
Aaron Swartz: How to Get a Job Like Mine - rms
http://aaronsw.jottit.com/howtoget
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schoudha
This kid is crazy.

PG, if you look at successful YC startups (Loopt, Reddit, Zenter) has there
been any pattern in the character of the founders?

I can't imagine someone with Aaron's character leading a successful company -
his history (Infogami)supports this.

~~~
neilk
You know, it is possible to do important things, even important things with
computers, and not be cut out for a life in business.

Once upon a time, for hackers, it was considered a step _down_ to work in
industry. However, it's since been shown there's a lot of money to be made,
and lately PG's been spreading the gospel about how entrepreneurship is the
true calling of a geek. But it's just not always the case.

Anyway, even if your premise about Aaron is true, the man's already done more
with his short life than almost anybody on this site. Even on the business
side.

For some reason Aaron feels compelled to talk out almost every personal
failing he has in public. I don't know, if the famously mercurial Steve Jobs
or Larry Ellison actually recounted all of their meltdowns candidly, they
might sound something like Aaron's blog.

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aquateen
I always thought reddit was well established before AS joined. The content was
much better even with 3000 visitors. I think the 'reddit this' links must have
been the biggest factor in reddit's decline. Interesting to see he joined the
RDF group, also with some objection.

~~~
richcollins
I'm amazed they only had 3000 at the time of the Python rewrite. It seemed
much bigger than that if I remember correctly.

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edw519
"Say yes to everything."

Best advice I've ever read here (except for some of pg's essays).

Always saying yes separates you from the other 99%. Later, people will
remember and good things will come your way seemingly from out of nowhere.
People will think you're "lucky", but you'll know the secret...always saying
yes planted seeds for your future.

~~~
ajju
>Always saying yes separates you from the other 99%.

Yes, but only if you can carry through with the things you promised to do. If
not, they'll hate you for saying yes all the time.

~~~
edw519
Of course, that goes without saying.

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mynameishere
_And I spent all of it obsessively reading the RSS 1.0 mailing list_

No wonder he gets invited to all the best parties.

 _a list of companies I thought were good ideas and pulled the top one off the
list. The idea was this: make building a web site as easy as filling in a
textbox._

AWESOME!!! It's like a _comment section_ with only one entry, with the whole
thing renamed "web site".

He apparently has some sort of wacky charm, and that is how he's gotten where
he is. His genius is obviously anchored firmly to the mundane.

~~~
imsteve
No, what he is saying is excellent advice. You have to meet and socialize with
other _people_ to a certain degree no matter which path to success you take.

Very rarely does someone become wildly successful 100% on his own.

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cglee
I think this talk first presupposes that the audience would like a job like
that, which is probably a stretch. His accomplishments notwithstanding, his
current job seems pretty undesirable to me.

~~~
dcurtis
Agreed. And with his cocky and conceited personality, who would want to even
associate themselves with him?

~~~
cglee
Personal judgments aside, his current job just plainly seems undesirable to me
(based on his description of it).

That's not making a judgment on him or his past accomplishments.

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maurycy
He made two really interesting points:

    
    
     * It seems that YCombinator's boost is not that big as everyone thought. After first three months they hardly got three thousand visitors a day.
     * Buzz, even negative, really matters. Despite negative comments about the rewrite, without this it is very likely that they would not grow so quickly.

~~~
JohnN
3k visitors after 3 months is not half bad

~~~
maurycy
Far from taking over the world, too.

~~~
mattmaroon
You don't join Y Combinator because you hope to increase traffic to your site.

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zach
That was good!

You know, there are a lot of people who want a job like Aaron has, but I think
I know from experience what the immediate result is going to be.

Someone like Westwood College is going to offer a program in web
entrepreneurship.

I'm sure the TV spot will be the equal of their legendary game development
commercial:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spSGNMJhWV0>

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asmosoinio
Not related to the story: Is it just me or the the width of this page
annoyingly big? Seems that the pre-tag on the comment by maurycy kills text
wrapping for those lines and thus makes all the text really wide = not easy to
read.

Screenshot: <http://screencast.com/t/B65U14h4e>

~~~
rms
yeah, this is an annoying bug, it is worth making the <code> blocks wrap to
get rid of it

~~~
earthboundkid
Don't make them wrap, just use style="overflow: scroll".

~~~
rms
What would that style do, exactly?

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edw519
"I couldn't stand office life."

Neither can I. Never could. Only difference between cubicle hell and jail is
that we still have to pay for our own food.

Why don't companies understand this? Take the same work out of the office and
get twice as much done. While loving it.

We suffer because they don't know how to manage any other way.

~~~
jsackmann
That may be true for the likes of news.YC readers, but we're a self-selecting
sample.

Based on the office experiences I've had the misfortune to endure, people like
us might be at 50% productivity instead of 90% at home, but the majority of
cubicle dwellers are are 10% instead of 0% at home.

Maybe I'm inappropriately pessimistic, but even if that's not the case, I'd
imagine that's the thing that has kept, and will keep, telecommuting and the
like from becoming more than the occasional fringe benefit for the occasional
employee.

------
rms
Aaron's to read list: <http://aaronsw.jottit.com/toread> I bet there are some
gems in here if anyone has the time to skim through.

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davidw
Summing up:

\- Be smart, be prepared.

\- Get out there and network a lot. Get involved.

\- Get lucky.

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daniel-cussen
What's his job, anyway?

~~~
alaskamiller
Sitting around, counting his money. Occasionally does some emailing.

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imsteve
I believe I am terribly bad at #3.

Thanks for the suggestion.

