I would support this existing, but the best possible argument I can make for working In The Real World (TM) temporarily (at the start of a career in startups/tech/founding) is that you will gain an appreciation for why things work the way they do and where points of leverage are.
Voice of someone older and wiser: my regret with respect to this is I spent 6 years on it when the pace of learning dropped off substantially after the first 6 weeks.
(I still learned things in any 6 month stretch of time but rate of learning was lower than in other options.)
(I still learned things in any 6 month stretch of time but rate of learning was lower than in other options.)
"Should I optimize for pace of learning or for material rewards early in my career?"
I'd probably use pace of learning as the gating function and then, subject to that constraint, maximize for material rewards. Or, since we're on Twitter:
I'd probably use pace of learning as the gating function and then, subject to that constraint, maximize for material rewards. Or, since we're on Twitter:
This may sound obvious to some people but since there is probably 1+ people who need to hear it, including myself ~15 years ago: there are a lot of career opportunities which offer neither learning nor material rewards. You should probably avoid doing them.
Incidentally, and you can probably predict that I'd say this but it is a true fact that I've said the same thing for ~10 years: startups which have gotten past the Oh My God Everything Is On Fire stage but still rely keenly on every person having individual impact fit the bill.
Stripe is one of the names I've given as an example for that. I work here and rather enjoy it. We're hiring aggressively. Please feel free to get in touch.
(One of the true joys of working here is that you get all the benefits of working at a startup deep in the tech ecosystem while *also* getting, if you optimize for it, a very close look at the operations of customers in any industry or sector which moves money around.)
