

Your ideas are shit. Make them anyway. - graygenesis
http://graygenesis.com/journal/your-ideas-are-shit-make-them-anyway/

======
suresk
The post was a little disjointed, but there were two things I wanted to
comment on:

1) Just build stuff.

I think this, by itself, is pretty good advice. I've built a lot of websites
and apps, and while I haven't gained a lot of notoriety or huge financial
success from them, they have all been huge educational experiences for me, and
are a big part of the reason I have such a good job (and good opportunities)
right now.

I'll keep building stuff because I find it intrinsically rewarding and
educational, and because I figure the more stuff I build, the better the
chance that one of them will turn into something bigger.

2) Don't get a CS degree.

I cringe when I see stuff like that. This was me a little over a decade ago
when I was planning for college. I had the grades and test scores to study CS
at Stanford, MIT, or any other well-respected school and for a variety of
reasons (that don't make much sense to the 29 year old version of me) chose to
study Finance at a few state universities instead.

Finance was interesting, and I got to do an internship at a VC fund as a
result of it, but ultimately, not studying CS has been a major regret of mine.
I feel like I'm a pretty competent and successful software developer now, but
I can't help but wonder how many more opportunities would have been available
to me had I gone the CS route (or at least Physics, Math, or Engineering)
instead.

It certainly is worth thinking about whether you really want to go the CS
route, but don't write it off because you feel like you can simply learn it
all along the way.

~~~
vbtemp
_"It certainly is worth thinking about whether you really want to go the CS
route, but don't write it off because you feel like you can simply learn it
all along the way."_

Thanks for this comment.

Many developers who don't study CS tend to not-know-what-they-don't-know. It's
fantastic they can throw together some web apps, but they don't always seem
aware of what they can't do. I'd like to see the OP be thrown into a situation
where he has to, among other things: write a static analyzer, design a stable
routing algorithm over a mobile ad-hoc network, or publish, defend and
implement a novel cryptographic key distribution protocol.

Here's a bit of philosophy for the OP (since he seemed so keen on hiring a
"philosopher"): Knowledge is being more cognizant of what you _don't_ know.

~~~
suresk
Indeed, had you asked me to rate myself as a developer 10 years ago and today,
I would have rated myself substantially higher 10 years ago, simply because I
had no idea how much I didn't know.

It wasn't until my first job that I started to grasp that I didn't know
everything (or even very much) about the field I'd chosen to work in.

------
capkutay
"When I’m an old man, I think most people will have the ability to program."

I keep hearing this on hacker news and I'm not sure why people think this.
There are a lot of people who can't form abstractions or pay enough attention
to detail to be able to program. People either get it (and can become great at
it) or they don't (they will fail their programming classes and/or give up).
As a CS student, I remember in the lower division classes half the people
scored in the B+ to A range, and the other half nearly failed and had to drop
the class and switch majors. This brought me to the conclusion that CS is not
for everyone..

~~~
morsch
He doesn't really explain why he thinks that sentence could be true, but on
the face of it it's almost absurd.

Not just because programming is difficult, but simply because most people
don't have the ability to do _all_ the easy things. I'm hopeless with most
tools; I can figure out the easy stuff because it is, well, easy, but I would
need to learn on the spot, so I don't have that ability now. The same is true
for an almost infinite number of other easy things. Most people can't even
cook.

Even if programming were easy, why would people chose to be able to program
instead of other abilities if they don't have to.

------
sthatipamala
I don't even have a CS degree and this post makes my blood boil. He'd hire a
"philosopher" for his company first?

Who do you think makes the operating system that runs your all-important,
"real world" app? Who are you going to pay $100K a year to rework your hack of
a database schema if your service ever "goes viral"? Yeah, that's right, it's
an engineer who learned all that theoretical knowledge.

A lot of CS majors don't know how to code for their life. A lot of MBAs will
stab you in the back over equity. A lot of designers in a post Jobs-ian world
are self-entitled brats. It turns out that A LOT of people are incompetent and
their occupation has nothing to do with it.

If you don't enjoy your major, change it. If you think a philosopher can
achieve your product vision, do whatever is best for your company. But the
author is a fool to disparage an entire field of knowledge and its
practitioners because it is not immediately relevant to whatever his goals
are.

~~~
einhverfr
When I am looking at hiring someone (and I have a history degree, not a CS
one), I never ask about their degree. Why? Because I have rarely found that a
CS degree really correlates either way with coding quality.

What I focus on instead is past accomplishments. I ask for work samples,
questions about what you've done in the past, etc. If you have done open
source development even better. Please send me your contributions and I will
review them!

I have met excellent developers who had CS degrees and excellent developers
who didn't.

This being said... The article I think illustrates the kind of person who
needs an attitude adjustment before starting a company. His overall negativity
means he will need to be able to think positively about his ideas before he
can even start to think about making them work in the real world. It's hard
enough to get such a software project going to a level of self-sustainability
when you believe in it. When you think it all sucks it can be very hard.

~~~
adestefan
That's because a CS degree has nothing to do with coding. I'm not sure where
people got this idea that a CS degree is nothing more than 4 years of
vocational programming.

~~~
einhverfr
Probably because that's what HR departments think ;-)

------
thornad
When you are an old man, most people will use technology ubiquitously. Most of
them will not understand how it is made and what makes it tick. Those who
will, will be considered wizards. Your post was inspiring. Especially the
title. I can relate having learned everything by myself. I also got a degree,
and was asked to stay for a PhD but I declined wanting to make things happen
rather than just study them. I am being called 'doctor' anyway by my clients,
who are all Phds but they outsource the most difficult (as in we have no
freaking idea how to wrap our head around this problem) to me. Even worked as
a contractor for NASA if that means anything. It's not about the degree or
what you have done. Everything we end up doing is to just prove ourselves that
we can do it. The only reason you have to do your 'shit' ideas is to build up
confidence and get more inspiration. When you are ready, your big idea will
come to you. It is with you already but you can't see it, because you are not
ready to look up that high. My feeling is that you will progress quickly. So
stay in touch with that feeling of the big idea you are here to do, while
learning as much as you can on your job, and work as much as you can on you
side projects. They are the steps you need to climb to your big one. And know
that you are carrying the big one with you. Also know that people will see
that and as long as you don't claim it for yourself, will try to use it (and
you) for their own purpose. So value yourself, you would not feel inspired if
you did not have it in you. And post more inspiring articles :)

------
kaeluka
"Coding for me is something I do because it’s almost zen-like. It’s my escape.
With my earbuds in, and my music on, I’ll hack the night away. The less sleep,
the more knowledge I accumulate." \- this is a beautiful sentence I can relate
to.

And: I'm in the middle of making my first shit idea. And it feels good even
though chances of any success are probably zero.

------
graygenesis
This was more aimed toward the CS majors who graduated, but didn't have the
skills necessary to land a programming job. It wasn't written with the
intention of calling out all CS majors. The CS majors in my class don't know
anything about their trade, which saddens me because they should want to know
it. When asked "why" they were majoring in CS (first day of class), most of
them said because they heard it paid well. I just find it inspiring that I met
people who learned this all on their own.

Hiring a philosopher was an idea that I got from @mattt. He suggested majoring
in Philosophy, if I wasn't happy with the CS curriculum. That if you set your
mind to it, you can learn it anyways. With so many free books out there, it's
almost scary what you can learn today.

For those wanting to know, I attend Austin Community College.

------
_k
OP says he never has any ideas of his own. And the title suggests he doesn't
even have ideas that are worth shit.

I don't want any more ideas, I got plenty, good ones and lots of bad ones as
well. Ideas are a dime a dozen. Sometimes I really need to write them down
because it's too damn hard to focus, especially when one of those ideas
appears to hold a lot of promise.

I'm not sure others can relate to this but ideas usually come when you don't
want them, it's almost like there's a trojan in your head waiting to release
ideas in an attempt to get you all excited and distract you from whatever it
is you're doing or need to do.

------
benwerd
This post makes me sad in a way I can't quite articulate.

OP is in Austin. Anyone else at SXSW interested in buying him a drink and
talking about how we made our own stuff? (And how important a CS degree is in
silicon valley?)

~~~
philip1209
Honest question - how important _is_ a CS degree in silicon valley? I ask
because I'm halfway through majors in systems engineering and physics, and I'm
now realizing how important CS is and how much I enjoy it, but I figure that
my quantitative background with the ability to program is equally marketable
as a CS degree.

~~~
benwerd
It depends what you're doing and where you want to work, but it's competitive:
you're going to need a technical degree with a very good grade average to get
in the front door at a lot of companies. Systems engineering and physics will
probably stand you in very good stead.

------
artursapek
I can tell you're serious about being nocturnal because it's nearly 5am in
Texas right now. That being said, it's nearly 6 in Providence and you just
made me feel more comfortable with the fact that I'm studying Industrial
Design yet am more interested in programming and web development.

I think "programming" is an interesting phenomenon because it seems that it
can be made into a career regardless of what you study in school, if you love
it enough. Keep on keeping on.

------
skadamat
haha what city are you in / what college do you go to? I know how you feel, I
switched into Math from Biz / CS and I like having that Math background (great
for ML / NLP stuff) and I feel badass amongst the math majors, 80% of which
can't code nearly as good as I can.

With regards to ideas, I def. think you'll come up with something. NObody is
born an ideas person, trust me. Its def better to go from tech to tech + idea,
then be the biz dude who just sits around and says "i have this idea for an
app... ALL I NEED ARE DEVELOPERS". (aka that was me 2 years ago, so I know how
it feels). Just follow lots of startups, keep reading Hacker News, etc. The
key is to find a startup idea around some pain point YOU have (ideal
situation, makes for the most passion / follow through) or something you know
others have. You did the wireless antenna thing cuz of a pain point you have,
etc.

~~~
wilfra
"Nobody is born an ideas person, trust me."

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by 'born' but insofar as people are 'born
hackers' people are also born idea people. The special ones are people who are
both.

~~~
skadamat
People are born creative, sure, but not necessarily as someone who simply
applies their creativity to startups / startup ideas. Both idea and product
development can be learned over time thankfully. Just one year ago I was a
business guy, and I knew no code. Now I'm learning machine learning, have
built several web applications, LOVE the unix shell, etc. All in under a year.

