Career
43 notes, 4 favorites. Often alongside agency, life and thinking.
Start here · 32 min
- Useful and Overlooked Skills★(favorite)Morgan Housel · 4 min
Housel argues that some of the most valuable skills get little credit, like tolerating hassle you can't control and noticing how much wanting something shapes what you believe.
- The Mathematical Reason Most People Never "Make It"★(favorite)Kaguura Gichuru · 8 min
Gichuru uses Price's Law, where the square root of a group does half the work, to argue for producing in volume, finding the few posts and skills that matter, and doubling down on them.
- Searching for outliers★(favorite)Ben Kuhn · 20 min
Kuhn argues that jobs, hires, relationships, and blog posts follow heavy-tailed distributions, so you should draw many samples, filter for maybe-amazing over probably-good, and expect to fail a lot.
All 43 notes
Hartmann argues that writing is the skill that most expands a senior engineer's impact, and that good writing starts with having a clear message for a specific audience.
Related
- What to care about in a jobBen Kuhn
- Useful and Overlooked SkillsMorgan Housel
- Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More ValuedPatrick McKenzie
- the world doesn’t move because you tell it tosignull
Lamade argues you should give small and unwanted chances your full effort, as Philip Seymour Hoffman did in auditions, William McRaven did with a parade float, and Tom Brady did with two practice reps.
Related
- The Mathematical Reason Most People Never "Make It"Kaguura Gichuru
- Long Range Career AdviceSlava Akhmechet
- On Starting a New JobSlava Akhmechet
- How To Be SuccessfulSam Altman
Housel argues knowledge work often looks lazy because good decisions need quiet thinking time, as Rockefeller, Einstein, and Bill Gates's Think Weeks show, so judge workers by outcomes rather than visible effort.
Related
- Useful and Overlooked SkillsMorgan Housel
- Searching for outliersBen Kuhn
- I Have A Few QuestionsMorgan Housel
- Interview AdviceSlava Akhmechet
Housel argues that some of the most valuable skills get little credit, like tolerating hassle you can't control and noticing how much wanting something shapes what you believe.
Related
- Lazy Work, Good WorkMorgan Housel
- Searching for outliersBen Kuhn
- I Have A Few QuestionsMorgan Housel
- Interview AdviceSlava Akhmechet
McKenzie argues engineers should always negotiate because five minutes can be worth $100k: never name a number first, echo the employer's words, and trade across salary, vacation, and perks.
Related
- Equity is Worth More Than Cash Because of OptionalityPeter Schmidt-Nielsen
- The value of employee equity depends a lot on volatilityDevansh Pandey
- Wall Street Survival 101Joel Spolsky
- Keep Your Personal Burn Rate Low To Maximize Your OptionsHunter Walk
A mechanical way for early-career, non-technical people to pick which startup to join: choose a few criteria, rank them, and use them to filter companies.
Related
- Projects and CompaniesSam Altman
- Advice for ambitious 19 year oldsSam Altman
- Startup options are much better than they lookBen Kuhn
- founding designer, explainedjerry
Blunt advice for new grads: send hard-to-fake signals of competence, get good at Leetcode-style problems and programming tactics, and use your network to get noticed.
Related
- Long Range Career AdviceSlava Akhmechet
- How to Market YourselfShawn Wang
- how to enter side doorsmaja
- Career DecisionsElad Gil
Great candidates are rare and have options, so move fast, pour energy into small gestures and their bigger dreams, and leave compensation for the end.
Related
- Leader v Follower ModeSlava Akhmechet
- Braindump on what made Stripe greatSlava Akhmechet
- how to give feedbackSlava Akhmechet
- How to Work W DesignersSlava Akhmechet
Great designers see the world from a vantage point you can't share, so working with one means building a common language together until the confusion clears.
Related
- On Working with Product ManagersSlava Akhmechet
- How to recruitSlava Akhmechet
- On Starting a New JobSlava Akhmechet
- How to Capture AttentionSlava Akhmechet
In technical interviews, treat small problems like bugs as a normal part of the work: no change of pace, no irritation, no surprise, because composure is what strong performers share.
Related
- Useful and Overlooked SkillsMorgan Housel
- Searching for outliersBen Kuhn
- Lazy Work, Good WorkMorgan Housel
- Be Wary of Imitating High-Status People Who Can Afford to CountersignalRob Henderson
A 10-to-20-year career loop: get in rooms with the most competent people who'll have you, work hard to be reliably useful, and watch for weird asymmetric opportunities.
Related
- Getting a Tech Job Out of CollegeSlava Akhmechet
- On Starting a New JobSlava Akhmechet
- How to Create LuckShawn Wang
- Gradient Descent ValleysSlava Akhmechet
Start a new job by running two threads: solve one small valuable problem fast and keep scaling up, while talking to everyone to understand what they work on and why.
Related
- How to recruitSlava Akhmechet
- How to Work W DesignersSlava Akhmechet
- Long Range Career AdviceSlava Akhmechet
- Gradient Descent ValleysSlava Akhmechet
Altman's 13 principles for outlier success, centered on compounding yourself, near-delusional self-belief, focus, hard work, owning equity instead of selling time, and being driven from within.
Related
- The days are long but the decades are shortSam Altman
- The Strength of Being MisunderstoodSam Altman
- What I Wish Someone Had Told MeSam Altman
- Advice for ambitious 19 year oldsSam Altman
Hunter Walk on why living below your means keeps your options open, letting you take risks and choose work you care about over the highest salary.
Related
- Do It Your WayMorgan Housel
- Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More ValuedPatrick McKenzie
- A Few Thoughts on Spending MoneyMorgan Housel
- How I Think About DebtMorgan Housel
Altman argues you should think of a startup as a project for as long as possible, since low expectations free you to pursue slightly crazy ideas, the way Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Airbnb all began.
Related
- Advice for ambitious 19 year oldsSam Altman
- how to pick the right startup to join [full guide]Christian Levan
- Hard StartupsSam Altman
- Idea GenerationSam Altman
Altman argues college, a job, or a startup can each be right at 19 as long as you build things, stay around smart people, and take the right risks, like joining a breakout company over a higher salary at Microsoft.
Related
- Projects and CompaniesSam Altman
- How things get doneSam Altman
- Value is created by doingSam Altman
- What I Wish Someone Had Told MeSam Altman
"Do what you love" is harder than it sounds; Graham unpacks how to tell real interest from prestige, money, and others' expectations when choosing your work.
Related
- Work Life Balance is ImpossibleNat Eliason
- If you’re not feeling “hell yeah!” then say noDerek Sivers
- Don't be a Career by Steve JobsSteve Jobs
- What Should You Do with Your Life? Directions and AdviceAlexey Guzey
Sivers's talk to incoming Berklee students: six lessons on focus, ignoring distraction, and treating school as an intense training period.
Related
- There’s no speed limitDerek Sivers
- Andrej's advice for successAndrej Karpathy
- Being BadMichael Kaminsky
- Being Generally Capable
Henderson argues you should copy people a little ahead of you rather than stars, since successful people can afford countersignals like humility or not self-promoting that would hurt someone just starting out.
Related
- Useful and Overlooked SkillsMorgan Housel
- Searching for outliersBen Kuhn
- Lazy Work, Good WorkMorgan Housel
- Interview AdviceSlava Akhmechet
Gichuru uses Price's Law, where the square root of a group does half the work, to argue for producing in volume, finding the few posts and skills that matter, and doubling down on them.
Related
- How to be more agenticCate Hall
- Useful and Overlooked SkillsMorgan Housel
- Strong Opinions, Weakly HeldAbraham Thomas
- Risk-takers decide fasterSebastian Bensusan
Uses the hill-climbing algorithm to explain why smart people stay on career paths they don't want, and why moving to the higher hill early beats climbing the wrong one.
Related
- Useful and Overlooked SkillsMorgan Housel
- Searching for outliersBen Kuhn
- Lazy Work, Good WorkMorgan Housel
- Interview AdviceSlava Akhmechet
Applies the investing barbell strategy to everyday life: skip the middle and combine extremes in caffeine, reading, friendships, and writing.
Related
- The Seduction of PessimismMorgan Housel
- Useful and Overlooked SkillsMorgan Housel
- Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More ValuedPatrick McKenzie
- Searching for outliersBen Kuhn
Greenfeld argues curiosity beats spreadsheets, prestige, and money as a guide to what to work on, since excitement is information and fuel, as David Perell found when chasing ambition led him into a writing slump.
Related
- Expansion, always, in all waysJakob Greenfeld
- Progress is not automaticJakob Greenfeld
- Upstream Productivity - or the day you stopped caring about productivity adviceJakob Greenfeld
- Big IDGAF EnergyJakob Greenfeld
Kumar argues that copying successful people like Elon Musk fails because their habits only work in context and survivorship bias hides the rest, so the better bet is to be uniquely yourself.
Related
- A Message From the Past (Thoughts on Nostalgia)Morgan Housel
- Useful and Overlooked SkillsMorgan Housel
- Searching for outliersBen Kuhn
- 40 questions to ask yourself every yearSteph Ango
Eliason argues the word balance sets work against life when work is just one area of life, so the better goal is to integrate health, relationships, fun, and work so each supports the others.
Related
- How to Do What You LovePaul Graham
- If you’re not feeling “hell yeah!” then say noDerek Sivers
- Don't be a Career by Steve JobsSteve Jobs
- What Should You Do with Your Life? Directions and AdviceAlexey Guzey
Schmidt-Nielsen argues a vesting equity grant is a call option paid for with your time, since you can stay if the company does well and quit if it doesn't, so a dollar of equity beats a dollar of cash, especially at startups.
Related
- Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More ValuedPatrick McKenzie
- The value of employee equity depends a lot on volatilityDevansh Pandey
- Wall Street Survival 101Joel Spolsky
- Keep Your Personal Burn Rate Low To Maximize Your OptionsHunter Walk
Vesting plus the option to leave gives startup employees an embedded call option on their equity, so it's worth far more than its face value when outcomes are volatile.
Related
- Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More ValuedPatrick McKenzie
- Equity is Worth More Than Cash Because of OptionalityPeter Schmidt-Nielsen
- Wall Street Survival 101Joel Spolsky
- Keep Your Personal Burn Rate Low To Maximize Your OptionsHunter Walk
Wang argues you can create luck by growing your luck surface area through doing more and telling more people, and maps the four kinds of luck from accidental to magnetic onto habits and strategy.
Related
- How to Market YourselfShawn Wang
- Long Range Career AdviceSlava Akhmechet
- How to Increase Your Luck Surface AreaJason Roberts
- If You Get the ChanceTed Lamade
Wang argues developers can market themselves without becoming celebrities by building a consistent personal brand, claiming a domain to be the go-to person for, and showcasing their work both in public and at work.
Related
- How to Create LuckShawn Wang
- Getting a Tech Job Out of CollegeSlava Akhmechet
- how to enter side doorsmaja
- Career DecisionsElad Gil
Joel Spolsky works through a simple bond puzzle to show how interest rates move bond and stock prices, a basic piece of finance most programmers never learn.
Related
- Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More ValuedPatrick McKenzie
- Equity is Worth More Than Cash Because of OptionalityPeter Schmidt-Nielsen
- The value of employee equity depends a lot on volatilityDevansh Pandey
- Keep Your Personal Burn Rate Low To Maximize Your OptionsHunter Walk
Say no to anything you feel half-hearted about so you have the time and focus to go all in when something exciting comes along.
Related
- How to Do What You LovePaul Graham
- Work Life Balance is ImpossibleNat Eliason
- Don't be a Career by Steve JobsSteve Jobs
- What Should You Do with Your Life? Directions and AdviceAlexey Guzey
Kuhn argues that jobs, hires, relationships, and blog posts follow heavy-tailed distributions, so you should draw many samples, filter for maybe-amazing over probably-good, and expect to fail a lot.
Related
- Useful and Overlooked SkillsMorgan Housel
- Lazy Work, Good WorkMorgan Housel
- Interview AdviceSlava Akhmechet
- Be Wary of Imitating High-Status People Who Can Afford to CountersignalRob Henderson
Ben Kuhn argues the usual complaints about startup pay miss how much stock options are worth once you count the option to leave and the chance of a big outcome.
Related
- Searching for outliersBen Kuhn
- What to care about in a jobBen Kuhn
- Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More ValuedPatrick McKenzie
- how to pick the right startup to join [full guide]Christian Levan
Updating his 2014 job-hunting criteria after years at Wave, Kuhn now ranks fast company growth first, then deep alignment, impact, mentorship, and earned responsibility, while caring little about hard problems or income.
Related
- Searching for outliersBen Kuhn
- Startup options are much better than they lookBen Kuhn
- Useful and Overlooked SkillsMorgan Housel
- Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More ValuedPatrick McKenzie
A guide to judging founding designer offers by the founder, team culture, product, and real scope of the role rather than comp alone, with questions to ask current and former employees before signing.
Related
- how to pick the right startup to join [full guide]Christian Levan
- Before GrowthSam Altman
- Projects and CompaniesSam Altman
- Do Things that Don't ScalePaul Graham
Treating a job as a bundle of problems someone will pay to solve, this guide argues the front door of job boards is crowded, so reach people directly with specific proof or publish work that lets them find you.
Related
- Getting a Tech Job Out of CollegeSlava Akhmechet
- How to Market YourselfShawn Wang
- Career DecisionsElad Gil
- Long Range Career AdviceSlava Akhmechet
Yeo argues the best life-decision rule is to collect bets with capped downside and uncapped upside, act fast on lucky breaks, and double down on what pays off, as when she chose a crypto startup over Google.
Related
- How To Be SuccessfulSam Altman
- Follow CuriosityJakob Greenfeld
- AdvicePatrick Collison
- fun is the only metric that doesn’t liesignull
Patrick Collison's advice to his younger self, broken down by decade of life, starting with going deep on several subjects in your teens.
Related
- How To Be SuccessfulSam Altman
- Follow CuriosityJakob Greenfeld
- Collect as many lottery tickets as you canAda Yeo
- fun is the only metric that doesn’t liesignull
Andrej Karpathy's rules of thumb for doing well in undergrad courses, from skipping all-nighters and starting early to studying actively before exams.
Related
- 6 things I wish I knew the day I started BerkleeDerek Sivers
- There’s no speed limitDerek Sivers
- Being BadMichael Kaminsky
- Being Generally Capable
Elad Gil's framework for choosing your next career step: which factors to overweight, starting with network, and how their importance shifts with your stage of life.
Related
- Getting a Tech Job Out of CollegeSlava Akhmechet
- How to Market YourselfShawn Wang
- how to enter side doorsmaja
- Long Range Career AdviceSlava Akhmechet
An excerpt from Steve Jobs's 1996 Palo Alto High School graduation speech urging students to trust their intuitions about life over goal-driven, materialistic paths.
Related
- How to Do What You LovePaul Graham
- Work Life Balance is ImpossibleNat Eliason
- If you’re not feeling “hell yeah!” then say noDerek Sivers
- What Should You Do with Your Life? Directions and AdviceAlexey Guzey
H.T. Kung's 1987 talk to new Carnegie Mellon Ph.D. students on what research is, what a thesis should accomplish, and how to pick and attack problems.
Related
- 6 things I wish I knew the day I started BerkleeDerek Sivers
- Andrej's advice for successAndrej Karpathy
- You Are NOT Dumb, You Just Lack the PrerequisitesLelouch
- How I ReadRob Henderson
Alexey Guzey's guide for people coasting without a plan, with curated lists of problems worth working on and advice on figuring out what to do next.
Related
- How to Do What You LovePaul Graham
- Work Life Balance is ImpossibleNat Eliason
- If you’re not feeling “hell yeah!” then say noDerek Sivers
- Don't be a Career by Steve JobsSteve Jobs