04 8 / 2010
Founders At Work
On the plane yesterday, I started ‘Founders at Work.’ The book is cut up into interviews of prominent tech founders, some of which I know better than others. Because you get to see behind-the-scenes of some very interesting companies (Flickr, Apple, Viaweb, Paypal, 37signals..), its a book I highly recommend!
The key take aways I’ve had so far are:
- Be scrappy - do it with less time and money than you think you’ll need.
- Be honest about your technology- Is it great? If it isn’t, you are in trouble.
- Become an insomniac- staying up 3 days in a row seems to be a right of passage.
- Customers know what they’d like, but not what they want- It’s your job to parse the two.
How does this apply to learning how to code?
- I have my work cutout for me.
- I am not in this to become a half-ass programmer.
- I am very honest in my skills & struggles.
- I like sleep, so I’ll need to practice this insomnia thing. Maybe I’ll try that once I get to Fl?
If you don’t want to read the whole book, at least go to the bookstore and read the interview of James Hong, founder of Hot or Not. Hilarious!
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And in case you didn’t see the tweet, I’m going back to daily posts! I need the structure and I need to be held accountable for my daily actions. Today is my first day outside of San Francisco (until Sept 30). I need to make this time count, so get ready Python!
What do I mean by concentration? I mean focusing totally on the business at hand and commanding your body to do exactly what you want it to do. - Arnold Palmer
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