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Comment by dhaivatpandya | Hacker News Reader

I totally agree with the "too young" thing. I'm 15 and been freelancing since I was 12, and this gets in the way all the time. People try to take advantage of you once they realize that you're young(er) than most in the field.

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I think it's fantastic that you're here, freelancing and making money. Under the age of 14, though, I think US companies could potentially get into legal trouble hiring you. Under the age of 18 there are laws regarding maximum hours and what hours you can work (so not to interfere with school, etc).

I would agree that you should be paid based on your skill, though, not age.

I mostly worked with small companies in India (only a few projects) before I was 14. And, I am working nowhere close to the amount which even comes close to max. hours.

Unless you are a prodigy, you simply haven't had the time yet to become really good at anything. Supposedly it takes 10.000 hours or so of exercise, which would be 9 years at 3 hours daily.

I'm not trying to push you down, and anyone not paying you what your work is worth is definitely taking advantage of you.

Very true. But, I don't think that applies to everything. I don't think it takes 10,000 hours of practice to design a decent Wordpress theme. In fact, I would say that most college graduates (even from top universities) would still be quite far away from 10,000 hours in a specific domain of CS/SE, yet, companies do hire them.

Yes, and they are hired into a graduate position, if they are lucky. Most are brought on as Juniors because they do not have the required experience.

> But, I don't think that applies to everything. I don't think it takes 10,000 hours of practice to design a decent Wordpress theme.

Well it does, but you obviously benefit from all relevant experiences. Any kind of design, even print or illustration, is relevant. Obviously all programming, not only PHP/Javascript is relevant.

He doesn't have to be a rock-star to be able to freelance and charge decent rates. Also, it's not about the quantity of hours spent; it's also about the quality and focus.

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