I remember when the iPad came out and everyone was making jokes about it. No one would image a phone would be a primary computing device. Don't know if glasses are the next major step, but a handheld phone being a computing device is a transitory thing.
This is actually a really good document for someone who is a junior or assistant. I've worked a variety of jobs and didn't get much documents on training like this, mostly compliance stuff. You could take a lot of it out and get good points on managing people and taking ownership for tasks. It seems redundant or basic, but a lot of these things aren't explicitly mentioned, usually informally only.
You are correct. There are way too many assistant roles in the creative industry that come with little to none real job training, just “watch what I do, or do as I tell, and never make a mistake twice or you’re toast”.
I think it’s due to the sheer amount of candidates, and the total power some superiors have over you.
It’s a sink or swim strategy, but you’re also swimming with sharks.
That’s there, but the parts about taking responsibility for your work, keeping people you delegate work to accountable and negotiating with vendors and being persistent is stuff you usually get informally.
I also find those signs that it’s a more honest document. Most things publicly available are so neutered there’s not much useful grey info
It's hypocritical, those closest to Jimmy have get-out-of-jail-free cards and others get fired. And the "no doesn't mean no" stuff reeks of toxic hustle culture.
Most handbooks are boring and legalese because they can be evidence in court.
I'm a big fan of MUJI notebooks. Perfect for me on the cost-quality spectrum and they have blank paper options. I have some from high school that still held up.
Every sigmoid ends somewhere. ASI will have limits, but the limits are surely so far beyond human level that it may as well be exponential from our point of view.
Wynwood in Miami had that plan. a few developers bought pretty much everything and gave artists and cool concepts/restaurants cheap rent to build there. Once it became popular they jacked up the rents and built condos on it. It’s a completely different animal now
The really good books are REALLY good, though. But the only places I've seen them were at university bookstores (and even then mainly MIT/Stanford) or Amazon when they had physical stores. Otherwise you have to get them online
Suburbs can be prisons if there’s not enough people your age around you. I lived in semi-suburbs and had friends I’d walk to after school. Makes it more fun than having to organize car dates until someone gets a car. But nowadays kids are so supervised I don’t know if they hang outside anymore
I'd say it's more common for people to not have an online presence than to have an online presence. Working at a FAANG, the vast majority of social media from the employees I've seen have nothing to do with technology (probably for risks of saying something they shouldn't say as an employee of a publicly traded company).
I do know a personal friend who pivoted from english teaching to startups to FAANG and he was kind of smart. He made a podcast in his field, but when he became a manager at a FAANG, he deleted his podcast.
The most important thing in your early career is to work at the right places or the right opportunities. If you're early in your career I don't think your portfolio or LinkedIn is going to matter than much to be honest.
If I was young and starting out today I would focus on:
a. An internship if I was in college with a great company. It's the easiest way to get a job at a FAANG or whatever industry or place you ultimately want to work in
b. Contributing to some llm or technical crypto project where there's demand for people to contribute and you can make an impact because the market isn't crowded. Avoid the easy tutorial copy/paste stuff and push some code in a technically interesting and useful project. You'll learn a lot and make valuable connections as a lot of these people are usually established
If you have to pay bills, you can get whatever job you can find today, but while pursuing a & b to maximize opportunity. There's also communities you can join where you can potentially get referrals, but being very clear on what you want will help you tailor your experience.
Most "professionals" with an online presence use it strategically and are only showing exactly what they want you to see
You brought up a good point on this person deleted his podcast once he started working at a FAANG. When you worked for nobody, not many cared. A publicly traded company garners creates attention, whether malicious or not. It's safer to say nothing in public unless you are authorized to speak in a conference, to communicate with stockholders etc.
(If someone knows the URL of the podcast, they may still able to locate the podcast from Wayback machine. The episodes may not be completely gone, but they are way harder to find because such steps involves knowing you in the long term.)
Different skillsets involved. You will eventually have to give up programming and focus on developer sales/marketing/recruiting skills.
Very rare to see businesses where you're sole developer and salesperson unless you are the main SME on a niche field/technology you probably developed.
Also A LOT of FAANG is immigrants who can't start a business in the US or children of immigrants whose parents put strong pressure on them having an upper middle class job.
