Wow, this guy is amazing. Read his wikipedia page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Collison
Just let go. If there is success, there is success. If there is no success, there is no success.
If you reach a decent standard of living, there will be plenty to enjoy. Do not forget to do so.
It doesn't hurt either, but the biggest factor is perseverance.
If you get discouraged because someone younger than you can succeed when you can't then that perseverance element is exactly what you have to work on.
For every Patrick and every John there are 10's of thousands of people that succeed. And almost all of them are not nearly as brilliant or as young. Imagine a world without them. In that world you would be closer to the top. But your chances of success would not be diminished, nor would they be decreased.
Now repeat that process for all those that are smarter, richer and more dedicated than you. At some point you'll be the one at the top. What would you blame it on if you then still did not succeed?
In the end, all that matters is when and how you decide to make a go of it, how much you apply yourself, how well you'll deal with the unavoidable hardships and how much luck you will have and how the timing will favor you.
It doesn't really matter how much higher than 120 your IQ is, plenty of people with less than that have succeeded at a level that even Patrick or John will never exceed simply by being in the right place at the right time and making use of every opportunity that life threw at them.
If you want to measure yourself do it with people that started off with less than you had and that still made it. Then figure out what they did right that you're doing wrong and go for it.
I'm Patrick, John's brother.
I too constantly feel that I should be more successful, and I'm pretty sure the feeling doesn't go away -- no matter what's achieved.
I think looking at others can be a useful gut check: am I working as hard as I could? Am I as focused as I'd like to be? But given that there's so much randomness and circumstance there too, it's a bad benchmark for anything.
(For what it's worth, the check I use personally is: "is there a difference between how those who know me best would describe me, and how I'd like to be?" Most of the time, I just try to fix those gaps.)
Good luck!
What was your childhood like? Did you parents teach you programming? Did you play with legos a lot?
Write as if you were giving advice to future-fathers.
Much respect to John and Patrick, I hope that they continue to do impressive things and that a few years down the road they'll look at the things they did in their 20s as 'merely setting the stage' for whatever else they'll be doing then.
^^^ If only I could up vote this many more times..
As a quick check: How important has luck been to you guys?
Our Dani Fong here has a similar story -- dropped out of Princeton at the age of 17... where she was doing her doctorate.
I think the parents of these two need to come out and explain to us what exactly their parenting methods are.
That's what I gathered from her history. I know of a bunch of people that could of been like that, but stuck to normal school and the pace that it sets with it's busy work and so on limited their potential. I think there is a lot of kids where you could just 'skip the bullshit' and put them in some sort of college degree but instead they flounder in a school system where they don't fit in and is not suited for them.
She started her own company because similarly, she really doesn't like being an employee.
Although, I will annotate to your analysis -- the reason I started this particular company was that I wanted to make a difference. The reason I had to start some company was because I am rather insubordinate, and lack consistency of attendance and effort on things that I am less than passionately attached to.
Having mom or dad to go running to trains you to spend your entire life hiding under the wing of "mom" or "dad". Having parents who go "So?" when you go "Timmy hit me at school" teaches you to sort out your own problems and find your own solutions.
The vast majority of people I know who've made it/are making it (the one's who're actually profitable, or have product(s) attracting investment) have either no, or highly dysfunctional, relationships with their parents.
His father may be a businessman (yes, I read the part where he says he's an electrical engineer), I'm not sure.
Based on what things cost in Ireland today and the salary one can make, it does not look good. And any salary considered 'high' pays 41% in taxes (where high is > $41k per year)
That's incorrect. You don't pay the high rate of income tax on all of your income, but only on income over a certain threshold depending on your circumstances. Actually we have pretty low income tax rates when compared to other EU countries:
But yes, you'll pay 41% on what goes over a certain limit (that is, above $41k annually or 32.8KEUR).
About your second statement, not really: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_rates_of_Europe
If you're paying less taxes and taking more home but things cost more then it may negate the advantage.
"Biggest drop in cost of living since 1933" http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/biggest-drop-in-cost-of...
And between 2009 and now, our economy has been flat at best. I think it's important to look at all of these factors when examining a country's economy. The real problem Ireland has is unemployment: we went from ~4% to ~14% unemployment in just a few years. This has added to the decline in the cost of living however (less demand for goods and services).
Rent and property have also fallen in value, making it cheaper to rent.
Lets just hope he continues to use his intellectual gifts for good and not to better his pockets. He's off to a good start though.
In theory, a PPL can be earned with just 40 hours of flight time, although the actual average is closer to 60-70 hours. There's obviously a ground school component, which can be self-study, and depending on learning speed might require about another 100 hours. Factor in the time to write the written exams and pass a checkride, and it's not a horrendous time commitment. I've heard of people doing it in a month, albeit working on it nearly full time.
It's still an admiral accomplishment. There's a lot to learn while learning to fly!
Note: I'm not a pilot, these aren't coworkers, just natural friends.