Uploaded byMatt Haughey
Lessons from a 40 year old
The document outlines lessons learned over a 40 year career, emphasizing the importance of prioritizing family and personal life over work. It cautions against an all-consuming focus on success and advises that many ambitious projects can be achieved working just 10-20 hours per week rather than constantly operating under high-pressure crunch conditions. The long-term view is presented as preferable to short-term thinking or funding pressures that can lead one to compromise their values and vision.
Lessons from a 40 year old
- 1. Lessons from a40 year old
- 14. 20s 40s Work Personal
- 16. “Stack Overflow andStack Exchange have been wildly successful, but I finally realized that success at the cost of my children is not success. It is failure.”
- 18. “I’m sorry, sweetie. Ijust need a few more minutes on the computer; then I can play with you.”
- 20. “The world isfull of ideas that can be executed with 10 to 20 hours per week, let alone 40. The number of projects that are truly impossible unless you put in 80 or 120 hours per week are vanishingly small by comparison. This is of course nothing new. We’ve been playing this bongo drum for years. But every time I see people crumble and quit from the crunch-mode pressure cooker, I think what a shame, it didn’t have to be like that.”
- 23. Web app building101 1. Identify something in life that annoys or delights 2. Build a web app to automate that 3. Make it multi-user, social
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- 33. Signed Band Unsigned Band write music write music play music play music record music produce music market the band build a website book travel book venues design merch sell merch sell tickets hire road crew manage road crew find openers
- 42. “There wasn't initiallyeasy access to venture capital in L.A. and entrepreneurs had no choice but to build profitable business models from the start”
- 43. Benefits of along-term view
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- 54. Hire the best,as early as possible
- 56. Growing slow =thinking small?
- 57. Short-term thinking/ funding
- 60. “I imagine yourwork on MetaFilter might be similar- and since you’ve had the good sense to retain ownership, you are able to continue to shape your creation according to what you think is best. That matters a lot.”
- 65.