Some Principles

Life Lessons

1. Don’t operate based on how you think the world should be or people should act. Operate based on how the world currently works and how people currently act. The caveat is if you think that you can influence people’s behavior so that they act how you think they should act, or if you can change the world to be like you think it should be.
2. Bias towards action. Apply for that job, meet that person, go on that trip. You’ll never know what new adventures you’ll find yourself in.
3. If the odds look low, still try. You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.
4. If you don’t get something you want, keep trying. You will find something better, and if not, you can always make it work. If you don’t get into that school, don’t get that job, improve and try again.
5. Your friends are your strongest allies, both personally and professionally. Don’t waste time networking.
6. Understand what you value in people and search for people with those qualities. This requires a lot of reflection on your part.
7. The worst times will pass and become negligible. Just find a tight circle to confide in, and if not, confide in yourself.
8. There will be times in your life where you will truly have no one. Write in your journal, trust in yourself, and realize that it will not be forever.
9. Drink water, take vitamins, and care for your skin. You won’t be young forever, and you’ll look and feel better while you’re young.
10. You’re only anonymous until you’re not. The world can be smaller than you think, so watch your actions.
11. Buy a good lamp and external monitor if you’re working from your desk at home.
12. Within reason, accept opportunities to test your skills. You’ll better understand where you’re at, gain some practice questions, and maybe learn something
13. Watch what food you put in your body. Watch out especially for sugar and fat in processed foods. Diet is an easy way to feel healthy.
14. It’s okay to feel upset or angry, but never take it out on or allow it to hurt people extraneous to the situation.
15. If you’re all out of energy and/or hope, find the energy to give just a little bit more. It may just make all the difference. Saw this when I was exhausted by recruiting but kept going and got four offers.
16. Two types of risks exist: high-reward and low-reward. For me, a high-reward risk might be living with some people I haven’t met (Utah Haus) or joining Sympto (new startup) over Confluent (established co). A low-reward risk might be jumping off a roof into a pool, which might be fun but carries a lot of risk compared to the reward. Before you take a risk, evaluate the risk to reward ratio.
17. Still, take risks.
18. Maintain relationships with people who have helped you along the way, particularly people who supported and loved you before you had what you have now.
19. Recognize when you get lucky and do not attribute this to skill. This might happen when you buy a stock and it goes up, but you don’t know why. This is dangerous because you can become overconfident in your skills, and they may fail you when you need them most. Saw this from investing this year.
20. Emotion sells. Tell stories and why your background makes you uniquely qualified to solve the problem. Saw this in interviewing at Xbox and [Redacted].

These are only the first 20. There’s 20 more which are slightly more controversial, so please email me for those.