Nerdlife

I’m in a bit of a bummed out mood today, and there are two things you should never do in a bad mood: go to sleep and blog. So rather than a post, I figured I would give you a quote from my friend David Chen:

I like to think of life as a stock, and instead of day trading, you should play the buy-and-hold strategy

Thanks, and have a great evening

life, quote

IP Carrier: 25 Startup Commandments: Great Stuff

Has some funny stuff and seems to hits the mark pretty well. There is something that I feel is worth elaborating on:

“Your software sucks. So what. Everyone elses does also, and re-architecting is the kiss of death for a startup.”

This is a hard transition to make for students because the structuring of programming projects in school is so linear: you have a strict set of requirements that do not change from the beginning, and they must be implemented in the best way possible.

Real life is not like that. In real life, you start out with an idea and wind up with something completely different. Your product spec will change more times than you can imagine, and you will have to constantly adapt to the demands and requirements of users, partners, employees, VCs, and so on. Learning this early and accepting it is very valuable, because when someone says “we need to change this core component” you will be ok saying “do it however you can” as opposed to “well, I guess we better write up a new DB spec, rebuild our architecture, and create a migration plan to our new setup”. It is true that “re-architecting is the kiss of death for a startup”, especially for web based startups, where one day can mean the difference between being first to market and being out of business. You also need to be able to work with and modify existing code better than writing new code, because you only write new code for a project once, and the rest of your time working on it is spent changing code. This is far more difficult than writing new code, especially if you didn’t write the code you are modifying.

If I had complete liberty to create a truly useful course for a university, it would be a software engineer simulator. I would give students a program that was moderately well written, and every few days throw a new curve ball at them. The DB they’ve never had to touch will crash, one of their partners who they have integrated into the site will go out of business, they will have to upgrade all of their deprecated code to comply with some new standard, they will be asked by a major client to find a way to generate 2,000,000 images of charts in under two hours, etc, etc. I would spare them has-to-be-done-now deadlines and blackberries that ring at 3am, but it would still be one hell of a course. And the ones who finish it and say “well that was fun”, those are the ones truly ready for the world of software development, whether or not in the form of a startup. The rest will have to sit down with a bunch of lawyers, who will then inform them, in extremely monotonous voices, of every little thing they’ve done in the last few months that could result in a massive lawsuit.

Note: Every one of these stories is based off of something that happened in my department in the last month, many of which landed on my plate. I’ve come to expect it, and it sure was fun.

programming, school, startups

While I do believe strongly in the correlation made in my last post, I feel that Jared’s response was slightly off the mark. I really don’t mean to go back and forth on this one, so this will be my last post directly relating to the topic of startup/dating analogies, but I would like to throw in a more serious $0.02.

• The article Jared used is a sales pitch and, at least partially, inaccurate. The average online dating demographic is a shy nerd who, statistically, is much more introverted. He would therefore be a “Nice Guy” who does many of the things mentioned in this article. This article caters towards this demographic for the sake of garnering interest, newsletter signups, and god-knows-what-else. Many of these points are valid, but The complete opposite is also often valid. For #1, being a complete dick will not get you women (at least it won’t get you steady relationships). For #3, #4, #5, and #8, being a pansy is never a good idea, but neither is being completely removed, you must show at least some compassion. #6 and #9 basically say “know what to do”, which is some pretty dumb advice. Everything comes in moderation, if you stray too far to either side of the spectrum you’re in trouble.
• While I won’t go into rebutting every analogy, I will say that some of them seem very contrived and easily reversible. Arguing a difficult position is a good skill, but in this case it’s a little forced.
• I have not dated 20 women in my life (then again, I am young). I have many female friends, and women see me as “just a friend” more often than not, but that is more of a choice than anything else. I recognize that my actions lead me to friends, and I accept that because I believe that the strongest relationships are formed by those who start out as friends (I could write volumes about this, but I’ll spare you…for now).
• I don’t think the issue with CS majors in general is that they don’t “take the time away from the monitor to get into dating”, I think it’s an undervaluation of the importance of connections. I know several brilliant people who simply don’t meet people, fall into their mediocre IT job, and work hard with no chance of advancement. I believe that anyone can go from anti-social nobody to a social being (mostly because I have made the jump myself). Many CS majors accept their position because they are happy that way (which is fine, it takes all types), while others simply don’t have the right opportunity or drive.
• Not to contradict myself, but I think we as CS majors are overly stereotyped in our level social activity. While there are more anti-social CS majors per student than in other majors, we are more social then we get credit for. CS majors have a tendency to keep to their kind. They are very passionate about their trade, and as such like to talk about it often. Most people who aren’t CS majors don’t want to hear this day in and day out, so they stick to their own cliques. It only takes a small group of people to be considered social. While this creates a segregation between what CS majors consider socially acceptable and what everyone else accepts, there is most definitely nothing wrong or anti-social about it. This is very similar to fine arts majors, who tend to socialize with other fine arts majors and as such develop their own social norms.

On a more bloggy note, I do enjoy posting about relationships (one of my many failed blogging attempts was called “Perpetual Optimist”, where I would post about my failures with women and lessons learned. Expect more posts in the future along these lines. While I believe that when it comes to things like relationships one must walk their own path, you never know what could spark a moment of deeper understanding.

Disclaimer: Many of my thoughts are based on what I have seen in my limited view of the world. You may have seen something different. It’s my blog, and as such my opinions.

Disclaimer for my disclaimer: On the other hand, please feel free to disagree with me, but please do so constructively. I am a huge fan of friendly debates, and thank Jared for providing me with a good debate, which I haven’t had in a while. If everyone argued constructively we would undoubtedly be much better off as a society.

debate, girlfriends, nerds, relationships, startups

Note: I came home today planning to write about this topic. Then I read Jared’s post (see #4). Bastard stole my thunder (because obviously I’m the first one to consider this analogy :-P).

I’ve often heard the saying “being married to your work”, and I frequently consider the similarities between startups and relationships. For one, on any given day I’m mulling around a few ideas for startups, and most days my thoughts also lead to my lack of a girlfriend and possibly solutions to that situation. There are many things that are nearly identical when it comes to the “game” (as so many, excluding myself, like to call it) of dating and the process of forming a startup. Allow me to elaborate:

Startups

Girlfriends/Relationships

---

Convince successful people that they should invest their faith (and money) into your idea

Convince women that they should invest their faith (and time) into you

---

You spend an obscene amount of time working on them

You spend an obscene amount of time with them
(I will avoid the pun here…)

---

They have the potential for huge monetary payoffs, yet few reach this potential

They have the potential for huge emotional payoffs, yet few reach this potential

---

It helps to be rich

It helps to be rich

---

They’re very internet-focused, and meeting co-founders online is no longer necessarily a bad idea

They’re becoming very internet-focused, and meeting women online is no longer necessarily a bad idea

---

Many people try for years to successfully start one, and once successful find that it’s a lot of work

Many people try for years to successfully find one, and once successful find that it’s a lot of work

---

They will sap your free time and life

They will sap your free time and life

---

All joking aside, I do think that this is a notable thing: if you expect to have a steady relationship while working on a startup, 9 times out of 10 one of the two will fail. You need to have an amazing devotion to both, very understanding co-founders/significant other, and full acceptance of the fact that your sleep will suffer double the amount it normally would.I do have a possible solution, though it takes a certain type: date your co-founder (or co-found with your significant other). This only works with 2 founders (being the 3rd+ wheel is never fun…). It seems to be a wonderful test of a relationship. If two people can spend nearly all day together with very little sleep working on what has been called “an emotional rollercoaster” by many and not end up killing each other (sounds like a reality TV show…) it must speak volumes of their bond. Don’t we look for similar qualities from our co-founders and our significant others, trust, honesty, devotion, ability to put up with them for long periods of time, sense of humor. The only difference from my point of view is whether or not gender plays a role. I even submit that there must be a certain chemistry between co-founders, similar to romance but without the lust.

This does create a whole new slew of problems though. Double the stress, emotion, and time spent together, add a touch of competitiveness. Hell, while we’re at it, throw in some romance and programming. Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “late night at the office”.

So, any young entrepreneurial women looking for a good time co-founder?

Disclaimer for those looking to form a startup: The above was written with a strong sense of humor and mild sarcasm in mind. If you are offended by anything I say, or even consider, for a moment, taking me seriously, how can you ever expect to survive months working day and night with the same people (dating or otherwise)? Really, laugh a little, you’ll live longer.

girlfriends, relationships, startups

I have a simple answer to the question of why Silicon Valley is the hub for all things startupy (I swear it’s a real word…). While this answer is probably glaringly obvious to those in the SF Bay area, those who have never been here (such as myself less than 2 months ago) seem a lot less likely to realize it. It’s the density of important people.

In the last few months I have met a ridiculously large number of entrepreneurs: everyone from CEOs of multi-billion-dollar conglomerates to immensely successful businesspeople-turned-investors to tons of everyday (and I use the term very loosely, because most of these people are anything but “everyday”) startup founders. I’ve received 2 or 3 job offers, had so many famous names thrown at me that I can only hope to remember a few of them. It’s been immensely awe-inspiring. How many people with such influence have I met on Long Island or in Pittsburgh? A few at best (no offense Luis). It’s a more advanced case of the Infinite Monkey Theorem. If you put a thousand entrepreneurs in a room with a thousand computers, you will almost surely wind up with a thousand successful startups, while one entrepreneur is less likely to produce one startup in isolation. To put it more succinctly:

The number of brilliant ideas increases exponentially with the number of brilliant people.

Funny how that works, isn’t it?

krausz's law, silicon valley, startups