Lenny DistilledCraft → Career Growth
Do not optimize for compensation, especially early in your career. You will find that the compensation is so much backloaded that you would make 90% of your compensation in the last five years of your career.
I think we don't recognize how much opportunity we have in front of us. And as a 26-year-old, I definitely thought my career was over. I was like, 'I blew it.' And looking back, it's funny.
Focus on reputation and learning over earnings has served me super well.
You want to be in a position where you're never running out the door looking for what's next, but rather being able to be super selective about the things that you have in front of you. And that comes with time and network building and relationship building over years.
Play the long game. Once you find someone like that, stick to them. As long as they want to hang out with you, but just stick to them. Because you will go on to do multiple things over your career with the same set of people. And the shared trust and experience that you build with A plus people is just going to go a long way.
Always think about not the next job, but the one after it. Maybe think about not your boss's job but your boss's boss's job and what do I need to think about to get there.
Life is suffering. So figure out something worth suffering for. You're going to suffer either way. And that's another thing I think people don't realize, is there isn't really a path that is easy that I've ever found.
The more diverse career you have, the better builder you are. And that usually comes up being satisfied. But the idea of just doing that because you think it's going to make your chances better for the next job maybe scares me and it feels very much in service of some future dream that is not build oriented.
Promotion is our system at this company to see you moving forward. And it's pretty clear in terms of levels and what you're doing and what the process is and who makes the decision. But in reality, if you're thinking career, you're thinking about the sort of long term arc.
A non-successful startup is if you think of starting a company as a career step. Well, it is not. Because if it's successful, it'll be your entire career. It'll be 10 years most likely. And if it's not successful, then it's not something that people generally aspire to start.