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A comment on Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus on your job. Parent comment

Re:Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus o... by nosianu on Monday October 12, 2020 @09:15PM (#24761327)
You did not answer the question which was not if there ever was any case at all, but how many. An individual example is useless when the question is about if something works at (even minor) scale.
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Re:Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus o... by dnautics on Monday October 12, 2020 @09:21PM (#24761353)
nobody is claiming that my experience is extrapolatable ad infinitum. However, if it was such a rare thing, what are the odds that someone like me would exist?

> An individual example is useless when the question is about if something works at (even minor) scale

That is incorrect. The plural of anecdote is data.

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Re:Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus o... by boyobo on Monday October 12, 2020 @10:54PM (#24761789)
> However, if it was such a rare thing, what are the odds that someone like me would exist?

Someone wins the lottery every week. What are the odds of winning the lottery? Is playing the lottery a good strategy to make money?

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Re:Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus o... by dnautics on Wednesday October 14, 2020 @03:55AM (#24774251)
Did you not see the "n=5" bit?
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Re:Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus o... by boyobo on Wednesday October 14, 2020 @01:09PM (#24778994)
Do you understand the concept of correlation?

"Usain bolt won the olypmic gold medal many times (n=8).

If winning the gold medal was so rare, what are the odds that people like Usain Bolt exist?"

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Re:Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus o... by kyawzazaw on Monday October 12, 2020 @11:46PM (#24762066)
It's the rare thing. I bet that if you go to any big tech companies, you will find that pretty much none of the engineers got hired by impressing a CEO
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Re:Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus o... by dnautics on Wednesday October 14, 2020 @03:56AM (#24774262)
Not all CEOs are CEOs of big companies. I went to a middle class high school in the US and no less than 5 of the students in my class of 70 are or have been CEOs.
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