Good post. Although one thing I don't get. You comment about not being being happy with (potentially) being employee #20,000 at Google. But why did you attend Harvard? Harvard is a pretty large school, and certainly far more than 20,000 students have graduated from it.
I've met many great people who skipped college altogether. Do you think that you were pushed into Harvard, and if you could do it again, you'd skip it? Or at least attend a far smaller school?
It just seems like to me Harvard (or most any college) is a big company where you pay them, rather than them paying you. Of course at Harvard you get to learn a lot. But I expect you'd learn as much in four years at Google (or even Microsoft or IBM for that matter).
With Harvard, the honest answer is that I didn't truly consider many other options-- I think I'm not the only person who'd say I attended Harvard because it accepted me.
That being said, I did learn a ton (more so from my friends and extracurriculars than academics). Harvard is obviously an academic institution, so technically I paid them for the opportunity to do whatever I wanted & use their own resources. If I didn't want to do something, I didn't. If I wanted to spend all my time building sweet shit, I pretty much did.
Google, in a large way, is built on this model-- but it's still a job, it's still got serious responsibilities, and, most importantly, I wasn't sure I'd learn as much there in four years as I would somewhere else.
I'm not sure an internet TV Guide qualifies as "awesome shit that matters", but hey congrats on the new gig. At least you'll have responsibilities a lot faster than at Google.
Derek, I think what you've done is great and I wish you the best of luck.
I have just one little piece of unqualified advice. In the last couple paragraphs, the blog post felt a little too much like marketing spiel. I get that you're a non-tech (me too) but be aware of that line. It can easily put people off.
That's what I was thinking too, so I don't think the "start-up will die" rule applies to him if he had joined Google. I personally would love to be recruited by Google when the time comes because even though I'll be Employee number 300,001 - I'll learn a LOT and be able to help the next startup/company I am with.
So basically you majored in arts and crafts at Harvard (and you're surprised BSing poli sci papers wasn't difficult?), wrote a bunch of blog posts and tweets, have an annoying 'young upstart' linkedin page, but don't know a linked list for a lincoln log, and are going into a non-technical entry level position for a random start-up?
I've met many great people who skipped college altogether. Do you think that you were pushed into Harvard, and if you could do it again, you'd skip it? Or at least attend a far smaller school?
It just seems like to me Harvard (or most any college) is a big company where you pay them, rather than them paying you. Of course at Harvard you get to learn a lot. But I expect you'd learn as much in four years at Google (or even Microsoft or IBM for that matter).
Just curious...