darrennix
Joined 15 years ago
Karma
1,724
Submissions
176
Member since
Mar 21
me {at} darrennix dot com
Founder at Steadily.com (insurtech).
Previously founded Interviewed (S15) and Leaky (S11).
View on Hacker NewsRecent submissions
Comment · 3 years ago
Steadily.com | Austin | Senior Product Manager | $200K
Build embedded insurance at a Series B startup as first product hire.
Comment · 4 years ago
I applied but didn't get in to MIT undergrad for computer engineering. I ended up attending a good state school instead. Years later, I attended MIT for grad school.
With that context, my advice is twofold:
1. Surround yourself with people who will challenge you
2. Make financial decisions using net present value (NPV)
I've taken classes on four campuses over the years and found the quality of the instruction in the classroom was universally high and uncorrelated with the prestige of the institution. However, I found that I learned more deeply and tackled more ambitious goals when I was surrounded by other students in the most challenging programs. Furthermore, I continue to observe stark difference in the post-college opportunities for graduates that are highly correlated with each institution's reputation.
As for NPV, your chosen field means that the money you save or spend in the next few years will be swamped by your income later in life. Make a spreadsheet that stretches out over your working life and calculate the NPV of both paths.
TLDR: Go to MIT.
Comment · 4 years ago
During the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s, the Mujahideen had a phrase, "You have the watches, we have the time."
Comment · 5 years ago
Steadily | Full Stack Engineer | Austin, TX or Remote | steadily.com
Steadily is 6-month old, $4M-funded insurtech building a full-stack insurance service for landlords. We’re fast, affordable, and amazing at customer service. Our customers love being insured by us, even when they have a claim.
Why join us: you'll be in good company. Not to toot our own horn too much, but the founders are pretty solid engineers. Our VP of Engineering started as junior dev at his company when it was 15 people and grew it up to more than 2,000. The president has gone through YC twice and had two exits.
https://jobs.lever.co/steadily/0b809f66-66e0-40ec-a687-fc304...
Comment · 5 years ago
Clearly we just need to make all cars accelerate at 4.0m/s and our traffic problems would’ve solved.
Comment · 6 years ago
I loved reading this very much. Well done.
Comment · 7 years ago
http://picktrace.com/ (YCS15) was in our batch. Both the founders grew up on a farm and build tools for people to use out in the field like how to accurately keep track the number of baskets of strawberries a worker picked so they get paid the right amount when there's no WiFi or cellular connection.
I always thought it was interesting.