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by Confusion 6268 days ago
I think this advice shouldn't be taken too seriously by most, as it is too centered on this particular person and his employment of hindsight.

1. I’m not talking stupid risks. But smart, calculated ones.

And the problem is: when you're 21 and have never started a company, you don't yet have the experience and knowledge to judge the risks properly. This point is based on hindsight, which just just don't have when these decisions are to be made.

2. Literally everyone worth a damn complains they wasted time early in life. You know what: I think it's because that 'wasted' time is an essential part of what made you who you are. You consider it wasted, because you didn't learn anything tangible in those times. But learning isn't all about tangible skills. Denoting that time as 'wasted' means you haven't looked closely enough into what that time actually brought you. Consequently, you don't actually have that much time to 'nail the fundamentals'.

On the side, about the typing speed fallacy: I spend most of my time behind the keyboard thinking, not typing and I hope you're doing the same, otherwise what you are typing isn't worth a damn.

3. Depends very much on the person that you are. Some excel when they are surrounded by unbelieving critics. Others are best when those around them don't pester them continously about 'succeeding'

4. Basically the same as 1: you don't know your 'bliss' yet when you start out. Moreover, your 'bliss' changes with time. You are basically encouraging your 21 year old self to follow a bliss he didn't consider bliss yet.

5. And again: hindsight. When you are older, you know that your opinion was the right one, but how many wrong ones were corrected by good advice from others? When looking back, you're bound to suffer from confirmation bias, only considering those opinions of which you now regret that you let them be influenced. Was that really the important majority?

2 comments

This is why I took a year off college at 19 to start a starter company. It was like running your first marathon: you want to win, but you know you probably won't. But you need the experience. In my case, everyone I talked to was pretty excited about what I had so far, but I didn't have the tech chops to take things to the next level. Now I'm returning to college to get better tech skills.
Re: typing speed, I hear that argument a lot, and I agree that it makes sense when talking about programming. However, if you can't type fast, you can't use a command line effectively, and you're going to spend a lot of time pointing and clicking.
It's not clear whether the author of the article was talking about improving from 50 wpm to 70 wpm or from hunt-and-peck to 50 wpm. The second is probably a clear gain for everyone.