6:46 AM
Just read a Zain Jaffer post about how competitive and fucked this job market is. GT grads with perfect GPAs, software engineers completely flooding the market. However, I realize my background positions me well.
Its a freaking bloodbath in the job market now. Category 5 hurricane with AI both constraining headcount, and reducing to none the incentive to hire Jr positions at these firms. Differentiation is so hard now because anyone can use Cursor and Github. the actual execution in differentiation comes from proven job experience, side projects that have gained significant traction or past entrepreneurship experience. That is now the norm.
Networking, absolutely Key now, human relationships is the distribution channel. But my qualm and realization is specificity over volume matters so much more.
Similar to printing press replacing manual typists, those working in type shops and press/media who can build on top of these tools and create distribution channels will solidify their moat. Understanding enough technical fundamentals to be dangerous is key.
12:52 PM
What exactly is my niche? I get a bit envious seeing AM, AG and RP.
There’s a part of me that still feels failure, comparison, and devalues self-worth compared to other people who have had more prestigious career paths, are doing more successful, startups at the moment, and seem to be in a better place in life.
Thinking about people on LinkedIn. There seems to be this founder track that starts out with prestigious schools, prestigious firms at Tech companies, and then founding these companies.
With me, I’ve always inspired to have that external validation. I’ve always tried to recruit for McKinsey Bain, BCG, and all the other top firms that status signals at Penn. I have not actually done a corporate internship, only just research experiences in areas that I’m truly deeply interested in. I’m not technical in the traditional definition, I didn’t have a engineering bachelors degree, I followed my own path and intuition, I really wish I was technical, but reality hasn’t really spoken that way. My life experiences have been all around, from the gap in Tahoe. To traveling in South America, fishing, along with the Startup with Photography.
It always bothers me when I compare myself to others career paths, how inside I’ve deeply desired on Microsoft internship, how I see these people from state schools go to Palantir, successful founders, who studied computer science in college.
I feel stuck right now, where I’m not really in the Startup ecosystem arena, and these worlds don’t really feel the most natural to me. I still get triggered and envious when I see people with more padded, resumes, excel, and startups, or are doing these prestigious positions. They seem to be the dream.
I know deep down that I must play my own game, but each time I try to force myself to playing the prestige or institutional/technological rat race game, I exert tons of energy, but am generally disappointed with the results. My inner self doesn’t quite align, but there’s this irrational desire to still get the validation on my résumé, I know the value of having these experiences, and they make you more employable. I just feel like I have wandered around so much at my time at school, where I haven’t developed any hard signals that people really recognize me for.
I’m still drawn to these hard problems, but I’m having trouble reconciling my nontraditional path, especially when compared to conventional success and career trajectories. The signal inside still has not developed strong enough for me to reject and ignore these.
I can keep saying that I’m doing my own thing, focusing on my own path, but it’s very difficult to keep in convince myself this, when all around everyone else has a coherent, skill, college, major, and career trajectory.
I just need some more self belief, and conviction in my own path. I feel like I’m getting beat down right now, comparing myself to people on LinkedIn, and trying to integrate other peoples advice and beliefs specially Richards, and those that I’ve been programmed at Penn to where my next path is, I’m also trying to decide what to focus most of my energy in, despite it going against conventional wisdom, where I should be like my parents and others, focusing on recruiting for bio engineering or other more stable, somewhat paying jobs. But I can’t tell if I’m delusional trying to build out this niche and just keep on believing in myself.
I still get caught up myself, valuing the whole prestige and institutional games. It’s an unconscious, fear, and desire inside that I’m trying to deprogram, but it still gets me every single time I think about it and it makes me feel bad about myself and self-worth wise..