> I followed my heart. The universe took care of me.
Survivorship bias. Other people have followed their hearts and the universe didn't take care of them, but their posts aren't likely to be posted on HN and upvoted to the front page.
Usually, I too think survivor bias. However, in this case, his action seemed to be a no-brainer. This was 1999 - not 2008 to 2012. I had just graduated from undergrad with a CS degree and was very naive. Yet, I had companies and groups within companies fighting over me.
So ... he was in a hot job market, had a bad boss, a job where he didn't seem to be learning anything and a low salary. The course of action seems pretty clear to me. I don't think he needed "Jeff Bezos'" call to action to help him on this one. Quitting less than 2 months into a job does seem harsh (not sure if I'd do it) - if he waited a year or so, the tech boom would be over and then things would be different. So, perhaps he did get lucky with the timing.
I think it's much better to quit 6 weeks in than 6 months in. When I'm looking at resumes, a very short stay tells me it just didn't work out. It happens.
I think it's also ok to just leave something like that off the resume. Especially after you've had some other job.
But if you're there for a substantial amount of time (say, 3 months or more) that's harder to explain, and I think you need to keep it on your resume for a lot longer.
Yeah, I was in a similar situation with dickhead managers around 99. It was hilarious how much they thought the engineers had to put up with their bs in that type of job market; I had recruiters tracking down and leaving messages on my work phone there. Serving my notice at that dump was one of the highlights of the 90s for me.
There's this great line, though, in the Saga of King Hrolf Kraki (the saga, not the fantasy novel version) where Hvitserk and his brothers want to leave home and their father is worried, and one of them says (in the Byock translation) something to the effect that "if we don't try, we will not know which way our luck will fall."
Who cares about survivorship bias? If we don't try, we will not know which way our luck will fall. I'd rather thy and fail, and try and fail again and again than condemn myself to mediocrity on the basis of fear of failure.
I agree that it's better to be struggling to do something that you love than hating doing something you find boring ("I'd rather fight and die on my feet than live on my knees" or some such.) but you're also asking people around you to make a sacrifice.
I have heard this but I guess I don't see it. I don't think you can succeed without taking risks, and i don't think you can succeed without failing, sometimes big-time. Indeed I think failure is more often than not, a stage on the road to success.
As for family, it's true that there will always be people who don't have an appetite for risk. However, I also think that if you build risk mitigation strategies into your family unit then the family can become a bit of a safety net, rather than something that drags everyone down. This may not be possible in all environments but I think it is often possible enough with a little creativity, that it can be done.
For example, when I am making money, my wife's income is strictly used to purchase luxuries, or saved. When I am not making money, that's a safety net. Similarly when she's not making money but I am we can live ok. But we can't do this without economizing in a lot of areas and being aware of risk.
I'm one of them. The crummy job I left? The "universe" wasn't "taking care of me" there either. The deficits were vaguer and harder to see than the financial deficits, but they were just as real, maybe more important, and certainly more confusing.
Leaving was recognition that the universe was indifferent to the whole matter and I had best figure out how to take myself. I'm a lot closer to that then I ever would have been there. And I've wasted a lot less time on anxiety and resentment over things I couldn't control or understand.
I agree with the narrative that quitting a job, starting a job/business may seem harder than we initially think (because of some irrational fears) but, survivorship bias is exactly right. The universe only takes care of you if the right parameters are in place – and chances are, those parameters took a bit of work.
I cringed at the "universe took care of me" bit because I find that those who are most vulnerable to hardship or uncertainty tend to have this take on life. The author made an educated decision. The universe didn't even know the decision was being made.
The universe tends to favor people born fortunate enough to be in a position to earn an MBA. Indeed, just being able to live and work in the US is evidence that life could easily have been worse.
Other people quit jobs they hated, got worse jobs. Quit those, perhaps worse or perhaps better. But eventually they found a job they liked. And they stayed there.
Except that plenty of people never find a job they like. They're stuck working at Burger King or some menial office admin job, and they hate it. They are, in general, not hanging out on HN or blogging about their amazing experiences wheeling and dealing their MBA cred. Hence the bias.
And, in anticipation of the standard reply on this, we cannot assume such people don't also have MBAs or PhDs in Social sciences. The cards just don't fall right every time. To paraphrase another HN discussionf from a few days back, a series of fortunate accidents allow certain people to become wildly (or at least comfortably) successful. The same chain of accidents, playing out differently for others, draw them in the other direction.
If there is a second, standard reply to this idea, it usually has to do with inherited ability (or innate talent) versus disease. So we should also explicitly not assume the people I'm describing have any such disabilities. Those would be additional forces, but plently of able, coherent people never nail a full-on life-hack, in the long-term.
Comments
> I followed my heart. The universe took care of me.
Survivorship bias. Other people have followed their hearts and the universe didn't take care of them, but their posts aren't likely to be posted on HN and upvoted to the front page.
Usually, I too think survivor bias. However, in this case, his action seemed to be a no-brainer. This was 1999 - not 2008 to 2012. I had just graduated from undergrad with a CS degree and was very naive. Yet, I had companies and groups within companies fighting over me.
So ... he was in a hot job market, had a bad boss, a job where he didn't seem to be learning anything and a low salary. The course of action seems pretty clear to me. I don't think he needed "Jeff Bezos'" call to action to help him on this one. Quitting less than 2 months into a job does seem harsh (not sure if I'd do it) - if he waited a year or so, the tech boom would be over and then things would be different. So, perhaps he did get lucky with the timing.
I think it's much better to quit 6 weeks in than 6 months in. When I'm looking at resumes, a very short stay tells me it just didn't work out. It happens.
I think it's also ok to just leave something like that off the resume. Especially after you've had some other job.
But if you're there for a substantial amount of time (say, 3 months or more) that's harder to explain, and I think you need to keep it on your resume for a lot longer.
Yeah, I was in a similar situation with dickhead managers around 99. It was hilarious how much they thought the engineers had to put up with their bs in that type of job market; I had recruiters tracking down and leaving messages on my work phone there. Serving my notice at that dump was one of the highlights of the 90s for me.
Hindsight is 20/20
There's this great line, though, in the Saga of King Hrolf Kraki (the saga, not the fantasy novel version) where Hvitserk and his brothers want to leave home and their father is worried, and one of them says (in the Byock translation) something to the effect that "if we don't try, we will not know which way our luck will fall."
Who cares about survivorship bias? If we don't try, we will not know which way our luck will fall. I'd rather thy and fail, and try and fail again and again than condemn myself to mediocrity on the basis of fear of failure.
> Who cares about survivorship bias?
The family of the person doing the trying?
I agree that it's better to be struggling to do something that you love than hating doing something you find boring ("I'd rather fight and die on my feet than live on my knees" or some such.) but you're also asking people around you to make a sacrifice.
not to mention the effect it has the person herself. The impact on outlook, happiness and aptitude for risk in the future.
I have heard this but I guess I don't see it. I don't think you can succeed without taking risks, and i don't think you can succeed without failing, sometimes big-time. Indeed I think failure is more often than not, a stage on the road to success.
As for family, it's true that there will always be people who don't have an appetite for risk. However, I also think that if you build risk mitigation strategies into your family unit then the family can become a bit of a safety net, rather than something that drags everyone down. This may not be possible in all environments but I think it is often possible enough with a little creativity, that it can be done.
For example, when I am making money, my wife's income is strictly used to purchase luxuries, or saved. When I am not making money, that's a safety net. Similarly when she's not making money but I am we can live ok. But we can't do this without economizing in a lot of areas and being aware of risk.
I'm one of them. The crummy job I left? The "universe" wasn't "taking care of me" there either. The deficits were vaguer and harder to see than the financial deficits, but they were just as real, maybe more important, and certainly more confusing.
Leaving was recognition that the universe was indifferent to the whole matter and I had best figure out how to take myself. I'm a lot closer to that then I ever would have been there. And I've wasted a lot less time on anxiety and resentment over things I couldn't control or understand.
I agree with the narrative that quitting a job, starting a job/business may seem harder than we initially think (because of some irrational fears) but, survivorship bias is exactly right. The universe only takes care of you if the right parameters are in place – and chances are, those parameters took a bit of work.
I cringed at the "universe took care of me" bit because I find that those who are most vulnerable to hardship or uncertainty tend to have this take on life. The author made an educated decision. The universe didn't even know the decision was being made.
The universe tends to favor people born fortunate enough to be in a position to earn an MBA. Indeed, just being able to live and work in the US is evidence that life could easily have been worse.
I don't see how this is survivorship bias.
Other people quit jobs they hated, got worse jobs. Quit those, perhaps worse or perhaps better. But eventually they found a job they liked. And they stayed there.
Good for him. It's a good story.
Except that plenty of people never find a job they like. They're stuck working at Burger King or some menial office admin job, and they hate it. They are, in general, not hanging out on HN or blogging about their amazing experiences wheeling and dealing their MBA cred. Hence the bias.
And, in anticipation of the standard reply on this, we cannot assume such people don't also have MBAs or PhDs in Social sciences. The cards just don't fall right every time. To paraphrase another HN discussionf from a few days back, a series of fortunate accidents allow certain people to become wildly (or at least comfortably) successful. The same chain of accidents, playing out differently for others, draw them in the other direction.
If there is a second, standard reply to this idea, it usually has to do with inherited ability (or innate talent) versus disease. So we should also explicitly not assume the people I'm describing have any such disabilities. Those would be additional forces, but plently of able, coherent people never nail a full-on life-hack, in the long-term.
Adding "your mileage may vary" (YMMV) to the end of that sentence might not have been quite as poetic. I'm ok with that.
So he reads The Secret? If so, I guess I don't need to read the post.