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.

Pain in the Crevasse | Continent 7: Antarctica

Growth Hacks Rich People Use All The Time

View All

What is Khanmigo moderation? | Introducing Khanmigo | Khanmigo for students | Khan Academy

In this video, we’re going to see how Kigo can sometimes moderate the conversation in an attempt to protect you, the user. Sometimes it gets it right, but sometimes it gets it wrong. What do we do in those situations? So, let’s say we want to write a fan…

The Gilded Age part 1 | The Gilded Age (1865-1898) | US History | Khan Academy

Hello David, hello Kim. So, I’ve brought you here to talk about the Gilded Age, which is one of my favorite eras of American history because everything was great and covered in gold. No, because it is the only era of American history I can think of that h…

Inside the Mission to Save the Rare Helmeted Hornbill From Poachers | National Geographic

This is about the second week of this expedition. We are at our third location here. My mission is to photograph the helmeted armbands. These hella nerd hornbills have been occupying these forests for thousands of years, but recently they’ve fallen prey t…

If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Happy?

A common complaint where I’m from, where I’m surrounded by lots of smart overachievers, is that happiness is for stupid people or happiness is for lazy people. A lot of times, it’s not. Runners will say, “I don’t want to be happy because I want to be succ…

Misconceptions About Falling Objects

Let’s say Jack holds both balls above his head and then he drops them at exactly the same time. What do you expect to see? Well, they’re going to hit the ground at the same time. I expect them to both land at the same time. The same time, same time! This…

Building The World's Best Image Diffusion Model

I think we thought the product was going to be one way, and then we literally ripped it all up in a month and a half or so before release. We were sort of like lost in the jungle for a moment, like a bit of a panic. There’s a lot of unsolved problems basi…

Career trajectories are non-linear.

More Articles