4 ms·

Skip the Books. Find A Mentor and Build a Network Early in Your Career

10 points by wheels 17y ago

newsdog 17y ago
Great. Now I get to watch the well-connected zip past me on the career path, even though they don't know as much as me. That's always fun.
DenisM 17y ago
The advice boils down to "let's never learn from mistakes of other people, let's make our own mistakes!". I doubt humanity as a whole would make any kind of progress this way past the middle ages.
- wheels 17y ago
  Did you read the title? I love reading too, so I couldn't help myself from hitting the business books before starting a startup. They haven't been completely useless, but not far from it. There are a few useful strategic ideas that I picked up, but the value relative to some of the really great mentors that I've picked up along the way isn't even comparable.
thunk 17y ago
Keep the books. Skip the school. I think mentoring is both the past and the future, but in the present it's hard to find.
- ramidarigaz 17y ago
  I really wish apprenticeship was the common method of learning programming. I'm currently in college, and while the current program isn't awful, I feel like learning from an experienced programmer in a one on one setting would be much more valuable. I've approached a few programmers, and they all think it's an amazing idea, but none of them seemed remotely interested in mentoring someone. I think our cultural mindset has to change for the mentoring system to work.
  - thunk 17y ago
    I absolutely agree. Humans have a lot of dedicated hardware for learning through imitation, which is virtually ignored by mainstream education. I'm an autodidact, as I'd guess a lot of people here are -- you sort of have to be if you plan on getting anything out of your classes -- so I'm always surprised by how much faster I learn in a mentoring situation. It feels like cheating.
stuartk 17y ago
It's certainly something that I've suffered from in the past; spending too much time googling or research something, when I should have been taking action. Saying that, I don't think it's wise to dive in with zero knowledge. There is a tipping point when the extra time spent researching gives diminishing returns on the time spent. I guess it's getting the right balance of knowledge/theory and action.
1gor 17y ago
Would you skip engineering and cs books? Is whom you know more important in life that what you know? Essentially, the article calls you to try to be Steve Jobs, not Steve Wozniak. If you are an MBA type rather than a hacker, then go ahead, skip the books, get to know right people, take care of you network and create 500+ connections in your linkedin. Oh, by the way, don't be fooled: becoming Steve Jobs would still require hard work on yourself (on your taste, philosophy and general personality, if not on your technical knowledge). For some reason I think spending life making things is more fun than spending it bullshitting, networking and kissing ass of your 'mentors'. And there is less competition in the former field, as they say.
- wheels 17y ago
  There's a difference between building a product and building a company. Mentors are huge in building a company, and like it or not, building a company is a people-process. Just to give an example -- right now we're preparing our investor deck and exec summary. You can read books all day long on that, but the comparative worth of having an experienced entrepreneur that can read over what you've got and critique it -- and then put you in touch with the people who you want to read it -- is much higher.
  - 1gor 17y ago
    The traditional vc-based path to building a company is sub-optimal, this has been the topic much covered on HN. Product-based way of building a company seems to be the future. The companies that went directly to customers first on merits of their product and then attracted attention of rolodex-waving vcs include google, 37signals and probably pg's viaweb (sorry for non-original examples). Remember, internet IS a network already. Even mentor knowledge is available through Google. Leverage this network and you're in business. You do need some hard technical knowledge (and books) to achieve this, though. On the other hand, stuffing startups with executive 'mentors' who bring 'experience' but also grab tons of call options is a venerable vc industry tradition. As somebody who went once through a vc-funded startup that was later killed by the same vcs, I remain ever sceptical about their motives and see this article as a piece of vc propaganda.
skmurphy 17y ago
I think you learn the fastest when you are making decisions and experiencing outcomes that matter to you. In that sense mentor's can provide specific decision-oriented advice that is "just in time." But to be able to appreciate the context, and to save a lot of time, it seems to me that a significant amount of both technical and business/entrepreneurship reading is critical (or perhaps necessary but not sufficient).
tungstenfurnace 17y ago
So I'm reading this blog which advises me to stop reading books and find a mentor. Somewhat paradoxical. Why can't I have a mentor etc and still read a few blogs and books? Maybe what he means is that we learn most from mistakes which caused us to suffer.

10 points by wheels 17y ago

Great. Now I get to watch the well-connected zip past me on the career path, even though they don't know as much as me. That's always fun.

DenisM 17y ago

The advice boils down to "let's never learn from mistakes of other people, let's make our own mistakes!". I doubt humanity as a whole would make any kind of progress this way past the middle ages.

wheels 17y ago
Did you read the title? I love reading too, so I couldn't help myself from hitting the business books before starting a startup. They haven't been completely useless, but not far from it. There are a few useful strategic ideas that I picked up, but the value relative to some of the really great mentors that I've picked up along the way isn't even comparable.

thunk 17y ago

Keep the books. Skip the school. I think mentoring is both the past and the future, but in the present it's hard to find.

ramidarigaz 17y ago
I really wish apprenticeship was the common method of learning programming. I'm currently in college, and while the current program isn't awful, I feel like learning from an experienced programmer in a one on one setting would be much more valuable. I've approached a few programmers, and they all think it's an amazing idea, but none of them seemed remotely interested in mentoring someone. I think our cultural mindset has to change for the mentoring system to work.
- thunk 17y ago
  I absolutely agree. Humans have a lot of dedicated hardware for learning through imitation, which is virtually ignored by mainstream education. I'm an autodidact, as I'd guess a lot of people here are -- you sort of have to be if you plan on getting anything out of your classes -- so I'm always surprised by how much faster I learn in a mentoring situation. It feels like cheating.

stuartk 17y ago

It's certainly something that I've suffered from in the past; spending too much time googling or research something, when I should have been taking action. Saying that, I don't think it's wise to dive in with zero knowledge. There is a tipping point when the extra time spent researching gives diminishing returns on the time spent. I guess it's getting the right balance of knowledge/theory and action.

1gor 17y ago

Would you skip engineering and cs books? Is whom you know more important in life that what you know? Essentially, the article calls you to try to be Steve Jobs, not Steve Wozniak. If you are an MBA type rather than a hacker, then go ahead, skip the books, get to know right people, take care of you network and create 500+ connections in your linkedin. Oh, by the way, don't be fooled: becoming Steve Jobs would still require hard work on yourself (on your taste, philosophy and general personality, if not on your technical knowledge). For some reason I think spending life making things is more fun than spending it bullshitting, networking and kissing ass of your 'mentors'. And there is less competition in the former field, as they say.

wheels 17y ago
There's a difference between building a product and building a company. Mentors are huge in building a company, and like it or not, building a company is a people-process. Just to give an example -- right now we're preparing our investor deck and exec summary. You can read books all day long on that, but the comparative worth of having an experienced entrepreneur that can read over what you've got and critique it -- and then put you in touch with the people who you want to read it -- is much higher.
- 1gor 17y ago
  The traditional vc-based path to building a company is sub-optimal, this has been the topic much covered on HN. Product-based way of building a company seems to be the future. The companies that went directly to customers first on merits of their product and then attracted attention of rolodex-waving vcs include google, 37signals and probably pg's viaweb (sorry for non-original examples). Remember, internet IS a network already. Even mentor knowledge is available through Google. Leverage this network and you're in business. You do need some hard technical knowledge (and books) to achieve this, though. On the other hand, stuffing startups with executive 'mentors' who bring 'experience' but also grab tons of call options is a venerable vc industry tradition. As somebody who went once through a vc-funded startup that was later killed by the same vcs, I remain ever sceptical about their motives and see this article as a piece of vc propaganda.

skmurphy 17y ago

I think you learn the fastest when you are making decisions and experiencing outcomes that matter to you. In that sense mentor's can provide specific decision-oriented advice that is "just in time." But to be able to appreciate the context, and to save a lot of time, it seems to me that a significant amount of both technical and business/entrepreneurship reading is critical (or perhaps necessary but not sufficient).

tungstenfurnace 17y ago

So I'm reading this blog which advises me to stop reading books and find a mentor. Somewhat paradoxical. Why can't I have a mentor etc and still read a few blogs and books? Maybe what he means is that we learn most from mistakes which caused us to suffer.