Find Your People

> I don't blame the kids, they don't know any better. They've spent their whole life focusing on the next goal.

No, they spent their whole lives being sheltered. Let's call it what it is. These people were on tracks because they were put on tracks from a young age and told that the track leads somewhere, and any questioning of the tracks was often met with a harsh rebuke. They didn't play outside with the neighborhood kids, they were at soccer practice. They didn't get a summer job at a shitty fast food joint, they were doing summer school or learning piano. Everything they've done from start to finish has been curated. Of course when the track ends abruptly it's catastrophic.

Independence, curiosity, and self-quesitoning and awareness are often not taught because "getting ahead" is more important.

i think its interesting that for so many college kids, the post-graduation options that continue to provide tracks are also treated as the more "prestigious" options (go to grad school. work at big3/faang, etc).

it's not because they are any more prestigious or important, but because they provide a clear sense of achievement/external validation and kids that make it to the end of college are kids that have had decades of achievement/external validation being their primary measure of success.

and because of that, those places do an amazing job recruiting. i remember toward the end of my undergrad days there was huge sense of competition to get a "teach for america" position, even among folks with no interest in education. it was appealing simply because it was selective and provided a clear framework for 'next steps'.

The first bit is too similar to what a typical college kid would go through in India.

My assumption was that this would NOT be the case in the USA. You hear about kids dropping out and starting startups, or people just skipping college to work on what they like, or kids joining trade schools to get into welding.

Isn't this the norm in the USA / most of the developed world ?? Your comment confirms the same thing.. you dropped out..That's all I read and see everywhere about America, that you are free to take decisions like this (and often encouraged)

It feels odd to think to that kids in the USA are on a somewhat fixed train track, when there are so many opportunities + freedom + less judgement overall in the society.

I think it is easier and more obvious for kids from poorer families to figure it out they need to look around and try hard to earn some money. Do you need a laptop? Well you better earn some money to get one. Kids that get everything provided by parents often end up hopelessly lost when time to become independent comes.

Interesting, too, how many institutions are very willing to jump in and put you back on an endless subway train. e.g. graduate school, postdoc, junior faculty, assistant professor, full professor...the ride never ends!

Very true and a good social circle consisting of people with ambitions and aspirations helps too. I remember back when we were in college, freshman year we formed a circle of some sort and moved to apartments next to each other for the sophomore year. My roommate in this setup out of the blue got an internship at a big company in the Bay Area, surprised all of us in this group. He was getting paid a really large amount per hour and at that point we didn't even know this was possible. That made us all realize that this is a thing and the job fairs from that point on weren't going to be bullshit like other events before. People were coming in with actual intent to hire, and were ready to pay interns a lot of money. And we saw once these people made friends in these internships and demonstrated themselves, they got hired through internal priority queues. We did the same, applied to places, interviewed, got flown for in person interviews. Got internships, and then those turned into full time offers. Everyone in my friend group had an internship from a well known company and had offers by the time they were graduating.

And then there was the other kind. It's not like we didn't enjoy our college days or go out to party more than we should. It's not like we studied extra. It was just this one guy in our friend group that did what he did, we saw what he did and got the message it was time and anything after that would be unnecessarily risking it.

The Full Time Employment crowd is the people who continue the tracks.

Chilling by the watercooler, being paid for 8 hours a day with health insurance etc. while working 2 hours a day and/or bitching about your job. Or just enjoying life after work.

These people would be as much at home in Soviet Russia as they would in today’s USA. They want more security. The EU has become the new USSR for this. Lots of protections.

It’s what people want. They don’t actually want the AI disruption. But it’s coming because their employers don’t care what they want.

However if you claim to love capitalism and hate socialism, or whatever, then get a taste of it. Go hunting in the market for clients. Go spar and learn sales skills. Build your own company and service your own clients.

Or let the employer do it for you. But then you are just like a renter, not an owner — except on the supply side of the economy. And they may rent your time… for now.

The “American Dream” btw has become about renting money from banks — to finish college, to pay the mortgage on that house, etc. But the cost of all of it has gone up much more than your grandparents. It is just indentured servitude with a choice of landlords. At the end of the day, they want you to rent the money from banks to create demand for the money, so you can work for 30 years and pay it off. But the AI will break even that social contract.

Jobs will be going down

Entrepreurship will be going up

Find your people. And in the sense of getting a team of loyal badasses together. Build something new. Use AI. Don’t let your employer tell you how to use AI or use it to replace you.

> Lots of people who learn to do this cause lots of chaos and destruction in their wake.

At the same time, lots of people who do this end up being extremely successful.

The difficulty is knowing which rejection and criticism to ignore. Imagine losing out on a multi-billion dollar business because your initial pitch was dismissed by people saying your business is pointless and redundant because rsync already exists[0].

On the flip side, there's a lot of founders who... have more determination than experience, let's say, and when told their idea won't work, instead of using factual data points (or getting an MVP out to collect data points) operate purely on belief until they run out of money.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863

"Immune to rejection" and "consider all criticism" are both useful but much, much harder than doing one or the other reliably. Lots of assholes are immune to rejection and a lot of doormats consider all criticism. Doing both means you keep your ears open but are resolute (and maybe delusional) about a few core ideals. And maybe even those change with criticism.

There is a reason you see lots of asshole business owners and not many doormats, though - you need to filter criticism or it will always screw you up in the end. Accepting criticism can help you course-correct and produce better/happier, but isn't a requirement for success.

She co-founded it, didn’t she? Created it to operationalize her ideas, which, from the sound of her speech, confused people around her at the time? Or am I misunderstanding what you’re asking?

> When we started Y Combinator, everyone treated it as a joke. We were funding kids right out of college and only giving them small amounts of money. How could these startups ever succeed? Now everyone knows it's a good idea to fund young founders, but twenty years ago, it just seemed lame. But we didn't care what people thought of us. We knew we were onto something. In fact it was good that we seemed lame, because that meant it took several years before people started to copy us.

I don’t know about her but when I found what I really actually liked, I looked forward it every day, no matter what challenge it gave me.

And it’s still the same excitement every day 5, 10, etc. years later.

I suppose I’m saying is that when you find it, you know.

Every time I'm assisting those Ama/MS/Apple labels for their rate race I want to cringe so hard to be honest.

Startups might be the new SDE1 while trying to do stuff outside of capitalism might be the new startup.

Not in terms of financial reward of course. But in terms of rewarding career off the beaten path.

Personally while I want to do a startup I am finding the boring path you mention quite fascinating!

There is a bit of a transition period; you have a lot more choice about what classes you're going to take in college than prior to that for example, and you're to a large degree choosing your own path there. But graduating is still the end of a structured path that you've been in nearly your whole life, so I think it's always going to feel pretty abrupt subjectively despite the fact that you have been acclimated a little bit over time.

Say more.

I suspect very strongly that we live in a "post-community" world. There are no communities, and haven't been for a very long time, likely since before your grandparents were in their prime. We have any number of entities that function as surrogate communities, but without the benefits the real thing would provide. Quite often though, they have many of the disadvtanges of those, plus a few extra.

The community you're most aligned with, that you rush into hoping to feel as if you fit in, it might be more like an angler fish just waiting for you to jump into its jaws.

As Kermit the Frog in his Maryland commencement speech said, Jim Henson took people for "what they are":

https://www.youtube.com/live/hLFa8zGeotI?feature=shared&t=74...

Do NOT "fake it until you make it". Be yourself. And find people who accept you as you are.

> or the mediocre advice of an overbearing parent

For what it's worth, I teach my students not to listen to their parents, because while most parents want the best for their children, without doubt, their assumptions are typically outdated, and were probably already wrong when they were young.

As a south asian person, I could not agree more.

The irony is that my parents were immigrant entrepreneurs and my grandparents were also entrepreneurs on both sides. Yet my parents pushed me towards medical school or a stable job at the least.

I think this was for a couple reasons:

1. Asian parents express their insecurities through their children. They wanted a stable and high income (which maps to "doctor") so they push their kids to become the version of them they never were.

2. Asian parents treat their children like status symbols. Nothing says "I am the best parent" than being able to say "my son/daughter is a doctor." Saying 'my son/daughter owns their own business" just does not have the same ring to it.

In asian cultures, status and conformity are very valuable, and those do not map to high agency.

I mostly agree with you, as a person who went to a middle-of-the-road public school.

I will point out though, anecdotally, my spouse went to the highest tier of public school in our city. She has a good balance of "seeing the world for what it is" while also having an edge of being personally networked to a ton of folks who are rich, well-connected, and capable.

I look at the friend groups I built when I was a kid, and then I look at hers.

- My old friend groups are all stuck in a range of poverty to lower-middle-class.

- My spouses friends are all doing very well for themselves, live all over the world, prestigious careers, active hobbies, highly intellectual, cultured, etc.

It's a stark contrast.

There is something to be said for ensuring your kids go to the best schools possible. Those early networks are pivotal in forming an above average life.

Competency is secondary to connection.

Having thought about this a good amount and collected anecdotes over the years... I think the prioritization order should be (1) live in a location in which the parents feel their most authentic/happy/self-actualized selves, (2) send your children to the most geographically proximate school where they won't be (overly-)bullied for their identity (inclusive of class) one way or another.

Relative school quality (performance on standardized tests, admissions to fancy schools), and public/private are proxies for these more fundamental issues. Too many parents discount the value of (1) to zero, with the idea that they're "sacrificing themselves" "for their kids".

An example of one good reason to not send your kids to private school: Burning yourself out on a series of high-stress job to afford sending your middle-class kid to an upper-class private school will traumatize them. If not for their education/social experience at school, then for your lack of calming and positive influence on their emotional/relationship-forming lives.

I don't think it's necessarily "wrong" for some people to send their kids to a "narrow-lens" school, even if it's often wrong. It can be right for somebody else and wrong for you.

Aside from the pure “networking” factor, the expectations/environment are a big deal too

I went to private school and in hindsight it pretty obviously altered my life for the better — I was a smart but lazy kid, and being surrounded by people who were dead-set on going to Harvard, and by teachers who expected excellence, was a huge factor in making me actually try hard.

If I was a smart lazy kid at a school where I had to try to find that environment, rather than being thrust into it, I would have had a much lower trajectory.

Agree that a wide diversity of people is great. Disagree on the private school - it is a narrow band, but so is public school. I think ppl overestimate the diversity in public school and underestimate it in private school.

Neither is enough - def need to find ways to expand kids network, especially the network of adults they know.

A wide perspective is good, but that is orthogonal to what they experience as normal. You can select for a good, healthy normal AND provide a wide experience.

Your child doesn’t have to attend a school where educational attainment isn’t valued, to understand that perspective exists.

Their “normal” will strongly influence their choices. For example, if you wanted your child to attend college, I would argue the single best way to ensure they do is to enroll them in a high school where 90%+ of the student body later goes on to college.

> The best thing to give kids is access to a very wide—as wide as they can stomach—orientation of all there is in the world.

This sounds good sure, but what if you give your child a wide orientation and they want to be an influencer, or club promoter, or grind it out in acting? They almost certainly won't want to become an accountant or nurse. Who would want to do that by choice?

But maybe an accountant or nurse is the path to a good life. The extreme is celebrity children which often have issues.

I think its good to have restraints. If you have an infinite bank roll and no real forcing function, you're likely to get lost

I don't think anybody would argue that it's a narrower lens than public school, the argument is that it's better. Not just academically, although that's the case 99 times out of 100. But as you alluded to yourself in this very comment, the kids at private schools get access to other kids (and families) at that private school.

As someone who wishes they could realistically afford private school for their kids (public school leaves a lot to be desired for 'gifted' kids these days), I think you've got good points but I land on the other side. Using some of your quotes: private school is "a narrow lens", but that lens likely includes a high percentage of the "rich get richer" network. I think my ideal would be private school to help find a better match for my kids' brainpower (2 of them anyway, tbd on #3 :D) and make some good high-value connections, but still make a conscious effort to encourage them to interact with a wider variety of people (through travel, public sports teams, community service, etc.)

I think its important to think about this point in the context that Jessica attended one of the most elite private schools in the US, Phillips Academy, with an annual tuition that is currently ~60kUSD/year. Notable alumni include both Bush presidents, and many billionaires or their children. Afterwards she attended Bucknell University, another private elite institution, tuition ~65kUSD/year, where the median family income is > 200kUSD/year, and 73% of the student body is from the top 20% income bracket.

So its important to "find your people", but as always it's as important to situate advice in the context where the advice-giver issues it from, and in this case Jessica has spent her entire life as an elite, finding other elites in elite circles, and I'm going to hazard a guess that this is probably something that has had a positive impact on her life.

I think your friends are probably on to something, realizing that you're responsible for helping to guide your child as they grow up has a way of crystalizing certain arguments, and various "hypotheticals" fall by the wayside as the attraction of an intellectual experiment and being the devil's advocate just doesn't really have the same pull anymore once it's your own child's future at stake and not just some thought experiment about "volumes and contrasts". As always people are free to make their own choices, and even listen to a speech from someone who was able have almost $200,000 of money spent on their high-school education, a speech about how to plan your career that is big on "gumption" and "stick to it" energy, and surprisingly short on "be born in the top 1% of economic circles", but given that this is a speech at the aforementioned Bucknell, I am pretty sure that most of the crowd is already pretty hip to the realities of the world they're about to enter.

You may die younger but is slaving away in an office to make money for someone else for most of your waking hours really living?

Care to explain what IB, PE, and HF mean?

I generally agree but strictly speaking I don't think this was yet another canned "chase-your-dream" speech. She went out of her way to elucidate who this was for, and it's ambitious people that are aimlessly coasting.

When you're young, particularly in tech, taking some swings (like with a startup) and not succeeding isn't a long-term detriment. It's a good experience that can help you land other jobs in the worst case.

Which is to say, not all dream-chasing is created equal. If you want to play music, then you need to do a cost-benefit analysis: you will probably not sustain yourself very long, will probably want a dayjob and/or an out at some point, and this is an opportunity cost vs early career traction. If one's ambition only begins and ends with that, then it won't matter so much if what you end up with is "just a job" with lower income potential. All depends on what you're ok with.

The common anecdote is trying to make the big leagues. But consider another: some elite athletes train for years ahead of the Olympics, and then it's all over and they never do it again (most often). Are they screwed? Well it arguably demonstrates discipline and grit and might look impressive on a resume. The lives of ex-Olympians go on. By the same token, someone who never makes the NBA or whatever can get a scholarship ride anyway (which compared to the cost of lifelong training, might be a small victory).

Sometimes optimizing for the early career/education ladder-jumping isn't the "correct" move. But I think it's important that young people understand what's probably at stake

I came here to leave a comment related to this. This article has great advice, if you're normal enough that enough of "your people" exist to be able to find them and do something together.

But if you've spent your whole life being told by the whole world--even people you thought were really interesting and wanted to get to know--that you're "just too fucking weird," it lands more like, "Oh. More advice for other people."

Similarly, if you're a person who likes all kinds of things--but only for 6 weeks to 6 months and then becomes utterly bored of them--there is no stable group of "your people." There's just "these people, for now, I guess," and you hold them lightly because you know in a matter of months, when you don't share the passion for the one thing they're stably obsessed with, you won't have enough in common anymore for them to tolerate you.

I'm almost 40. I'm really at a decision point where I have to decide if I want to keep working on my underlying trauma wounds, in hopes that if I just work hard enough, I'll eventually break into the "fun kind of odd" category instead of "too fucking weird," and blend in enough to have "people," or whether I want to own that this is just how I am, and there's nothing to be done about it, so I should really do what I can to appreciate the fleeting tolerance of "people who don't know me very well yet" while it lasts, but invest most of my energy in trying to figure out if there's any way to be both happy and lonely.

One single speech might not do it. However, a short anecdote. Several years ago, while sitting through a training on first aid and cpr on infants, I was bored out of my mind and complaining internally about how this was a waste of time, yet another rehash of common sense. When suddenly it hit me - no, this was not common sense. I had been taught these things repeatedly ever since I was twelve. I didn’t retain all of it after the first time, the second, or the third. But eventually, it was just common sense to me. I couldn’t always tell you where I learned it, or describe the textbook medical guidance. Why is it done precisely this way, who knows, but obviously this exact grip is how you hold the infant while delivering back blows.

The main "trick" here was moving to where the next center of power was going to be and meeting the right people through hard work (but really the main differentiator) sheer luck.

> Ms. Livingston graduated around when I did. I can't think of anything that I (or she) did to launch a career, either pre- or post-graduation that would be applicable to someone graduating today.

Really? Not a single thing? Not "work hard," or "be curious," or "be willing to fail or be wrong?" Those aren't genetic qualities, they can be taught and they can be learned.

I don't know when you graduated but I've been working professionally for nearly 2 decades now and I heard the same thing when I graduated - about how it was so much easier just 5, 10, 15 years prior, how I was in for a real battle, how I had an insurmountable amount of debt given my earnings prospects. And yes it was hard but I survived - I could have made smarter decisions to make it easier, I could have made worse decisions and ended up a barista in my late 30s. On a systemic level it might be harder now, it might not be. But they will survive as all previous generations have and will continue to.

There seems to be a bimodal distribution in people 20-30 years post-college discussing today's graduates. It's either "these kids are so lazy noboDY wAntS To WorK ANYMore just have a firm handshake" nonsense, or "these children will be wage slaves forever and it is undeniably the fault of capitalism/AI/Musk/whatever boogeyman."

I think it was hard when I started out. I think it's probably a little harder now. That doesn't mean it's any more of a "dog eat dog capitalist slugfest" than it was 10, 20, 30 years prior.

This is the kind of comment that the newest HN guideline is designed to discourage:

"Don't be curmudgeonly." - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

What counts as being curmudgeonly? Here's one heuristic: if a comment is flying close to the planet "Everything is worse than it used to be," then it probably is.

There's also this one, btw: "Please don't fulminate." - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Also: the “find your people” advice would be far more helpful at the beginning of college so you can maximize the various high-leverage opportunities around you.

What would you tell the graduating students?

I have no idea, but personally after 30 years of IT work, I definitely regret not finding something to strengthen my hands. They're barely useful for anything besides typing, and often not even that.

I don’t know, but I’ve made a specific effort not to rock climb because I felt it may cause long term hand related injuries which could impact my ability to work.

Not even sure how well founded that fear is, but I would otherwise love to do rock climbing.