You'll be plenty valuable, don't worry. Sometimes the business guys go out and do market research, get preliminary letters of intent signed, do presentations, etc... Enjoy the experience, it's completely worthwhile and rewarding. (note: I'm a technical guy, been to a couple of these types of events, and know the value non-techs bring to the table)
One thing I would like to add, in addition to my earlier comment, is this: There is a time to gamble, and a time to play it safe. The best time to gamble is when you've got the money to lose, not when your mortgage/rent payment is on the line.
Even if the startup has a great chance of success, my decision would personally be to go to Google. This is with very limited info. However, what we are going through right now very much resembles what we went through during the dot.com era. If history repeats itself, then in a couple years our job choices won't be so vast. In that case, I would rather be with the company that has billions in the bank and can continue to employ me. This is a very personal choice, and one that I'm sure is causing you tremendous anxiety. I hope this helps.
Fundamentally, I don't see an issue with you doing outside consulting work, as long as it isn't in direct competition with your main employer. I would definitely never mix assets - e.g. don't use your main work computer for moonlighting work. Moonlighting has been around forever, in all trades, and won't go away.
Realistically, this is a very difficult task to pull off in our discipline. This was true for me anyway - I've tried it and it was short lived. It could be that I'm an "all or nothing" kind of guy and it is just difficult for me. Maybe other people don't suffer from this quirk. For me, I find it incredibly difficult to shift between simultaneous projects. It takes a certain amount of mental time just to get into productive mode. By the end of the day, I'm pretty exhausted from my main duties. What happens, then, is I ended up doing okay at one task, and terrible at the other, but didn't produce the kind of quality output I would want for either. Ultimately, I wasn't pleased with myself.
The startup is going to expect you to be 150% focused on their objectives. I don't think it will be an 8 to 5 gig. That's not the way these things work. It's a heck of a commitment, and if it were my startup, I would want you "fully engaged."
I'm lucky in that the startup is fairly mature and encourages a good work balance, but yeah, I don't want it to be an 8 to 5 gig either. One of the reasons I want to join is that I think the vision is something I can dedicate myself to, which I feel less likely to want to do at Google.
Again, thanks for the advice, I really, really appreciate this and your other comment.
"...Swearing says more about your abilities as a speaker then it does your content... that's the problem."
Good thing he is talking about speaking instead of writing.
EDIT: That is in the opening paragraph, and this is in the closing paragraph:
"...The minute you drop that F-bomb, that's when you lose me. If you don't care enough to flex the language at your disposal, why should I give a fuck about what you have to say?"
The part that struck me was when he said something along the lines of: It takes 10,000 (or 15,000) hours just to get the necessary knowledge. Then, you are at step one. You may or may not be good, but don't know until you've put in the required time.
Also, the immediate authenticity I felt by this man and this story is something amazing. Great way to start my day.
"10,000 hours of training, according to Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers. Gladwell based this assertion on the work of Anders Ericsson, who studied classical violinists and found that, in every case, it had taken a regimen of 2-3 hours a day for 10 years to develop their abilities. Later research by Ericsson and others confirmed similar results in other fields."
I don't think it is as straightforward as that. Imagine you're learning chess and you have a chess master as your teacher, you are going to annihilate someone who has putted the same amount of time, even more, but who doesn't have such a good teacher.
And that little side-note unravels the whole argument: how much better can practice be? Can it be so focused that one reaches mastery in 5k hours? 1k? To what degree is being a fast learner in a field a talent?
I disagree with point (1) and only somewhat agree with point (2).
For point 1 - I definitely don't like rules, and I have found that if you create enough value, you get away with making your own rules and can come very close to having a feeling of running your own business.
For point 2 - in the high tech industry, you can make as much, or more, income without the uncertainty of self employment/own business. Running a business is HARD. I tried it, for many years, and ultimately failed (well, I failed financially, but learned a hell of a lot - so not a complete failure). Perhaps I was in the wrong business, but I simply didn't enjoy the non-technical aspects of it, which consume the majority of your time. The ROI wasn't there - not for me. Not every business is going to make you rich - in fact, most of them will not. I can't say I've given up permanently, but I have gone back to the corporate world for now and do not regret it. I disagree with the job stability portion of this point - you have ZERO job stability when you work for someone else. I firmly believe you have more stability working on your own than for a vast majority of companies. The concept of job security is a false sense of security.
My first "real" job was with a software company, in the QA department. I got lucky getting that job, as I had no requisite skills. Anyway, I wanted to learn how to program. I took a C class at a local university. I remember, vividly, being so frustrated that I was in tears when trying to learn about pointers and recursive functions. Very basic to me now, but at the time, extremely frustrating - I simply didn't understand the concepts. I reached out to a few of the developers at that company and they helped me. I'm not a stud programmer, not by any stretch of the imagination, but I've made a good living over the years - and I have not once programmed in C since that class. BUT --- the things I learned in that class have helped me tremendously. For example, it helped me when I was programming in VB and needed to tap into raw winapi functions. A combination of C programming basics, along with OS basics, will get you a LONG way when trying to understand and solve challenges you'll come across in "normal" programming challenges.
I wasn't trying to argue with you, rather I was trying to point out that some good can come from the C/C++ path. I've had a lot of people ask me which language to use as a starting point in programming, and not once have I said C/C++ -- maybe, upon reflection, I should have??
I like the idea of the article, but I would be more impressed if the author would have taken a few moments to identify steps one might take to help find solutions for this new "global middle class." I have no doubt opportunity exists, but it isn't as simple, in my opinion, as looking at our (U.S.) own history. The playing field is very different. Maybe a springwise-like site would be a good way to communicate upcoming needs (as opposed to trends) outside the u.s. market?
1. Listening, really listening, is really hard. Start by trying to listen to those you seem to have an issue(s) with! Really try to have an open mind and see things from an alternate perspective. Surely, you must have some level of interest in people you see. Why did he decide to get 1000 piercings? Why is s/he homeless? What drives this person to wear a suit every single day? .... Look at the things that you judge, and try to find answers that may not be so obvious as to why they are the way they are.
2. "I learnt I didn't know everything" -- this is pure and simple, but if my own experience has any relevance, it won't click with a number of people. I was smart enough to know that I didn't know everything when I was pretty young. But somehow, I really didn't "get it" -- I thought I was open minded, but I really wasn't. It wasn't until life beat me up pretty good that I finally "think" I get it. At least I hope I get it, and I feel like I do. Which leads to...
3. "Everyone acts rationally from their point of view" -- It took a very, very long time for me to understand this point. It took a lot of humility, pain and suffering to really open up my mind to why people do what they do. I believe MOST people make choices with good intentions. From the outside, it might be hard to understand those intentions. The challenge, or for me, the interest, comes in understanding the perspective that drove a particular decision. This goes back to "two sides to every story" -- and I've seen enough stories to know that both sides have strong convictions that they are correct and right. If you aren't fundamentally interested in people, then try to get interested in figuring out why they do what they do, especially when it is at odds with your own bias.
