[tsunamifury]

I am a person who loves being social but gets in shut-in cycles. I once took 4 months and backpacked in the woods of Canada in an extreme cycle.

Several points bothered me in this story, as it was a combination of honest observations and immature conclusions.

1) Life takes time, you need to be at peace with being young and not having all the solutions.

2) The author seems to suffer from observing the image of Silicon Valley success without actually experiencing it.

Most people fail, most projects go unfinished, most beyond that never make enough money to sustain a company.

A successful product is the evolutionary result of 10,000 products before it that failed, went unfinished, or were unprofitable. Even the best of the Valley didn't sit down, bang out some brilliant code, slap a business strategy on top, then cash a billion dollar check. They worked long and hard through repeated failures, with sometimes B and C squad talent, slowly carving away at the block of ideas until a product appeared. Then after that, they spend months or years compiling a business strategy and altering the product to become palatable to enough customers to gain a profit.

It takes a team of imperfect people and a lot of time to make even a passable product. Even finishing a unprofitable product is an massive achievement in itself.

It worries me at the end that the author again seems to come to a single conclusion that he believes will bring both success and happiness. That may never come, or it may be that the author never makes a lot of money or never is the best in the field.

This was the most painful part of growing up for me -- accepting that you live in a sea of talented individuals, and you are in no way, the most talented among them. You learn to reach out, form a team, and that great things come from hard work and diligence as much or more so than from natural talent.

[contingencies]

you need to be at peace with being young and not having all the solutions.

Err, don't you mean "you need to be at peace with not having all the solutions"? :)

[rokhayakebe]

"A successful product is the evolutionary result...."

What we call success is possibly persistence mixed with applied failure science, a method in which the practitioner modifies his techniques continually based on previous failures. She is an explorer who does not stop because she meets an ocean north, instead she tries to go west or if she gots balls, she builds a ship, but ultimately she is determined to find what she seeks.

[omegant]

I completely agree with you. I would only add that even when living in a sea of talented individuals, most people will keep themselves on known waters. It takes a lot of effort to go outside of your comfort zone, but once you do, you gain a huge advantage over more talented people. Because now you feel able to do things they think are out of reach or simply don´t think of them at all. It is really being outside a bubble while the other people is inside.

I´ve been feeling this way for this last year since I begun my project. Probably I will fail, but even then I have am far ahead from I thought I would be able to be.

[taproot]

"Think outside the box"

[omegant]

Yep, but think outside the box can be a momentary act. It can bring yOu great insights. But behaving outside the box for long periods (against your oun will) is much hardther, but also are the benefits.