

Ask HN: Any SF startups care to trade housing for as much help as I can provide? - bengo

I am a 19 year-old enigma.<p>Two years ago, at the end of high school, I appeared to most as a stereotypical, midwestern, suburban, teenage pupil. My GPA was well over 4.0, I was taking 5 AP courses, I'd just scored a 35 on my ACT and a 2240/1500 on the SAT. I was the founder of a robotics club and officer in several more. I was hardly nerdy. Perhaps geeky was a better word. My decent looks, charisma, and probably unwarranted confidence meant I got along with everyone, including the 'popular kids' and mentored a lot the younger 'not-so-popular' ones. Things were looking up. I applied to Harvard, MIT, Stanford, etc. Competition is tough these days, so I honestly wasn't surprised to not be accepted. I went to the nearby big state University.<p>Perhaps because of the drudgery of this environment, or (more likely) because of the hatred of arbitrariness and general behavioral oddities that I share with many hacker-types, I did not thrive academically in this environment. In short, I fucked up and dropped out.<p>In the third grade, I was the one setting up the school's computers. Freshman year of high school, a friend introduced me to Linux. With the previously mentioned robotics club, I was introduced to programming (Java, bleh). Like many others, I got caught up in the big Ruby on Rails growth around 2005ish. My first year of college, I worked as a sysadmin under some very skilled, if old-school, folks. I spent last Summer traveling the world and thinking hard. Eventually I took another job as a Django web developer. I went to PyCon this year and it was heavenly.<p>I have an engineer's brain, but a romantic poet's heart. I'm not religious in any way. In fact, I'm a devout rationalist. As such, it's sometimes hard for me to find motivation in anything other than learning cool stuff and, more commonly, making other people happy. Even in development or entrepreneurship, my kick comes almost exclusively from sitting down next to a user and just seeing the glint in his or her eye as I ask "If you could have this site/process/system/experience be any way you wanted it to be, what would you do?". Most people are so used to annoying, convoluted user experiences and it honestly fucking kills me. Anyway, that's how I operate.<p>I want to move to the bay area. Partly because I have good friends from my worldwide trip there. Partly because my older, more successful, managerial-type sister is soon moving there to get into VC. Mostly because there's no hope of anything other than a dead-end corporate sysadmin job where I'm from. I want to build awesome things that help people in ways they didn't even know they could be helped. I want to dump all my time into something just so the occasional person says, "Oh man, you built  blahblahblah. Dude. Thanks. Good job." and then make it a thousand times better.<p>I'm young, debtless, and, unlike the rest of my family, I have no real interest in material things. All I want is a safe place to live, the ability to buy groceries to cook awesome food with, and the occasional cool gadget or book. Friends and knowledge provide me with more happiness than a shopping spree ever could.<p>So my question is: Are there any startups or hopeful founders that would like to kick ass together in SF? I will pour everything I have into building something awesome that makes the lives of others even slightly better. I love the idea living in the same place as my teammates, always bouncing ideas off of each other, learning new things, and creating something great. If you or your startup can provide me with a room/couch or a fair enough wage that I can sleep, eat, and slowly save up a bit to go back to school, these are the technical skills I can contribute:
* Linux/Windows/Mac proficiency and administration
* Familiarity with C++, Ruby, Python, Java, PHP, HTML, CSS, Javascript (incl but not limited to jQuery)
* Spent some time learning Actionscript (meh) and Objective-C (would like to do more with iOS if given opportunity)
* Decent design eye and familiarity with Adobe CS
* Most importantly, I know how to learn new things stupidly fast. I'm of at least average intelligence (see test scores above), and simply don't hit conceptual or mental barriers. I feel like this is pretty useful. If I'm not sufficiently good at something above now, I can be within a week or two.<p>I'm also great with nontechnical things. My writing skills shouldn't be lacking. My mother, a legal writing professor, made sure of that. Perhaps more than anything else, I'm good with people. I have a history in sales. I'm straightforward, honest, and a great listener (giving a damn about others helps). People respect me because I respect them. I take constructive criticism with enthusiasm, and dish it out with understanding and tact. Public speaking has never been a problem with me. I have a lot to say, and I know how to say it.<p>I think I can significantly help some young startup or group of people with high aspirations. I'm probably more qualified on paper to do technical things, but I'd like to help all over the place. I want to add features, talk to users, schmooz investors, and tell others how fucking awesome what I'm working on is, and I want to make sure it really is that excellent.<p>So. Does this sound appealing to anyone? Would anyone just like to tell me how crazy I am?<p>Go for it.
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btmorex
Honestly, seems like you're selling yourself short. If I were you, I'd just
apply to jobs regularly. Make some kind of cool demo ruby on rails (or
whatever) site and then play up the fact that you learn fast in your resume.

Of course, I've never been in a hiring position and 99 times/100 I'd choose
the person who learns quickly over the person who already knows.

~~~
bengo
I'll likely end up doing this. At least, that's the plan. Right now I'm just
waiting until my lease is up at the end of July to go anywhere. This is the
first 'feeler' I've put out just to see if anyone is awesome and helpful
enough to take a chance on me. If nothing works out, I'll just be submitting
resumes.

I'm nervous that I won't look that great on paper, at least compared to recent
Stanford grads and whatnot that are clearly more qualified. On paper, all I've
got on them is that I'll work for cheap. I'm on of those people you kind of
just have to meet, or at least I'd like to think so. If I can sit down across
from someone, I'm confident I can make them excited to work with me.

~~~
btmorex
I had basically the same SATs except I dropped out of high school. I still got
a job at 17 for 30k/year which adjusted for inflation + san francisco wages is
like 60k+/year.

At this point you can't compete with Stanford grads. The great thing is that
there aren't that many Stanford grads (or mit, cmu, etc.) You don't even have
to compete with them to get a decent job.

Worst case, work QA for a year in a position where you can code as part of
your job, but you don't need to code to be hired.

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kochbeck
Interesting idea. Not a bad one, necessarily, but you'd need to wrap some more
requirements about what you want to get and your personal parameters. I could
actually use someone with your skills, but I want to be clear what you want to
get. Hit me at my email in my profile if you want to chat!

~~~
bengo
I'd love to get in contact with you. Perhaps I'm just a useless noob, but I
don't see an email in your HN profile. I think HN hides the email your provide
it, as it's only used for password resets. There's an address you can reach me
at in my 'about' section.

Thanks for your response.

