Advice for ambitious 19 year olds (2013)
blog.samaltman.com
blog.samaltman.com
Everything we do, will ultimately be undone, if you extend the time horizon long enough. The greatest scientists, inventors, football players and political leaders get forgotten after a few generations, in fact whole civilizations have been living on this very earth, and were since erased from its surface, many of which we might have not a single trace left of. Being "great" in our culture typically accounts to beating hundreds of people, so by definition for every person who succeeds there will be hundreds of "loosers". This is a ridiculous game, and I think every wise person should refuse to participate in it in the first place and set their own priorities. You should do things to try to have a happy life from day to day, not to "get somewhere".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozymandias#Comparison_of_the_tw...
Well, not necessarily. Economics quite clearly says that the total future benefit of any amount of nonzero-benefit present activity, at least if measured in currency units, tends toward infinity; that's why we have interest rates and the concept of rent. Of course, it's not the optimal strategy for securing personal happiness unless you already know you have a solid chance, especially if you're shooting for the "remembered by humanity for all time" mark and not something more modest, but living for progress is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.
Regardless of whether or not that 19yo ties his happiness to doing something great doesn't change the fact that he's going to be part of this game either directly or indirectly. I desperately want to believe that we can all lead a happy life simply by setting our own priorities. However, as warm and fuzzy as that can make me feel inside I just don't think it's true. Resources are scarce. There's going to be competition. In some places in the world there's heavy competition even if your priority is something as basic as water.
I read an article a while ago that resonated very strongly with me, particularly this bit:
It is Mr Rottenberg’s view that the current vogue for the “pursuit of happiness” may perversely push certain people towards depression. Happiness, he argues, is the result of achieving a goal, rather than a goal itself. He cites recent evidence suggesting that depression or low mood can be triggered by setting unobtainable goals. Rather than becoming depressed because of underachievement, he suggests that perhaps depression is an overcommitment to goals that cannot be reached.
http://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21600653-callin...
> Being "great" in our culture typically accounts to beating hundreds of people, so by definition for every person who succeeds there will be hundreds of "loosers".
Mostly in sports, which obviously is artificial. In real life, very few things are actually zero-sum. Who are the "losers" that Einstein beat? MLK, Ghandi? Jimi Hendrix?
In general, I think your comment contains a false dichotomy. Yes, it's extremely unlikely that yours will become a household name for generations to come, but the alternative isn't that you're forgotten. Be something positive for someone else - start a family and be a good parent: whatever your children achieve (even if it's similarly modest) you will have had a part in that. Be a good friend, spouse, lover. Start a business, provide good jobs for your employees. Build a good library/tool that you and your peers need. You can easily touch dozens and hundreds of lives, but in a small way, and they then build on top of that. Just because they don't build you a statue on the town square, it doesn't mean your work is undone.
If the one you are attending makes you think it's not worth it, just get to a better one.
I think university is a safe default choice. Yes, you will be learning things that you might never need. On the other hand, you will learn things you wouldn't have learned otherwise and they will open up your eyes. Also, you get to be surround with smart people (given you are at a good uni). And attending university doesn't mean you can't work on something on the side, and drop uni if things go well.
Of course, there are cases when starting/continue working on your business is much better. But I believe those are exceptions, and if that's the case for you, you won't need anyone to tell you that. It will be obvious that you should do that.
If you are motivated, passionate about the subject and going to a good university then I would agree - personally I think these factors are actually more important that the exact subject you do (YMMV).
However, if you are not motivated, not really interested in the subject or not going to a particularly good university then I would question the wisdom of going - especially if you are going to end up with a large amount of debt afterwards.
[NB I also spent 10 years in a university environment - 4 as an undergraduate and 6 as a postgraduate researcher and I thought it was great, but I am also acutely aware that I also knew a lot of people who dropped out or who did subjects they really weren't that interested in just because they felt they had to do something].
> I'd say going to university is rarely ever a bad choice.
Interestingly enough, the second does not follow from the first. As it turns out, people are different.
That's the actual problem, not "If the one you are attending makes you think it's not worth it." Lots of factors come into play when making these decisions that won't fly on a whim.
Which was good, because my CS degree didn't actually teach me jack shit in the way of practical programming skills. If there's a job out there that needs someone who knows compiler design, search/sort algorithms, loads of calculus, the rock-bottom basics of C++, and nothing whatsoever about user interface, networks, system administration, or application design, well, 10-years-ago-me would have been very happy to hear about it.
I think that nowadays, if you are aiming for career skills and a position in industry, most university degrees and maybe an internship or two will prepare you extremely well. Degree programs today largely seem to focus on taking the student from the bare ignorance of their secondary education to the most fundamental rudiments of really understanding a field and thence to Hard Work and Job Skills as fast as possible. The elite universities distinguish themselves by also doing this as intensively and painfully as possible.
What they don't actually prepare their students for is really understanding a field in-depth and coming up with genuinely sound new ideas. This seems to be something people are supposed to learn on their own sometime around the PhD level, as not even graduate school ever seems to actually teach with the aim of real understanding. Self-study (for the truly masochistic ;-)) or mentorship are the only ways given for a student to actually reach the frontier of knowledge in anything, and quite often, nobody exposes the young to a broad enough base of rigorous knowledge for them to have even heard important facts about their own field.
It's kind of like how you have to get involved in programming-language theory or a few other small specialties to ever hear about category theory, despite it's being so general that it's been called the next major foundation of mathematics after set theory.
-Take everything with a healthy bit of secret skepticism but don't be cocky nor disrespectful. Very seldom does anything good come of that...but don't forget the skepticism.
-Learn to control your passions. Character really is important even though people who say things like this are usually dimwillys.
-Romantic relationships can break some people. Be aware, but don't give up the best things in life for lesser things. Certainly romantic relationships are among the best things in life.
-Stay curious about other fields. Isolating in one discipline can give people myopia. But do focus and specialize. This is important.
-Keep in mind that a lot will change in the next 60, and even next 10 years. Expect change and you won't be as thrown by it. Adaption is a very valuable skill.
As far as college and starting a company... do what you feel is best. Certainly people succeed at many paths and likewise fail at many.
The advice in the article about seeking out the smartest people is good though. Avoid the "party always" crowd. Bad things generally follow them.
Quite the blanket statement. Microsoft is a gigantic company, it will greatly depend on the team they're on.
One great advice, be around smart and ambitious people. This is contagous and helps motivation.
One advise I can give you (assuming you are a graduate) is DO NOT focus on the money, just focus on building your skills & experience. But don't let anyone take advantage of that either. Sooner or later you will demand a premium when you are a rockstar! Connect with as many people as possible and ask a ton of questions.
"He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever. ~ Chinese Proverb"
The best thing you can do as ambitious 19 year old is recognize that there is a lot more to the world than technology, and that college is effectively the only time in your life that you can, guilt-free, learn about the arc of civilization, or study Shakespeare in depth, or have a hope of learning biochemistry.
Remember Henlein: "A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
Starting a company is rather a ridiculous thing to do when the entire world is open to you.
I started at 25, and bootstrapped a company. I'm 28, and I now have enough passive income that I can do pretty much what I want.
I enjoyed my 20s. I would have enjoyed them even more if I had had this same setup from age 21-23. Of course, I only recommend this with the specific goal of "freedom" in mind.
I do like the topics you selected to study though. I studied international relations and economics. The second taught me a bit, and the first I learned from my own readings.
I would recommend students study either: A very practical skill that will help them be free of their time (programming, design, etc.) or something interesting, that's harder to learn outside of school (Shakespeare, fine arts, music, dance, one of the sciences)
You're in a good spot to have a full time job you enjoy and (presumably) pays well. For me, the hardest part was building capital. I'd recommend saving every penny you can.
As for how to start, try lots of small things. Most of my ideas that worked took, at most, two weeks to test. Many started from writing an email or making a phone call.
There are countless niches now, full of people prepared to pay money. I chose LSAT prep. I'm sure already there's thing you know how to do that people will pay for. Some ways you can monetize that:
* An e-book guide to something, with free html articles as marketing for organic SEO and links
* Some useful tool people will link to. Serves as marketing for either ads, a product, or a paid version
* Videos on a topic. Can be marketing for any of the above, or lead to a paid video product.
"Start small, stay small" by Rob Walling is an excellent guide to bootstrapping a business. Possibly the best. It's aimed at software developers, but I was able to use it as a non-developer for guiding principles and marketing.
The Moz guide to SEO is a very useful intro to how SEO works. Essential reading if you're planning on going the free marketing route.
Lastly, the Four Hour Workweek is what got me started, and it's a great overview of the hacker mindset applied to business. For me, the idea was not "hehehe, how can I be lazy and work only 4 hours". It was "how can I make a business that can keep running even if I choose not to work on it". I do work quite a bit, but I don't HAVE to now.
(Note: This last book rubs many people the wrong way. If a specific situation irks you, ask what principle he was applying, and if it could be applied to a situation that doesn't annoy you)
Authority:
http://www.amazon.com/Authority-Become-Following-Financial-I... http://nathanbarry.com/authority/
Start Small: http://www.amazon.com/Start-Small-Stay-Developers-Launching/...
SEO: http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo
4HWW: http://www.amazon.com/The-4-Hour-Workweek-Anywhere-Expanded/...
You've got to be kidding, speaking as a well educated older guy. Also, if you feel your education ended permanently at 22, your educators probably want to leap off a building. When you stop your education, you may as well be dead.
You can and should train for a vocation to make a living when you're 19 (even if for cultural reasons you call that vocational training "getting an education"), otherwise with no income stream, life will be a bit rough at 60 when you're supposed to continue your live long self education, seeing as with no vocational training you'd have starved to death at 23.
"or study Shakespeare in depth"
If you hate Shakespeare, why bother? If on the other hand, you love it, especially in our modern era of public libraries, internet, ebooks, MOOCs, free online university video lectures, how do you propose to stop me in my 40s from doing the same, better than I ever could have it in my early 20s? Its not like technology and culture stop progressing making it less likely you'll be able to learn in the future. Could happen, sure, but...
The other big point is that, during those 20 years from 22 to 42, you have the advantage of wider learning in your bag, and it helps you communicate. Remember the "Space Seed" episode of the original Star Trek (the one with Khan)? At the end Scotty explains Khan's acceptance of exile to Kirk by saying: "Have you ever read Milton, Captain?" It's understanding references like that that make you a complete human, vs. understanding pointer dereferencing, which make you a tradesman.
>Working on something good will pull you along a path where good things keep happening to you.
So his advice is, to boil it down, "Do successful stuff, but hopefully it's obvious to you what is going to be successful."
VCs can increase their odds of lucking into the rocket ship growth company by investing in 100 companies. I can't work for 100 companies simultaneously.
I couldn't agree more. I'm 20 years old and dropped out of university after my first year. There was a large amount of people I was surrounded by who weren't motivated at all and didn't really seem to take interest in anything we were doing.
I moved to San Francisco ( from New Zealand ) after I dropped out in the beginning of 2013, attended a programming bootcamp and was surrounded by smart people who all shared the same drive and passion as me. It made a world of difference, my core group of friends were all people who breathed code. We all motivated each other to better ourselves and to learn new technologies. Moving to the valley was the best thing I've ever done, I learned so much in such a short amount of time and was even approached by some companies with some great offers. Unfortunately I had to move back to New Zealand as my year was up and US work visas require a degree or an extensive amount of experience. That was probably the biggest downside of dropping out, a degree can definitely open up many doors.
However, I've never thought of skipping out on college. I live in a very affluent area and even the academically worst-off seniors usually end up going to decent 4-year programs.
The idea that so many people similar to me at my age would miss college for a startup or similar experience worries me because it makes me think that the community I've grown up with has distorted my perception of the opportunities available to me. It's time to take a long reevaluation of my plans, I think.
And really, you do have time. The Silicon Valley myth is that if you haven't had success by 22, you're done. And while there are outliers (including Sam), this is mostly a fiction. Many successful founders are in their late 20s, or even 30s, 40s and 50s. I was at a meet-up a few nights ago and met a team of 40-something founders that are reinventing film for the VR age.
You have a lot of time, and you should be spending it learning. Whether the best place for that is in college or not, I urge you to remember that there are important parts of education that do not involve compilers or databases and which should not be neglected.
But Sam's advice is good: be always learning, and surround yourself with smart people. You can certainly waste college, but it doesn't have to be a waste.
Finally, I was in your position not very long ago, and if you'd like to talk, my email's in my profile.
Edit (reply to below): I took a year off to work before I went to college, so I think I have a good perspective when I say this. You assume that: 1) college is going to educate someone about the world, get them a good job (not a measly startup job), give them discipline, and introduce them to cofounders; and 2) college will do this so much better than you could by working in industry that it justifies the cost (anywhere between $150-200k tuition for a good school, and possibly $200k in lost savings). Suffice to say, not all of those things are necessarily true.
I'd be happy to talk about this perspective to anyone over email.
I hate the common "get rich quick advise" to ambitious 19 year olds by "dropping out of school" to "join a fast paced start-up" for measly equity and few dimes to live on. Better advice to just buy a lottery ticket, cross ya fingers and pray.
If you want to "change the world" you need to 1st understand the world. But before one does one must have discipline and some core skills. That's what colleague teaches. Discipline and core skills + may introduce you to your future cofounder. Then go and learn from the world by working at many many places so you can understand the world and it's problems. Then change the world.
Maybe then we will have far better start ups that are actually building a business and changing the world than regurgitating (cloning) other businesses.
Recently, I've randomly come across a lot of people here in Lisbon, all in their 20s, saying they're in a brand-new startup or starting one. When I ask them about it, mum is the word. They hesitate and fumble for words, say a key word or two, then speak very generally before clamming up. It's amazing how many times I've seen this exact scene play itself out in the last few months. It's a mixture of being unsure about what they're doing and not wanting someone to steal their idea. They're all either novice coders without a business-minded partner, or vice-versa. It's to the point that I often feel like I'm in a scene from the Truman Show.
Seeing this happen, and while being in the midst of starting my own thing, I'm hesitant to say I'm doing a startup. I find myself preferring to say 'I'm starting a business online'.
Words to live by. I'm 19, not attending college and experiencing some bits of success. I have friends that like to say (not maliciously) how I'm that kind of person that can keep making risky decisions because has big strikes of luck.
What I keep trying to tell them, is that I have "big strikes of luck" because I keep myself always as exposed as possible to them. And I do so exactly with those decisions they deem risky, like not going to college, spending money on conferences, relocating, loosing ties.
"I am a great believer in luck -- the harder I work, the more I have of it."
[0]: http://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/i-am...
https://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S33/87/54K53/ind...
Perhaps the real lesson here is: when someone in a position of power likes to talk about the value of hard work, take a minute to think about who's doing the work and who's reaping the value.
Personally I'm most excited to see where I'll be when my friends start looking for work after university. Not in a "haha, I'm better than you" kind of way - just as validation that what I've done isn't completely crazy.
But who knows, maybe I'll be living out of a cardboard box somewhere in the heart of Silicon Valley in a couple years. :)
I'm one of those that disagree with this.
Entrepreneurship is a long-term "profession" all of its own. If you plan to be an entrepreneur, you need to treat it as such. You need to work in it by e.g. building companies, you need to fail it in a few times before you succeed, etc.
Most importantly, unlike most Software Developers, you need to realize the goal of an entrepreneur is to make money. You shouldn't be starting a company because you have a great idea, or because you feel like starting a company, but rather, because you want to make money and have identified that the path to make it is to be an entrepreneur and start this particular company. This affects both which companies you do start and which you don't.
This is not to say I necessarily think starting a company at 19 is the right thing to do. My advice to ambitious 19 year olds who want to be entrepreneurs would be to find a job as a personal assistant to a CEO of a small company in the field they want to work in, and learn the ropes from her.
NOTE: I give a very "entrepreneur==trying to get rich" perspective here, which I believe is sorely lacking in most young Software Developers. Some people start startups for other reasons entirely, which is of course great and absolutely your choice.
Personally, I found it overly pessimistic, and my instinct is to be skeptical of such things - but I'm not knowledgable enough to actually pick apart his arguments.
https://al3x.net/2013/05/23/letter-to-a-young-programmer.htm...
They just won't admit to that, because they have silly idealism.
"The secret is that any of these can be right answer, and you should make your decision based on the specific circumstances of each option."
My general advice to ambitious young people - go do something fun, interesting, and challenging that your unique age allows. Generally, this means it is something made possible by the combination of an abundance of free time and absence of major life responsibilities (like bills and children). So long as it meets all 3 of those characteristics, if you think you'd want to do it someday, just do it now. Leave the US and travel. Go to college and have fun (but remember that challenging is one of your key characteristics, and don't forget to challenge yourself). Start a company. You are 19. If you fail, no one will hold it against you, and you'll never regret it if you actually did something fun, challenging, and interesting.
The one piece of (slightly depressing) advice I would add this: student loans can be great for ambitious 19 year olds. Just know that you have to start repaying them 6 months after you quit going to school (if you can, only take subsidized loans and do your best to pay at least the interest+at least $1 towards principal of the rest while in school. Had one friend who did this, and I was shocked at the difference it made, perhaps naively), and if what you do after that doesn't allow to rapidly pay them off, you'll lose a lot of the freedom you had at 19 before you expected (coming from someone who has a small enough loan burden to have some freedom as a 25 year old, but large enough to prevent me from simply not having a steady income).
be around smart people
>> If you join a company, my general advice is to join a company on a breakout trajectory. There are a usually a handful of these at a time, and they are usually identifiable to a smart young person... Spending a few years at a company that fails has path consequences, and working at an already-massively-successful company means you will learn much less, and probably work with less impressive people.
I actually find it opposite. First of all, it is not so easy to identify a company on a breakout trajectory. The line between a breakout success and failure is just too thin on an early-stage startups. Even if the startup works on the same field as your expertise, you have been following that field for years, and you think the founders are brilliant, you can still get the judgement wrong a lot of the time.
I think a startup's failure is not so bad for a young and ambitious employee. There are just as many lessons can be learnt from failure as from success. As for path consequences, the young kids got so many productive years left and one failure is not really destructive or harmful. And a great thing is, if a startup fails most likely it fails fast. For your next job, people won't hire/reject you because the previous company you worked for failed, they hire/reject because you are brilliant or not. Likely the stuff you learnt in the failed startup will make you a brilliant person (tech and non-tech wise).
It just seems like a scary trend that is cropping up in tech, sure you can learn a lot if not more from a startup than your college education but the degree is what will get you in the door to a lot of places in your future.
That degree is the base for your career, its great to join/start a startup but if that fails you have nothing to fall back on, if you think you can get an interview with no degree to a top tier company and you dont have some kind of crazy resume then you are clearly living in a dream world. A single job where your company failed will not be the same as a degree.
(all assuming that you dont become a billionaire from this startup)
But even if I make it to SV, nothing ever relieves you from thinking really hard constantly (and informing yourself). There are so many influencing factors and the article is great, but I can also see that people tend to overestimate themselves (including me). Thought exchange is key and you'll find people you can do that with, e.g. in College.
Ryan Dahl did node in Germany and he was exchanging thoughts with someone who was just (only) listening and giving him (sanity) feedback. So though exchange may or is also very valuable (from someone) when you have a genius idea.
College or university can also be an accelerator and maybe you'd consider joining to actually have a lot of spare time to do the next Facebook by exploiting it's context (e.g. people). And think of the big ones: They dropped out of college (when they were successful)!
We are always having (very) limited knowledge and there usually is (always) a high risk. If Google or Apple just decides to do cars this may wipe out all car manufactures in the rest of the world, since for some reason they seem to be just able to do so.
I've heard conflicting advice on this topic.
I'm currently of the opinion that you should fail fast. Does it really take six to ten years to determine if your startup failed?
From my understanding if you've survived to year 6 and you're not delusional about your potential as a company, then you've already made it.
Building stuff is true for to all age groups including VC's
1)You can never overdress
2)Dance a lot
3)Always ask out the best looking girl in the room.
4)Leave college or any job with a piece of work (thesis, rock opera, example circuit boards, etc)
5)Go left. If your opponent knows you can't shoot left, you are done for. Applies to war, business and arguments.
6)Shake hands very firmly. Especially with women. It's respect.
7)Keep the gas at a half tank. Emergencies happen.
8)Family is more important to most people than their own life, or yours.
9)Use tools, learn to fix your own car.
10)Learn to cook well. Flip burgers and steaks ONCE and ONLY ONCE. DO NOT squeeze the juices out of them.
11)DO NOT become addicted. Do not develop alcoholism or start smoking. Enjoy these things, sure, but chemical addiction is horrible.
12) Set goals every 6 months. Write them down, tell your family about them, post them on your fridge.
Nothing here has anything to do with ambition. That's more a personality trait and isn't really adoptable or disposable. Luck has so much to do with life and business and can't be assumed. But that is OK. Relax, dance, drink wine with your new wife. Play with your niece and grandfather. But hustle your ass off when you aren't. Work hard at things you enjoy. If you don't enjoy them, set a goal for when you are leaving and work on that at least once a day. Happiness is NOT success. Happiness is what you are and if you let others define your happiness, be they heroin or cigarettes or Harvard admissions committee or Palantir or Jeff Bezos, then you are not going to be happy.
I have literally 919 more one-liners and lots of quotes I hope to give to a son someday. Most of it is stupid simple reminders, but some I hope will help that young man along in life.
I was lucky to have a job that allowed me to have time to hone my technical skills at the same time. If any of those situations happened to me, I probably would be stuck in a very bad financial situation that I would never have been able to bounce back from.
I see a lot of my friends who dropped out because their families couldn't afford to not have them working full time and it looks like they won't be able to make that much more than minimum wage for a while.
I would never ever exchange the time I had at uni for being at work, no matter what I could be doing. At uni not only did I become a programmer, I also met by best friends, I met my now wife, I got involved in social issues, I traveled, I formed a band, learned foreign languages and yes went to lots of parties, nothing wrong with parties. It's not related to what I do on a daily basis for work? No, so what?. Has it helped me in my career? I don't know, but I still got my dream job and it has surely made me a much happier person.
The difference between a founder that started a company this way versus a founder that started a company out of significant personal experience is astounding. The way they talk about their company is utterly different and I imagine that has a great deal of influence on hiring as well.
* Build important stuff.
* Learn new things / be around talented people.
* Take right risks.
That depends on whether these 'smart' people respect you, it is a horrible situation to have to hang around smart people who don't hold the same opinion of yourself.
You will be surprised how much this one thing will put you light years ahead of many others folks by the time your turn 35 or 40. You will turn 35 and realize the past 1.5 decades went like a second, yet the the investments you made are bearing fruit during middle age.
Time is on your side, the biggest weapon when it comes investments. Don't waste it.
Keep loans away(unless your country has high inflation). Avoid credit card debt. Buy gold routinely. Try to get your self a own home to stay in, even if you actually can't stay in it(rent it out). Buy yourself a life insurance and most important of all investments by the time you turn 30 try to get married and have at least one kid.
Also the inflation in India is close to 9%. Which means the principle you owe to the bank is losing value at the rate of 9% per annum, while your property value appreciates.
Buying a car in your 20's is the worst mistake you can make. If you haven't made this mistake making 50% down payment to a plot in city outskirts should be a walk in the park.
And the monthly gold saving schemes available with any big jeweller has helped people triple their money in as little as 5-6 years. Add to that the regular tax saving endowment insurance policies.
In all if you have made your investments even with mediocre planning, you should end up pretty rich by 35.
Why?
The later you have kids, their main years when they many need some help from you to support them/pay college fees etc will coincide with your retirement years. And those retirement years will be when you will have to work towards having hard cash savings. If you spend that part of your life, spending money and not saving for retirement- you are not likely to carry much into post-retirement years.
Having kids early means, you can see duties through by the time you reach 50. Post that you can have responsibility free, happy retirement years.
I'm not understanding your reasoning. You seem to labor under the assumption that if you don't have children to help while you're in your 40s, the money you make will magically disappear.
That doesn't necessarily follow if you have several kids or you have lots of space between them. It seems you'd be better of just "not having" kids if you're simply trying to "get it over with."
I do agree that upskilling is important, but many jobs that help you gain skills quickly also pay well. And the most crucial part is to keep your burn rate low in your 20s. This is the time when all your friends are living like grad students, because many of them are grad students, and it will never again be easier to live cheaply. Then work at a highly-paid professional job and pocket the difference. Your bank account will thank you when you retire.
[1] http://money.cnn.com/calculator/retirement/retirement-need/
Life insurance should only be purchased if you have dependents who depend on your income (not assets) and even then you only ever need term. This is definitely situationally dependent.
The years of 18-35 are essentially what form the adult version of "you". The mathematics of the value of saving early is quite clear, but I argue that cultivating the best version of yourself during these years is vastly more important. Money is nice, but there's pleny of problems it doesn't solve.
Why would you advocate getting married and having kids before 30? Women probably need to before about 35, when it starts getting increasingly difficult, and men can even reasonably wait another decade after that.
Warren Buffett would disagree.
I'm sorry this is a very bad advice. If you, for example, start a company, you will make an order of magnitude more money that you could make by saving it.
Also, I don't get the gold advice. Gold is generally an hedge when you have a reasonable amount of assets invested in other areas.
Last but not least, being married and having kids is a matter of personal choice and lifestyle.
This is the kind of misleading startup bullshit that needs to stop. The vast majority of people who enter the startup racket are not getting partner-level VC offers 9 years later.
The VC Valhalla that awaits failed startup founders doesn't really exist.
That happens if you get extremely lucky (< 0.01%) or have rich parents, in which case normal advice doesn't apply.
If you want to be a VC, get a Harvard MBA. It's a lot easier than doing a startup (you're competing against MBAs instead of hackers, which means that what good programmers would consider average intelligence would put you in the top 5%) and the path is surer. The reason risk-averse people prefer the MBA path is because (surprise?) it's more likely to work.