company. I started at 25, and bootstrapped a company. I'm 28, and I now have enough passive income that I can do pretty much what I want. I enjoyed my 20s. I would have enjoyed them even more if I had had this same setup from age 21-23. Of course, I only recommend this with the specific goal of "freedom" in mind. I do like the topics you selected to study though. I studied international relations and economics. The second taught me a bit, and the first I learned from my own readings. I would recommend students study either: A very practical skill that will help them be free of their time (programming, design, etc.) or something interesting, that's harder to learn outside of school (Shakespeare, fine arts, music, dance, one of the sciences)
- philangist 12y ago
  I'm an "ambitious 19 year old" (it feels really weird to say that), and I have a fulltime job as a programmer, but I'd be really interested in hearing about this. While I'm currently very happy at my job and will probably remain here for a few more hours, I'd like to hear about the process of bootstrapping a company.
  - graeme 12y ago
    In my case, I was very focussed on long term revenue that would pay me whether or not I was working. Within my niche, that took the form of print book sales, e-book sales on my own site and through partners, and affiliate relationships. I'm up to about $4,000 a month from passive sources. You're in a good spot to have a full time job you enjoy and (presumably) pays well. For me, the hardest part was building capital. I'd recommend saving every penny you can. As for how to start, try lots of small things. Most of my ideas that worked took, at most, two weeks to test. Many started from writing an email or making a phone call. There are countless niches now, full of people prepared to pay money. I chose LSAT prep. I'm sure already there's thing you know how to do that people will pay for. Some ways you can monetize that: * An e-book guide to something, with free html articles as marketing for organic SEO and links * Some useful tool people will link to. Serves as marketing for either ads, a product, or a paid version * Videos on a topic. Can be marketing for any of the above, or lead to a paid video product. "Authority" by Nathan Barry is an excellent book for establishing yourself in a niche. Reading that convinced me to make http://lsathacks.com http://lsathacks.com, which has free html versions of my books and draws many visitors which I've been able to monetize. "Start small, stay small" by Rob Walling is an excellent guide to bootstrapping a business. Possibly the best. It's aimed at software developers, but I was able to use it as a non-developer for guiding principles and marketing. The Moz guide to SEO is a very useful intro to how SEO works. Essential reading if you're planning on going the free marketing route. Lastly, the Four Hour Workweek is what got me started, and it's a great overview of the hacker mindset applied to business. For me, the idea was not "hehehe, how can I be lazy and work only 4 hours". It was "how can I make a business that can keep running even if I choose not to work on it". I do work quite a bit, but I don't HAVE to now. (Note: This last book rubs many people the wrong way. If a specific situation irks you, ask what principle he was applying, and if it could be applied to a situation that doesn't annoy you) Authority: http://www.amazon.com/Authority-Become-Following-Financial-Independence/dp/1612060919/ http://www.amazon.com/Authority-Become-Following-Financial-I... http://nathanbarry.com/authority/ http://nathanbarry.com/authority/ Start Small: http://www.amazon.com/Start-Small-Stay-Developers-Launching/dp/0615373968/ http://www.amazon.com/Start-Small-Stay-Developers-Launching/... SEO: http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo 4HWW: http://www.amazon.com/The-4-Hour-Workweek-Anywhere-Expanded/dp/0307465357/ http://www.amazon.com/The-4-Hour-Workweek-Anywhere-Expanded/...
VLM 12y ago
"effectively the only time in your life that you can, guilt-free, learn about the arc of civilization..." You've got to be kidding, speaking as a well educated older guy. Also, if you feel your education ended permanently at 22, your educators probably want to leap off a building. When you stop your education, you may as well be dead. You can and should train for a vocation to make a living when you're 19 (even if for cultural reasons you call that vocational training "getting an education"), otherwise with no income stream, life will be a bit rough at 60 when you're supposed to continue your live long self education, seeing as with no vocational training you'd have starved to death at 23. "or study Shakespeare in depth" If you hate Shakespeare, why bother? If on the other hand, you love it, especially in our modern era of public libraries, internet, ebooks, MOOCs, free online university video lectures, how do you propose to stop me in my 40s from doing the same, better than I ever could have it in my early 20s? Its not like technology and culture stop progressing making it less likely you'll be able to learn in the future. Could happen, sure, but...
- maj0rhn 12y ago
  Of course education doesn't stop at 22. But the interests you develop at that age have a way of carrying forward, and lower the threshold for re-engaging those interests later in life. If you never appreciated the genius of Shakespeare or Thoreau at 22, why would you be motivated to pick them up at 40? The other big point is that, during those 20 years from 22 to 42, you have the advantage of wider learning in your bag, and it helps you communicate. Remember the "Space Seed" episode of the original Star Trek (the one with Khan)? At the end Scotty explains Khan's acceptance of exile to Kirk by saying: "Have you ever read Milton, Captain?" It's understanding references like that that make you a complete human, vs. understanding pointer dereferencing, which make you a tradesman.

by maj0rhn 12y ago

graeme 12y ago

As a counterpoint: if I could do college over, I would have taken something practical, like programming, and bootstrapped a company. I started at 25, and bootstrapped a company. I'm 28, and I now have enough passive income that I can do pretty much what I want. I enjoyed my 20s. I would have enjoyed them even more if I had had this same setup from age 21-23. Of course, I only recommend this with the specific goal of "freedom" in mind. I do like the topics you selected to study though. I studied international relations and economics. The second taught me a bit, and the first I learned from my own readings. I would recommend students study either: A very practical skill that will help them be free of their time (programming, design, etc.) or something interesting, that's harder to learn outside of school (Shakespeare, fine arts, music, dance, one of the sciences)

philangist 12y ago
I'm an "ambitious 19 year old" (it feels really weird to say that), and I have a fulltime job as a programmer, but I'd be really interested in hearing about this. While I'm currently very happy at my job and will probably remain here for a few more hours, I'd like to hear about the process of bootstrapping a company.
- graeme 12y ago
  In my case, I was very focussed on long term revenue that would pay me whether or not I was working. Within my niche, that took the form of print book sales, e-book sales on my own site and through partners, and affiliate relationships. I'm up to about $4,000 a month from passive sources. You're in a good spot to have a full time job you enjoy and (presumably) pays well. For me, the hardest part was building capital. I'd recommend saving every penny you can. As for how to start, try lots of small things. Most of my ideas that worked took, at most, two weeks to test. Many started from writing an email or making a phone call. There are countless niches now, full of people prepared to pay money. I chose LSAT prep. I'm sure already there's thing you know how to do that people will pay for. Some ways you can monetize that: * An e-book guide to something, with free html articles as marketing for organic SEO and links * Some useful tool people will link to. Serves as marketing for either ads, a product, or a paid version * Videos on a topic. Can be marketing for any of the above, or lead to a paid video product. "Authority" by Nathan Barry is an excellent book for establishing yourself in a niche. Reading that convinced me to make http://lsathacks.com http://lsathacks.com, which has free html versions of my books and draws many visitors which I've been able to monetize. "Start small, stay small" by Rob Walling is an excellent guide to bootstrapping a business. Possibly the best. It's aimed at software developers, but I was able to use it as a non-developer for guiding principles and marketing. The Moz guide to SEO is a very useful intro to how SEO works. Essential reading if you're planning on going the free marketing route. Lastly, the Four Hour Workweek is what got me started, and it's a great overview of the hacker mindset applied to business. For me, the idea was not "hehehe, how can I be lazy and work only 4 hours". It was "how can I make a business that can keep running even if I choose not to work on it". I do work quite a bit, but I don't HAVE to now. (Note: This last book rubs many people the wrong way. If a specific situation irks you, ask what principle he was applying, and if it could be applied to a situation that doesn't annoy you) Authority: http://www.amazon.com/Authority-Become-Following-Financial-Independence/dp/1612060919/ http://www.amazon.com/Authority-Become-Following-Financial-I... http://nathanbarry.com/authority/ http://nathanbarry.com/authority/ Start Small: http://www.amazon.com/Start-Small-Stay-Developers-Launching/dp/0615373968/ http://www.amazon.com/Start-Small-Stay-Developers-Launching/... SEO: http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo 4HWW: http://www.amazon.com/The-4-Hour-Workweek-Anywhere-Expanded/dp/0307465357/ http://www.amazon.com/The-4-Hour-Workweek-Anywhere-Expanded/...

VLM 12y ago

"effectively the only time in your life that you can, guilt-free, learn about the arc of civilization..." You've got to be kidding, speaking as a well educated older guy. Also, if you feel your education ended permanently at 22, your educators probably want to leap off a building. When you stop your education, you may as well be dead. You can and should train for a vocation to make a living when you're 19 (even if for cultural reasons you call that vocational training "getting an education"), otherwise with no income stream, life will be a bit rough at 60 when you're supposed to continue your live long self education, seeing as with no vocational training you'd have starved to death at 23. "or study Shakespeare in depth" If you hate Shakespeare, why bother? If on the other hand, you love it, especially in our modern era of public libraries, internet, ebooks, MOOCs, free online university video lectures, how do you propose to stop me in my 40s from doing the same, better than I ever could have it in my early 20s? Its not like technology and culture stop progressing making it less likely you'll be able to learn in the future. Could happen, sure, but...

maj0rhn 12y ago
Of course education doesn't stop at 22. But the interests you develop at that age have a way of carrying forward, and lower the threshold for re-engaging those interests later in life. If you never appreciated the genius of Shakespeare or Thoreau at 22, why would you be motivated to pick them up at 40? The other big point is that, during those 20 years from 22 to 42, you have the advantage of wider learning in your bag, and it helps you communicate. Remember the "Space Seed" episode of the original Star Trek (the one with Khan)? At the end Scotty explains Khan's acceptance of exile to Kirk by saying: "Have you ever read Milton, Captain?" It's understanding references like that that make you a complete human, vs. understanding pointer dereferencing, which make you a tradesman.