Career trajectories are non-linear.

less than 1m read

·Nov 3, 2024

So this question is: What is the best advice you've ever received?

Career trajectories are not linear. Especially if you start a company, you might actually bypass a bunch of things, but it might not feel that in the moment. A lot of people that start startups feel like they're getting behind in their career trajectory because other people are getting well-paid jobs, advancing, getting fancy titles, and you are not, because you're solving something that is tremendously hard.

The truth is, um, you are doing a lot of things, which means you're learning a lot of things at the same time. Many of these things are tremendously valuable in other companies.

So, I worked in a bunch of startups, and when I joined EDBB in 2012, I was one of the first five or six product managers. It turned out that most of us actually are former founders, because we really valued that. And that was unknown to me, sort of like when I became a founder, that being a founder is actually a really valuable thing when you join another company.

So I think my best advice here is: career trajectories are not linear.

Steve Jobs Was the "Toughest Bastard" I Ever Met | Kevin O'Leary

Sam Altman - Startup Investor School Day 1

View All

A Mexican Wolf Pup’s Journey into the Wild | Podcast | Overheard at National Geographic

Foreign [Music] This is what it sounds like to explore New Mexico’s Gila Wilderness on horseback. On a recent assignment for National Geographic, I got to venture deep into the Gila with a photographer, podcast producer, and a backcountry guide. The Gila …

Where We Are in the Big Cycle of Money, Credit, Debt, and Economic Activity

There’s a cycle. Um, there’s a short-term money credit debt market economic cycle we call it the business cycle also. What happens is, you know, you go from a recession, go to slow inflation. Uh, is low central banks, uh, produce a lot of money and credi…

Solar Roads: Can Streets Become Giant Solar Panels? | National Geographic

[Music] [Music] There is a project in the United States called solar roadways, which consist of concrete slabs including the solar cells, plus tempered glass on top of it. There’s a quite similar project in the Netherlands called solar Road. A section on …

Vlog: I counted almost $30,000,000 worth of cars in this parking lot!

What’s up you guys? It’s Graham here. So it seems like every 10,000 subscribers, I end up doing another vlog, and since I just hit 30,000 subscribers, here’s another vlog! I actually think it’s more like 34,000 by the time I’m actually doing this. I’m pro…

Rising Ocean Temperatures are "Cooking" Coral Reefs | National Geographic

Foreign. We’ve now had three major bleaching events on the Great Barrier Reef: in ‘98, 2002, and again just recently in 2016. We zigzagged along the whole length in a helicopter and fixed-wing plane. We put about 100 people underwater. The extent and sev…

Persistence Of Vision

So tonight I’m hanging out with my friend Nigel, and he’s brought along one of his science toys—a little white plastic ball. Um, it’s not actually a white plastic ball at all. You told me you were bringing the white plastic ball tonight. It’s, uh, what co…

Career trajectories are non-linear.

More Articles