samebreath

I'm adding this to my "what's good for OSS business tactics is not good for the OSS ecosystem" file. It's easier to be principled when you don't owe venture capital a return, but it doesn't make it any less true.

What kind of value are you looking to achieve?

My strategy started by being kind on Twitter in my target community. Those interactions led me to target conferences to attend, and from there I aimed to build content with people (side projects on GitHub or podcasts) which have added up to something of value. I now feel good about my extended network without being internet famous to really any degree, which works for me. What's your goal?

The strategy of saying `I “improved this thing” using “this method” by “this measurable amount.”` has had a major impact on my perception of business value. My resume is all in these terms as well. Have others had similar results?

I imagine this principle is solid up to a point of meeting a minimal set of connections. Did they happen to (try to) identify a safe minimum?

biases generality is a great question to ask. I rely on smarter people than me quoting repeated and repeatable research. The best I've ever read is in the book Thinking Fast and Slow, and a beautiful representation of it can be seen on designhacks.co (the latter is on my wall as a reminder of how fallible the mind can be).

I see your point on holding some space for self-exploration before we cargo cult other's beliefs as our own. A couple counter-thoughts: (1) There is no forming of ego without external influence. I'd much prefer a younger person be influenced by the enthusiasm for life of Feynmann when compared to the thousands of other options. I imagine influence to be a zero-sum game. Better to have it add up to enthusiasm. (2) We see different aspects of a book at different points in our lives. We hear only the questions to which we are capable of finding an answer (partial quote of FN). Rereading books that influence our younger years is a form of self-discovery.

You win for enthusiasm when it comes to that syntax. I appreciate I pipe output to uniq (MacOS) to get uniques, proving that easy is an extremely relative value :)

I.. don't get it. I imagine it's embarrassingly straightforward once I do, but until then I'm lost. Could someone help me out?

Love or dislike the business model, I really enjoyed the article. The candid look went beyond the survivor bias I'm used to reading when it comes to startup stories. Thanks for sharing @ajaygeol.