

Ask HN: What happened to Steve Yegge after 'quitting' - topherjaynes

The recent &quot;I&#x27;m coding 180 websites&#x27; post inspired me to get a group of friends to commit to set aside some time for study hall to work on things once a week--hopefully more often. I used Steve&#x27;s OsConn talk (google Steve Yegge Quits)to help show the value of study hall hours. Curious to know if anyone has heard an update on his goal of study hall hours everyday for an hour to learn math. Surprised there isn&#x27;t a follow up talk, post or rant to that talk. Or have you had any success setting aside set time to work on side projects or just to learn something?
======
losvedir
He didn't quit. See his post:

[http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2011/07/hacker-news-fires-
st...](http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2011/07/hacker-news-fires-steve-
yegge.html)

"Hacker News Fires Steve Yegge" which is about how everyone misinterpreted
what he said.

~~~
topherjaynes
yea that's why I threw the '' around quit. I don't think there was a
misinterpretation at all. He did quit. He just wasn't specific to say that he
was only quitting the so called cat projects and I'm just interested in how
that's going. Did the study hall pay off and such.

------
incision
_> "Or have you had any success setting aside set time to work on side
projects or just to learn something?"_

Yes.

Several months ago I decided to get serious about re-aligning my career and
the pursuit of a degree.

Creating a structured plan with a schedule and specific goals has been the
most important part. Setting aside time is part of that.

I think treating my development more formally has been a huge help.

~~~
dominotw
I recently enrolled in a local Uni as a freshman. You are right about treating
development more formally, you just have to switch 'development' brain off. I
was curious what kind of structured plan you have, is it just you daily
schedule or something more long term?

~~~
incision
_> "I recently enrolled in a local Uni as a freshman."_

Same here.

 _> "I was curious what kind of structured plan you have, is it just you daily
schedule or something more long term?"_

It's mostly longer term on a scale of months to one year or several in the
case of the degree.

For example, one goal is working through the entirety of Introduction to
Algorithms [0]. I've set out dates by section for reading, completing problem
sets and reviews. I've written these dates out along with my reasons for
pursuing the goal and how I believe I will benefit from achieving it.

That might sound simple, but taking the time think these things through, and
articulate them into something concrete was certainly useful to me.

This isn't the kind of thing I'd have done historically, but I've been trying
to stay very open-minded to _anything_ that might help me reach the goals I've
set. I follow the same process for any significant new goal.

I make a point to take (hand written) notes on everything I work on. At least
once a week, I whiteboard what I've been reading or working on. There are
going to gaps or things I completely blank on which become items for further
review in the coming week.

I have yet to settle with a calendar or to-do app which I really like, for the
moment, all these dates and tasks are either in a notebook I use daily or on
my whiteboard for emphasis.

As much as possible, I try to create "artifacts" from the way I'm spending
time. This can be notes, a quick summary of what I got from reading a chapter
or article or an attempt at implementing something I read about.

I have a solid routine for my days made pretty necessary between my job and
small child, but each day isn't entirely planned. I keep a shortlist of things
that I work on in the same set of windows (early morning, commute, at work in
the gaps, before bed) each day. I've cut out most anything that isn't family,
work or study.

One thing I aim to stay strictly consistent about is waking (5:00). This gives
me a little "extra" time before I wake my child up.

0:
[http://www.amazon.com/dp/0262033844/](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0262033844/)

~~~
dominotw
>> I make a point to take (hand written) notes on everything I work on.

I was not doing this intially thinking I dont have write down stuff if I
understand it, Only to be completely lost and having to read and understand it
all over again. Now I write everything down too.

I wish you all the best.

------
topherjaynes
[video]
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKmQW_Nkfk8](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKmQW_Nkfk8)
(13:50 is the Study Hall)

------
has207
The next blog post he posted a few months later was all about how he spent the
last few months playing this video game. Well, not entirely, there was a dig
at google+ in there as well. But I'm guessing the study hall didn't happen...

Too bad too, because I also felt very inspired by his "I quit" speech and was
looking forward to a follow up.

------
ngd
He did a talk about Project Grok, a piece of internal Google infrastructure he
created, back in April at an Emacs conference:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRO3dNJx5Dw](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRO3dNJx5Dw)

------
damontal
So he actually quit his job at Google in that speech, and not just some cat-
picture project?

~~~
riggins
He didn't quit his job. He even wrote a follow up about how HN had
misinterpreted what he said.

[http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2011/07/hacker-news-fires-
st...](http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2011/07/hacker-news-fires-steve-
yegge.html)

Separately, he also wrote a post that was critical of Google+ (he accidentally
published publically what was supposed to be an internal post). He wrote a
follow-up to that too saying nothing bad happened to him at Google.

------
_pmf_
As soon as his leaked piece on Google+ appeared, it was pretty much to be
expected that he will be terminated (use whatever softer sounding euphemism
you like). You can't just throw feces at your coworkers in public view and
expect to be kept in the company.

~~~
jsolson
That may have been some people's expectation, but as his public G+ page
says[0], he still works at Google. Sergey called his piece a 'night-time
aid'[1]. Also Steve's take on it [2].

That said, the OP was talking about his OSCON talk (check out from ~minute 13
onward):
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKmQW_Nkfk8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKmQW_Nkfk8)

[0]:
[https://plus.google.com/110981030061712822816/posts](https://plus.google.com/110981030061712822816/posts)

[1]: [http://www.nbcsandiego.com/blogs/press-here/Sergey-Brin-
Stev...](http://www.nbcsandiego.com/blogs/press-here/Sergey-Brin-Steve-Yegge-
Not-Fired-But-Hes-a-Windbag-132256573.html)

[2]:
[https://plus.google.com/110981030061712822816/posts/AaygmbzV...](https://plus.google.com/110981030061712822816/posts/AaygmbzVeRq)

------
varelse
Steve Yegge is 100% talk and no action. He wants to go cure cancer? Well then
dive right in and join the fight! I'm sure he has Google lucky megabucks so
what he does with his remaining time on Earth is entirely up to his whims.

Those whims seem to be telling him to stay in his Google glass menagerie and
enjoy what his keepers feed him and taking time to play and extensively
critique _Borderlands_. And that's a fine and understandable hacker hedonist
strategy, but please, STFU about "curing cancer" etc. (unless he's going to
get in the ring(tm), which I seriously doubt he ever will).

But to be fair, I've seen this happen to a few of my friends who hit it big,
and I think it explains why there are so few Elon Musks and James Camerons
among us. Once Maslov's hierarchy has been topped off, it's like the
insatiable drive to achieve that made that possible just evaporates.

~~~
michaelwww
Having just watched the video (YouTube: vKmQW_Nkfk8) I feel nothing you say
takes anything away from what he said. Most of us, including Steve, get caught
up in short term goals and many of us indulge in some sort of entertaining
distraction from thinking about hard problems. That's why we're not the next
Elon Musk or Steve Jobs. Even if I take your word for it, that you know Steve
Yegge and have many friends who hit it big, how do their failings (which are
also most of ours) detract from the ideal?

~~~
varelse
I'm not attacking his words, he's an eloquent guy.

But I'm personally not into motivational speeches, I'm a hard-core believer in
follow-through and results (and little else). And while that has problems of
its own, they're not the same ones as all talk and no action.

~~~
michaelwww
He actually has been working on a big data analysis problem for the last four
years, which is presumably why he was asked to speak, so your characterization
of him as all talk and no action is incorrect

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTJs-0EInW8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTJs-0EInW8)

