1 year at Cisco Systems hardware engineering internship, 1 year at a mobile startup before mobile was really a thing, 8 years at Goldman Sachs in their electronic trading business- business side, 1 year own startup, 3 years electronic trading startup, now- building this out..
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=114410201. Don’t be afraid to start over. The problem with largely starting my career at Goldman Sachs was that you feel like you’re running so hard/fast with blinders on. Also, and maybe this is a New York thing, I started to identify myself with my job. I had to learn that I am not my job. All of this made switching friction very high. In my time at GS, Facebook was being created, and Google became what it was today. In reality I was letting the outside world evolve, while I sat somewhere that refused to. I felt like everything I had “built”, career-wise, would fall apart the day after I left Goldman. The reality was that my career didn’t fall apart. But the products/businesses that I built meant less to me, and I was more excited about the future of what I wanted to build. I felt finally unchained. I should have left 4 years before I did.
2. Keep closer to technology. When graduating in 2002 with a Computer Engineering degree, I heard people around me snicker -“Didn’t all those jobs just get outsourced?” It was a bad time for technology, it was a bad time to graduate with a computer engineering degree. Because of my career choices, I ended up focusing more on the business end of things (which still worked out well), but technology is my first love. I love to build things. Now I just do it for fun and hope I can build stuff that people find useful.
3. Be less afraid to fail, take more risks when you can. I played it safe when younger. Focused on making as much money as possible. I love the Elon Musk quote - “Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough.”
1. Don’t be afraid to start over. The problem with largely starting my career at Goldman Sachs was that you feel like you’re running so hard/fast with blinders on. Also, and maybe this is a New York thing, I started to identify myself with my job. I had to learn that I am not my job. All of this made switching friction very high. In my time at GS, Facebook was being created, and Google became what it was today. In reality I was letting the outside world evolve, while I sat somewhere that refused to. I felt like everything I had “built”, career-wise, would fall apart the day after I left Goldman. The reality was that my career didn’t fall apart. But the products/businesses that I built meant less to me, and I was more excited about the future of what I wanted to build. I felt finally unchained. I should have left 4 years before I did.
2. Keep closer to technology. When graduating in 2002 with a Computer Engineering degree, I heard people around me snicker -“Didn’t all those jobs just get outsourced?” It was a bad time for technology, it was a bad time to graduate with a computer engineering degree. Because of my career choices, I ended up focusing more on the business end of things (which still worked out well), but technology is my first love. I love to build things. Now I just do it for fun and hope I can build stuff that people find useful.
3. Be less afraid to fail, take more risks when you can. I played it safe when younger. Focused on making as much money as possible. I love the Elon Musk quote - “Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough.”