People, Money, and Arguments
Mar 13, 2024Last August, I took a five-month leave of absence from my job. I wanted to take a break and reset for many reasons, but one of them was because I was unsure what I should spend my time and energy on.
The traditional wisdom for finding your purpose wasn’t the best fit for me. Most people have seen something along the lines of this Venn diagram,
This diagram doesn’t work for me. It’s hard to predict what opportunities I’ll get in the future. Most skills can be learned with the right mentor and education, and unfortunately, I’m someone that has many interests.
I wonder if this diagram has truly helped someone make a critical career decision or if it’s just more for show. Where would Actress Emma Stone be if she used such a diagram? She created her own oportunity by convincing her parents to support her dream of making it in Hollywood.
This doesn’t apply to everyone, but I found my own way of thinking about how to spend my time.
Everyone is different. In high school, I had friends who knew exactly what they wanted to do for the rest of their lives. They knew they wanted to be a doctor and joined a local hospital program to get a head start on their medical school application. It took me a while to realize, but I’m the complete opposite—I felt there were endless possibilities.
I had no big picture plan, so I just ended up doing stuff that I thought was interesting and that was also immediately accessible. This led to my experimentation with computers and programming. It wasn’t too hard to get access to a terminal and download a programming language off the internet.
Eventually, I also used prestige and money as my compass, which guided my next moves. I joined a tech company in the Bay Area and went from one company to another. I made friends and learned along the way, but I eventually ended up asking myself, “What was all of this for?“. It all felt sort of random.
Think about the big picture
What was missing was the big picture. How did I fit into this jigsaw puzzle we call the world? I needed to broaden my thinking and start thinking longer term.
When we’re growing up, the big-picture thinking is done for many of us—“Oh, you do K-12, then go to college, pick a major, and get a job that pays!“. That’s about 22 years without having to do any deep existential thinking.
Thinking longer term is easier said than done. The future is very hard to predict! However, thinking about people, money, and arguments has helped me do just that.
People
This is the most important category. The people we work with, the people who judge our work, and the people who benefit from our work are no doubt the most important factors in our job satisfaction and overall well-being.
It’s common knowledge that your manager and team are important when deciding where to work, but what about the stakeholders and customers? People generally don’t think about that.
Here are three groups of people to think about,
People we admire
Think about who you admire most. You’d work with them if you could, right? How many product managers would drop everything and go if they had the opportunity to work with Steve Jobs?
If you don’t work directly with anyone you deeply admire—that’s a sign.
Think about what you admire about people. Are there any patterns? For me, it’s people that have the ability to think deep about problems and consistently make wise decisions. They don’t just take the first easy solution—they think about nuances and come up with an even better solution. They think long term.
When you work with people you admire, you’ll become more like them. You’ll learn about yourself.
Consider who judges your work
If you’re joining a company then who is your manager? Are they someone you can trust? Who else judges your work? There are probably stakeholders. Is there a org level review system? Look up who the decision makers are. On average, can you trust these people to judge your work well? Peers are judges of your work as well.
Try to talk to as many people as possible. Try to figure out what you like and don’t like. I don’t like using money as the only proxy for impact and value creation. So finance is the wrong fit for me. My boss, my peers, etc. will judge my work based on how much money the work made. More money is better even if it means a worse experience in other dimensions (see company dark patterns).
You should try to have the people you admire be the ones that judge your work. If you really admire a CEO/manager then try to join their company and work directly for them.
I want to be judged by people who solve problems well. They’re not ok with a quick and dirty solution—they have a high quality bar for everything. I want to be judged by people with taste.
Consider who you’re serving
Meta has a station with 3g phones and devices for building empathy with users with slow internet speeds. Uber encouraged employees to drive for Uber to empathize with the driver experience. Customers, users, your audience—they’re very important when thinking about how to spend your time and energy.
If you despise Philadelphia Eagles fans and then sign up to be a hotdog vendor at Lincoln Financial Field, then you’re in for a world of misery.
Who do you want to serve?
I think people in the software industry fall into a trap where they think they’re serving everyone. Software scales so their eventual customer base is the whole world right? Maybe eventually if you happen to be Google, but even then you only see a certain side of your customers.
If I become a waiter at a taco place then I serve people who really want tacos.
I want to serve other software engineers because as one myself I find it easy to relate to them. I feel their pain when they work with horrible tooling. Relieving that pain makes me feel good.
Money
Money is important, but its importance isn’t the same for everyone.
I don’t have dependents to care for therefore I can be a little bit more risky when making financial decisions. I don’t come from money, so I still need a savings plan. Everyone has a certain amount of money that they want to spend and a certain amount they need to save.
More money isn’t always better. Sometimes you need to take two steps back to take three steps forward (joining a small startup). The opposite is also true! Maybe you’ve been going from small startup to small startup. It might be time to join a company that pays well to increase your savings.
Figure out what the minimum amount of money you need to live comfortably is. The less money you need the more options in life you have. If my minimum amount is X then x+$10,000 has diminishing returns.
Money is just a complicated topic. It’s important to think about when thinking about life and careers, but there isn’t a one size fits all advice for it. However, I truly believe the wise words of Charlie Munger
The safest way to get what you want is to try and deserve what you want
—Charlie Munger
In the long term you will get what you deserve. Don’t get distracted by the friend that randomly makes millions from a lottery ticket.
Arguments
Having an argument with someone about something is a sure sign that you’re passionate about that thing. It’s common sense, but realizing this was a breakthrough for me.
I find a lot of things interesting, but I don’t argue about most things. I don’t like arguing with most people in general. So, when I see that I’m willing to have arguments with someone about a subject, then that’s a sign there’s something more there.
This doesn’t apply to everyone. I know some people that love arguing about everything.
What do you get heated about? Is it politics? What specifically? The key is to then get involved in something where those arguments can be productive. If you get into arguments about climate policy then maybe you can join a non-profit or a government agency where you have more opportunities to turn those arguments into action.
It’s easier said than done. If you’re a high paid software engineer at Meta then it’s hard to convince yourself that you need to leave hundreds of thousands of dollars on the table so that you can get involved with reproductive health policy—an issue you’re deeply passionate about.
Of course, you can be passionate about many things. If you notice a trend then that’s a good sign.
Over the years I always found myself arguing with people about tooling, or more generally, developer tooling. I didn’t like how this framework was written or I didn’t like this choice of programming language. Not only would I have an opinion but I would get into pointless arguments about it!
Is there a way I can make these arguments productive?
My path forward
It took me a few months of reflection and looking around but, I found people I admire, compensation that meets my financial needs, and plenty of things to argue about at Modal.
I’m excited about the next phase in my journey and will report back on my learnings!