Three Roads To The Top Of The Mountain | Hacker News Reader

Three Roads To The Top Of The Mountain

jacquesmattheij.com

from what I've seen in the people around me that 'made' it without a tremendous amount of luck or access to outside capital, starting from 0 with nothing to show for themselves but the shirts on their backs and their skills

Love the way Jacques removed the outliers Mark and Bill from the discussion in the very beginning. Every advise is well reasoned and articulated with precision.

Of course, in the middle of your journey you might find your own shortcut trail to being in the first road, till then keep trying. Keep Hacking!

How is Mark an outlier relatively to the sentence you have quoted? He started from 0 and had nothing to show besides the flip flops on his feet and his skills.

The two arguable factors are luck and outside capital. Are you sure luck played such a great factor in his case ? and was his decision to take outside funding at that stage unnecessary?

He was raised in Westchester County and went to Philips Exeter, then Harvard.

Many others have as well, and have not done what he did. But that still doesn't qualify as "starting from zero" or "nothing to show."

How many people do you know who started off at an age of 19-20 and were a tech celebrity in 2-3 years? Well I do not know of many hence they are and will be an outlier for me.

A lot of things including luck and timing beside the usual clicked for both Mark and Bill and hence they are where they are today!

This was the first lengthy article I read today and what a great way to start the day! It's not sexy - it's not hip - it's just some good old fashioned advice framed in a way that anyone should be able to understand. I especially appreciate the way he defined "The Top."

"someone that I helped (this will be my downfall one day)"

I doubt this will be your downfall! It's likely a major contributor to your rising!!! I know you only from your contributions to HN, and now your blog posts - and I hope you continue to provide your valuable insights to those you've never met!

p.s. - I sure wish you would come back!

A good read about working hard with constant learning. This 3rd road of 'Keep Moving' reminds me of the Seinfeld Calendar (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1033433).

Every day, you want to be able to have something to show for it. While it won't pay off immediately, constantly learning new things and having the experience to show for it will make you stronger, marketable, and ideally self-sustainable.

Good read, and basically my strategy: measure success as relative freedom from worry, time for self and professional development, accruing assets, and lack of debt. Achieve his by focused hard work, but don't work so hard that you burn out.

But what if you really start at the bottom? Like a homeless person without job. I wonder if those rules could also be applied to them. Because if they do, I would like to tell the guys in the street...

It struck me as good advice for anyone of sound mind. For that fraction of the homeless who are mentally ill, probably there's no advice that would help much until they took care of that.

To a homeless person, I could well imagine the top is a regular well paying job and a home they own - Which should be achievable in 10 years with hard work, education, internships, career ladder.

The top of the mountain is relative to where you are now. For many people at the 'top', may actually consider that the bottom, especially if they were born into it. The top in their case is Bill Gates, Zuckerburg etc. e.g. the Winklevoss twins.

Ofcourse everybody has a different top. But most stories like this one start with a descent position. But even the crappiest job can be a million miles away when you don't have access to education, internship, a career ladder.

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