Why Silicon Valley needs more money than NYC; wealth of a nation

Historically, before computers, I think Wall Street served a good purpose. It's ultimate goal was to make sure that great people who could transform the world had the resources needed to do so. The need to coordinate money into the hands of people who can use that money to create wealth is still needed. It's why the world needs investors. However, do we need Wall Street? Do we need the exchanges? Do we need Goldman Sachs?

These are fundamental questions. I don't know the answer, but I'm willing to bet the answer will converge to "No".

I think there is an opportunity for silicon valley to disrupt wall street.

I view wall street in aggregate as corrupt these days because it isn't about creating wealth; it's about managing and optimising money. Money is not wealth. I internally cry a bit when I see a math/computer science major head for NYC to make money. Will they make money? Yes. Will they make wealth for the nation? No.

I'm not really going to defend what I feel. I don't want too. I feel like Silicon valley needs to over-turn Wall street to change the leaders of the country.

We need people who want to make life better for everyone rather than exploit people with complex rules and financial instruments.

I believe we can build a better and brighter future.

The wealth of our nation has been derived from our ability to say "Fuck you nature" not "Let's subordinate most of the country to poverty".

When I look to silicon valley now, I see we are solving communication. This crazy thing called the Internet gives us new tools and new vehicles. I expect us to be able to vote from home. I expect us to remove the computational barriers that forced hierarchy on us. I expect the social web and the Internet to transform us into a culture of a switch rather than a hub.

I expect better out of us.

Wealth: the link between Hacker and Hustler

tl;dr;

hackers generate wealth, hustler's turn wealth into money

Longer version:

I was thinking about wealth the other day. How do you define wealth?

I think wealth is best defined by the ability to satisfy your want. If you want something and can't have it, then you are not wealthy (i.e. poor). So, I'm an inventor-hacker, and most of my want is satisfied with some work (except for things like space travel... I'm very space-travel-poor).

What about money?

Now, where does money play into this? When I grew up, my parents fought about money. My dad made it, and my mom spent a lot of it. So, I wanted nothing to do with money, and I put on the hat of the academic monk. I was happy in that role, but then I needed money (due to personal reasons). My personality isn't the type that settles for nickels and dimes when I actually have to go out and earn, so some friends and myself did the cool thing before it was cool. We did a start-up, and we were going to be bigger than Facebook and Texas! Multiplied!!

It was a failure; the next business wasn't a failure. I learned about money, and how to make it.

Money is time. It's someone else's time for doing something that neither you (nor them) want to do. That's the only thing that it is. It's nothing else.

So, if you want money, then you do things people don't want to do (or can't do) (like math), and do it well.

So, back to wealth. Wealth is satisfying want. If you have a lot of money, then you should be able to satisfy your want and be happy. What if your want can't be satisfied by money, yet you have it?

"There is no class so pitiably wretched as that which possesses money and nothing else." - Andrew Carnegie

What do you want? Answering this question is the key to your happiness. If you are a hacker, then the shear act of satisfying your want produces wealth. I've invented things my entire life, and I have to say that makes me very happy. I like making obscure tools for obscure problems. I like optimizing the shit out of the things. I like automating tedious things (because tedious things are bullshit). I oddly enjoy taking some shit ball mess of code and figuring out where it leaks memory. I like to solve problems, and I really-really love math.

The things that I do to satisfy my wants generate wealth.

What about the hustler?

The hustler's job is very straightforward: Transform the wealth that hackers generate into money. Build a nice cave, make the hackers happy on all non-hacking related dimensions, hire more hackers, and hire people to sell the wealth. Build a business that is good at transforming the wealth of your hackers into products for people, and then you win.

Extra credit: what do managers do? They make sure the hackers are producing the right kind of wealth. Tada!

Pick your Archtype (CEO, Professor/CTO, Humanitarian)

I've tried to reply to Dan Miller's recent post in less than a paragraph, but it just doesn't work. So, here is the longer version.

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I think it also depends on how you define success and how you measure the rewards. For instance, playing monopoly or a video game has very low risk, but it has reward. Can you make a living doing it? No. So, you have to do something else. Could you get good at it and have a part-time job mentoring other people in it? Sure.

I highly recommend Dan Pink's book "Drive" (or watch this awesome youtube video) which basically breaks down into three things people want: autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

It is very clear in your article that you are preferring autonomy and being your own trouble maker. Being a full-time entrepreneur is all about autonomy. What about mastery? Well, look to academics. It's not exactly rewarding in a capitalistic sense, but it is very clear how people driven by mastery end up there. What about purpose, this would be the domain of the non-profits.

So, it boils down to this: What is your arch-type?

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When you answer this question, your path unfolds. Actually, answering this question is similar to what is your life's goal is probably key to your own sense of happiness.

γνῶθι σεαυτόν (Know thyself)

This is probably the most fundamental and important thing you can do in life. Stop pretending based on what others want or need out of you. Don't listen to others; they are wrong. Be yourself and understand yourself. Understand your strengths and your weaknesses. Maximize your strengths, compensate for your weaknesses. Find humility in your weaknesses. Find confidence in your strengths.

Part-time Saturday Entrepreneur: Time Management

The first bit of advice would be to not write about time management. This entry is with respect to having a part-time business while maintaining a full-time job. It's also a longer comment to Dan Miller's recent blog post. Dan's my former employer and CEO of RedNova Labs and a great boss, and he has ambitious goals. This entry is about having a part-time business with less ambitious goals.

At any given time, I maintain the details of about 7 to 9 projects in my head with about 20 to 300 ideas on the back-burner. This annoys my wife since I'm always "on", so I try to make sure my wife has a time in the reserve.

So, how does time work into this hectic and crazyness. Well, there are 168 hours in a week. You should sleep for 56 of those hours. You should eat a good lunch and relax for 7 of them. You should eat a good dinner and relax for 7 of them. You should shower for 3 of them. You should take a long bath for 1 of them. You should also probably have about 3 hours of sexy time a week. You can rush your breakfast in about 2. You need to exercise about 9.

This gives 80 hours.

I live in an apartment, so I don't have to maintain a house. Houses cost me time.

I live in the city, so I don't have a long commute. Driving everyday is not for winners, and it is bad for the environment.

I don't have kids nor do I plan to have them.

My wife doesn't work outside the home, so I can have as much time as possible from life. I love having a house-wife! It's awesome.

My life is structured such that I'm not wasting precious time on stupid things that don't add value to my life.

Now, the rub is this. You can't focus all your time in one thing. You will burn out. You need distractions. Your distractions need not be a loss.

Instead, you need to manage your projects and manage your goals. Everyday, make progress.

As long as the progress bar moves towards 100% somewhere, you are winning. Now, you may not find the win you expect. For instance, moving projects forward slowly means they may become irrelevant or uninteresting. But, that doesn't mean the process of moving things forward was a waste of time. I learn things everyday, and I like that. I like to learn. Because of this, my life is in a constant state of win.

For instance, this blog could be considered a waste of time. But, I'm writing words and composing sentences trans-coding my thoughts from my disorganized grey matter. My writing style is developing. This helps my professional activities by improving my communication with others as well as opening up discussion with people. It's helping me express myself in a way that isn't code.

As long as you gain something from an activity, you win. It's as simple as that.

The key to keeping motivating is having the daily option to change your priorities. This is why work can be stressful because you are not in full control of the priorities. Your hobbies should not have priorities except to just try.

This is why my wife's business is not a service business. Service businesses require you to adjust your priorities to the people you are servicing (duh!). Instead, my wife's business is all about content. When the creativity is available, inventory is built. When the creativity is distracted, inventory is going stagnant. I'm looking forward to about a week every summer where I can sell inventory. I can hustle it at pike's place, and that helps me professionally in understanding want. Understanding want is the key to making customers happy.

So, if you want to be a part-time entrepreneur, then make sure the venture is compatible with it. Example part-time ventures: Making video games, writing books, composing songs, making youtube videos, teaching kids, mentoring college graduates, make swords, build a giant robot of death, coaching little-league, doing odds and ins for people, design board games, giving city tours, etc.

Now, the ultimate question is: What makes you happy?

I think this is the ultimate question. Once you answer it for yourself honestly, you can determine the path you really want to be on. How do you make it work for you? That's a different question which I don't have the answer for. I do know that what-ever you do, it at some level needs to make money.

This is the cruel reality of capitalism. At the end of the day, some of your projects need to bear fruit. The things you want to do may not bear fruit. A challenge for the social web is to make it possible so that more and more people can make a living doing things that they want to do. For instance, look at Etsy. It opens up a lot of doors for people that would of had to sit in tents during fairs; now those people can reach a global audience.

This is the challenge for full-time entrepreneur: make me more effective. Make sure I'm spending my precious time producing what makes me happy. Make it easy. Unblock me. Provide me a service that lets me jump over hurdles. Provide me marketing. Provide me sales. Figure that shit out, so I can win!

Part-time Saturday Entrepreneur: Week 1

I did some administrative stuff. Picked a name, got the domain, set up the domain, picked a background color (#E6DFD5), created a slogan, set up a basic landing page, setup and installed google analytics.

I wrote a children's book this morning; this unblocks my wife on the first project.

It has plot broken down into 22 scenes that when printed on two sides of paper should make for a decent sized children's book.

It has a title: "The Robotic Mr. Ducky"

It has a moral: "Errors are ok, you're just human. Don't be perfect. Find Love." (I know, how awesome is that).

So, now that I have the story done, my wife can edit it, illustrate it, compose it. Now, I need a dead-line. Well, one of my dear friend's from high-school is going to have a baby in two months. That sounds like a good dead-line.

All before 8:00 AM.

For the rest of the day, I'm making sure she can actually get to work. Is the desk clean and ready? Are the supplies accessible? Etc.

Part-time Saturday Entrepreneur: Introduction

So, I'm starting my wife's company. My wife is an artist, and she needs an art dealer. This is my hobby. What is your hobby?

All things aside, I want to talk about being an entrepreneur. So, I'm starting a new series. Namely, about being a part-time entrepreneur since I've got a full-time job that's funding my wife's venture.

So, what is my wife's company all about? I don't know, but it involves her turning her hobby into wealth, and my job is to sell it and turn that wealth into money. I've got six hours a week to do it.

Now, as to my writing. What should I write about today before I put on the CEO hat and get shit done for my wife's company tomorrow.

No idea. I have no idea what it means to be an art dealer! Awesome, something new to learn (I could be learning to fly, but my wife will not let me fly...)

Well, the first goal is to get the wife producing and turn on the factory.

Project 1: A children's book.

Seriously, I'm going to have her do a children's book and I'm going to write the content (because I'm an awesome writer as you well know). I'll turn off the cursing.

Once I get this as rough product, I'll buy illustrator.

I've never produced a children's book before, so what do I need to do? How do I promote it? The nice thing is that there are a lot of parents out there, so there is a market. I can sell copies at Pike Place market, but I fear that will fail. I could involve pike place market in the scenery (TODO: research the copyright of the "Public Market" sign). Now, I'm fairly sure I can get production going. However, sitting on inventory kind of sucks.

Ok, Ok, I'll hold off until tomorrow.

The sucky thing about being a CTO (or C*O)

Your voice is representative of your company as you are in charge of the ship.

This is one reasons I left Kansas and my stewardship of a small company.

So, you can't write about religion in a controversial way. You can't be a atheist/agnostic in the mid-west and expect to have customers. You can't talk about the richness of human sexuality and represent a company in the mid-west. You can't raise money while wearing a death-metal t-shirt. You definitely can't wear pink and be happy at the same time.

Small business C*O have to conform to their environment. This is why I think liberal cities have much more successful entrepreneurial environments. If there is a strong gay presence, then I guarantee you can get away with a lot more things than in a conservative city. The attitude to fight for who you are is the same thing you need to build a company, so I think the correlation stands.

There are things that I want to fight for; I want to fight for gay rights, freedom, women's rights, and other noble things. The engineer in me wants the world to be better. It's in my blood as an American to fight. The problem is fundamentally, I'm not willing to let other people suffer for my fight. Maybe I'm a pussy? No, I think it is sensible. There is no point in recruiting people that don't share your fight.

The fundamental problem of the C*O is that the professional (market norm) and personal (social norm) roles in life are conflated due to PR, secret nature, and stupid human politics.

My favourite and all-time hero is George Carlin. You can not be like George Carlin and be a C*O (in the mid-west). If your company has a global foot-print, then you have to be careful. You have to be neutral.

Neutral is boring.

Neutral is death.

I want to live, so that means I have to experience life. Last Wednesday, I crashed #MozParty to spend time with a old friend. Today, I'm going to goth like bar that I've never been into to listen to music I've never listened too before.

So, I'm having a lot of fun in Seattle. I'm happy, and I can be my plucky self and share it with you. I like that.

The secret to "Ideas are easy"

Once you get experience, you will have ideas.

Once you are present in the moment and see problems, you will have plenty of ideas.

Once you have problems, you will have ideas.

Are they good? marketable? Can you execute on them? What makes an idea good?

These are the hard questions that I struggle with because I'm interested in many things. I like puzzles. Puzzles are like mental sex.

Business for Programmers: Marketing Yourself with 10 steps

The nice thing about being in a start-up is that you work with marketers and salesmen close, and I had the pleasure of working with a fantastic marketer and superb salesmen. So, you may be wondering why a programmer needs to know anything about marketing?

Well, that's a good question. If you look at a business, then it breaks down into doing these four tasks:

Build Thing: Make a product/Offer a skill to service

Market: Find people that like said thing

Sell: Get money for said thing

Support: Make sure said thing survives customers

That's basically the entire understanding you need to understand business. If you can write a business plan in a page that addresses these four things, then you can build a business.

As a programmer, you are a business; ignorance of basic business fundamentals will own you in the future. You go to school or hack your projects out, and this will build your skill at building things. However, if you build something and no one uses it, then did you build anything?

Step 1: Have skills that fit the market

Do you have skills that you can market to companies? You need to have skills, and your product needs to fit the market. If you know COBOL, then you may want to upgrade to Java/.NET. If you know OCaml, then you may want to downgrade to Java/.NET. Learn PHP or Perl since it is a plague on web programming.

Step 2: Find a passion, pick you destiny

You need to be passionate about something, and you need to have an interest in computing. If you don't have passion, then you are not going to be a good product. This guide isn't going to be much help without passion. While you may be passionate about computing in general, you need to decide on one to build a career on. If you want to be a generalist, then you can free-lance or be a technical co-founder. If you want to be a specialist, then you need to find a company that needs that specialty.

Step 3: Join/start an open source project centered around your passion

Just get involved in the community or try to build your own. (a) it will help you network, (b) it will communicate your passions. Everyday, you need to be writing code on something.

Step 4: Have a github account

Make good code, and share it. I'll be honest, your resume compared to github is shit. Get something good on github that is tasty. Now, get 10 followers. Pick code to share is similar to the code you could stand writing for the rest of your life.

Step 5: Dedicate time to stackoverflow/quora/forums/linkedin/reddit

Make an effort to contribute/lurk every week. Scouring these sites gives you an idea about the entire market in two ways. It gives you an idea of your competition, and it gives you an idea about the current market conditions. Any site that clusters programmers is worth paying attention too.

Step 6: Build Karma on HN

If you don't have an HN account and consider yourself a hacker, then shame on you. You must be living in the cave. I get it; caves are fun. Now get an HN account and start contributing. Don't interject until you know you can add value to the conversation.

Step 7: Get over rejection

There is a new thing called rejection therapy, and I recommend it. I recommend buying some products and trying to sell it door to door, and you will understand the nature of sales. Understanding the nature of sales is critical to understanding the importance of marketing. You need volume.

Step 8: See the world as risk/reward and take bets.

Look at the newfangled shit that comes out of the industry. I remember betting badly against ruby due to it being stupid dynamically typed shit pie. I didn't take the risk on Ruby, and I lost out on the reward. There's a new thing now called node.js; is it worth the bet? I don't know, you decide.

Step 9: Put yourself in the business of your customers

The nature of programming is that the act is usually always helpful to someone. Who are you trying to help solve a problem? For who? You? Your Mom? Your friend's Mom? Your coworker? Your business partner? Before you can begin coding and solving problems, you need to know who you intend to help. If its just you, then fine. If it is your coworkers, then you should probably talk to them. Why do your customers need you? How do you make your customers more awesome?

Step 10: Meet people

We live in a new world where sites like meetup.com can trivialize the finding process. Everyone is looking to socialize with the right people. Once you find people. Don't fuck it up since that tends to make bitter people (i.e. you alone in your parents basement troll'n it up). Read "How to Win Friends and Influence People", and then try to apply the principles.

The dream that was our first failed start-up; start-ups are hard; the future is bright

I've recently discovered the awesomeness of bitcoin. Some years ago, me and some friends did a start-up before it was really super cool. The dream was simple: enable artists to buy and sell their shit as content is king.

There was a sub-text to the dream that was simple: FUCK MIDDLE-MEN.

We were building a in-system currency for enabling micro-transactions so people could sell things for fractions of a penny. We wanted to get prices to a point where indie artists could create and stimulate market demand by using low prices. In theory, it was awesome.

I fucked this up by being an academic trying to build a transaction system that would abide by all the rules of VISA/MC/banks, and then scale to the size of 10x facebook (Transactions are hard!). I say I fucked up because I think I put us in a position where we needed investment. There were lots of legal problems around our dream, and this was a big barrier to investment; so, we watched the dream die a slow and painful death. At least, in Kansas. Gauh, why did we try to do it in KS!

Now, the perfect solution is available via bitcoin. I'm honestly glad we didn't succeed because bitcoin + a weekend hack project could have put us out of business. We live in a bold new world with this internet thingy.

The dream we had can now be concisely built and done without worrying about VISA, Banks, Hackers or other shit. In fact, a bigger dream is available. Shit!, bitcoin could end piracy! (Well, kinda)

We are watching the death throes of the music industry. Eventually, the movie industry will end too. See, its not that music or movies are going to die. The middle-men, executives, organizers, and overhead to get the music and movies to consumers. They are going to go away with all the licenses.

Well, they aren't going to go away in a #rapture sense. They are going to have to accept a new reality (which is painful because most people hate change rather than embracing it). They are going to have to focus on the new emerging market and learn a new aspect of the trade. Well, people will skill will. People with no skills, they are kind of fucked... They should become artists.

How? Well, imagine a bit-torrent like protocol that required a bitcoin wallet. Sharing would be restricted between those people that have paid for it. The artist would simply start to seed their product with their wallet. In theory, this would lower the price of the content, increase the artist share. Lower product price + greater artist share should mean increased demand and thus more value to the artist. The ability to control pricing on the fly would enable artists to effectively market.

Downloading a client would be the most hard-core version of this scenario, but it is possible.

The interesting thing is that bitcoin is unstoppable. It may go into the black market, but eventually, it will win and be a legal form of currency. At least, for buying digital content.

What I'm considering now is whether or not it is worth it for me to build an escrow service with a search engine. It would be fairly simple with Elastic Bean Stalk, S3, some EC2 machines for search via Solr. Shit, I should be building this! Next weekend, I'm going upstairs to be with my wife.

What this system is going to create is a place for amateurs to get to a point where they can take on patronage projects. Once people effectively demonstrate that they can make things people want, then they can raise serious funds. Look at KickStarter. I love kick starter.

This is how small time videos produces will go big. I watch a bunch of YouTube people, and if they tried to raise serious funds, then I would fund them with some pre-sales. Now, how this will turn into $1B budget for making movies, only time will tell.

I think it is possible, and that is step one.

A good problem to have (unless you are Sony)

"A good problem to have" is entrepreneurial way of saying, we are fucking this up and pushing shit out the door, but it doesn't matter if no one uses it.

For many people, it works.

For some, it fails. See PSN.

When you incur technical debt that puts people at risk, then you must pay it.

My role in life is not to create "good problems to have". My role is to solve them. I like solving puzzles. This will make sense as I'm writing a larger entry, but I wanted to throw some content out the door that was self-contained to my future main-point.

Entrepreneur to Amazonian : The Amazon Vortex

So, I used to be an entrepreneur/super consultant until I realized it wasn't making me happy. Happiness is a precarious thing. Ultimately, happiness boils down to aligning your calling with a profession that earns your keep (See Dan Pink's book Drive). The reality is that I'm not so much an entrepreneur as I am an inventor. Fundamentally, my callings are inventing, optimizing, educating, studying, building, proving things, using math, having fun with computers, and being right (a lot).

One day, I read Hamming's speech via pg, and it reminded me of why I was in academia: I want to work on great problems. I left academia to work on a super problem, but that failed. I thought about returning to academia, but I would have probably become a crank with gray hairs working on some crazy type system complaining about something.

Instead of writing papers that few will read, I want happy customers that benefit from my work. So, I decided to try an new job. I traced from my recent work and passion in Big Data and worked back-words, and get a job.

The first company on my list was Amazon Web Services, and now I work there. I'm working in the S3 team.

This means three things: (1) I have a Big Data problem (really big), (2) I'm under an NDA, and (3) I'm working with Protoss again.

So, like the Google Vortex, I'm now in the Amazon vortex. This fundamentally means my blog is going to change. I'll probably stop writing on technical things for a while. When I head to the mountains, I'll post pics.

Listen to old people

In the entrepreneurial age, there is a lot of ageism.

I think the reason is two fold: one, young people are ignorant and thus more likely to re-invent a wheel in a different way that may work in the market. Second, they have less discretionary funds and are thus cheaper to fund. That being said, I would bet on old people building a better business to survive any bubble since they've been around longer.

I think worshiping youth is foolish.

When I was a kid, I actually listened to the adults around me. I actually didn't have a rebellious time in my life as I realized that it would most likely have negative consequences on my future. Every old person is basically a data point mapping a personality and life experiences into a final outcome, and you can learn from every single one of them. Listening to old people gives you a wealth of data if you are willing to listen, archive, and keep an open mind. Aside: I love quora because it brings out so much condensed wisdom on a variety of topics from everyone.

Now, I'm becoming an old fuck. I'll never become an old man as that is a state of mind (reminder, find George Carlin quote here, if you read this, then please help me find it). Now, the difficulty of becoming an old fuck is picking out the desired outcome and then back tracking to solve the right personality and right life experiences given the current life experiences.

The funny thing about life is that it is mostly under your control (except certain diseases and natural disasters) if you are willing to take control. It is very easy to let others take control of your life if you let them, and I would recommend not doing so unless you benefit in a fair exchange.

Optimizing your personality

You have a choice, you can work through your shit with a therapist, become an alcoholic like most of america, or just come to realize that you are 99.999% wrong on everything. I'm serious. The sooner you realize that you are just plain stupid and wrong is the moment you gain the power to change your mind and optimize your life. Now, if you want to be right, then you can be, but you have to learn to determine which battles are worth fighting; this is the trick. Use the battles you are willing to fight to determine your personality.

Optimizing your life experiences

There are a ton of opportunities to have interesting experiences in your life. You just have to put yourself out there to have them. You need to know what is possible, and you need to do things crazy. Problematically, people lack creativity these days and think spending time in Disney land is fun. Try going homeless and then running naked in Cardwell hall using the chemical shower to bath... That's exciting. Listening to old people about the stupid shit they have done is way more interesting than pre-packaged vacations.

Making all this work

Listen to old people. Old people can tell you what is possible and what is survivable. For instance, I'm proof that you can live on campus without housing. Let the old people that succeeded or fucked up serve as beacons on your path of what is possible and what to avoid. If you don't listen to old people, then you risk falling into the traps that they fell into.

Everyone on the planet will tell you they know how to live, but they are lying. They only know how their exact circumstances map into their current state with an uncertain future. Listening to old people give you data to predict what may be next, and that is a whole lot better than trying to reinvent the wheel. As a caveat, it may tune you into things that have been done rather than trying something crazy and innovative. This is the fundamental problem of doing something innovate: it looks crazy stupid to old people. The perception of a crazy stupid idea and a crazy brilliant idea are fundamentally the same until it has been proven one way or another.

Now, I'm writing this because I'm getting older, and I'm starting to the understand more about life. I'm priming the internet with content on old age since we are going to see bloggers get old. I was thinking about this when I realized that George Carlin passed away. George Carlin was my favorite comedian, and he was one of my heroes. It's interesting to watch his HBO specials and see him age and realize that's going to happen to me. That's going to happen to everyone blogging. What is going to happen when this internet thing matures? Holy shit, these bloggers are all going to die! The internet is going to become an odd graveyard of content. Holy shit, I'm going to die. Shit! Well, I might as well get started on the content about that so I get #1 on google in 20 years. *sigh*

Do 1x Programmers keep 10x Programmers down?

A question on quora got me thinking about programmers pay.

Is it fair for a 10x programmer to get 10x pay of a 1x programmer? The short answer is no, and while this does depress the hell out of me, I get it.

Being a 10x programmer is a crock of shit to begin with. I believe it in principle that people can be 10x and even 100x more effective, but it is a signal that the 10x programmer needs to move up either into management or work on more difficult problems. I guarantee that management will slow someone down, and I guarantee that there are problems that can slow anyone down.

Now, for various reasons, a 10x programmer may be stuck with a 1x job. The solution is for management to be results-orientated, or for the employee to figure out how to work at home. This enables the results to speak for you. I'm a huge fan of the four hour work-week, and I wish I wrote about it before Tim Ferriss.

The nice thing about being results-orientated is that it turns the tables and rewards effectiveness. I value my time, so I'll be effective with it however I want.

You can be so effective that you can wear multiple hats, and if you can do this, then you must do a start-up. A start-up is hard work, and it requires everything you've got to pull it off.

Generally thou, the four hour work-week doesn't work in start-up land unless either (a) you are the boss, (b) another part of the business is slow [and you can't change it], or (c) management is ineffective [and you are not a part of it].

I'll be honest, if you are a 10x programmer, then you have to try a start-up especially if you have nothing binding you to an area. Think of it like college, and if you succeed, then you make more than 10x pay. If you fail, then you are hopefully networked with people who know you are worth 10x pay.

How to always be right.

Never take an opinionated stance on anything.

It's just that simple, but the problem is that you are not going to make money with such an approach.

Imagine if the news was just facts, then it wouldn't sell. Celebrity gossip sells like hotcakes, but a balanced emotion-less discussion of pros and cons of economic theory wouldn't sell at all. Push an agenda, then you'll get fanatics and make some money. This is why I'm not a politician/reporter, nor do I have aspiration to be one.

I was going to write a book on computer science called "It depends" and just write about all the stupid shit we do in the industry. Problematically, if we all suddenly understood and cared about the pros and cons, then we would work together and cut the work force by 90% and make 10% of our salaries. That would suck. Fortunately, the world is insane, and the pros and cons turn into a competition.

That being said, being right is surprisingly easy. The key is knowing as many pros and cons as possible beforehand and simply judging based on relevancy to the people it affects. I hinted at the philosophy that I've constructed for myself in an answer on quora.

If you apply this methodically and try to put emotions on the back burner, then you will only find yourself wrong in two situations.

When new knowledge is presented, and a new basis vector is discovered. This is when you have to seriously think and incorporate it into your relevancy equation or concede. This is a good way to learn new perspectives in the world.

Now, the other situation is purely political. Some people hate being wrong and hate changing their mind, and they will fight. I recommend just avoiding these people in life as life is too short to deal will closed-minded people. Now, this isn't you being wrong, this is the other person making you wrong especially if they can (i.e. your client, your boss, your co-workers, your spouse).

That being said, you can surprise people using new points of view and take people out of an one-sided debate and make it a discussion. For instance, when I was back on campus, some people came up to me as they wanted to share their faith with me. My friends know that I have no faith as I am a robot (actually, I invented my own religion, but that's an aside I'll share when I try to sell it... it's going to make super-super rich).

Here is how the conversation went.

Them: "We wanted to discuss your faith, what do you believe in?"

Me: "Money"

Them: "..."

/* note: I doubt anyone on a campus has ever given that answer */

Me: "I believe money is a side-effect from wealth, and building wealth creates jobs and makes life better for everyone."

Them: "Well, what happens when you die?"

Me: "Well, I hope the businesses I build continue on without me or someone puts them out of business with something better."

Them: "What happens to you?"

Me: "I don't know, but I don't really care anymore since what will happen will happen."

Them: "So, have you heard of Jesus?"

Me: "Yes, he was an awesome salesman. I know an awesome salesman too named Marc."

Them: "But, "

Me: "Let me stop you right there, who is paying you to sell me on your religion?"

Them: "No one"

Me: "That's awesome, I wish I could get college kids to work for me for free as I got lots of stuff to sell"

Them: "But we are not salesmen"

Me: "Sure you are"

Them: "But, salesmen sell a product, we are trying to help you."

Me: "If I have a lot of dirt on my floor, then a salesmen will help me with that problem by selling my a vacuum cleaner. You just don't understand your product yet. Your product is an answer to the question 'what happens why I die?' that you tend to ask yourself sometimes before you go to bed."

Them: "..."

Me: "See, the way I look at it, Islam and Christianity are just like Pepsi and Coke. They are products. Now, I don't have consumers digest to help me pick, and I've heard lots of bug reports from both sides. Personally, I'd rather just avoid the issue and do something else with my time"

Them: "... umm"

At this point, the conversation became small talk about my shoes and nothing important. They walked away visibly confused. The point I'm trying to make is that I brought up a point they have never considered before, and that basically confused them.

I don't really have a point to this article, but I wanted to share the story and talk about my philosophy. While I do enjoy being right, I enjoy learning more.

A Mathematics Degree

When I was a graduate student at k-state, I was studying for all three Ph.D. quals in mathematics. This is part of the insanity that is me, but it also reflects my inability to make decisions between equally cool options. When presented with an OR, I choose both. This is also why after my Ph.D in math, I was going to get a Ph.D in computer science.

While my heart lives with computer science, mathematics is the fastest and most effective way to master problem solving in collegiate setting. Why? It's hard mode. When I get a game and start to play it, I put it in nightmare mode (hardest setting) and then play. I'll grind and accept the initial failures and learn from them. By the time I'm done, I'm a master. The same is true for math. If you go to college, then the math program is going to the toughest degree program. I have yet to meet someone with a math degree that wasn't successful in what they tried to do outside of college

The nice side effect of a math degree is that it lacks degree inflation. It's difficulty is more or less the same as it was 50 years ago.

A Computer Science degree is fundamentally half math and half programming, and many struggling Computer Science programs are churning out shitty programmers because they are reducing the math requirements and dumbing it down. This works great for many companies that have mountains of tedious work and managers who use management theory on programmers. Some programmers are cogs because someone figured out how to make that work for them.

For companies that depend on technologists (where typical management theory breaks down hard-core), I wager the talent war is going to get epic and qualified tech workers are going to win real big. The salary and benefits being paid to top-tier developers is a consequence of supply and demand, and it's going to tip even more in the favor of the limited supply.

Woe to computer science degree! Read On the cruelty of really teaching computing science; now think about market forces. When I was a student, I realized too things. People hate taking math courses and math is highly relevant to computer science/programming (at least, relevant to the fun kind of programming, not the boring kind where you push boxes 2 pixels left and 1 pixel down and change colors from sky blue to cornflower blue).

Keep in mind, its not the content of math that matters the most; it's the process that math induces. Getting a math degree will build an iron fist of reasoning that will enable you to write very clean and tight code. It will also get you knee deep into the abstractions that most people will not have exposure to in their entire career. For instance, when I took Introduction to Topology, it blew my mind.

The first day of topology, my response was "WTF is this?" On the second day, I was excited "omg, he just turned a coffee cup into a donut". It was that class that opened my eyes to an entirely new level of reasoning and abstraction that propelled me into the math degree. Also, much to my surprise, the class (and degree program) was also 50% women which is vastly different than the sausage festival of computer science.

I'm going to have an awesome career working on my calling which is entirely due to me making good decisions, and my best decision was to get a math degree. I recommend anyone that is able to go for it. Higher level math courses are actually a lot more fun than the lower level stuff. The lower level stuff is service to the college, but that's what pays the bills for the math department. The higher level stuff is where you will have a chance to see your professors glow like school children as they talk and lecture on things they find interesting. It's worth it.

That being said, if you take a math degree, then you need to make progress in your side projects in computing. Connecting your ongoing mathematical education to code will give you interesting insights. I'll shave an interesting perspective in five years when I finish my book titled: "A topologist walks into a database". Sounds exciting, yes? Well, it will be.

Now, I just need to write about how I was a homeless graduate student working 100+ hours a week.

If you want a more hard-core education, then you need to drop out of school and build a company like I did. This option is really hard-core, and it is the path of woe, humility, and ultimate success.

Entrepreneurial Enlightenment and Insight

“Ideas are a dime a dozen” is a very stupid saying just like “work smarter than harder”.

Many of my math professors said that you know more or less all the math you are going to need to know, but you need to be able to communicate it (that is, you need to be able to communicate math). That’s the true goal of the master’s degree program.

Understanding “Ideas are a dime a dozen” is the same thing that many entrepreneurs know but can’t express in an effective manner. Communicating is harder than knowing.

Here is how you get it to knowing that “Ideas are a dime a dozen” (or at least, how I’m trying to try to sell it to you):

Sit in a business.

Watch the people.

Be creative on ways to make them awesome. What would make the business better? What could you sell them to make them better?

Do this every day, and you will have lots of ideas.

Once you have an idea, you need to be able to execute on it. Execution is the art of getting things done and progressing the state of a business from conception to cash flow.

I have a torrent of ideas, so I’m set for life in the idea category. Now, how can I execute. Here is a generic three step business plan.

1. Build it (Engineering)
2. Find Customers (Marketing)
3. Sell it (Sales)

Once you see the pipeline, everything in the world starts to make a lot of sense. Everyone has a happiness function, H, and a life-is-shit function, S, that they use to make decisions.

Your goal is to maximize H-S.

If the market is small, then you can be a one super awesome consultant.

If the market is big and mundane, then you can build a company.

If the market is big and complex, then you can build a firm.

Once you have ideas, how do you execute in #1, #2, #3? How do you build it? Do you know someone that just builds things? How do you find customers? Do you know someone that can network or go door to door? How do you sell it? Do you know someone that can sell ice to an eskimo?

Once you can answer these questions, you can build a business. However, you must keep in mind that the people in the business are the only true asset it has. Do you have the right people doing the right jobs that they want to do? That last bit is basically my digested form of Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done (which is a good book, but you have to put yourself in their shoes to understand what they are saying. It’s not an easy book to read.)

Once you start to have 10+ ideas, you can either just blindly following them (I'm very guilty of this in my life as a coder), or you measure them and pick the best one. What is the best one? After-all you have your own H-S function. It could be by impact on the world, revenue, profit, job creation, or just plain fun.

I hope that I have communicated how to gain entrepreneurial insight into how to manufacture ideas. This is why I write my blog, so I can level up my communication capabilities. If you find yourself like me, knowing things but feeling an inability to express them, then you need to start writing now.

The Secret of Innovation

There is a phrase that has always bugged me.

"Work Smarter, not Harder"

The reason it bugs me is because every time I say it, I feel like a douche bag. The reason I feel this way because I'm telling people they are doing something dumb and many people associate doing things in a dumb way as an indicator of their intelligence. This is why I don't say this phrase anymore as it isn't helpful. It sounds nice to be able to say because it transitivity says "look, I'm smart, and you could work less if you were as smart as me". That's a douche-baggy thing to say.

Now, having said that. If you can achieve the goal of working smarter with less effort, then you have innovated. This is the secret to innovation.

Before I leave for the day, I think the following thoughts.

• How can I do the work I did today in half the time?
• What did I learn?
• How could I have done better?
  
• How would I explain what I did?

That is, I focus on how I can improve my methodology, my education, my quality, or my communication.

Cloud Coding

I just want to say that Twilio is an awesome company. About a year ago, I was seriously considering dealing with asterisk. Asterisk is perfectly good software, but it didn't make sense for the problem I had. I took a risk and quickly developed the VOIP feature for a product.

Developing and supporting a product with Twilio over the past year has made me think about the need for developing in the cloud. I'm at the base level of cloud development: terminal. I can log into a VM and get things done. I don't need scp, sshfs, or anything else to support my development capability. My brain, fingers, and ssh are all that I need.

Why do I need a VM to develop with twilio? Well, the monitor and way to debug a twilio application is to use the phone. The phone isn't easy to work with, so I need a public IP. I also need a way to watch the HTTP traffic, so I need the ability to grep logs.

Basically, fundamental Unix skills let you work with new technologies faster.

Green Computing; do more with less

It seems these days that anyone can do "real-time" internet these days due to awesome technologies like node.js or node.ocaml (shameless self promotion). Realistically thou, no one cares if your software is optimized in C using pointer arithmetic to squeeze an extra hundred requests per second out of a box. Very few care that one has taken the time to read the Black Book. Why? computers are really fast and many people have figured out how to make software scale out horizontally. Computing resources are way cheaper than developer mind-share, so where is the motivation for business?

Well, that's a good question.

This can be addressed with "green computing" marketing campaign. Unfortunately, It would be ultimately doomed out of the gate.