I feel like people consistently overestimate how widely distributed individual technologies are, even where those technologies are clearly better than alternatives, easy to implement, and have minimal downside risk or cost to reverse adoption.
Also the "Go to the gym" factor.
Also the "Go to the gym" factor.
You should go to the gym. I should go to the gym. Almost everyone should go to the gym.
I do not go to the gym, as of this exact moment in time, despite knowing that it is the correct thing to do. Anyone who successfully modified behavior could justly claim fairly major benefits
I do not go to the gym, as of this exact moment in time, despite knowing that it is the correct thing to do. Anyone who successfully modified behavior could justly claim fairly major benefits
I think that that might be a little too metaphorical, even though it is my semi-informed understanding that you will, factually, be told to go to the gym by YC if they think you aren't going to the gym.
Here's another go-to-the-gym bit of advice: don't run out of money.
Here's another go-to-the-gym bit of advice: don't run out of money.
A very uncharitable person might roll their eyes about a putatively intelligent individual needing to be told "Don't run out of money", but that is *such* an important piece of advice that substantially every business hires a class of professionals to avoid exactly that failure.
You can customize "Don't run out of money", too. A fairly common example:
Y"ou are floundering right now and, without major changes, will run out of money in 18 weeks. You have told me your six week plan. No outcome of it buys you 6 more weeks. Don't run out of money."
Y"ou are floundering right now and, without major changes, will run out of money in 18 weeks. You have told me your six week plan. No outcome of it buys you 6 more weeks. Don't run out of money."
"You are floundering right now and, without major changes, will run out of money in 18 weeks. You have expressed confidence that you will raise investment. Your confidence is misplaced because your business is, presently, dying. Don't run out of money."
But I don't think obvious advice is the only valuable kind of advice! And this should be very, very self-evident to technologists.
"Ah, you are running a website with load issues. If I say the words "3 tier architecture" do you not know what those words mean? OK, issue solved."
"Ah, you are running a website with load issues. If I say the words "3 tier architecture" do you not know what those words mean? OK, issue solved."
(The experts in the room at this can come up with a long list of counterfactuals as to what particular permutations of websites would be in the 0.4% which are not going to have absolutely no load issues after single-digit hours of pedestrian sysadmin work implied by n-tier arch.)
There's a lot of advice which is basically the n-tier architecture of marketing/sales/HR/etc. Rather little of it comes up in the education of well-credentialed people. (Who should appreciate that, in the grand scheme of things, they know almost nothing.)
