Futwork

futwork

First Employee: My Journey From Solopreneur to Entrepreneur

Introduction This is my consistent coding for the past year 👨🏻‍💻 https://twitter.com/Dhanush_Nehru/status/1741475660978397453?embedable=true Additionally, I discovered that I was one among 0.4% of consistent coders on Leetcode 🧠 https://twitter.com/Dhanush_Nehru/status/1735666289027227690?embedable=true Mastering Consistency How was I so consistent? Here’s how I did it, I just enjoy coding and problem solving, so I thought of doing something better than my 100 Days Of Code Challenge, so I chose to do a 365 Day of Leetcode Challenge. “Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” — Confucius . I love to solve problems, and my interest and passion for problem-solving made it a habit to face a new problem and solve it without any motivation. “Every man is divine and strong in his real nature. What are weak and evil are his habits, his desires, and thoughts, but not himself.” — Swami Vivekananda. Similar to how we do our daily tasks, problem-solving has become a habit for me without much pressure or inspiration. “First we make our habits, and then our habits make us.” — John Dryden. Similar to how you go to the gym and exercise and maintain your health, it is necessary to train your brain as well as the ability to code. “Programming is a journey, not a destination. The code you write today is not the code you will write tomorrow.” — Unknown. Consistency is an art. It was hard for me to be consistent a few years back, so in order to master consistency as a goal, I did this challenge. It’s not what we do once in a while that shapes our lives. It’s what we do consistently.” — Tony Robbins . Mistakes to Avoid Here are a few mistakes that you can avoid while doing leetcode, We generally force ourselves to get the solution anyway, and once we see the solution, we feel bad about ourselves, and all the negative self-talk comes into play. But, most people do not understand that you must know the basics first before solving that particular problem. How can you expect yourself to play chess well if you don’t know how the coins move? Clear your fundamentals/syntax of whatever programming language, then push yourself to solve the problem. Build your foundation first: You should start valuing your efforts rather than getting the solution. Problem-solving skills are developed in those 30 minutes of fighting with the problem to get the solution. Sometimes, when you are not able to get the solution on the initial days, it is okay to look into the solutions by others, but it should not be a regular practice. Getting to the solution is not everything: Pick up a pen and paper, try to think of all the possible solutions, and focus on building up the solution. Start with the smallest example, try to come up with a solution, and then optimize it with edge case scenarios, etc. Don’t code in your head: There are more than 2000+ problems on Leetcode, and you don’t need to solve all of them. I just coded it as a matter of consistency. However, you need not solve every single problem every day if you want to improve your problem-solving. Concepts are limited. Problems are infinite: Even if I could solve the problem on my own, I always go to the comment section and quickly scan over superior solutions. You may not be aware of how many more effective approaches and viewpoints there are to solving the same issue. Also, I have done many open sources, so it has helped me to view others co’ code in a better way. Read other’s code: Establish a timer for each task; the breakdown is as follows: easy tasks take around 15 minutes, medium tasks take about 30 minutes, and hard tasks take about 45 minutes. Try not to enjoy the moment of finding the answer right away. Always time yourself: No matter how many questions you solve in the contest, show up every time. Once you show up, you have completed the hardest part. Don’t care about ratings: After the contest try to solve the questions without any time limit, if you don’t get it then check other’s solutions understand what they have done, read about that particular topic, and solve it back again using the specific knowledge. Up-solve the contest questions again: I have answered many more questions about my journey in the video below. Do watch, like, to show your support 🙏🏻 subscribe to my channel “The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.” — Albert Einstein. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-hDaEU8smE&embedable=true In the end, it doesn’t matter how smart or dumb or lucky you are, if you are consistent enough you can outwork all the people you think are talented or smarter than you. Also, life is not something that happens on weekends. It is something that happens every single day. A Big Thank You 🙏🏻 If you’ve made it this far, thank you! If you love this post, please give a like as a sort of encouragement and also share this post on social media, which would benefit others. Connect ⬇️ / / / / Twitter Instagram Github Youtube Newsletter Also published . here

Reflecting on My Year of Consistent Leetcode Practice and Mistakes to Avoid

On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures by Charles Babbage is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . On a New System of Manufacturing here Chapter 26. On a New System of Manufacturing A most erroneous and unfortunate opinion prevails amongst workmen in many manufacturing countries, that their own interest and that of their employers are at variance. The consequences are that valuable machinery is sometimes neglected, and even privately injured—that new improvements, introduced by the masters, do not receive a fair trial—and that the talents and observations of the workmen are not directed to the improvement of the processes in which they are employed. This error is, perhaps, most prevalent where the establishment of manufactories has been of recent origin, and where the number of persons employed in them is not very large: thus, in some of the Prussian provinces on the Rhine it prevails to a much greater extent than in Lancashire. Perhaps its diminished prevalence in our own manufacturing districts, arises partly from the superior information spread amongst the workmen; and partly from the frequent example of persons, who by good conduct and an attention to the interests of their employers for a series of years, have become foremen, or who have ultimately been admitted into advantageous partnerships. Convinced as I am, from my own observation, that the prosperity and success of the master manufacturer is essential to the welfare of the workman, I am yet compelled to admit that this connection is, in many cases, too remote to be always understood by the latter, and whilst it is perfectly true that workmen, as a class, derive advantage from the prosperity of their employers, I do not think that each individual partakes of that advantage exactly in proportion to the extent to which he contributes towards it; nor do I perceive that the resulting advantage is as immediate as it might become under a different system. It would be of great importance, if, in every large establishment the mode of payment could be so arranged, that every person employed should derive advantage from the success of the whole; and that the profits of each individual should advance, as the factory itself produced profit, without the necessity of making any change in the wages. This is by no means easy to effect, particularly amongst that class whose daily labour procures for them their daily food. The system which has long been pursued in working the Cornish mines, although not exactly fulfilling these conditions, yet possesses advantages which make it worthy of attention, as having nearly approached towards them, and as tending to render fully effective the faculties of all who are engaged in it. I am the more strongly induced to place before the reader a short sketch of this system, because its similarity to that which I shall afterwards recommend for trial, will perhaps remove some objections to the latter, and may also furnish some valuable hints for conducting any experiment which might be undertaken. In the mines of Cornwall, almost the whole of the operations, both above and below ground, are contracted for. The manner of making the contract is nearly as follows. At the end of every two months, the work which it is proposed to carry on during the next period is marked out. It is of three kinds. 1. Tutwork, which consists in sinking shafts, driving levels, and making excavations: this is paid for by the fathom in depth, or in length, or by the cubic fathom. 2. Tribute, which is payment for raising and dressing the ore, by means of a certain part of its value when rendered merchantable. It is this mode of payment which produces such admirable effects. The miners, who are to be paid in proportion to the richness of the vein, and the quantity of metal extracted from it, naturally become quicksighted in the discovery of ore, and in estimating its value; and it is their interest to avail themselves of every improvement that can bring it more cheaply to market. 3. Dressing. The 'Tributors', who dig and dress the ore, can seldom afford to dress the coarser parts of what they raise, at their contract price; this portion, therefore, is again let out to other persons, who agree to dress it at an advanced price. The lots of ore to be dressed, and the works to be carried on, having been marked out some days before, and having been examined by the men, a kind of auction is held by the captains of the mine, in which each lot is put up, and bid for by different gangs of men. The work is then offered, at a price usually below that bid at the auction, to the lowest bidder, who rarely declines it at the rate proposed. The tribute is a certain sum out of every twenty shillings' worth of ore raised, and may vary from threepence to fourteen or fifteen shillings. The rate of earnings in tribute is very uncertain: if a vein, which was poor when taken, becomes rich, the men earn money rapidly; and instances have occurred in which each miner of a gang has gained a hundred pounds in the two months. These extraordinary cases, are, perhaps, of more advantage to the owners of the mine than even to the men; for whilst the skill and industry of the workmen are greatly stimulated, the owner himself always derives still greater advantage from the improvement of the vein.(1*) This system has been introduced, by Mr Taylor, into the lead mines of Flintshire, into those at Skipton in Yorkshire, and into some of the copper mines of Cumberland; and it is desirable that it should become general, because no other mode of payment affords to the workmen a measure of success so directly proportioned to the industry, the integrity, and the talent, which they exert. I shall now present the outline of a system which appears to me to be pregnant with the most important results, both to the class of workmen and to the country at large; and which, if acted upon, would, in my opinion, permanently raise the working classes, and greatly extend the manufacturing system. The general principles on which the proposed system is founded, are That a considerable part of the wages received by each person employed should depend on the profits made by the establishment; and, That every person connected with it should derive more advantage from applying any improvement he might discover, to the factory in which he is employed, than he could by any other course. 309. It would be difficult to prevail on the large capitalist to enter upon any system, which would change the division of the profits arising from the employment of his capital in setting skill and labour in action; any alteration, therefore, must be expected rather from the small capitalist, or from the higher class of workmen, who combine the two characters; and to these latter classes, whose welfare will be first affected, the change is most important. I shall therefore first point out the course to be pursued in making the experiment; and then, taking a particular branch of trade as an illustration, I shall examine the merits and defects of the proposed system as applied to it. 310. Let us suppose, in some large manufacturing town, ten or twelve of the most intelligent and skilful workmen to unite, whose characters for sobriety and steadiness are good, and are well known among their own class. Such persons will each possess some small portion of capital; and let them join with one or two others who have raised themselves into the class of small master manufacturers, and, therefore possess rather a larger portion of capital. Let these persons, after well considering the subject, agree to establish a manufactory of fire-irons and fenders; and let us suppose that each of the ten workmen can command forty pounds, and each of the small capitalists possesses two hundred pounds: thus they have a capital of L800 with which to commence business; and, for the sake of simplifying, let us further suppose the labour of each of these twelve persons to be worth two pounds a week. One portion of their capital will be expended in procuring the tools necessary for their trade, which we shall take at L400, and this must be considered as their fixed capital. The remaining L400 must be employed as circulating capital, in purchasing the iron with which their articles are made, in paying the rent of their workshops, and in supporting themselves and their families until some portion of it is replaced by the sale of the goods produced. 311. Now the first question to be settled is, what proportion of the profit should be allowed for the use of capital, and what for skill and labour? It does not seem possible to decide this question by any abstract reasoning: if the capital supplied by each partner is equal, all difficulty will be removed; if otherwise, the proportion must be left to find its level, and will be discovered by experience; and it is probable that it will not fluctuate much. Let us suppose it to be agreed that the capital of L800 shall receive the wages of one workman. At the end of each week every workman is to receive one pound as wages, and one pound is to be divided amongst the owners of the capital. After a few weeks the returns will begin to come in; and they will soon become nearly uniform. Accurate accounts should be kept of every expense and of all the sales; and at the end of each week the profit should be divided. A certain portion should be laid aside as a reserved fund, another portion for repair of the tools, and the remainder being divided into thirteen parts, one of these parts would be divided amongst the capitalists and one belong to each workman. Thus each man would, in ordinary circumstances, make up his usual wages of two pounds weekly. If the factory went on prosperously, the wages of the men would increase; if the sales fell off they would be diminished. It is important that every person employed in the establishment, whatever might be the amount paid for his services, whether he act as labourer or porter, as the clerk who keeps the accounts, or as bookkeeper employed for a few hours once a week to superintend them, should receive one half of what his service is worth in fixed salary, the other part varying with the success of the undertaking. 312. In such a factory, of course, division of labour would be introduced: some of the workmen would be constantly employed in forging the fire-irons, others in polishing them, others in piercing and forming the fenders. It would be essential that the time occupied in each process, and also its expense, should be well ascertained; information which would soon be obtained very precisely. Now, if a workman should find a mode of shortening any of the processes, he would confer a benefit on the whole party, even if they received but a small part of the resulting profit. For the promotion of such discoveries, it would be desirable that those who make them should either receive some reward, to be determined after a sufficient trial by a committee assembling periodically; or if they be of high importance, that the discoverer should receive one-half, or twothirds, of the profit resulting from them during the next year, or some other determinate period, as might be found expedient. As the advantages of such improvements would be clear gain to the factory, it is obvious that such a share might be allowed to the inventor, that it would be for his interest rather to give the benefit of them to his partners, than to dispose of them in any other way. 313. The result of such arrangements in a factory would be, That every person engaged in it would have a direct interest in its prosperity; since the effect of any success, or falling off, would almost immediately produce a corresponding change in his own weekly receipts. Every person concerned in the factory would have an immediate interest in preventing any waste or mismanagement in all the departments. The talents of all connected with it would be strongly directed to its improvement in every department. None but workmen of high character and qualifications could obtain admission into such establishments; because when any additional hands were required, it would be the common interest of all to admit only the most respectable and skilful; and it would be far less easy to impose upon a dozen workmen than upon the single proprietor of a factory. When any circumstance produced a glut in the market, more skill would be directed to diminishing the cost of production; and a portion of the time of the men might then be occupied in repairing and improving their tools, for which a reserved fund would pay, thus checking present, and at the same time facilitating future production. Another advantage, of no small importance, would be the total removal of all real or imaginary causes for combinations. The workmen and the capitalist would so shade into each other— would so evidently have a common interest, and their difficulties and distresses would be mutually so well understood that, instead of combining to oppress one another, the only combination which could exist would be a most powerful union between both parties to overcome their common difficulties. 314. One of the difficulties attending such a system is, that capitalists would at first fear to embark in it, imagining that the workmen would receive too large a share of the profits: and it is quite true that the workmen would have a larger share than at present: but, at the same time, it is presumed the effect of the whole system would be, that the total profits of the establishment being much increased, the smaller proportion allowed to capital under this system would yet be greater in actual amount, than that which results to it from the larger share in the system now existing. 315. It is possible that the present laws relating to partnerships might interfere with factories so conducted. If this interference could not be obviated by confining their purchases under the proposed system to ready money, it would be desirable to consider what changes in the law would be necessary to its existence: and this furnishes another reason for entering into the question of limited partnerships. 316. A difficulty would occur also in discharging workmen who behaved ill, or who were not competent to their work; this would arise from their having a certain interest in the reserved fund, and, perhaps, from their possessing a certain portion of the capital employed; but without entering into detail, it may be observed, that such cases might be determined on by meetings of the whole establishment; and that if the policy of the laws favoured such establishments, it would scarcely be more difficult to enforce just regulations, than it now is to enforce some which are unjust, by means of combinations either amongst the masters or the men. 317. Some approach to this system is already practised in several trades: the mode of conducting the Cornish mines has already been alluded to; the payment to the crew of whaling ships is governed by this principle; the profits arising from fishing with nets on the south coast of England are thus divided: one-half the produce belongs to the owner of the boat and net; the other half is divided in equal portions between the persons using it, who are also bound to assist in repairing the net when injured. NOTES: For a detailed account of the method of working the Cornish mines, see a paper of Mr John Taylor's Transactions of the Geological Society, vol. ii, p. 309. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Charles Babbage (2003). On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/4238/pg4238.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

On a New System of Manufacturing

Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc — Volume 1 by Mark Twain, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . How Joan Took Jargeau here How Joan Took Jargeau WE MADE a gallant show next day when we filed out through the frowning gates of Orleans, with banners flying and Joan and the Grand Staff in the van of the long column. Those two young De Lavals were come now, and were joined to the Grand Staff. Which was well; war being their proper trade, for they were grandsons of that illustrious fighter Bertrand du Guesclin, Constable of France in earlier days. Louis de Bourbon, the Marshal de Rais, and the Vidame de Chartres were added also. We had a right to feel a little uneasy, for we knew that a force of five thousand men was on its way under Sir John Fastolfe to reinforce Jargeau, but I think we were not uneasy, nevertheless. In truth, that force was not yet in our neighborhood. Sir John was loitering; for some reason or other he was not hurrying. He was losing precious time—four days at Etampes, and four more at Janville. We reached Jargeau and began business at once. Joan sent forward a heavy force which hurled itself against the outworks in handsome style, and gained a footing and fought hard to keep it; but it presently began to fall back before a sortie from the city. Seeing this, Joan raised her battle-cry and led a new assault herself under a furious artillery fire. The Paladin was struck down at her side wounded, but she snatched her standard from his failing hand and plunged on through the ruck of flying missiles, cheering her men with encouraging cries; and then for a good time one had turmoil, and clash of steel, and collision and confusion of struggling multitudes, and the hoarse bellowing of the guns; and then the hiding of it all under a rolling firmament of smoke—a firmament through which veiled vacancies appeared for a moment now and then, giving fitful dim glimpses of the wild tragedy enacting beyond; and always at these times one caught sight of that slight figure in white mail which was the center and soul of our hope and trust, and whenever we saw that, with its back to us and its face to the fight, we knew that all was well. At last a great shout went up—a joyous roar of shoutings, in fact—and that was sign sufficient that the faubourgs were ours. Yes, they were ours; the enemy had been driven back within the walls. On the ground which Joan had won we camped; for night was coming on. Joan sent a summons to the English, promising that if they surrendered she would allow them to go in peace and take their horses with them. Nobody knew that she could take that strong place, but she knew it—knew it well; yet she offered that grace—offered it in a time when such a thing was unknown in war; in a time when it was custom and usage to massacre the garrison and the inhabitants of captured cities without pity or compunction—yes, even to the harmless women and children sometimes. There are neighbors all about you who well remember the unspeakable atrocities which Charles the Bold inflicted upon the men and women and children of Dinant when he took that place some years ago. It was a unique and kindly grace which Joan offered that garrison; but that was her way, that was her loving and merciful nature—she always did her best to save her enemy’s life and his soldierly pride when she had the mastery of him. The English asked fifteen days’ armistice to consider the proposal in. And Fastolfe coming with five thousand men! Joan said no. But she offered another grace: they might take both their horses and their side-arms—but they must go within the hour. Well, those bronzed English veterans were pretty hard-headed folk. They declined again. Then Joan gave command that her army be made ready to move to the assault at nine in the morning. Considering the deal of marching and fighting which the men had done that day, D’Alencon thought the hour rather early; but Joan said it was best so, and so must be obeyed. Then she burst out with one of those enthusiasms which were always burning in her when battle was imminent, and said: “Work! work! and God will work with us!” Yes, one might say that her motto was “Work! stick to it; keep on working!” for in war she never knew what indolence was. And whoever will take that motto and live by it will likely to succeed. There’s many a way to win in this world, but none of them is worth much without good hard work back out of it. I think we should have lost our big Standard-Bearer that day, if our bigger Dwarf had not been at hand to bring him out of the melee when he was wounded. He was unconscious, and would have been trampled to death by our own horse, if the Dwarf had not promptly rescued him and haled him to the rear and safety. He recovered, and was himself again after two or three hours; and then he was happy and proud, and made the most of his wound, and went swaggering around in his bandages showing off like an innocent big-child—which was just what he was. He was prouder of being wounded than a really modest person would be of being killed. But there was no harm in his vanity, and nobody minded it. He said he was hit by a stone from a catapult—a stone the size of a man’s head. But the stone grew, of course. Before he got through with it he was claiming that the enemy had flung a building at him. “Let him alone,” said Noel Rainguesson. “Don’t interrupt his processes. To-morrow it will be a cathedral.” He said that privately. And, sure enough, to-morrow it was a cathedral. I never saw anybody with such an abandoned imagination. Joan was abroad at the crack of dawn, galloping here and there and yonder, examining the situation minutely, and choosing what she considered the most effective positions for her artillery; and with such accurate judgment did she place her guns that her Lieutenant-General’s admiration of it still survived in his memory when his testimony was taken at the Rehabilitation, a quarter of a century later. In this testimony the Duke d’Alencon said that at Jargeau that morning of the 12th of June she made her dispositions not like a novice, but “with the sure and clear judgment of a trained general of twenty or thirty years’ experience.” The veteran captains of the armies of France said she was great in war in all ways, but greatest of all in her genius for posting and handling artillery. Who taught the shepherd-girl to do these marvels—she who could not read, and had had no opportunity to study the complex arts of war? I do not know any way to solve such a baffling riddle as that, there being no precedent for it, nothing in history to compare it with and examine it by. For in history there is no great general, however gifted, who arrived at success otherwise than through able teaching and hard study and some experience. It is a riddle which will never be guessed. I think these vast powers and capacities were born in her, and that she applied them by an intuition which could not err. At eight o’clock all movement ceased, and with it all sounds, all noise. A mute expectancy reigned. The stillness was something awful—because it meant so much. There was no air stirring. The flags on the towers and ramparts hung straight down like tassels. Wherever one saw a person, that person had stopped what he was doing, and was in a waiting attitude, a listening attitude. We were on a commanding spot, clustered around Joan. Not far from us, on every hand, were the lanes and humble dwellings of these outlying suburbs. Many people were visible—all were listening, not one was moving. A man had placed a nail; he was about to fasten something with it to the door-post of his shop—but he had stopped. There was his hand reaching up holding the nail; and there was his other hand in the act of striking with the hammer; but he had forgotten everything—his head was turned aside listening. Even children unconsciously stopped in their play; I saw a little boy with his hoop-stick pointed slanting toward the ground in the act of steering the hoop around the corner; and so he had stopped and was listening—the hoop was rolling away, doing its own steering. I saw a young girl prettily framed in an open window, a watering-pot in her hand and window-boxes of red flowers under its spout—but the water had ceased to flow; the girl was listening. Everywhere were these impressive petrified forms; and everywhere was suspended movement and that awful stillness. Joan of Arc raised her sword in the air. At the signal, the silence was torn to rags; cannon after cannon vomited flames and smoke and delivered its quaking thunders; and we saw answering tongues of fire dart from the towers and walls of the city, accompanied by answering deep thunders, and in a minute the walls and the towers disappeared, and in their place stood vast banks and pyramids of snowy smoke, motionless in the dead air. The startled girl dropped her watering-pot and clasped her hands together, and at that moment a stone cannon-ball crashed through her fair body. The great artillery duel went on, each side hammering away with all its might; and it was splendid for smoke and noise, and most exalting to one’s spirits. The poor little town around about us suffered cruelly. The cannon-balls tore through its slight buildings, wrecking them as if they had been built of cards; and every moment or two one would see a huge rock come curving through the upper air above the smoke-clouds and go plunging down through the roofs. Fire broke out, and columns of flame and smoke rose toward the sky. Presently the artillery concussions changed the weather. The sky became overcast, and a strong wind rose and blew away the smoke that hid the English fortresses. Then the spectacle was fine; turreted gray walls and towers, and streaming bright flags, and jets of red fire and gushes of white smoke in long rows, all standing out with sharp vividness against the deep leaden background of the sky; and then the whizzing missiles began to knock up the dirt all around us, and I felt no more interest in the scenery. There was one English gun that was getting our position down finer and finer all the time. Presently Joan pointed to it and said: “Fair duke, step out of your tracks, or that machine will kill you.” The Duke d’Alencon did as he was bid; but Monsieur du Lude rashly took his place, and that cannon tore his head off in a moment. Joan was watching all along for the right time to order the assault. At last, about nine o’clock, she cried out: “Now—to the assault!” and the buglers blew the charge. Instantly we saw the body of men that had been appointed to this service move forward toward a point where the concentrated fire of our guns had crumbled the upper half of a broad stretch of wall to ruins; we saw this force descend into the ditch and begin to plant the scaling-ladders. We were soon with them. The Lieutenant-General thought the assault premature. But Joan said: “Ah, gentle duke, are you afraid? Do you not know that I have promised to send you home safe?” It was warm work in the ditches. The walls were crowded with men, and they poured avalanches of stones down upon us. There was one gigantic Englishman who did us more hurt than any dozen of his brethren. He always dominated the places easiest of assault, and flung down exceedingly troublesome big stones which smashed men and ladders both—then he would near burst himself with laughing over what he had done. But the duke settled accounts with him. He went and found the famous cannoneer, Jean le Lorrain, and said: “Train your gun—kill me this demon.” He did it with the first shot. He hit the Englishman fair in the breast and knocked him backward into the city. The enemy’s resistance was so effective and so stubborn that our people began to show signs of doubt and dismay. Seeing this, Joan raised her inspiring battle-cry and descended into the fosse herself, the Dwarf helping her and the Paladin sticking bravely at her side with the standard. She started up a scaling-ladder, but a great stone flung from above came crashing down upon her helmet and stretched her, wounded and stunned, upon the ground. But only for a moment. The Dwarf stood her upon her feet, and straightway she started up the ladder again, crying: “To the assault, friends, to the assault—the English are ours! It is the appointed hour!” There was a grand rush, and a fierce roar of war-cries, and we swarmed over the ramparts like ants. The garrison fled, we pursued; Jargeau was ours! The Earl of Suffolk was hemmed in and surrounded, and the Duke d’Alencon and the Bastard of Orleans demanded that he surrender himself. But he was a proud nobleman and came of a proud race. He refused to yield his sword to subordinates, saying: “I will die rather. I will surrender to the Maid of Orleans alone, and to no other.” And so he did; and was courteously and honorably used by her. His two brothers retreated, fighting step by step, toward the bridge, we pressing their despairing forces and cutting them down by scores. Arrived on the bridge, the slaughter still continued. Alexander de la Pole was pushed overboard or fell over, and was drowned. Eleven hundred men had fallen; John de la Pole decided to give up the struggle. But he was nearly as proud and particular as his brother of Suffolk as to whom he would surrender to. The French officer nearest at hand was Guillaume Renault, who was pressing him closely. Sir John said to him: “Are you a gentleman?” “Yes.” “And a knight?” “No.” Then Sir John knighted him himself there on the bridge, giving him the accolade with English coolness and tranquillity in the midst of that storm of slaughter and mutilation; and then bowing with high courtesy took the sword by the blade and laid the hilt of it in the man’s hand in token of surrender. Ah, yes, a proud tribe, those De la Poles. It was a grand day, a memorable day, a most splendid victory. We had a crowd of prisoners, but Joan would not allow them to be hurt. We took them with us and marched into Orleans next day through the usual tempest of welcome and joy. And this time there was a new tribute to our leader. From everywhere in the packed streets the new recruits squeezed their way to her side to touch the sword of Joan of Arc, and draw from it somewhat of that mysterious quality which made it invincible. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Mark Twain (2004). Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc — Volume 1. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2874/pg2874-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

How Joan Took Jargeau

Ever wondered what it takes to level up in your career? Well, you're not alone. We've all been there - stuck in the middle, eyeing the coveted senior role but unsure how to navigate the journey. What if I told you it's not just about accumulating years of experience or outworking your peers? There's an often overlooked yet crucial trait that distinguishes those who successfully transition from mid to senior roles: coachability. Imagine you're trying to climb a mountain. How can you reach the summit if you resist guidance from those who've already completed the ascent? Being open to coaching enables you to learn from others' expertise and accelerate your own development. But how can you become coachable? Let's work on that together. What do you say? The Foundation of Coachability: Willingness to Learn and Adapt Coachability begins with a genuine willingness to learn and adapt. This means shedding any ego or defensiveness that may prevent you from being open to feedback. It's about recognizing that there's always room for improvement, regardless of how skilled or experienced you may be. Coachable individuals have a growth mindset - they see every feedback or failure as a learning opportunity. Mastering Self-Reflection: Knowing Your Strengths and Weaknesses Being coachable also means being self-aware. It's about understanding your strengths and weaknesses and being honest about them. Regular self-reflection allows you to identify areas where you need help or improvement. This way, you can proactively seek feedback and coaching to develop in these areas. Understanding Management Styles and Adjusting Accordingly Every manager has a different style. Some may provide frequent feedback, while others may be more hands-off. Understanding your manager's style and adjusting your approach accordingly is key to being coachable. It's about meeting them halfway and ensuring that their coaching style aligns with your learning needs. Building a Strong Relationship With Your Mentor Having a strong relationship with your mentor is crucial for effective coaching. It's not just about being open to their feedback; it's about actively seeking their advice and guidance. Establishing a relationship based on trust and respect can enhance the effectiveness of their coaching, accelerating your professional development. Goal Setting and Accountability With Your Mentor Lastly, being coachable means being accountable. It's about setting clear and realistic goals with your mentor and being responsible for achieving them. This involves regularly checking in on your progress, reflecting on your challenges, and adjusting your strategies as necessary. It's about demonstrating that you can take ownership of your development and make consistent progress toward your goals. In the journey from mid to senior level, technical skills alone won't cut it. Developing soft skills, such as coachability, is just as important. So, the next time you receive feedback, remember: it's an opportunity to learn, improve, and accelerate your journey to the top.

From Mid to Senior: Let Them Know You're Coachable

Elon Musk and Google’s Larry Page shook hands over a $6 billion deal as they hoped to save Tesla. But a miracle happened elsewhere. Today, Tesla has over $820.25 billion in market cap ( ) with over 1.91 million vehicles produced. it once peaked at $1.23 trillion in 2021 Tesla’s success story has always been attributed to Musk’s money, marketing savvy, chicanery, engineering smarts, and indomitable spirit. While this is true, its unchanging principles brought its success. How did a company on the brink of falling apart become so successful? Sticking to the Plan ; Elon Musk clearly stated the company’s mission in a 2013 company post Elon wrote: “Our goal when we created Tesla a decade ago was the same as it is today: to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport by bringing compelling mass-market electric cars to market as soon as possible.” But years before his 2013 post, the company almost compromised. Since 2007, the US Government has been willing to invest in clean energy rather than fossil fuel. Climate change and reducing the country’s dependence on oil were the reasons for this loan. O’Connell drafted an application for a Department of Energy stimulus package on Tesla’s behalf. They secured $465 million. But things could have been different. In 2008, Tesla almost went hybrid. After Fisker launched his Fisker Karma, Tesla contemplated doing hybrid cars but was put off when they ran cost and performance metrics. In Straubel's words, he said, “It would be expensive, and the performance would not be as good as the all-electric car.” “We would have been betting against everything we believe in, like the power electronics and batteries improving. We decided to put all the effort into going where we think the endpoint is and never to look back.” Tesla needed a massive investment in 2010, and securing the loan was a turning point. Things could have been different if they had gone hybrid two years before. The simple decision to stick to its business plan with no compromise preserved it. Team Musk is a great leader, but greater is he at selecting the right team. He combines a team of engineers and sales so well. His team works tirelessly, trying to beat his unrealistic deadlines for a seemingly impossible vehicle. Amidst the mockery and scorn, they held their belief. Faced with the history of the electric cars' failures, they were eager to create a story. Tesla would hire smart people who could outwork and outthink every obstacle. Like Steve Jobs to John Scully, Musk sold von Holzhausen on the idea that he had a chance to shape the future of the automobile, and that it made sense to leave his cushy job at a giant, proven automaker for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. He brought the best team together and gave them a vision. Today, we’re all living in the vision. It’s Musk's world, and we’re all living in it. Power Of Innovation and Model S . But not just that, it changed how cars were made, sold, and used. Tesla was innovating the automotive industry with its electric cars You could now save a hefty gas fee by charging in its Superchargers stations for free or get a new battery instantly at the price of gasoline. Tesla sold its cars in its stores, which helps direct sales, faster product development, and improve customer buying experience. The goal was not just to build an electric car but a car with electrifying beauty. Like Steve Jobs, Musk combines functionality and aesthetics expertly. Model S came with a Touch screen display never seen before in any car. The touch screen, the size of a laptop screen, was before Apple launched its iPad. It has an overnight software upgrade. It could have added features with time, and its engineers could access and repair any malfunction without physical contact. Regenerative braking was another feature. The brake reverses the motor, which slows down the vehicle rather than the traditional, which slows down the tire rotation. It had an aluminum body which made it a lightweight car. But after producing the stunning Model S from loans, shares, and investments. Tesla faced a major problem. It was selling its cars. Sales stopped for the cash-strapped company and its survival; it had to be sold. Musk had shaken hands with Page, but a miracle happened suddenly. Its salesmen delivered 4,900 Model S sedans during the period, which brought them a profit of $11 million and $562 million in sales. Tesla’s shares soared from about $30 to $130 a few weeks later. The Model S maker paid off its $465 million loan from the government early and with interest. Tesla now had vast cash reserves at its disposal. Tesla stocks and value were rising, and cars were selling. The Google deal was no longer necessary, and Tesla had become too expensive. The talks with Google ended. Bottom Line Owning a Tesla comes with pride. It’s class. It’s an Apple in a garage. Maintaining its core principle with constant innovations and the right team, due to this, it's impossible to see Tesla collapse despite stiff competition. , Tesla’s market capitalization may well reach a mind-boggling $4 trillion in the coming years, as he predicts that global electric-vehicle penetration will hit 60% by 2030. According to Tesla investor Gary Black

3 Reasons Why Tesla Is Successful And It’s Not Elon Musk

Harvard dropout starts a company and raises 20 million dollars. I bet you heard this story so many times and you might feel intimidated by them. But what makes students from Ivy League universities so spectacular? The Social Network I turned 20 years old when The Social Network (movie) released. The film focuses on how Mark Zuckerberg and his friends started in college. Jessie Eisenberg played 's character quite well. So much so, that his story was an inspiration to kids that felt "different". I happened to be one of those kids. Facebook Zuckerberg I remember how impressed I was by Mark and his colleagues. Who wouldn’t be impressed by a bunch of guys that started a billion-dollar company in their dorm rooms? Especially when at the time, I had about $100 in savings with a negative increment outlook. I needed to fill up the tank of a car that was worth around $500. All in all, I felt like I had made poor life decisions because I wasn't anywhere near starting my own business. I then decided to take a closer look at my friends and fellow computer science students. About 60% of them had either dropped out or failed in their very first year. “Did they go on to start their own billion-dollar startups?” I wondered. I found one guy - he had started a marketing agency for bakeries. Don’t get me wrong, he was very successful compared to me and other students. He had even managed to grow his business to 5 employees before I graduated and lost track. I haven’t seen him in the news recently, so I guess he’s not a billionaire yet, despite being successful in his own right. Startups vs Old-Money I went down a rabbit hole trying to find other startup billionaires to inspire me. I hoped that I could learn from them and apply their principles to my own life. I dug deep into the European startup ecosystem without much luck. The only examples I found, at the time, were the Samwer brothers. They had started a company called Rocket Internet. It analyzed early-stage startups in the US and built copies of them in the DACH market. DACH comprises countries in Europe with a German-speaking majority (Germany, Austria, Switzerland). The Samwer brothers had built an excellent startup factory that was able to launch functional products within 90 days. They were very impressive but there was one problem. Marc and Alexander Samwer hold MBAs from Harvard. As such, they didn’t fit my startup-billionaire profile. In fact, instances of European startup billionaires were almost non-existent. Even startup millionaires were rare. Most times, the richest people were part of families that had generational wealth. Most of the time, they were inventors that had made a fortune from their patented ideas. Some others enjoyed frequent government contracts. For instance, have you heard about a company called Dr. Oetker? August Oetker founded the company in 1891. They make Pizzas, baking ingredients, and other perishables. Yet, they made their fortune because August invented and patented baking powder. Unfortunately, there isn’t much wealth that originates from high-tech startups in Europe. It seems like every successful software company is getting acquired by large investors. European states have a lot of good agencies investing in startups but they haven’t been able to match the levels of success seen in the US, or even Israel. This makes me believe that there must be something about the students in Ivy League colleges in the US. Something that makes them very special. Silicon Valley Today, 13 years later, I am a software engineer with 10+ years of experience. I have worked for a diverse range of companies in 5 countries. Some of which were startups, SMEs, and enterprises. A year ago, I became a hiring manager for a cryptocurrency startup based in Palo Alto, CA. Our company is fully remote, with team members all over the world. The best thing this job gave me is an opportunity to work with people from all backgrounds and learn about them. I have conducted interviews with software engineers from Fortune 500 and FAANG companies. We were hiring various candidates, from interns to experienced contributors. The hiring spree happened in the first half of 2022. This coincided with a crypto bull market and the "great resignation". Our company was trying to fill positions in almost every department, from accountants to software engineers. We didn't have an employer brand in the Bay area at the time, so we decided to hire interns. We had internship candidates from Ivy League and lower-tier colleges alike. The Ivy League candidates usually rejected our offers. They preferred to take internships at Amazon, Google, or any other FAANG company. From a learning perspective, they would’ve learned more at our company. We are a small team that is building an entire decentralized finance application. The internship would’ve given them an opportunity to try their hands at different things. More so, from a resume standpoint, an internship at Microsoft would handicap their careers. In a structure like that, there isn't any room chance for interns to make changes to the live system or jump between roles. But what about interns from lower-tier universities? Were they worse than those from Harvard or MIT? No, not at all. American vs European Universities There is one main misconception about universities. The main purpose of universities isn't to teach but to help scientific research. Period. Offering education is how they make money. And it applies to both private and public institutions. Most university rankings aren't based on the salaries of their graduates. Instead, they focus on the number of scientific papers and patents produced by them. Since all universities want to focus on science, they need to enroll Ph.D. students to do so. Those students want to join the most prominent universities since they open doors to the world of science. Unfortunately, it is hard to profit from science alone. Also, Ph.D. students do not contribute a lot with tuition fees. So, universities look to businesses and states for "gigs". Research and student tuition are the major ways they source funds. Even Harvard relies on the federal government for 70% of its research funding. Now, let's shift our focus to the public education system in Europe. On the mainland of Europe (excluding the UK), public education is, more or less, free. In these states, taxpayers bear the cost of education in exchange for services. For instance, to provide free education and healthcare, the government needs to educate doctors and nurses. Also, skilled workers contribute more to the GDP. The GDP is then invested to increase the country's HDI index. Meaning that even people with elementary education enjoy the benefits of a qualified workforce. The government pays universities for every enrolled student, even if they drop out. Otherwise, the university would receive incentives to let everybody get a diploma. This allows them to maintain high standards. Why Are Top Tier Universities Better? Students in top universities don't necessarily get a better education than those in lower-tier schools. It's not because of a lack of opportunity but rather limited time. Even though all universities have similar time frames for education. Around 3 years for a bachelor's degree and 2-2.5 years for a master's. Let’s take a closer look at this. In most degree programs, subjects are typically covered within a single semester, with weekly lessons lasting 3-4 hours. It isn’t enough time to gain broad insights on the subject. Only Ph.D. students are able to take true advantage of the extra quality in tier-A universities. They have the most time to focus on studying and have access to the best professors. Going to the best universities is not a waste for regular people. These schools have the best teachers, set high standards, and expect a lot. They have to work hard and earn good grades. They learn to collaborate, and develop discipline and work ethic (but not always). These are desirable traits in adult life. Also, the best universities attract students from wealthy families. It means students build a meaningful network that can skyrocket their careers. If you graduated from a university known for its fun parties, it may be challenging for you to compete with someone who graduated from Harvard. It's likely that you didn't have to deal with politics or complicated social interactions. Meaning you will learn those things in the first few years of your career. Does it mean you’re a lost cause? Not at all. If you are talented you can still outwork Harvard alumnus but it won't be easy. You will need to work harder than they do and exceed the expectations. Always! Whatever you do in life you need to develop discipline and take responsibility. The best opportunities are never the easiest ones so if you are getting involved in something you really need to own it. You can outdo even those that seem “predisposed to success” but it takes personal sacrifices. Join me Thank you for reading. I am a software engineer with 10 years of experience, living my best life as a digital nomad. This newsletter is a response to a younger me who felt lost and needed to find a career path on his own. if you want to get more tips and ideas on growing your career as a software engineer and becoming a digital nomad. Subscribe This article was . initially published on my weekly newsletter If you have appetite for more I just published new article on How Influencers And Books Make Us Dumb

Why Harvard Alumni Are Better Than You

THE HAIRY AMMOPHILA

THE RETURN TO THE NEST

THE RESIN-BEES

THE BLACK-BELLIED TARANTULA

Moby-Dick; or The Whale, by Herman Melville is part of HackerNoon’s Book Blog Post series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here: . Chapter 80: The Nut [LINK TO TABLE OF LINK] CHAPTER 80. The Nut. If the Sperm Whale be physiognomically a Sphinx, to the phrenologist his brain seems that geometrical circle which it is impossible to square. In the full-grown creature the skull will measure at least twenty feet in length. Unhinge the lower jaw, and the side view of this skull is as the side of a moderately inclined plane resting throughout on a level base. But in life—as we have elsewhere seen—this inclined plane is angularly filled up, and almost squared by the enormous superincumbent mass of the junk and sperm. At the high end the skull forms a crater to bed that part of the mass; while under the long floor of this crater—in another cavity seldom exceeding ten inches in length and as many in depth—reposes the mere handful of this monster’s brain. The brain is at least twenty feet from his apparent forehead in life; it is hidden away behind its vast outworks, like the innermost citadel within the amplified fortifications of Quebec. So like a choice casket is it secreted in him, that I have known some whalemen who peremptorily deny that the Sperm Whale has any other brain than that palpable semblance of one formed by the cubic-yards of his sperm magazine. Lying in strange folds, courses, and convolutions, to their apprehensions, it seems more in keeping with the idea of his general might to regard that mystic part of him as the seat of his intelligence. It is plain, then, that phrenologically the head of this Leviathan, in the creature’s living intact state, is an entire delusion. As for his true brain, you can then see no indications of it, nor feel any. The whale, like all things that are mighty, wears a false brow to the common world. If you unload his skull of its spermy heaps and then take a rear view of its rear end, which is the high end, you will be struck by its resemblance to the human skull, beheld in the same situation, and from the same point of view. Indeed, place this reversed skull (scaled down to the human magnitude) among a plate of men’s skulls, and you would involuntarily confound it with them; and remarking the depressions on one part of its summit, in phrenological phrase you would say—This man had no self-esteem, and no veneration. And by those negations, considered along with the affirmative fact of his prodigious bulk and power, you can best form to yourself the truest, though not the most exhilarating conception of what the most exalted potency is. But if from the comparative dimensions of the whale’s proper brain, you deem it incapable of being adequately charted, then I have another idea for you. If you attentively regard almost any quadruped’s spine, you will be struck with the resemblance of its vertebræ to a strung necklace of dwarfed skulls, all bearing rudimental resemblance to the skull proper. It is a German conceit, that the vertebræ are absolutely undeveloped skulls. But the curious external resemblance, I take it the Germans were not the first men to perceive. A foreign friend once pointed it out to me, in the skeleton of a foe he had slain, and with the vertebræ of which he was inlaying, in a sort of basso-relievo, the beaked prow of his canoe. Now, I consider that the phrenologists have omitted an important thing in not pushing their investigations from the cerebellum through the spinal canal. For I believe that much of a man’s character will be found betokened in his backbone. I would rather feel your spine than your skull, whoever you are. A thin joist of a spine never yet upheld a full and noble soul. I rejoice in my spine, as in the firm audacious staff of that flag which I fling half out to the world. Apply this spinal branch of phrenology to the Sperm Whale. His cranial cavity is continuous with the first neck-vertebra; and in that vertebra the bottom of the spinal canal will measure ten inches across, being eight in height, and of a triangular figure with the base downwards. As it passes through the remaining vertebræ the canal tapers in size, but for a considerable distance remains of large capacity. Now, of course, this canal is filled with much the same strangely fibrous substance—the spinal cord—as the brain; and directly communicates with the brain. And what is still more, for many feet after emerging from the brain’s cavity, the spinal cord remains of an undecreasing girth, almost equal to that of the brain. Under all these circumstances, would it be unreasonable to survey and map out the whale’s spine phrenologically? For, viewed in this light, the wonderful comparative smallness of his brain proper is more than compensated by the wonderful comparative magnitude of his spinal cord. But leaving this hint to operate as it may with the phrenologists, I would merely assume the spinal theory for a moment, in reference to the Sperm Whale’s hump. This august hump, if I mistake not, rises over one of the larger vertebræ, and is, therefore, in some sort, the outer convex mould of it. From its relative situation then, I should call this high hump the organ of firmness or indomitableness in the Sperm Whale. And that the great monster is indomitable, you will yet have reason to know. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved April 2022 from Melville, Herman, 2001. Moby-Dick: or The Whale. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2701/2701-h/2701-h.htm#link2HCH0080 This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

Moby-Dick; or The Whale: Chapter 80 - The Nut

Welcome to my Interview Series, where I interview impactful leaders and ask them to share tips and techniques that have benefited them, both in their personal and professional lives. “Meet The Entrepreneur” This interview is with , Founder & CEO of . David Smooke Hackernoon About David and Hackernoon: “HackerNoon's a small team of editors, software developers, and startup people working to publish the best technology stories and build the best publishing software. Our entirely free library is 80k+ stories about #programming, #startups, #cryptocurrency, #ai, #javascript, #bitcoin, #web-development, #entrepreneurship, and everything else #technology. Our flagship product is the content management system that powers HackerNoon.com. It's built for technologists to read, write, learn, and publish. All for free - no paywalls, no popups, no needless pixels - just quality technology stories. Some of the other applications we've built are the Noonies Voting Software, Slogging (Slack Blogging App), and The Free Internet Plugin. HackerNoon’s served 1k+ tech companies as customers, published over 30k+ curious and insightful contributing writers, raised $2.6M from 1.3k+ awesome shareholders, and since launch, 200M+ humans have visited HackerNoon to learn about technology. In my spare time, I enjoy walking, basketball, skiing, and being around the world's funniest ppl whenever possible.” What is your favorite productivity tip? How do you deal with stress and anxiety? Hello! I’m an introverted knowledge worker running a profitable company at the intersection of software, media, and web3. For knowledge workers who spend a lot of time on the keyboard, I recommend walking for at least one hour per day. On work days, I bake this into my schedule by walking to and from work. I have been doing walks before and after work for over a decade, and it’s extremely useful for professional and personal perspectives. HackerNoon! Others can achieve this while biking or running or doing another cardio, either way, it’s important to get the body’s heart rate up in a comfortable (almost thoughtless) routine in order to let the mind effectively wander. For high-performing introverts, I also recommend scheduling a maximum of ten meetings per week.  This ensures greater energy per meeting, self-prioritization of which meetings matter (and by definition, which don’t), and leaves ample keyboard time per work day to actually work. Create. Create. Create. Your tips for aspiring entrepreneurs? Prioritize revenue in task management. Channel enthusiasm whenever and however you can. Ask yourself, what is the simplest business you can create to not only leverage your current skills, advantages, and passions but also exceed your current salary ASAP? If you can earn at least the same revenue while owning the long-term upside, it’s all a no-brainer. If possible you should work on a business you own. Also, know that you will have to outwork your past self while improving your ability to balance work and life. In the early days, the business only moves as you move. No one else will do it for you. Your manager is now all your customers. The business won’t grow if your own mental will and physical health are not strong enough to keep at it day after day after day after month after year. Who would you like to meet for lunch and why? My wife! Because that’s what I do. Also, Steve Kerr. Five championships as a player and four championships as a coach. A rare insight into how to be an elite individual contributor, a respected leader of an even more elite team, and somehow he ages like fine wine in a young man’s game. And I guess if the choice is mine, I’d also like to have lunch with Anthony Bourdain and Barack Obama at that Hanoi bun cha restaurant. And now that I think about it I would also - if the opportunities happen to present themselves - like to cook lunch for Matt Groening, Greta Thunberg, Don Dellio, Steph Curry, Kate McKinnon, and Banksy. What is your favorite book or movie recommendation? Too difficult to pick the greatest of all time! Given we live in a what have you done for me lately level of internet patience world, I’ll share the best things I recently consumed on Audible and Netflix. On Netflix, I recommend Maniac - a beautiful ending in a pharmaceutical world built atop the last generations’ misassumptions - and Umbrella Academy - a flawed makeshift family of superheroes that time travels through a graphic world created by Chemical Romance lead singer Gerard Way. And on Audible, I completed Dune today! 21+ highly produced hours of that Art of War mindset leading to the oppressed manifesting as the free due to the universe’s economic dependence upon spice, and you can’t help but know your own body also inherently believes in that water above all else decision-making. And Michael Schur’s How to Be Perfect, it’s an approachable take on ancient and pop philosophy with natural comedic timing, making you feel like you’re earning a philosophy degree with a smile on your face without paying tuition. What habit has contributed to your career? Repetition. Repetition. And that third thing to be determined at the moment my career needs it. When you hear about other famous entrepreneurs, is there any entrepreneur who specifically caught your attention? I admire sustainability like Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard’s 100-year plan, what Mark Cuban is now doing with affordable medication (undercutting an unnaturally inflated industry to profitably serve customers in need), Andrew Carnegie’s post-mortem donations totaling 90% of his wealth to better society (more so than I do his ruthless live business practices), and of course, Oprah Winfrey, who is the modern media embodiment of turning the player into the business into the empire. Is there a specific business philosophy that has helped you? Every day, just try to do better than yesterday. And when life or business has got you too down (or too up), just know, this too shall pass. Also Published here

Meet The Entrepreneur: David Smooke, Founder & CEO of HackerNoon

উদ্যোক্তার সাথে দেখা করুন: ডেভিড স্মুক, হ্যাকারনুন এর প্রতিষ্ঠাতা এবং সিইও

Lernen Sie den Unternehmer kennen: David Smooke, Gründer und CEO von HackerNoon

Conozca al emprendedor: David Smooke, fundador y director ejecutivo de HackerNoon

Rencontrez l'entrepreneur : David Smooke, fondateur et PDG de HackerNoon

उद्यमी से मिलें: हैकरनून के संस्थापक और सीईओ डेविड स्मूक

起業家のご紹介: David Smooke、HackerNoon 創設者兼 CEO

기업가를 만나보세요: David Smooke, HackerNoon의 창립자 겸 CEO

Conheça o empreendedor: David Smooke, fundador e CEO da HackerNoon

Знакомьтесь, предприниматель: Дэвид Смук, основатель и генеральный директор HackerNoon

Girişimciyle Tanışın: David Smooke, HackerNoon'un Kurucusu ve CEO'su

Gặp gỡ Doanh nhân: David Smooke, Người sáng lập & Giám đốc điều hành của HackerNoon

认识企业家：David Smooke，HackerNoon 创始人兼首席执行官

Expensive lessons I’ve learned in the past year. I set off on my cryptocurrency journey halfway through 2017. I don’t talk about when I started very often because we’re in a age of weighing peoples worth in the amount of days they’ve spent peering over charts. Which is . ridiculous Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of s whom I tip my hat to — I wouldn’t have learned as much as I have this quickly, if it weren’t for the thought leaders in this community. O.G’ There is also a lot of negativity whenever someone who is , asks something that only someone who’s would ask. obviously new obviously new We should be the path for curious new investors, not them. lighting shaming I’m proud of the short length of time I’ve been involved in crypto. In less than a year, I’ve managed to see higher returns than any traditional investor could dream of. I’ve learned about , taught myself (with the help of a mentor), and even managed to work with a wide array of cryptocurrency and blockchain companies. new technology technical analysis The best part of it all is that I feel like I haven’t even scratched the surface. Because I don’t care how long anyone has been doing this. This industry is young enough, that a few years of experience doesn’t give anyone much of a head start. A few years of advantage can be outweighed by working harder, smarter, and bringing in more value to the community than others are willing to. I started investing less than a year ago and I will outwork . you “You think that your time spent trading crypto is your ally? You merely adopted crypto. I was born in the bear market, molded by it. I didn’t see green candles until I was already a man.” I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to pull this quote out. I was baptized in the Great Bear Market of 2017 ( ). I don’t think anyone has ever referred to it as that, but I’m going to roll with it The first time I bought a coin, I bought Ether (ETH), the coin that fuels the Ethereum Network, at its all time high on June 6th or 7th. It was right above $300 at the time. I had been studying Ethereum for weeks, reading all about , Bitcoin, and other blockchain projects. it I was convinced Ethereum was going to change the world — but I also knew from a brief stint day trading that one should never buy into the tail-end of a uptrend. “Don’t chase green candles”, I thought. Which is investor speak for “don’t buy an uptrend that’s already started as you never know when it will stop”. It’s a part of the mantra conveyed by the famous investing quote, “buy when there’s blood on the streets”. I waited patiently for the price of Ethereum to drop. Weeks passed and the price continued to rise. Soon it was over double where I had initially considered it for investment. I panicked. I bought the top. It lost over 50% of its value the next day. I was . rekt Too stubborn to realize the loss and cash out, I decided to spend the next several months studying everything I could get my hands on regarding , , and . Blockchain Technical Analysis (TA) Investment Strategy I started scalping Ethereum. Selling the highs and buying the lows, using what I was learning from studying TA. I obsessed over chart patterns, lagging indicators, leading indicators, Fibonacci, Elliot wave — I fell so deep into the matrix, I forgot I was even plugged in. Soon, despite Ethereum still being 50% of the value I had bought into, I was back at my breakeven investment. I had doubled the amount of Ethereum I initially owned. While I may have only been around for under a year — I like to think I was forced into the accelerated program — where I had to either learn fast, or lose everything. It wasn’t my initial strategy but circumstances forced me into it, and now I am glad. Most of what I’ve learned, the knowledge that allowed me to recoup those losses, has come as a result of the losses occurring in the first place. . It tears away from us all but the things that cannot be torn, so that we see ourselves as we really are.” — Arthur Golden “Adversity is like a strong wind You’re not too late to get into cryptocurrency; this market is just getting started. Furthermore, you have a better chance of outworking and surpassing your peers in this market because it’s 24/7. I’m forever a student and while proud of my progress, in many ways I’m still a beginner. I take methodical notes on anything I’m studying, and if I really want to learn something — I publish it. I’ve found that the best way to force feed my brain subject-matter is to consume as much as possible and then distill it down to easily digestible bites. Digital hors d’oeuvres. This is not financial advice — merely a description of my journey and the locations of the pot holes I tripped over — in hopes that you can sidestep them. I won’t tell you what to buy and when, but I will tell you how to make those decisions yourself. 1 DON’T PANIC Shoutout to Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Whenever someone I know begins investing in cryptocurrency and asks me for help getting started, I know that I’m going to end up having to calm that person down whenever there is a dip in the market. Don’t Panic. The reason you got into this is the same reason you’re freaking out, crypto is extremely volatile. The same forces that allow us to see 1000x returns on our investments, can also create situations when you suddenly see 90% of your money disappear. A roller coaster goes both up and down at extreme speeds. Remember when I told you about ? I bought at the top of the roller coaster. I fell victim to rule #3 — the FOMO trade. how I got started investing Whenever you see an article claiming that this dip is the end for Bitcoin due to some country increasing regulations or something similar — remember that China has “banned” cryptocurrency three times or more. Believe it or not, Bitcoin and other coins are still standing. 2 YOU’RE NOT TOO LATE I hate when people talk about wanting to get into cryptocurrency but feeling like they’re, “too late”. Bitcoin does this thing called “correcting” every few months, when it tends to drop in price drastically to prepare for the next surge up — buy-in during any of these dips, and you’ll be fine. YOU’RE NOT TOO LATE. Buying during the dip in Bitcoin has been a winning investment strategy since 2009. Two thousand and nine! The funniest part about the fact that I constantly hear, “I’m too late to get in now”, is that people have been saying that same statement since Bitcoin hit $1. I shit you not. If you dig deep enough into the BitcoinTalk forums, you will find stories of people saying, “Oh it’s too late”, as early as 2014. Furthermore, everyone I know who is now in cryptocurrency, at some point had that same thought. “I’m too late”, Until they watched it gain another 100% and realized that this magic internet money doesn’t always make sense. Here’s a in Forbes from 2015 where the author outlines all the risks and dangers of investing in Bitcoin, at the time it was $400. link to an article 3 DON’T CHASE GREEN CANDLES (FOMO TRADING) I’ve written about this several times before and I’ll write about it again. trading is one of the more common (if not the most common) causes of traders and investors losing their shmeckles. FOMO We’ve all done it, I’m certainly not immune to FOMO. Every once in awhile, I still find myself inching closer and closer to that market buy when I see a coin exploding, before hitting one of my carefully thought out limit orders. It’s an hard impulse to resist. It’s a . disease Buy when there’s blood on the streets. You should approach crypto investments like you’re bargain hunting. Study a coin’s history; zoom out and look at its entire lifespan. Determine a good entry point and set your buys. I always try to buy into whatever coin I’m trying to load up on when the market is down. I’m a huge believer in both Neo and Ethereum (although they’re competitors), but I’ll never buy either of those unless they’ve had a series of successive down days and are showing signs of reversal. : I highly suggest starting with an extremely small investment. Before you start investing, you have a lot of studying to do. Bonus Before you begin studying, take a tiny amount of money and invest it into cryptocurrency- this will incentivize you to watch the charts more often, and get an idea of how volatile this market really is. 4 DON’T LISTEN TO TWITTER TRADERS (DYOR) There are some people on Twitter who bring serious value to investors by providing solid analysis and investment strategy. There are even more people on Twitter who are just looking to pump shitcoins after they’ve bought in, and dump after you pump their bag. A lot of these accounts will tweet out calls for coins that have already broken out into an uptrend — and then a few days later post results saying something to the tune of, . “My followers booked 583% Gain on BSCoin” They’ll rinse and repeat this process until they have an army of people whom now will pump whatever coin they Tweet — some use this power with responsibility, others go fall to the dark side. Pay attention, listen to others when you know they’re credible sources, but come to your own conclusion and do your own research (DYOR). 5 DON’T JOIN PUMP AND DUMP GROUPS Much like the several guys on Twitter who pump their bags by telling their followers to buy coins which they’ve already bought into, there are “pump and dump” telegram and discord groups that will promise huge gains. The problem with these is that there is always a loser, and 9 times out of 10, it’s you. In order to move up the ranks and get trading signals ahead of the pack, you need to invite more people to the group. The more people you invite, the sooner you get the trading signal. If you join a group that already has a large amount of members already, it’s going to be difficult to invite enough people to increase your “rank” enough to receive trading signals before the herd. If you join a group that doesn’t have a large amount of members already, and you invite as many people as you can to join in on this literal pyramid scheme — you’re a part of the problem. 6 DON’T BUY WHAT YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND I wasn’t sure if I wanted to include this commandment or not. To be completely honest, there are some coins now that I invest in solely based on their chart. I could know absolutely nothing about a company — if I see enough positive buy signals and price history to back it up — I’m going in. I find that when I’m looking at coins for extremely short term trades (0–3 weeks), focusing on Technical Analysis over Fundamental Analysis brings me greater returns. That’s just me — I don’t suggest buying into coins you haven’t done research on, unless you’re also a TA geek like myself. For long term investments you absolutely need to DYOR. The biggest % gains I’ve ever had in crypto were my long term bags. Bags that I would’ve emptied to FOMO into other trades at the beginning of my dive into crypto — but I’ve learned from my mistakes. When I’m looking at a coin that I’m considering as a long term hold, I think of the worst case scenario. If crypto were to figuratively burn to the ground tomorrow, would this coin be one of the few that would survive the crash? I’m a bull when it comes to cryptocurrency as a whole, but I also believe that there is a shocking amount of money in this market with a very small amount of meaningful use cases that have been successfully executed. Blockchain technology has the potential to create serious impactful change in this world, but right now some of the largest examples of blockchain projects coming to fruition are and . TRXPuppies CryptoKitties With that being said, I foresee a reckoning in the future where the vast majority (99%) of cryptocurrencies fade out of existence, with the ones remaining being those that address serious widespread issues (or streamline existing processes), while capturing more market cap than their competitors. Operating under this assumption, means that most, if not all of the coins I trade on a short term basis, would not pass my screening for long term holds. For example, I don’t see Verge (XVG) passing the test of time — but I do see it going 2–3x in the near future, and I’ll hold it until it does or I’m proven wrong. On the other hand, ETH and NEO are competitors. They solve the same problems, are both serious coins with large market caps, and I hold both as long term investments. I’m not hedging against my bets by investing in competitors. It’s feasible to me that these two entities could co-exist in the future in a fashion similar to how Apple and Samsung coexist. I believe they both have too much funding, too much support, and too large of a community to fizzle out completely. 7 MONEY ON EXCHANGES DOESN’T BELONG TO YOU I know that everyone and their mother preaches about this on Reddit/Twitter, so I won’t spend too much time on this. It defeats the purpose of a decentralized currency — one in which you are in complete control, with no need for third parties to store or transfer your money — to trust a third party to store and transfer your money. There have been several times in the past when trusting third parties (exchanges, mining pools, even gambling sites) has resulted in the loss of a devastating amount of cryptocurrency. Read up on Mt.Gox, the first Bitcoin exchange ever to open its virtual doors. You’ll begin to understand that danger of unnecessarily trusting third parties in a trust-less system. So what do you do? Download the official wallets for your cryptocurrency holdings, and store them there. An alternative would be purchasing a Ledger Nano, or a Trezor — which are both hardware wallets similar in appearance to thumb drives. Ledger Nano S 8 DON’T MARGIN TRADE If you don’t know what margin trading is, just skip ahead. Don’t even look it up. It’s dangerous, and a very efficient way to lose your money fast. Margin trading is trading with leverage. Which means that I can put $100 into a margin account, and get 3x my trading balance in buying power. That also means that if I trade 3x my balance ($300), and my position goes -$100, I will lose everything I’m holding as collateral. I made more money in a short time frame than I’ve ever made in my life through margin trading. I also lost more money faster than I’ve ever lost it before in my life through margin trading. 9 IF YOU DO MARGIN TRADE, NEVER MARGIN TRADE WITH BITCOIN AS YOUR COLLATERAL I knew you wouldn’t listen to me. Since you still want to margin trade, at least heed these words of advice: Never use Bitcoin as collateral for your margin trading. Never put Bitcoin into your margin account, and open long or short positions with the buying power given to you by that Bitcoin. I can’t think of a better way to say it. Don’t do it. If you’re going to margin trade, leverage fiat.This is something that was told to me when I first started margin trading. I didn’t do it for a while, but after a God-like winning streak, I felt untouchable. For about 2 months, I didn’t place a losing margin trade. My account balance was exploding. I had been religiously removing my profits every week from my margin account to buy BTC and set aside as a long term hold. It was part of ; use margin trading to increase my holdings in coins I really believed in. my investment strategy One day, I saw an opportunity that I thought would make me rich. The market had just finished the bull run that took Bitcoin to $20,000. I had closed most of my margin positions and realized a solid profit from the run — at this point I was just sitting patiently with my entire margin balance available to me. I was waiting for the . dip I thought my salvation came when BTC dropped down to $10K and bounced back up to $13K. I was blinded by my winning streak. Confirmation bias is a bitch. I went all in on a few long positions. I hadn’t seen some of my favorite coins this low in months, it felt like the greatest flash sale of all time. The next day, the market dropped. I was completely maxed out on the leverage available to me, and the only funds I had available were the BTC profits I had been setting aside every week. I loaded them up into my margin account, and gave myself a lot more breathing room to avoid liquidation. If I had stopped there, I would have been fine. After transferring BTC into my margin account, I noticed that I had a lot more of a tradable balance from leveraging the BTC than I realized I’d have. Still feeling semi-God-like, I decided to double down on my positions. “ ”, I thought to myself. Nothing has changed…I still believe the market will correct within a couple days…I’m not going to have weak hands and realize the loss The next day, the market dropped. I freaked out for a couple more days until I woke up to being liquidated. Much of what I had made in my two month spree was gone. 10 DON’T TRADE/INVEST WITHOUT A STRATEGY My next piece is going to go in depth on creating your own investment strategy. You should not be investing without a strategy and goals. Your strategy will include the tactics you will use to reach your goals. For example: if my goal is to own X NEO, X ETH, X BTC, and X ETC by Q4 2018. My strategy will include all the methods I plan on using to add to those long term holds I have in my goal. Failure to plan is planning to fail — or so say the Boy Scouts. Determine your goals, and write them down by hand. Most of what I’ve learned has come as a result of the huge loss I took as soon as I began investing. If there’s only one thing you take away from this piece, I hope it’s this: Don’t panic, and don’t give up if your first investment doesn’t go well. Use it as an opportunity to reflect on what caused you to make the mistake — and seek education to pull yourself out of the hole. Adversity is like a strong wind, you can run away with it pushing you faster, or you can hold your ground, letting it tear from you all except what is absolutely necessary. If you liked this article, and would like to read more beginner guides, check out the links below: medium.com Beginners Guide to Investing in Cryptocurrency Before you start getting everything set up to actually purchase crypto you should do a little (okay a sh*t ton) of… 2 Things to Do While the Cryptocurrency Market Falls hackernoon.com Besides crying, screaming, and other self-destructive behavior.

THE 10 CRYPTO COMMANDMENTS

15 Things I Wish I Knew About Selling Before Starting a Company By Noah Jessop It was a big pitch meeting. We’d been trying to schedule coming to the company’s offices for more than 4 months — after two cancellations, we were finally here. We thought they’d be a great customer, and could genuinely get a lot of value out of our product. I pitched my heart out, showing all the features and careful thought we’d put into the product to make it really easy to use and incredibly powerful. At a lull in the conversation, my new head of sales took over. He looked our customer in the eye, and slowly, almost quietly, said: “ ” Before we go much further here…are y’all ready to make a buying decision in this quarter or the next one? Our would-be customer was nonplussed and quite open: “ ” oh no…unfortunately I don’t have the bandwidth or software budget to roll out an implementation for at least 3–4 quarters. I sunk down in my chair. In 3–4 quarters without some big sales, we would likely be out of business. And this is when I realized that . I’d been asking the wrong questions all along A sheltered teenage kid, more likely than not, likely knows less about the “real world” than a journeyman nightclub bouncer. Same is often true for new founders and technologists — who haven’t had the reason to have as much exposure to the messy realities of our business world. Here are my rules — that I wished I had when starting out. They aren’t meant to be conclusive or complete. They are just supposed to help get things done. Getting Out There: Introductions & Meetings 1) Learn the art of a good intro Always get “ ” intros — where both parties have agreed to be introduced. If you meet Alice and she offers to connect you to Bob, after the meeting, send Alice an email subject line “Intro to Bob?” with all the context Bob would need to decide if he wants to meet you. That way Alice can quickly forward your note with her context to Bob. If Alice offered to introduce you to multiple people, send her multiple emails to forward. double opt-in Once you’ve been connected to Bob, if you asked for the intro . Don’t wait for Bob. Move Alice to BCC, she’s already been kind enough to introduce you. you should be the first to reply 2) Specificity >> Generality When you reply to Bob, you may think it’s kind to accommodate his schedule. ( ) This is actually unkind. It’s harder for Bob to decide what day, what time of day, etc he’s going to sacrifice his open schedule, his before work pilates class, etc. I can meet anytime in the next two weeks — let me know a day/time that works! If you say “ ” you are constraining the problem and making it easier. If he has only a few times available, he’ll suggest those times; and if he has an open schedule, it’s easier to just say “yes” to the times you propose. Researchers have found people are far more likely to be available at proposed times than general availability. can you meet next Tues or Wed at 1, 2p PT? 3) Speed & consistency are proxies for trust When first getting to know someone, we all use whatever signals we have available to try to paint a picture of this person. If you quickly and consistently reply to emails, many people will simply use this as a measure of trust. This is not to say to be overeager at all things — merely that slow or spotty responses before meeting someone don’t lead to a feeling of trust. 4) Make the message simple The minute you try to explain anything over email, stop. Don’t be afraid to be high level. The goal isn’t to explain, convince, sell, and close over the first email. The goal is to get to the right person. Short of the right person, someone who is willing to help you get where you are trying to go. No more. 5) Simple words will do Really. Same with short sentences. No peer-review here. Bullet points > Paragraphs. Try to keep emails <250 words. Frame questions so the possible answers are “yes,” “no,” or a specific piece of data. (If you want more on this, read the “ ” and “ ”) Art of Plain Talk Several Short Sentences About Writing Run The Meeting 5) Set context Else someone else will. Why are you here? What are you hoping to learn? What’s the best next step you can get from this meeting? Remember, most enterprise sales (and other processes) aren’t transactional — any process you run will take 5–10 meetings. So how can you advance that process today? What are the hurdles? You have to drive. Bring whatever materials will help you get to the next step (product samples, pitch deck, etc). Even if you don’t take aids out of your bag, you’ll be ready. 6) Steak without sizzle is stone cold You have great intellectual property — or have built something very impressive. Just because you have lots of substance (steak) doesn’t mean it looks appetizing. It’s the vision and possibility (sizzle) that excites customers and investors alike. — how can your product change the way they do business? Or fix their most burning problem? If you are having trouble with sizzle, imaging how someone would try to sell vaporware to your customer base. Or how you’d have to present if you had none of the credentials you likely already have. 7) When you get the next step, leave immediately Potential customer agrees to bring in a key stakeholder for a future meeting? Leave. Potential investor agrees to look at financial model and begin diligence? Bring the meeting to an end.Leave. Once you have gotten what you’ve come for, you can only reverse the progress you’ve made. Gracefully wrap up the meeting, ask if there are any questions, figure out next steps, thank the person for their time, and be on your way. (If you have trouble signaling this, try packing up your possessions while bringing the conversation to an end.) Follow Up 8) Follow up on what you said you would You’d be amazed how few people follow up. Said you’d send along an article? Send it. Deferred a question? Send the answer. No need for lengthy thank you’s — a simple “great to see you today, thanks for making the time. Please let me know when you’ve determined best next steps there” or similar will do. Attach a copy of your collateral so the person can simply forward your email and make progress to whatever you agreed the next steps might be. Email is likely the other person’s workstream. Use it to your advantage, while the meeting is fresh. 9) Get the follow up set ASAP Potential customer agrees to meet in a month to take next step? Pull out your calendar at the end of the call and try to book a date. You’ll save chasing the person by email for weeks (and know if they are really serious). If they seem resistant, ask if it’s ok to put a placeholder — you can say in the meeting invite “To Be Confirmed” so they have the leeway to move it a week or two down the road. But you at least have something on the books to work from. (This works for other things, too — and has aptly been dubbed the “ ” after the urgency of the Collison brothers, the founders of Stripe.) Collison Installation 10) Be persistent No one will ever judge you for being persistent — you are starting a new company, that’s precisely what you should do. It’s ok to follow up when people aren’t replying to your emails. Everyone is busy and trying to their best. (When I was first starting out, sometimes I’d make up elaborate stories in my head about what someone might be thinking about about me or my company — more often than not, it’s that they were thinking neither me or the company at all!) Close the Deal 11) Ask for the sale It may sound overly simple. It’s what the best sellers do. It’s the fastest way to learn if someone is serious. And it’s a great way to get to a conversation about what hurdles remain. 12) Pick up the phone After spending time with someone in a sales or fundraising process, don’t be afraid to pick up the phone and call. This doesn’t mean to be salesy. But we’re all humans, and respond to the human element of business. Also it can be way more time effective to get to no than weeks of waiting for emails. And faster to catch your prospect when they are free vs. scheduling weeks into the future. Not a tactic to abuse, but one to not be afraid of trying. There’s no time like the present. 13) Be (slightly) unreasonable Having trouble getting a meeting with a potential customer? Be “in town” and then book the flight once the meeting is confirmed. Not going to happen this quarter due to not having enough engineering resources? What if our engineers came onsite and we did the integration? Booked back to back next week? What if I come sit in the lobby until you have a gap in your day? Note: This tactic is great if the customer has a waiting room the size of a small suburban home and is used to receiving lots of visitors. Don’t do this to a startup or VC firm that’s got 1,000 square feet total or you’ll come off as a creep. Having trouble finding a phone number to ring a decision maker? A friend of mine was fond of FedExing disposable cell phones to people who were hard to get a hold of. Wait until the package is signed, and start dialing away… (We’ll save more of these tactics for another day, another post.) Showing you want the business and are willing to outwork the incumbents goes a long, long way. 14) Reward the business Even a simple hand-written note means a lot. Your customers have likely taken risk by choosing an upstart. Show them that you care and that you are there to build the relationship for the long-haul. 15) Have fun Getting out there can make us feel vulnerable. It’s easier to avoid rejection or lack of reply from home, or hide away by building product and other internal things. But any process in the world is a hand-to-hand combat sport. Learn to love the process, enjoy the people you get to meet along the way, and refine your skills. Some of my most vivid memories of operating were on the road, getting coffee in some strange cafe (#1 value: close to customers office), getting ready for a meeting where I had no idea what might happen. Make memories, make friends, and enjoy the journey.

Common Rules For Uncommon People

When I started investing in cryptocurrency- I was drawn in by the fact that it’s practically unchartered territory. Selfishly, I am driven by legacy. What can I leave behind? created an analytical framework for predicting price movement ( ) in 1930, and no one has come up with a better tool for predicting price action since (in my opinion). Ralph Nelson Elliot Elliot Wave Principle I want that. I see cryptocurrency and distributed ledger technology (DLT) as my best chance at creating . that Even if I didn’t think that projects like Ethereum could be world changing, or that blockchain technology has the potential to globally disrupt financial systems and the distribution of wealth. I would still be drawn to this market. , starting a job in a field like advertising or banking would be a zero sum game in my opinion. Being in my twenties, and an entrepreneur, I have a bit of a mental Napoleon complex when it comes to thinking about how many years of experience I have. I’m extremely competitive I don’t want to start off in a race where everyone else has 20+ years more experience than me, the rules have already been set in stone, networks and communities have already been built, and billions of dollars have been spent on determining what IS the best strategy for success in this field. I don’t like those odds. I never wanted to have a corporate job, I looked at the trajectories a lot of my friends from high school were taking and realized I didn’t want to work a 9–5. I didn’t want to slowly work my way up the corporate ladder as I accumulated years of meaningless experience to add to my resume. That sounds really fucking boring. I knew that a traditional 9–5 wasn’t , so the question became: what the hell for me is for me? The way I saw it, whatever I did had to be on the internet- that’s the only way I could get a leg up on everyone else. While most of the people I was “competing” against had time to beef up their LinkedIn’s with 10+, 20+, even 30+ years of experience in their given fields, the internet is a relatively new platform. Even younger than the internet itself, is Social Media. So I chose to set out selling and executing social media campaigns for small businesses. At this point in time, some small business owners still weren’t sure if Facebook was just another fad or something they needed to be invested in. I made it my business to convince them it wasn’t a fad. Social Media in itself was a speculative bubble that I bet on lasting for the long run. I’m glad I did. Self awareness creates direction. I grew up surfing the internet, and going from one online community to another. I used to build ugly little websites in middle school that were basically photo collages of stuff I thought was cool at the time. I wasn’t a programmer but I knew my way around a computer. While basic social media tasks may have seemed beyond certain business owners at the time, they were simple to me. I honestly didn’t believe that anyone would pay me to do something that seemed so easy. I wasn’t close to being the first person to offer social media marketing services to small businesses, but Social Media was so new at the time, that I saw a higher probability of myself capturing enough of a market share to support myself. I was willing to compete with people who had only a few years of experience on me, the knowledge they have over me I could pick up from practice and application. I’m to a fault. Once I’m halfway decent at something, I get enough satisfaction from completing the tasks involved to motivate me to dive deeper and deeper into a subjective rabbit hole. obsessive Fast forward a few years and I now have the coveted 6+ years achievement unlocked in my field of social media marketing. I run a small digital marketing agency with close friends who I working with, and still have never had a “ ”. love real job I tell this story because I was drawn to crypto for many of the same reasons that I was drawn to start my agency. IT’S NOT TOO LATE The most common reason I hear for not getting involved in cryptocurrency is that it’s too late. This market is in it’s infancy, even the “experts” have only been “experts” for a few years. That reasoning is ludicrous. If anything, you have a better chance of outworking someone in this market because it never sleeps. You can buy Dogecoin at 3 AM PST if you want to. The market never stops and there is always more that can be learned- it’s practically infinite. If you really want to succeed, and you’re willing to put in the time, you can catch up. Better than that, you can surpass. It’s a somewhat level playing field. Cryptocurrency, much like Social Media, hasn’t been around for very long. Both are younger than me and I’m relatively a wee Padawan. Bitcoin is the first cryptocurrency that was created and it has only been around since 2009. There are no rules, this is an unregulated market that exists literally by the nature of decentralization and DLT. This isn’t an industry like advertising where I have to follow the playbook of those who paved the path before me — shit I don’t even have a path as much as a shady dirt trail. EVERYWHERE And take a big whiff of , you smell ? You know what is? that that that legacy waiting to be made Morty. That’s Legacy. If you’ve been investing in cryptocurrency or exploring blockchain projects since their inception, than you have a of 6 years of experience on me. maximum I can work with those odds. This is a game I can . win

Why It’s Not Too Late to Invest in Cryptocurrency

When I first fell down the blockchain rabbit hole, I didn’t think I’d end up this deep. Cryptocurrencies and other Blockchain projects offer a wealth of opportunities with . extremely low barriers to entry If you want to get involved, and I mean involved beyond the fact that you just want to put some money in and magically see it grow 1000x, all you have to do is put yourself out there. I mentioned it in my last post, , but Bitcoin has only been around since 2009. “ Why I Invest In Cryptocurrency ” Even the experts in this field don’t have much of an upper hand on newcomers — what’s 8 or so years? That’s not a . even decade Beyond the low barrier to entry, we’re also at a point in cryptocurrency’s development when new types of talent are needed in the space. Lead Engineers shouldn’t be running press conferences. I’m going to write another article on “ ” this week — so I won’t delve into that topic just yet. The Problem with ICO’s With the market needing new talent, now is the perfect time to put yourself out there and grab whatever opportunity you can see. Your options are limitless. Whatever your field, it can be applied to projects in this space, and who knows — you might just end up changing the world. You don’t need to have a large amount of money to invest to get involved. IF YOU WANT TO WORK IN THE INDUSTRY CREATE VALUE I can’t explain to you how simply getting my name out in the space through networking, writing, and helping others has benefited me. The past few months have brought some great opportunities my way, I became a partner at a , started working with an — and I can trace all of these opportunities back to a single moment. Blockchain Accelerator exciting new project The moment when I decided that I wanted to contribute value to the blockchain community. A lot of people I’ve met in business have told me to never do anything for free, they’ve told me it will make people devalue my work. I disagree. My willingness to help people, for free, has brought me more benefit than anything else. If anything, it’s borderline selfish of me. The point is, reach out to some companies you’re interested in working with and offer to help. This industry is so young, and most of the companies in it are in startup mode. They can probably use some assistance, and if you offer help, they might just ask you to join the team. COMMIT TO YOUR GOAL & CREATE ACTIONABLE STEPS Not too long ago I wrote down all of my crypto related goals in a notebook; it’s sitting next to me now. Everyday, I look at this paper and write down what I can do in the next 24 hours to further myself towards these goals. Reverse engineer your goals and tackle them one day at a time, don’t get ahead of yourself. By doing this I’ve made solid steps towards achieving what I want in an alarmingly short period of time. I hope that doesn’t come off as arrogant — if anything, I’m still in disbelief at the velocity at which I’ve progressed. It’s insane. Entrepreneurship is like riding a lion. Everyone thinks, “Wow look at him he’s so brave and cool, I wish I could do that”, while the Entrepreneur thinks, “This is cool but when did I get up here and how the hell do I keep it from eating me alive”. Keep making incremental steps towards your goals, whether that be increasing your portfolio value or starting your own cryptocurrency — take it one step at a time. You might be surprised how fast you find yourself gripping the lion’s mane and wondering those same questions — contemplating how far you’ve come. CREATE A PERSONAL BRAND ONLINE This is crucial in any industry. Your brand is what people associate you with. It’s your personality, your work, your sense of humor: it’s the perception you create for yourself. I’m not going to dive too deep into this because honestly, no one can explain it better than . He’s a dear friend and the one who first taught me the importance of creating a personal brand. If you haven’t read his work, I highly suggest you check it out. Nicolas Cole Also, please do me a favor and leave a comment on one of his articles saying, “I heard Reza Jafery beat you in a typing test”. It would really make my day. WORK YOUR ASS OFF I never said it’s easy. To have what most don’t, you have to do what most won’t. You have to put in the time. Research is key, but even more than research, is sticking to your plan. Keep your goals in mind, whether that’s working with cryptocurrencies, investing, or even starting a non-profit dedicated to researching ways blockchain can positively impact the 3rd world. You just need to do it. It’s incredibly simple. If you’re willing to work smart — and focus on spending your time on activities or studies that either A) enrich your knowledge relevant to your goal, or B) make progress towards your goal — you can make it happen. Just remember that closed mouths don’t get fed. You wouldn’t believe the amount of opportunities that have come my way from simple Twitter DM’s or cold emails. Put yourself out there, figure out what you want to specialize in or be apart of, and chase it with reckless abandon. IF YOU WANT TO BE A TRADER/INVESTOR LEARN FROM YOUR MISTAKES I set off on my cryptocurrency journey halfway through 2017. I don’t talk about when I started very often because we’re in a age of weighing peoples worth in the amount of days they’ve spent peering over charts. Which is a little ridiculous. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of _O.G’_s whom I tip my hat to — I wouldn’t have learned as much as I have this quickly, if it weren’t for the thought leaders in this community. There is also a lot of negativity whenever someone who is , asks something that only someone who’s would ask. obviously new obviously new We should be the path for the curious, for the new investors, not them. lighting shaming Which is why I bring up my initial dalliance into cryptocurrency. I’m proud of the short length of time I’ve been involved in crypto. In less than a year, I’ve managed to see higher returns than any traditional investor could dream of. I’ve learned about , taught myself (with the help of a mentor), and even managed to get involved on a deeper level by working with the companies I mentioned earlier. new technology technical analysis The best part of it all is that I feel like I haven’t even scratched the surface. One month ago I decided I wanted to work with blockchain projects and get paid in crypto. Today, that’s a reality. Because I don’t care how long anyone has been doing this. This industry is young enough, that a few years of experience doesn’t give anyone much of a head start. A few years of advantage can be outweighed by working harder, smarter, and bringing in more value to the community than others are willing to. I started investing less than a year ago and I will outwork . you “You think that your time spent trading crypto is your ally? You merely adopted crypto. I was born in the bear market, molded by it. I didn’t see green candles until I was already a man.” I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to pull this quote out. I was baptized in the Great Bear Market of 2017 (I don’t think anyone has ever referred to it as that, but I’m going to roll with it). The first time I bought a coin, I bought Ether (ETH), the coin that fuels the Ethereum Network, at its all time high on June 6th or 7th. It was right above $300 at the time. I had been studying Ethereum for weeks, reading all about it, Bitcoin, and other blockchain projects. I was convinced Ethereum was going to change the world — but I also knew from a brief stint day trading that one should never buy into the tail-end of a uptrend. “Don’t chase green candles”, I thought. Which is investor speak for “don’t buy an uptrend that’s already started as you never know when it will stop”. It’s a part of the mantra conveyed by the famous investing quote, “buy when there’s blood on the streets”. I waited patiently for the price of Ethereum to drop. Weeks passed and the price continued to rise. Soon it was over double where I had initially considered it for investment. I panicked. I bought the top. It lost over 50% of its value the next day. I was . rekt Too stubborn to realize the loss and cash out, I decided to spend the next several months studying everything I could get my hands on regarding , , and . Blockchain Technical Analysis (TA) Investment Strategy RESEARCH I started scalping Ethereum. Selling the highs and buying the lows, using what I was learning from studying TA. I obsessed over chart patterns, lagging indicators, leading indicators, Fibonacci, Elliot wave — I fell so deep into the matrix, I forgot I was even plugged in. Soon, despite Ethereum still being 50% of the value I had bought into, I was back at my breakeven investment. I had doubled the amount of Ethereum I initially owned. I started investing in ICO’s. EOS, BAT, Bancor, Tezos — I was doing a shamefully small amount of research, but it being the height of the ICO craze, I ended up doing pretty well. Making a decent percentage gain on the ICO’s I had put my Ethereum into, I started getting into Altcoins- which is when my portfolio really started to explode. While I may have only been around for under a year — I like to think I was forced into the accelerated program — where I had to either learn fast, or lose everything. It wasn’t my initial strategy but circumstances forced me into it, and now I am glad. Most of what I’ve learned, the knowledge that allowed me to recoup those losses, has come as a result of the losses occurring in the first place. . It tears away from us all but the things that cannot be torn, so that we see ourselves as we really are.” — Arthur Golden “Adversity is like a strong wind You’re not too late to get into cryptocurrency; this market is just getting started. Furthermore, you have a better chance of outworking and surpassing your peers in this market because it’s 24/7. If you’re willing to put in the time and work harder than everyone else, you will come out on top. — — — — — — — — — — — — — If you want to learn more about trading, you can find more of my cryptocurrency articles below _A step by step guide on how to begin the process of investing in cryptocurrency._hackernoon.com A Complete Beginners Guide to Investing in Cryptocurrency _Besides crying, screaming, and other self-destructive behavior._hackernoon.com 2 Things to Do While the Cryptocurrency Market Falls _Expensive lessons I’ve learned in the past year._hackernoon.com THE 10 CRYPTO COMMANDMENTS

Looking For Jobs After College? Choose Blockchain Over Cubicles

There are no silver bullets. But these are damn close. This morning I gave a talk to the team at for their Young Leaders series. Normally I give talks on how to build better products, so this was unique. Spothero I think they invited me because I’ve had “approachable” success. I’m not Mark Zuckerberg. I’m a pretty normal dude — got an above average jumpshot, a wife who’s much smarter than he is, and a couple adorable kids. But I’ve done a lot of the things I’ve wanted to do in my career, relatively quickly. I helped build and sell a company by 27. I started a multi-million dollar by 30. Was a Kellogg professor at 31, and a partner at a at 33. consulting firm venture fund When people ask me how that happened, I usually say dumb luck. That’s honestly 90% of it. Needle in haystack opportunities. But I did identify a few things I did in my career that helped. Hopefully they’ll help you too. 1. Show Up First I followed a girl to New York in 2004. I got hired as an account manager at a doing lead gen campaigns for universities. I made 35k a year, and lived in the crappiest apartment in the world. startup I was thrilled. I had it. I was also terrified. made I didn’t know what I was doing. I was sure everyone else was much better than me. The only thing I knew how to do was try to outwork them. So for the first 2 years of my career, I went to Starbucks in the morning at 6am when they opened. I would work until 8:30, be the first person in the office. This gave me an extra day every week to get stuff done. It allowed me to be productive even if my days got derailed by meetings. Just as important, my bosses noticed I was consistently the first person in the office. Which could have happened other ways, but dramatically accelerated the process. 2. Microvate What did I do with all that time? I did what I call microvation. . Microvation is the art of tiny innovations Sign up for all the crappy projects — the stuff no one wants to do. Try to figure out how to reframe them in a way that made them more useful. And then make them amazing. We would do CSV exports to give to clients. I turned them into visual reports that we sent as PDFs. We started using Salesforce — I learned how to create custom reports for the sales team (which was run by the founders). I tapped into my former life as a stand up comic to create funny, quirky emails to send clients when their campaigns launched, when they got their first leads, etc. You can do it with anything. Turn picking up lunch into a lunch and learn series. Turn a slack channel with links into a knowledge program that collects and documents “the way we do things here.” management Microvation demonstrates you’re someone who sees opportunity in everything, and can get things done. 3. Be the Note Taker. Nobody knows how to execute. Which is a tremendous opportunity. Execution is simply identifying where you want to go, creating a specific plan to get there, identifying the specific next actions to take, assigning responsibility, and most importantly following up. The best way to do this is to volunteer to be the note taker in every meeting. The note taker has a tremendous amount of power inside a company. Your notes become the record of what happened in a meeting. You literally have the power to shape projects and ideas. If you’re 23 in a 10 person meeting and say “okay everyone, what are the specific next steps we need to take here?” you might get some odd glances. But nobody will look at you funny asking that if you’re the note taker. Nobody will get upset when you follow up in the next meeting. Before long, they think you’re gifted at getting things done. Which by then, you will be. 4. Dress up. This one might sound stupid. Especially in the world of tech where hoodies and white sneakers are the new uniform. I had a mentor who ran economic development in Colorado. Harvard grad. Black guy who grew up in rural south carolina, was the first in his family to go to college. Incredibly proud guy. Every single day he gave me feedback on what I wore to the office. I asked him why. “Don’t give people a reason to ignore your ideas.” It’s hard enough as it is, especially if you don’t come from a place of privilege (i.e. aren’t a white dude in America). If you dress well, at best they’ll think you’re smarter than you are. Most of the time, they’ll simply ignore it. But they won’t think you’re stupid. And they’ll be more receptive to what you have to say. I know for a fact as a young guy trying to raise money from wealthy LPs 30 years older than I am, it helps that I dress the way they dress. They spend the meeting listening to my ideas, not thinking about the ironic T shirt I’m wearing. Forget about trying to make a statement with your clothes. Let your work do the talking. 5. Design is a superpower. When I was college I dabbled in design. I had a pirated copy of Photoshop and had done some projects in school, but I wasn’t very good. But I had read a book by a guy named Tom Peters, and he said design and branding were going to be a big deal in the future and it was something I wanted to get good at. Turns out he was right. In a world when almost anyone can build a startup, good design and the ability to craft a compelling brand are a huge competitive advantage. It’s also a big advantage for you personally. It makes every document you send, every Keynote you make, every project you work on better. Being good at design demonstrates you have taste. And people like to be around people with taste. You don’t have to become a designer. But learn to develop good design sense. . Start with your Keynote decks 6. Work for free. How did I learn design? I went to our Design Director and asked him if I could design my client’s sites. I said don’t show them to the client — I just want feedback on real projects with real constraints so I can get better. . And I did it for free For 9 months I did this. I designed probably 50 campaigns. They sucked for a long time. But each one got slightly better. Eventually they started trickling over to clients as the “B option” in case they didn’t like the good one. Eventually they started going with the B option sometimes. Eventually I ended up having a weird split role with 2 bosses, doing half client services and half design work — always from 6–9am or after work, and always for free. When you’re young, reps matter more than money. Your portfolio matters more than money. Opportunities to learn matter more than money. If you can command the kind of prices you want and can get all the work you want, great. If you suck and really want to learn, don’t wait for some golden opportunity to get paid to learn. Start learning now — on real projects with real constraints. The money will come. 7. Master sales. If you know how to sell you’ll never worry about money. They’re always the highest paid people in the company. They’re usually the entrepreneurs who are most likely to succeed. As an account manager, I would go out 1 to 2 weeks a month to visit clients, usually with one of our top salespeople. We had to chain together these ridiculous trips to save money — Seattle to Los Angeles. New York to Tampa and back. So we’d try to cram as many meetings as possible in — some with clients, some with prospects. I would watch the salespeople, learn how to overcome objections, how to ask for the close, etc. Eventually I started up selling my existing clients on new campaigns, new services, etc. I became the one of the top selling non-salespeople in the company. 8) Become a unicorn. In the tech world, the unicorn is the person who can design, code, go from an idea to a living thing. They say they don’t exist, but they do. As a hiring manager, looking for one is probably foolish. But as a career move, becoming a unicorn is baller. One of the products I had the most success selling didn’t exist until I made it. Our campaigns were all automated emails. The school would give us a list, we’d upload them, turn the thing on, the email blasts would start. But clients wanted to be able to send ad-hoc broadcast messages as well. We didn’t have that. Mailchimp wasn’t a thing. But I found a PHP tool that you’d host on your own server. I paid for the license with my own money. I installed it on one of our servers. I customized the files to have our branding. And then I started trying to sell it to my clients. My bosses found out of course, and were pissed. Today most companies have protocols in place to prevent that kind of thing. But clients started asking how much it would cost to use our Direct Mailer, and my bosses forgave me. There’s a tremendous amount of power in being a one person execution machine. While the world is full of “idea people”, there are far fewer people who can have an idea, design the thing, build the thing (even if it’s cobbled together from 3rd party tools — in fact those are often the best ones), and sell the thing. While it makes it harder for you to talk about what you do, it’s really powerful. 9) Read all the things. At least once a week I was at the bookstore, trying to learn things that would make me better at my job. Sales, design, negotiation, whatever I could find. One of those things was CSS. Web standards were becoming a thing, and accessibility was a big issue with universities. All our campaigns were in flash. Because that’s what the design director knew. And he didn’t want to learn how to do it another way. Clients started complaining. Eventually it came to a head. He chose to quit instead of learning how to do it. I got promoted to Creative Director, with the salary to match. In about 18 months, I went from Account Manager to Creative Director, my salary had tripled. The previous 8 things all played a role. But the catalyst was my being the only person who knew CSS. Because I read. I still do this —in my current role at the venture fund I really had to shore up my finance and accounting skills. So I started taking online classes and downloading HBR business cases to work on at night. Lots of people complain about not having mentors, or a plan from their company to help them learn. But you have all the mentors you need at the bookstore or library or online. The . What you do at night matters. career ladder isn’t in your office 10. Study management. So I became Creative Director, and life was good. We got acquired by a private equity company doing a rollup. I was suddenly managing a much larger team than I ever had before. I got brought in to meet the new CEO, feeling pretty good about myself. But he brought me down to earth. “The things that made you good as an operator are going to kill you as a manager. Today your career starts over.” He was right. Management is a skill. There are strategies and practices to it, just like anything else. You can’t just be a good operator with people skills. You have to learn new skills, exercise new muscles. Two great books to start are and . High Output Management The Effective Manager Become a student. Submit yourself to the discipline of management. 11. 5/25/150 After the acquisition, we moved to Chicago for my wife’s job. I figured my days were numbered, and I needed to start building out a network here. The best system I know of for doing this is the . It’s basically a spreadsheet with 5 names, 25 names, and 150 names. You reach out to the 5 multiple times per week, the 25 weekly, the 150 monthly. 5/25/150 method This approach is how I got to know Joe Dwyer, who was a venture partner in town. I left that NY company to became the VP Product at one of his fund companies. A few years later, I started with him and my other buddy Matt. And a few years after that we together. Digital Intent started the fund The secret to pulling this off is to truly care about the people on that spreadsheet. You’re constantly looking for ways to add value to their lives, to help them out, to introduce them to each other. You aren’t worried about when it will come back. You aren’t keeping tabs. You probably don’t get as much back as you put in. But you have 180 people who love you. And you get back more than enough opportunity for a lifetime. 12. Write and talk. A guy named asked me to guest lecture in his class at Booth. I frantically put together a deck, and because I have imposter syndrome I loaded it with way more content than I needed. , and it got picked up by . And then Kellogg found out about it. And that’s how I got the gig to teach at Kellogg. Craig Wortmann I put the deck up online after Growth Hackers Putting my thoughts online has led to so many opportunities for our company and for me personally. Going to speak around the world. Getting published. Being asked about writing books. I have no desire to become Tony Robbins. I love creating and investing in products. But I do realize the power of a platform. Building your platform amplifies everything else you do. And it’s free. It just takes the willingness to be brave and put yourself out there. 13. The office is your dojo. I love work. I love being in an office. I think it’s more than just a place to make stuff. The office is the perfect place to practice life. To learn what it means to be disciplined. To humble yourself and pursue mastery in a craft over a long period of time. It’s the perfect place to develop character. Smashed together with a bunch of people you might not hang out with otherwise. To learn how to compromise, how to be patient, how to control your emotions, how to build empathy, how to serve others. Treat it like your dojo. In addition to your KPIs or business goals, have some personal development goals. One guy on my team realized he interrupts people in meetings all the time. And so he’s actively working in meetings on talking less, letting other people finish, actively listening. You are molding yourself into something, ever so slowly, whether you realize it or not. Mold yourself into something awesome. Increase the needles in your haystack. None of this is a golden ticket. I’m always loathe to suggest “rules” — like I said, most of my success has been dumb luck. But I do think these strategies can exponentially increase the number of needles in your haystack. They’ll make luck much more likely to appear. Disagree with any of this? Think there’s things I left out? I’d love to hear what you think. Originally published here . — If you enjoyed this story, please recommend and share to help others find it!

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