
Don't put your career in stealth mode - dzohrob
http://zohrob.com/posts/stealth-mode-careers.html
======
jnorthrop
This advice is right on the money. I've spent decades developing at a number
of startups (including playing the founder at some), but I have preferred to
keep a low profile. As a result I believe it has limited my opportunities.

That changed for me six months ago. I started a blog and have been speaking at
conferences. All of the sudden I'm a hot commodity. Its a tough time to be
introverted with your career.

~~~
dzohrob
Glad to hear it rings true for you as well. I'm not speaking at conferences
yet, but my experiences have been overwhelmingly positive.

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neworbit
There's a period of time which is beneficial. It's not about being secretive,
it's about putting your head down and getting things done without
interruption.

Five years is (in virtually any case) way longer than that should be. But
three months? Great! Even a year, if you're really on to something. But after
that you need viable interaction with your customers/users/prospects

~~~
dzohrob
I agree that time for heads-down coding is very important. My point was more
about one's overall career -- that not contributing publicly to the industry
can be detrimental.

Even if it takes a long time for your stealthy startup to launch, it can be
beneficial to write about your experiences and/or open-source a cool project.

------
AznHisoka
I'm the same way but I prefer to be humble until I actually accomplished
something worthwhile.

~~~
killnine
I agree and do not keep a blog, haven't updated my facebook in years, and do
not use twitter in this way.

It is an issue of humble-ness for me as well. I'd rather be queried for data
then have the thought/feeling I am forcing it on someone who doesn't want it.

I think this, and other things read here on HN have got me to accept the fact
I need to follow suite.

Am I correct in saying that another potential benefit of this is that keeping
the status of a project public makes it more difficult for the creator to
ignore/procrastinate/quit the project?

~~~
dzohrob
I agree with both of you; it feels fundamentally egocentric to broadcast one's
thoughts on the web. But it's been an interesting exercise for me on many
levels.

The feedback you get from friends and strangers can be valuable - like this
discussion. And clear writing == clear thinking. I find that in the process of
writing I edit and re-edit my thoughts and sometimes change my mind. That's
helpful in and of itself.

As for public-ness making it difficult to quit -- many people (PG included)
have written about this [1]. My goal in making my work public is not to
benefit from this social pressure, though that would be a nice side-effect.

I want to document my hard work, and ensure that the good parts of what I work
on don't die.

[1] <http://www.paulgraham.com/die.html>

