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Please don’t work.
Being a Canadian university student who was forced into the
world at the worst possible time, I get why you want a job.
But don’t do it. The alternative – becoming an entrepreneur – is
the only thing that will make you happy (if you’re like me).
Forget about what we can have. Here’s
what we all deserve:
Engaging, challenging work
that produces things we care about
and which creates meaning and enough
money for us to thrive.
Thing is, bosses don’t seem to care
much about those things.
Your interests don’t matter: I couldn’t take on projects I was
passionate about without selling someone else on their value.
Only your output matters, and it’s highly unlikely that the
things you’re doing will be assigned to you simply because you
enjoy them.
Luck determines whether you’re happy or not: If you don’t
work on stuff you’re interested in, the only way to change that if
you work for someone else is to hope they offer you a different
job.
What’s an entrepreneur?
“Someone who takes significant risk to build something in the
world.” – Jack Dorsey, a co-founder of Twitter.
That covers a lot of people:
Visual artists.
Tech startup founders.
Non-profit organizers.
Event planners.
Writers.
Video game creators.
How do you become an entrepreneur?
That’s the easy part.
1. Decide what you care about doing.
2. Quit your job.
3. Do it.
Also: discover how to not starve
4. Do it better.
But after a while, things start getting
easier.
When you take the leap, people trust that you’re going to follow
through. They give you things that the unserious don’t get:
respect, investment, opportunity.
You get better at the things that university and the working life
haven’t prepared you for.
Funding isn’t impossible.
Hiring isn’t impossible.
Getting people to like what you do isn’t impossible.
You are wildly free to discover what
works for you.
Paul Graham from YCombinator:
“They don’t realize how independent
they can be. When you’re a child,
your parents tell you what to do.
Then, you’re in school, and you’re
part of this institution that tells you
what to do … We have to tell them,
“We’re not your bosses. You’re in
charge now.” Some people are freaked out by that. Some
people are meant to be employees. Other people discover they
have wings and start flapping them. There’s nothing like being
thrown off a cliff to make you discover that you have wings.”
Your full-time job is being
unapologetically you.
Elle Luna, designer and painter:
“I saw the CEO of Uber, Travis
Kalanick, sitting at the bar. I
was three whiskeys deep at this
point and I walked up to him
and said, ‘I use Uber all the
time and I absolutely hate the
app. I think you should bring me
in to fix it.’ … And do you know
what he said? He said, ‘Be at
the Uber office at 9am on
Monday.’”
You are the only one responsible.
Like PG says: you’re free to figure out what works for you, but
as a result, you’re also the only one responsible for figuring that
out.
If you’re a perfectionist, this can get paralyzing.
If you don’t do well with rejection and failure, this will not be a
lot of fun.
No one tells you when you’re
succeeding.
Don’t overanalyze. Do build.
The two pottery classes: one class
would be graded based on how many
pounds of pottery they made, and the
other class would be graded based on
a single, hopefully perfect pot.
An odd thing happened: the people who churned out the most also
had learned from their mistakes and created the most beautiful
work; the other group had sat ruminating about the meaning of
perfection, and hadn’t made anything half as good.
When someone gives you money, you
owe them.
JFD: Just Fucking Deliver.
This isn’t quite “they’re my boss,” but “I
would be starving without their having
believed in me.”
If you ever want someone to believe in
you again, make amazing shit the first
time.
It is the loneliest job in the world.
Tommy Refenes in Indie Game: The Movie:
“The things I've sacrificed are social. You kind of have to give
up something to have something great.”
Two weeks ago, I got paid for the first
time ever.
It only took 4 months, and to get that I used every ounce of
resourcefulness and every connection I’d ever made.