
Late bloomer, not a loser. (I hope)  - moses1400
http://500hats.com/late-bloomer
======
simonsarris
Well he's not a late bloomer to the vast majority of people.

I think no matter your lot in life, if you're competitive, you get the feeling
that you missed out on a lot that you _could_ have accomplished. Stories of
kids learning programming at 6, or starting companies at 16, etc, feed into
this.

Even I feel like I would be much farther "ahead" if I had only started
programming before high school, if I had been more gung-ho about college, if I
had gone to California in 2010 after graduation instead of remaining in New
Hampshire. I don't even know any programmers in person outside of my work. My
"network" isn't something to put on a pedestal.

And yet by all accounts I live an _extremely_ comfortable life, I wrote enough
to get noticed and get a book deal just two years out of college, my friends
think I'm of superhuman intellect, I'm able to walk to work every day, etc.

I think the kind of worry in this post is a response to the world born out of
hyper-competitiveness, and I don't think its a healthy one. It's not a
positive message, and the events that could turn it into a positive message
for this person, the qualifications for "not being a loser", should never
involve anything five or six sigma from the norm.

Look around you and relax. You've probably already won.

~~~
Udo
I found it difficult to relate to his position. By all accounts, he is already
very successful and, more importantly, financially independent so he has the
freedom to do anything he likes. Labeling that kind of lifestyle as either
"late blooming" or "being a loser" is a gross insult to the _majority_ of
people who are still trying very hard to achieve his level.

By his standards, I'm worth less than a handful of dirt. While I have achieved
some modest level of financial freedom, I didn't do _anything_ as cool as that
guy yet. And if I do some day, I'll remember to be thankful for it instead of
whining publicly about not being Bill Gates.

For some people the realization that you're _never done_ , that there is
always something cooler to do, is apparently very depressing. Personally
though, I'm glad it's that way. As long as you're healthy and capable the
future is wide open. I find this much more inspiring than the idea that
somewhere there is a big cosmic finish line waiting just for you to fall short
of.

~~~
sp332
He doesn't feel successful because he doesn't identify with any of the stuff
he's doing. He always feels like what he's doing is a product of his
environment, or someone else's idea. If he had set out to become a lecturer at
Stanford and definitively achieved it, then he would feel successful. But his
experience is that he stumbled into it, he doesn't feel like that's who he is
or even really what he wants to do. So it doesn't feel like a success, it
feels like a passing accident.

------
neilk
Wow, I sure do hope he finally does that one thing that nobody, absolutely
nobody can deny is important -- something as big as, say, a Twitter knockoff
for the enterprise. Then he'll never have any nagging doubts about himself
ever again.

Hey, far be it from me to criticize someone who's trying to make a mark in the
world. I myself am just past 40, a former child prodigy, not very successful
in Silicon Valley, and still feel I have some creative works in me which are
yet to be realized.

Where I have sincere worries for Dave is that he doesn't seem to have a
specific idea of what would count as success -- other than, maybe, it would be
big enough and impress enough people that it would silence his demons. I don't
know Dave, but I have a strong suspicion that this is also what led him to
slack off at university -- rebelling against this idea that if he isn't the
smartest and most successful, he's nothing. Because it makes every minor
setback a bitter failure, and even success turns to ashes in your mouth.

His mission statement shouldn't be that he wants a better epitaph. Other
people get to write his epitaph, and by that time he'll be fucking dead. It's
out of his control. What is in his control: whether his life was meaningful to
himself. Did it express his unique talents, did it give him and others joy,
did it help others? Did he make his own rules about how to evaluate his life
or was he a slave to the caprices of fame and fortune? And this is about so
much more than just a career.

I think I'll just leave this here. A clip from The Wire.

"The job will not save you."

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b54EEpdv9q8>

~~~
daeken
> Wow, I sure do hope he finally does that one thing that nobody, absolutely
> nobody can deny is important -- something as big as, say, a Twitter knockoff
> for the enterprise. Then he'll never have any nagging doubts about himself
> ever again.

In my experience, the degree to which you're successful has no effect on those
doubts. I've put out a number of highly successful pieces of software, had a
ton of attention in the press (technical and not), etc; I still feel like I'm
largely failing to live up to my abilities, and that I peaked when I was 17.
Maybe I need something hyper-successful that makes me a ton of money, but I
doubt even that will kill the doubts.

At the end of the day, it just comes down to saying "this is what I've done,
and who cares if I could've maybe, possibly done better?" but that's not so
easy.

~~~
wglb
This is really quite germane: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86x-u-tz0MA>.
While she talks about writing, I think it applies to the kind of thing you are
talking about here.

------
Timothee
Oh, rundmc is Dave McClure? I missed that on the first read. Even though I
know he's behind 500Startups, I just didn't even think that he could consider
himself a failure. I started to write a comment saying that "the author" was
far from being that, but now that I realize who the author actually is, I'm
thinking "what?! are you high?".

Anyway, I related _a lot_ to the first few paragraphs (maybe until he was
about the same age I am now actually, which makes me hopeful :) ): I was good
in school, got accepted in the best French engineering school where I
discovered as well that "hard work and regular, consistent effort was also
required". I did not really produce that hard work and consistent effort.

The thing is that I hadn't really thought about what I wanted to do at that
point: HS students that are good in Math and Physics go to Engineering schools
and that's just what I did. Check. But now what?

So I went for Computer Science a bit after eliminating the other options. Then
moved to the US still without thinking in terms of career and what I _really_
wanted to do. This has lead to taking jobs in tech but without enough
consideration to where it would lead me.

So now, after a few years of jobs as "not a developer but something else" and
years doing programming as a hobby after work, I realize that maybe I should
just find a job as a developer. Problem is that companies look at my resume
and it doesn't quite "match" what they're expecting for someone who is that
many years after his master.

Long story short: I, too, feel like a late bloomer that hasn't filled his
expectations from earlier successes. However, I don't run a fund, haven't
worked for successful startups and am not friend with Sean Parker. Does that
make me a failure? No, but I know I can do better. The good news is that I
have 15 years to catch up with you, Dave!

~~~
julien_c
Always good to stumble upon fellow alums from the "best French engineering
school" here on HN :)

~~~
Timothee
I'll say that I tend to be self-conscious about saying "the best school", but
it is what it is, right? And, looking at how little it's been serving me over
here (in the Bay Area), I should at least be able to say it in a random HN
comment… :)

~~~
xilei
No it's not what it is.

~~~
julien_c
Care to elaborate? :)

------
alexkearns
At 33, I was single, penniless and back living with my parents. I had spent my
twenties partying and getting drunk, somehow managing to carve out a career as
a middling journalist during the sober bits. Journalism does not pay well and
I was always teetering over the edge of my overdraft limit.

In my early thirties, I sobered up a little and noticed that my career was
going nowhere. I decided to sack in my reasonably secure job in publishing and
move from Manchester (a provincial city in the UK) to the capital London. Big
mistake. I struggled to get a job, got into debt and, eventually, in
desperation, asked to move in with my parents.

So there was I - a guy who had always valued his independence, who had on
several occasions even mocked people who lived with mum and dad - staying in a
tiny room in his parent's house. I was the epitome of a loser.

I am now nearly 40 and my life situation has improved immeasurably. I am
married to a wonderful lady, I own a house, I have a couple of reasonably
successful projects-cum-start-ups that pay the bills and free me - hopefully
forever - from having to work for someone else. I am not a mega-success on the
world stage but, compared with where I was at 33, I am in a very good
position.

I suppose what I am saying here is that one can bloom at anytime, early in
life or late in life. I would also add that being a programmer (I got a job as
a web developer a couple of years after leaving my parents house) gives one a
far greater chance of financial and business success than if you are involved
in most other professions. Try doing a start-up if all you know is nursing or
stacking shelves.

So we are lucky in that we have a skill that can turn-around our lives at
potentially any time.

~~~
toyg
Are you back in Manchester then?

I personally wouldn't call it "a provincial city" (it's very sparse, but
overall Greater Manchester is home to 3 million people, on par with Birmingham
and Glasgow for the title of "most populous urban conglomerate in the UK" just
behind London); of course it's nothing like the capital, but it does provide a
fairly good lifestyle at a fraction of London prices. There is usually at
least one good restaurant for almost any cuisine you'd care about (except
maybe my beloved Erithrean), and any movie worth watching will be at the
Cornerhouse at some point. Granada/ITV also attracts quite a few glamorous
models, if that's your thing. The only real problem in Manchester is the
depressing weather, but it's not like London is so much better in that regard.

My point is that London is on a scale shared with very few cities around the
world, but that doesn't make all other British cities "provincial" -- some of
them are, some of them are not.

~~~
alexkearns
Not back in Manchester. Still in London. But, yes, Manchester is a great city
with a great culture. I have a fondness for the place that I will never have
for London, and one day may return.

I did not intend to use 'provincial' in any derogatory way but to explain to
non-UK readers that Manchester is in the UK's provinces.

------
prophetjohn
This is kind of inspiring. As someone who wrote their first line of code at 25
and won't be able to shed the "intern" title until I graduate at almost 28,
it's really easy to feel like I screwed myself over by not being where I am
now 5+ years ago. Especially so in an industry where the younger you are the
better and there are stories of people in their 40s having a problem finding
work.

The real kicker is that I actually consider myself a pretty good programmer,
at least for my experience level. As stated, I've been programming for about 2
years and I'm the primary contributor on a project that is deemed to be the
"number one priority" for our application. But how good of a programmer would
I have been had my parents bought me a computer when I was a kid? Or even when
I was a teenager? I didn't even really know I liked computers until I was
around 21 and even if I knew what the hell programming was then, I definitely
wouldn't have been able to afford college.

So I guess there's still a decent likelihood that I'll need to be
transitioning out of programming less than 15 years into my career, but
hopefully there's still plenty of other opportunities for me to do great
things for the next 20 or so years after that.

~~~
jiggy2011
To be honest, I wouldn't worry too much. Everyone is like "I was programming
since I was 10!" Nobody ever asks what they were programming at 10, most
people wrote relatively simple stuff until they grew up and got a professional
job.

Now to wait for replies from people who designed OSes when they were 12 :)

~~~
robbles
I've been programming since I was 12. I would say the only advantage it gave
me was an unshakeable faith in my ability to figure things out - it really
built up my problem-solving skills and gave me an attitude of "I'm going to
figure this out somehow, even if I have to stay up all night" that I've
noticed is missing in many new developers.

However, the idea that people who start this early have a 10 year head start
on someone who starts at 22 is silly. Maybe for child prodigies this is true,
but I was neither driven nor intelligent enough then to learn at the rate I do
now. I distinctly remember being incredibly confused by the syntax of for
loops, and being unable to solve trivial C++ compiler errors because I had no
idea how to approach debugging them or where to find more information. I also
had a casual hobbyist approach, where if something wasn't working, I would
just give up and go play outside with my friends. Even with all the resources
we have today, I don't think I had the mental faculty back then to design an
OS. :)

Also, learning programming now is an order of magnitude more effective
nowadays, with all the free online resources, new languages and frameworks,
and public interest in the subject. Back in 2000, Arduino didn't exist, there
were no decent web frameworks or JS libraries, and I remember sadly giving up
on trying to build a robot because the only books I could find on the subject
were university textbooks that required proprietary tech provided by the prof.

~~~
5hoom
Your story rings true for me. I dabbled in programming in my teens, but like
you I was a hobbyist at best. When things got tough I would just give up.
Programming seemed really hard and I just couldn't figure out how people who
did it knew all the stuff they did (this was the mid 90's and there was no
stackOverflow if things went wrong).

I didn't really start taking it seriously until I was in my mid twenties by
which time the quality and quantity of free educational material, languages
and tools for programmers had exploded. Learning how to program has never been
easier. It's really a great time to be in this field, beginner or otherwise.

------
prayag
Dave's dilemma is far too familier to a lot of people in the tech scene in
general, and bay area in particular. Bay area attracts the brightest minds
from across the globe. All of them have been at the top of their high school
classes. They have all been told from a very young age that they are destined
to doing something great in life. They not only expect themselves to do better
than themselves but pretty much demand it.

But when you have so many smart people trying to be more successful than their
peers the definition of success changes. The bar rises and just building and
selling a successful company doesn't seem good enough. You have to start the
next Facebook, or the next Twitter.

IMHO, the best measure of success is not absolutes but a relative one. Compare
your current self with your self from 2 years ago and ask if you are a better,
more successful person.

By that measure Dave has done exceptionally well in the past few years.

~~~
paraschopra
Even comparing your present self to your past self is fraught with numerous
biases. Humans have imperfect memories, so they only remember most interesting
events from the past. Based on the few remembered details and a vague
sensation of your self 2 years back, you would construct a full detailed
description and compare it to your present self. But you forget that the past
self that you have constructed is influenced a lot by your experiences in
these past 2 years. Your past self really wasn't what you think it is.

You cannot accurately compare yourself over a time period. Moreover, on which
dimensions are you going to compare? Say if I had a successful software
company, but I give it up and move to Paris to become a mediocre painter, a
vocation I'm currently enjoying a lot (but can't say if I keep enjoying it
forever), have I made a good or a bad decision? Have I "progressed" in life or
not?

Key should be to not overanalyze life, but rather simply live it as if it is
not that important (in face of death, it isn't). Life should not be
obsessively optimized. You can spend your whole life analyzing what you have
done and still find yourself dissatisfied.

~~~
prayag
>Even comparing your present self to your past self is fraught with numerous
biases.

This is definitely true. But you probably have a better idea of how
successful/happy you were 2 years ago than your peers right now.

>Moreover, on which dimensions are you going to compare

Yes the dimensions have to be defined. If you wanted to be more creative or
wanted to live abroad (assuming you are not from France), then you have
progressed in life. But if you wanted to write more software than this is a
regression.

>Key should be to not overanalyze life, but rather simply live it as if it is
not that important.

Different strokes. You don't have to. But if you ever ask a question to
yourself about whether you are successful or not, or happy or not you might
want to measure somethings. I don't think it's a bad idea to look back once in
a while and see where you have come to in life.

------
paraschopra
Life is not about winning or losing, life is simply an existence where we have
to spend time without getting chronically bored. For some it may be startups,
for others it may be spending happy times with the family. If you consider
anyone else more "successful" than yourself (say a founder of a recently IPOed
company), do you think s/he is happier or more satisfied than you are? How
about if you get to know the founder recently went through a bitter divorce
and also that his board doesn't have faith in him and is actively planning to
fire him. Different levels of so called "success" are simply different modes
of living, each mode bringing its own nuances or subtleties. From media or
personal stories, all we hear about other "successful" people is better parts
of their lives. The boring or bad events are seldom talked about.

Once you are beyond basic poverty, your basic self (and happiness levels) more
or less remains the same (no matter what you do or where you go). It's a myth
that "success" _should_ be had and a worthwhile life is the one in which
something worthwhile (as defined by the society, and not you) was achieved.

------
fromdoon
_Wired.com: How do you maintain your optimism?

Musk: Do I sound optimistic?

Wired.com: Yeah, you always do.

Musk: Optimism, pessimism, fuck that; we’re going to make it happen. As God is
my bloody witness, I’m hell-bent on making it work._

Whatever the odds you face, there is nothing in life you cannot achieve, if
you have committed yourself wholeheartedly to the cause.

Old/Young. Experienced/Inexperienced. Adept/Inept. Knowledgeable/Ignoramus.
Prodigy/Late Bloomer. Nothing matters in the end.

Cause when we are done and dusted and look back at our time, we will find that
it was a journey that couldn't have been any other way. We made it what it was
and it lies their for us to cherish.

So don't hold yourself back. Nothing in this world is to be done or not to be
done. The conscious/unconscious/subconscious rules that we follow every day
were not there to start with and they are neither eternal.

Go out there and change your world. Become the Newton. Become the Napoleon.
Become the Buddha. Become the Gandhi.

Remember, there are no rules and there never will be.

~~~
gosu
What you sound is pleasing to me, but it also makes me anxious. As one of your
listed role models might say, I don't know if it's really so helpful to pin
such wild hopes to yourself. When I start feeling like a failure, it helps me
to stop comparing myself to Napoleons, but rather to focus on exactly who I am
now and what I want now, and to live according to my own personal life
schedule.

------
davidandgoliath
This I think is a trap we arrive at when we compare ourselves to others. It's
safer for one's emotions to compare and contrast yourself to yourself in years
prior.

The least usable fuel in this industry is depression. Don't subject yourself
to it and ignore everyone else. Support them in their endeavors, high-five
them in their success but do not compare yourself to anyone else otherwise it
won't take but a few days to arrive at the bottom of $some-random-vice and
you'll be writing blog posts like this one second-guessing yourself.

(I second guess myself daily and often wonder what the hell I'm doing
pretending to be a CEO of an IT firm of all things. Yet have managed to remain
in business as long as I have -- and help all sorts of people pay their
mortgages, support their families and challenge themselves daily in the work
they do for me. That's something I derive sheer joy from.)

Admittedly the remainder results from my faith, but that's another post
altogether.

~~~
sigkill
One thing I've learnt is that we're all making it up as we go. So did our
parents. I'm actually amazed that people _actually_ listen to us when we
clearly have this weird feeling that "Shit, I have no clue but fuck it let's
do it live". You know you've had that feeling as well.

------
jonmc12
Silicon Valley is a funny place, a lot like Wall Street where the big winners
are viewed to have the absolute qualities of success. In reality, even once
you reach a threshold of competency and capability, its still a big gamble and
the big winners are the lucky benefactors of Black Swan events. Of course, I'm
referring to Nassim Nicholas Taleb's reflection of uncertainty and randomness
as it applies to success in investing.

On the other hand, Silicon Valley creates a dynamic where things change
rapidly and some of the smartest people in the world are constantly pushing
the limits. This creates an opportunity where if you are honest with yourself
you have to say _"I need to get better"_ \- and this self-perception is a gift
to be cherished over and over again. No losers when you look at the game this
way.. just people who will grow and grow and others who won't.

------
freshfunk
I think that part of the issue here (that I haven't really seen mentioned) is
that when you're so close to others who've been successful but you aren't as
successful as them, then it's easy to feel like a failure of some sort.

In short, it's easy to feel like an ugly girl when you're standing next to the
prettiest girl in class.

Dave seemed like something of a child prodigy. Like he said he didn't get an
advanced degree. He was around people at PayPal who went on to create $1B+
companies. He's worked with Sean Parker. Those are achievements in themselves.
But when you keep that kind of company and you haven't done what they did,
it's easy to feel like you're lagging.

My old manager from my first job was one of the founders (and current CTO) at
Gilt. One of my old college buddies who was also a coworker (under that same
manager) went with him early on to build Gilt. Today I consider both of them
incredibly successful. In comparison to them, they've achieved way more than I
have.

------
unimpressive
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imposter_syndrome>

Pressure to succeed in ones youth is ubiquitous in certain industries.

I think this song about the music industry pretty much sums it up:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ca9GJ6mMxLw>

~~~
opminion
Another possibility is <http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/false_modesty>

------
logical42
"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong
man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit
belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust
and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again
and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who
knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a
worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high
achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while
daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid
souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

\-- Teddy R.

------
welcomebrand
It's a totally different world these types of people live in to mine. I read
the blog post, it was nicely written and a seemingly heartfelt reflection of a
mans own position in life but I guess it's difficult to feel he's been
anything other than a success already.

Perhaps it's all relative and compared to Sean Parker's bank balance he's a
dismal failure but to reach 40 and have "a little under a million" in liquid
assets and to have been able to dabble in angel investing for several years
just doesn't seem that bad a life.

~~~
mapster
Agreed. I count myself fortunate to not live in that keeping up with the Jones
mentality, because that is how I read it. A man must measure his worth by who
he is, his character, respect given and received, and the love he gives and
receives.

------
Vivtek
Shit, except for all the cool places he's worked in the tech industry and all
the people he's met, and all the success he's had, and of course the fact he
has a lot more money than I do, this guy is _me_.

I hope to God I'm a late bloomer, too.

~~~
elsewhen
he might not be as wealthy as you think: <http://www.quora.com/How-much-is-
Dave-McClure-worth>

~~~
Vivtek
A week ago I had seven dollars in the bank. Granted, that was after moving the
household to Europe again and I do have accounts receivable, but financially
I'm at the point where when I'm not actually underwater I feel successful.

Having "a little less than a million" as a pad would reduce my stress
considerably.

~~~
svdad
My wife and I went out for a celebratory dinner recently when our net worth
finally turned positive after years of grad school.

~~~
Vivtek
The question is: did the dinner put you back into the red? If not, maybe it
was warranted. :-)

~~~
svdad
Only briefly. :)

------
drewcoo
@Dave: You will never be the person you thought you could have been. You will
only be wildly different. And often, wildly, differently . . . successful, as
you've shown the world. The same is true for all of us - we're never what we
thought we'd be but we dream up new stuffs along the way. Retrospect and all
that. It's too easy to look back but all the action is in the future. Look
forward and be _there_.

I find I have the same self-crisis about once a week and maybe more often now.
Nobody on HN knows me. I haven't shaped anything in the industry. Even if I'm
ultimately successful by my own standards, nobody will probably know. I don't
care. My stealth agenda won't make me rich or famous or even worth noticing. I
just want to fundamentally change the way we test software and the way we
think about quality ("the 'q' word" - ugh). Nobody's gonna care about that
until a change happens that nobody now thinks is worth pursuing. It doesn't
mean that it's not worth accomplishing, though. But that's who I am.

You, sir, are not I. You are known and have accomplishments. You're already
living the dream. Well . . . some dream. Not mine and I guess not yours. But
the point is that you're already doing your thing. Damn the torpedoes! Go as
fast and as hard and as broadly (and as whatever you like) as you can in the
way you'd like to most. Nobody's going to lift a finger to stop you. People
will likely complain one way or another after the fact but at the end of the
day all you have left is your life and your loves and there's no other way to
measure your success than those things you hold closest to you.

Don't give up!

------
vidarh
We compare ourselves with our perceived peer-group. But we tend to self-select
peer groups that are not too far from our own level. On the other hand, most
of us looks to role models, which are pretty much by definition more
successful than ourselves.

We rarely compare ourselves to the people we consider we've already firmly
surpassed. We might hang out with existing friends that we feel we're more
successful than, but we're trying to meet that new potential employer that's
above where we think we'll go next; we're trying to hook that huge important
client; we're more eager to network with people we see as hugely successful;
we want to learn from the people we consider smarter than ourselves, and so
on.

Not only that, but outside our own circle, the successful people are far more
visible. For every successful founder there are hundreds that failed, gave up,
never even got a company funded, and so on that we will never hear about.

I've been through several startups. Some I co-founded. Others where I was the
first guy or first 2-3 people brought in, on substantial equity. Been involved
in a number of VC deals. But no big exits. Nothing enough to retire on. Not
paid of my mortgage.

It'd be easy for me to write a similar post about my career. Lots of companies
that could've, should've made it big.

Yet, years ago I realized that the moment I founded my first company, I was
more successful as a founder or "startup guy" than most people - most people
who want to start a company never even try, and fewer succeed. Each subsequent
one, I've left some mark or other. So I've not founded another Google. But
I've done enough. I want to do more. Lots more. But I've still done enough
that I have plenty to be proud of without feeling a need for everyone to know
about it.

(though he things I'm the _most_ proud of these days no longer have anything
to do with my work at all)

------
waterlesscloud
The irony is that to 95% of Americans he's led a very successful life.

Not that I don't understand the point. It's all relative.

~~~
cglee
When you're in SF/Bay Area and trying to compete with the likes of LinkedIn,
Yammer, etc, you're constantly bumping into that top 5%.

~~~
taybin
There's a tendency to overrate the talent at these well known companies.
Remember, LinkedIn didn't salt its passwords...

~~~
mythz
So? they're worth billions.

~~~
taybin
What does that have to do with anything mentioned here?

------
richardw
I see a few knocks on Dave. What he should be valuing more, why he should(n't)
consider himself successful, what other smart people think about what he said
from their own perspective.

Well, he opened himself up. In a world where opinions about others are far
more numerous than people standing up and saying "this is my story, from the
heart. these are my faults and failures, and my dreams". I find that more
valuable than 100 posts blowing their own horn. It's the most basic story of
all, shared by many, and one of the hardest to write.

------
tptacek
Dave McClure is a Get for Dustin Curtis' Svbtle network.

It's fun to watch this thing develop.

~~~
kevinburke
There is a signaling effect from using Svbtle (Their aim is to signal "you are
going to be reading good content") but it's hard to understand why you
wouldn't want to use your own design and brand for your site. You are ceding
control of your online brand to their design framework.

~~~
auston
I humbly disagree: As a writer, I'd like my design handled for me. I just want
to be able to write the best piece within reach & present it to the world in a
way that will gain mass distribution.

Besides that, as a reader, it's easy to detect the Svbtle "look" & know that
this article will probably be worth my time.

~~~
powerslave12r
This is exactly right. As soon as I see that blog theme, I recognize it as
'this is gonna be a good article.'

The only nitpick I have about the site is I think the font is 'too wide.'
That's just a personal preference of course.

~~~
unimpressive
> This is exactly right. As soon as I see that blog theme, I recognize it as
> 'this is gonna be a good article.'

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batesian_mimicry>

Such a signal is vulnerable to knockoffs.

------
vaksel
someone needs a reality check.

if he considers that kind of life "failure", he is going to lead a very
depressed life unless he wins a few lotteries

~~~
svdad
couldn't agree more. "i only made a little money" -- enough to have started
angel investing in 2004 after exiting paypal.

enough money to live in one of the most expensive places on earth, probably
without having to work too much? check. a family and (apparently) happy
marital relationship? check. moderately successful times working at important
companies? check.

Sure, it's good to be ambitious and set high goals. But the dude needs to get
a grip. If he wants to achieve more, fine. But there's no universal standard
by which he's a "failure". At the end of the day it's up to him and he'd do
well to admit it.

~~~
jwhite
A friend once took a 30 minute car ride with two successful people, both
multimillionaires, back when that meant something. He asked them how much
money they would need to feel financially secure. By the end of the trip they
had bid each other up so far that they agreed that it would take a large
multiple of their current net worths, just to feel truly safe and independent
enough to retire.

------
tvbuzz
In 2008, Gladwell wrote an excellent article on this same topic:

<http://www.gladwell.com/2008/2008_10_20_a_latebloomers.html>

An excellent quote from the article:

"The Cézannes of the world bloom late not as a result of some defect in
character, or distraction, or lack of ambition, but because the kind of
creativity that proceeds through trial and error necessarily takes a long time
to come to fruition."

------
hathaway
Not sure this guy has much to complain about - wife, kids, money,
intelligence, plenty of opportunities. Maybe he just enjoy his life instead of
wishing he was some hot shot.

------
gavanwoolery
I'm only 30, and I feel like I've made a million wrong turns. There are many
people, who at my age, have already created their own billion-dollar company.
However, I only work on what I believe in (aside from the mundane work I do to
pay the bills), which I readily acknowledge is probably the worst route to
traditional (i.e. monetary) success. There are many ways to flip a worthless
company for a profit in the software world, but history does not remember
people for their wealth, or even (temporary) fame. If I die poor and unknown,
I still consider myself a success, because I spent my life doing things that I
perceived as meaningful. Find interesting, unsolved problems (not necessarily
in software), and pursue them to the end. You will remain a "late bloomer" so
long as you live life passively.

~~~
dasil003
I'm guessing very few people have _actually_ created a billion dollar company
by the time they're 30. Just sayin.

~~~
gavanwoolery
I'm a fan of exaggeration ;)

------
joering2
Boy I felt like reading my own story, except I hadn't had brilliant parents
that would give me good genes for a start and force me to be productive
instead of lazy (so I wasn't working for huge corps like OP).

But regardless this post made me think that if you treat your body well
(healthy food, gym, as little stress as possible) and you hadn't had some
genetical disadvantages then your brain stay quite young forever, and you are
like a fine wine: you age well and gather wisdom all the time. Truly, the only
thing stopping OP from learning from his mistakes and trying again, learning
and trying again and again is his approach that I _may be_ too old. You are
not! How old you are only matters whether you will personally make a big deal
out of it or not. Don't let it stop you from trying again.

------
jroseattle
I really like this post, it resonates with me as well. I have parallels with
Dave's story -- mostly figuratively, but still felt like I've been along the
same ride with him.

The fact that Dave is still going strong at 46 and trying to make a difference
shows there is _much_ more substance to him than many others I know in this
business. If there is one thing I've observed, it's how the perceived "lack"
of success in those who expected great things of themselves have knocked so
many people off their perch.

Good job, Dave. In my book, the very fact you recognize this in yourself
qualifies you as successful.

------
big_data
Sounds to me like he is suffering from a social comparison bias. A few peers
may have done better than he, but I am sure there are those out there that
would say he has done pretty good.

~~~
daveasaurus
I've heard that grad students go through something very similar when they go
to grad school: feelings of inferiority and fears of being "exposed" as fake
when surrounded by so many other intelligent people.

I've never worked for a start-up but imagine the start-up scene works the same
given the common stereotypes: success stories of 20-year-olds, hyper
intelligent ivy-league drop-outs, etc. I don't know whether they're the rule
or the exception to it.

------
dctoedt
Feeling like a (comparative) failure can help one to sympathize with people
who really _are_ less fortunate --- you start to realize that maybe it's not
entirely their fault.

------
nedwin
Great post Dave, and somewhat inspiring for someone nearing the end of their
twenties who feels like he's only just hitting his straps now.

~~~
dmishe
Mid 20, same shit.

------
gonzo
Doc Searls (who enjoyed a lot of success in the late 90s) once said that
nobody knew him for anything he did before he was 50.

------
radley
I'm confused. In my mind Dave is already a success.

I guess he's just in a rut. I read a great book called "How High can You
Bounce?" It's all about if you've taken a downturn how can you spin it to your
advantage so you rebound better off than where you were before the fall.
Knowing this is possible is simply the first step.

Think Dave just needs some bounce.

~~~
georgemcbay
"I'm confused. In my mind Dave is already a success."

Virtually everyone is a failure depending upon who or what they compare
themselves to.

The odds against being a pro basketball player are astronomical -- everyone in
the NBA is a huge success relative to those who didn't make it, but if they
aren't Kobe Bryan, Lebron James or Dwyane Wade they may consider themselves
failures. And even the top active guys live in the shadows of Jordan, et al.

I'm pretty sure this is the root of dmc's problems. The nature of his work has
him surrounded by insane statistical outliers (some of whom are probably more
lucky than 'good', though I'm sure there are both). His feeling like less than
a success in this situation is unfortunate, but probably a perfectly normal
human response.

------
mvts
So you're a loser now when you have a bachelor degree, a job and good health?
Times have changed.

------
joshmlewis
I'm almost 19 and I feel like I'm not moving fast enough sometimes. I've
already worked for two successful startups and am in an accelerator program as
a designer cofounder. I love what I do and I can honestly say I have one of
the best jobs in the world and the people I've met are amazing, I'm just
scared of losing out on time.

This really made me see that I don't have just a few year window to do well,
but it's a life long thing. I would have never guessed I'd be doing what I'm
doing now a year ago, and I have no idea what I'll be doing a year from now,
but I figure if I just keep doing what I love and building awesome products,
I'll always be happy.

~~~
Timothee
Hell yeah you have time! You're _only_ 19 and you seem to know what you want
to do for the foreseeable future, have co-founded a company, worked at two
successful startups… I have yet to do any of these. (well, maybe I do know
what I want to do? Maybe…)

You're so ahead of most people, it's almost tempting to downvote you for
humblebrag. It's like people who complain because they do only [good
measurement of self in a domain] in [said domain]. (I would give a sport
example, but I couldn't give you a realistic one)

~~~
joshmlewis
Yes, like the gorgeous girls that call themselves fat, it pisses me off. I
feel like though I've done this, but I'm still not financially secure, I worry
about a paycheck, and people still don't respect what I do and think I should
be in college. So it just makes me wonder, ya know?

~~~
Timothee
Don't get me wrong: I'm not blaming you. I think a lot of people, if not most,
are insecure or at least unsure about their accomplishments.

I feel that it's not really discussed: you might receive kudos from the
family, but they're often outside your domain, so "it doesn't count". You
might have some kind of role model: "I want to be like that guy", but that guy
rarely looks back to acknowledge _your_ accomplishments. (and he's probably
looking up to somebody else too) If anybody does, it's mostly people "lower
than or equal to" you that do: at best your peers, at worst people who don't
really know what they're talking about.

So it's hard to see yourself in the proper referential…

------
blu3jack
I'm not quite sure what the point of this blog post is. I guess it's to re-
start his blog, and restarting a blog often lacks a good hook, and may be
heavy on the backstory. Hopefully this is a starting point, not a destination.

------
justanother
Clearly, this individual's problem isn't that he hasn't found Shangri-La, it's
that he needs a new compass. Dave, Samuel Taylor Coleridge was just
hallucinating. Kublai Khan's pleasure dome is right next to you every morning,
and she's [presumably] gorgeous. The sun still rises on the bankrupt, and many
of them do absolutely fulfilling things with those days, even if it's beating
an old game or learning to catch more fish.

Or to speak more plainly, cash is but one axis on the graph of success, and
often it is the very worst of them. Winning is having the strength to
disregard it.

------
kposehn
Wow.

As in "holy shit that was inspiring."

------
51Cards
Wow... late to this article but can only add one thing. The OP is me... (not
literally but figuratively in every way). 42 in a week... a whole lot of
'shoulda/coulda' behind me and feeling like an unaccomplished elder in a field
of successful kids. His article hit me pretty hard. At the minimum it makes me
feel a little less alone in my thoughts. If the OP reads this please feel free
to touch base if you would like a fellow late bloomer to chat with.

------
soup10
Love the optimism and ambition. It hurts to read how hard you are on yourself,
but I hope you achieve your goals and relax a little :). Good luck with your
incubator.

------
rdl
Read this article about people who made a bit of money in the first dotcom
boom, lost it, and were seeking more again in 2005:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/05/magazine/05RATPACK.html?_r...](http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/05/magazine/05RATPACK.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all)

Interesting to note how many of them have become billionaires in just a few
short years. Peter Thiel, Mark Pincus, Reid Hoffman, ...

------
rockmeamedee
For all the self-deprecation in the post, I think we can all empathise, at the
very least with:

> and so here I am: still standing in the arena, in hand-to-hand combat with
> demons mostly of my own > making, aiming to make a small dent in the
> universe. nowhere near a great success story, yet > fighting the good fight
> and perhaps helping others to achieve greatness as I attempt a bit of my >
> own.

------
dctoedt
See also "The importance of being prolific" [1], also posted here yesterday
[2].

[1] [http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/ct-
ae-0624-proli...](http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/ct-
ae-0624-prolific-artists-20120622,0,1889158,full.column)

[2] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4212680>

------
jasonspalace
things can sometimes feel so daunting as we toil away night and day for years
without end on our hopes and dreams, reading his honesty and admission helps
(at least me) put it in perspective that we still have time to keep going
relentlessly while we force our dreams to come true (i hope).

as long as we are so lucky to be here another day to keep going.

------
lifeisstillgood
You sound like a man who has found his centre - even if you still Want to go
find it somewhere else. I, and many others here appreciate the honesty, and I
certainly feel the same way on a daily basis.

I wish you good luck with the business, but much much better luck with your
family.

------
elssar
I was with you when I read the title, I was with you upto the point you
mentioned that you weren't ready for the consistency & hardwork college
requires, and then you went from "someone like me" to "someone who hasn't done
as well as the people around him".

------
mcormier
Is not capitalizing the first word in a sentence the thing to do now?

------
rgbrgb
But maybe self permanence is not so important. Perhaps it would be more
accurate not to associate yourself with your past so much.

------
lewisflude
I'm 19 yet I feel I can relate in some way.

~~~
zpk
You're 19, you have so much ahead of your life ahead of you rather than
behind. Go look in the mirror and smile...You can start from scratch today,
and in a decade still be ahead of 99.999% of your age group, and even people
twice that age as well.

------
keeptrying
I actually see this as Dave's backwards way of saying:

"Whatever your situation right now - its okay. Keep working."

------
dools
Fellow failure here. Anyone want to kick off a #failaholics hashtag on
twitter?

------
eliben
"[...] before I ended up with just a broken spirit and a comfortable life."

Loved this quote.

------
raheemm
Compare and despair. Gotta watch out for that!

------
mathattack
Good luck!

A modern Robert Frost....

------
andyl
So @Dave isn't Marc Andreesen or Larry Page. So f-ing what. The only tragic
thing is that he hasn't figured out yet that work != life.

I'm in a similar demographic as @Dave, live in palo alto, near his age. Had
some really good successes 10-15 years ago, and nothing since then.

My big activities for the past decade have been climbing, skiing and raising
my kids. Some of my friends kept working and now have vineyards and
foundations. And sometimes it stings that I don't fly private jets or have
anything really impressive to brag about.

But I had years of board-meetings, soaking up the one-upmanship. Once you
become conscious of the non-stop compulsive attention seeking, there is a
certain emptiness to it. So I stepped away from that, and I wouldn't trade a
vineyard for the experiences I've had.

Now I'm starting on a new company, working very hard with high confidence. But
if this company doesn't see a monster outcome, I won't feel like a loser. My
prime motivation is the products, the people, and the competition, all of
which I love.

IMHO we are in a golden age of software. To me it feels like being in the
major leagues where everyone who participates is lucky as can be.

~~~
kinleyd
I like the original post by @Dave and the honesty that comes through. I also
like this reply. Life can feel so frenetic and short on time sometimes, and
yet very, very long - too long even - at other times. Time is really a very
elastic perception.

The bottom line is you need to figure out what you want in life and how you
define success. Hopefully at some point we all come to realize that while
wealth, power or fame/recognition, etc. are excellent motivators, as an end
such goals are rather hollow and empty. If and when one finally realizes that,
then it really doesn't matter at what age you realize that, just as long as
you've enjoyed what you've spent your time doing, and have picked up some good
friends and family along the way. That's when you throw out the self-induced
angst and hurry to "achieve something" and just do your thing, living in the
moment. Of course, life is much easier the earlier one clues in on this. :)

~~~
chrisyeh
Scientists have already done great work in this area. "Success" doesn't bring
happiness:

<http://chrisyeh.blogspot.com/2005/12/meaning-of-life.html>

Here's the money quote:

"In the book, Deci talks about a study which discovered that humans have six
basic aspirations. The first three, the extrinsic aspirations, are to be rich,
famous, and good-looking. (Actually, rich/powerful and famous/well-liked, but
why ruin a euphonious phrase?) Sound familiar?

The second three, the intrinsic aspirations, are to have good relationships
with the ones you care about, to achieve personal growth, and to feel like you
contribute to your community.

Deci's work showed that people who focused on extrinsic aspirations
(regardless of whether or not they achieved them) tended to display
narcissism, anxiety, and depression, while the people who focused on
instrinsic aspirations displayed a strong sense of well-being."

~~~
tomelgin
I was looking for a citation for this study and found a good overview on
Wikipedia (with citations), in case others are interested.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-determination_theory>

------
ygmelnikova
Are these things the compass to success? That's rather depressing.

I can relate a little. I dropped out in grade 11. Built N. America's first
fully graphical ecommmerce site (1992), Canada's first Windows IIS webserver
(sorry), country's first 56K internet access, $10M IPO in 1998, client list
includes Eckhart Tolle and Oprah.

So what.

I recommend you learn success from those that who mastered it over the eons,
and they don't live anywhere near Silicon Valley.

Here's one example;

"For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose
his own soul?" -- Jesus Christ

~~~
oijaf888
What graphical ecommerce site was that? Given it predates Mosaic and the
commercial use of the web I'm surprised its not more well known.

~~~
ygmelnikova
Before the interweb was popular they had this little thing called a BBS and
RoboBOARD/FX

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletin_board_system>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RoboBOARD/FX>

~~~
gscott
Here is San Diego at the height of BBS'ing with about 1,100 boards very few
used RoboBoard. Must have been much more popular in Canada.

------
michaelochurch
I've come to the conclusion that success in business is like the game
Rochambeau (Rock, Paper, Scissors). People will argue to death whether it's a
game of luck or skill, and often it gets very emotional, with people who've
had success attributing it to skill and the rest attributing their lack of
success to bad luck. In reality, it's neither. It's a game of _strategy_ in
the academic, game-design sense (interaction rather than individual skill as
the driver of outcome) but often with very little information that would
indicate what the good strategies are. Rochambeau has no randomizer (no dice
or shuffled cards) and is a skill game _if_ you can predict the other guy's
moves. Iterated, it becomes somewhat of a skill game. Same with business.
Iterated, both become games of making choices, often with no idea what good
and bad choices are, because useful information is so thin on the ground.
Business is obviously not "random" in a true sense, but it's obviously not a
pure-skill game because so many idiots get lucky and a lot of really talented
people (like DMC) don't. It's a game of making iterated choices, often with
little or no information that would inform them, and the luck factor comes out
of the opacity.

How does this relate to OP? DMC is a highly talented person, but he's in his
mid-40s, he's worked in the supposedly meritocratic startup sector (and, as
with trading, the definition of success in VC-istan _is_ making money; if
you've been in VC-istan for 2 decades and haven't made fuck-you money, you
haven't won) and his net worth (as he admitted on Quora) is less than $1m.
Given that, it's fair to say that he probably hasn't played his cards right.
That doesn't make him unskillful or weak or "a loser"-- far from it, and I'm
sure that none of those are true. It doesn't make him any less of a person, or
any less smart, than the more successful people. It just makes it a good bet
that if he could rewind to 20 and play from there again, he'd have a lot more
success.

And ultimately, the reason why many of us are sitting here not being rich and
outlandishly successful when people of similar or inferior talent smash $500m+
exits is that, when faced with a thousand identical-looking doors, one with a
pot of gold behind it, they had the "insight" to pick door #467 while we
picked #822 or #134 or #915. Some of us pick #467 at the next opportunity but,
of course, the next time the pot of gold is behind #719.

I think the best thing to do is to back away from the VC-istan insanity, and
pretend all that garbage doesn't exist. As long as I'm growing my skillset by
20 to 25% per year (which is not hard to do, because returns from increasing
skill in technology are exponential) I feel like I ought to be happy with
that. It can be difficult to be satisfied with this (first world problems)
when you see unqualified idiots getting funded in enormous amounts, and then
getting acquisitions and EIR gigs as welfare checks because they have powerful
friends... so it takes some discipline and maturity not to be annoyed... but
sanity is worth it.

~~~
iwallace
Thank you for this post. I'm in nearly the same boat (41 years old, < 1M net
worth, on my fifth startup with < 100k to show for those efforts) and watching
seemingly complete idiots pass me by. I'm too old to be infuriated by the
vagaries of chance, however, it does make me wonder if I've done something
wrong. I suspect that the numbers are slightly skewed - that there are far
fewer people having wild success than the media would have us believe.

~~~
michaelochurch
The conclusion that I've come to is that VC-istan isn't actually technology,
at least not in this current social-media fueled bubble. It's old-fashioned
social climbing and self-promotion with a bit of technology in the back end.

Do startups _actually_ succeed based on technical merits, or on how well they
market themselves? In this social media bubble, it's the latter. I'm not going
to claim that technical skill doesn't matter. I just don't think it matters as
much. You can back-fill the technical stuff by hiring the right people
(contrary to our overblown claim that non-technical CEOs have no hope of
finding technical talent because they can't individually judge it) but if you
build great technology and can't sell it, you never get off the ground.

It's _exceptionalism_ that leads people to think that the VC ecosystem is in
some way (or should be) morally superior to Wall Street, Hollywood, the
fashion industry, or Madison Avenue. Sure, what we do is cerebral, but so was
advertising in the _Mad Man_ era. VC-istan isn't worse than these other
industries, but it's not better. When you have a "creative" industry, there
are a lot of opportunities to do great work and profit by doing so. But there
are also smiling-idiot narcissists who pile in and fuck everything up because
they think they're "creative"... and of course, what gives them this
opportunity is that there are other idiots in power who will put them ahead of
the people of substance like us because they don't know any better.

It's the _expectation_ of meritocracy that makes us unhappy, but human
organizations and ecosystems and societies all turn to shit over time no
matter what so this is an unreasonable expectation.

There is a place for people like us, the virtuous soldiers who get rich
slowly, building our skillset until we're just really good at a few things...
but there's also a place for smiling idiots. And smiling idiots are always
going to be the "cool kids", and it's the cool kids (not people of substance)
who get those stupid TechCrunch articles written about their 7-Couric
products. It's the expectation of fairness in human structures, which is just
unreasonable at scale, that creates the unhappiness.

------
bluedanieru
Why are none of the sentences capitalized? It makes it difficult to read (so I
didn't finish it).

What I did read wasn't very interesting anyway, so no big loss.

~~~
briandear
davemcluredoesntcareaboutfontsorcapitalizationorwhatyouthink.

~~~
briandear
The downvoters obviously don't know Dave.

~~~
rdl
Would he really say 12 words where one of them isn't "fuck", though?

~~~
briandear
Touché.

------
AaronStanely
How exactly does his position equate to being a "late bloomer"? Even if he
hadn't done everything he did in the last 10 years, he would still have
achieved more than 99.99999% of the world population. Think about that to get
some perspective. I think he's being ridiculously harsh on himself.

