It's nice to hear that everyone here (and yourself) are talking about job and being productive or not.
Maybe it's hard to hear this right away after your major, but a job is just one part if your life. As someone already wrote, also concentrate on your private life, your body and social connections.
And, forget that you will be something super special or will feel super special. You don't have to be Steve Jobs, probably won't be and nobody says that Steve Jobs was a happy person.
Do what you feel is right for you at the moment, have a couple of good friends, work out, and maybe look for a job which helps you for your "birds eye view".
Have a look at Freuds "Über-Ich" [0] and maybe start to listen more at your emotions than on money and job. Nobody says that both couldn't go hand in hand, but after leaving a well paid job, starting at a very poor paid one but with good friends, it's totally worth it.
I don't think Europeans care or have to care. If it looks different, there will be other StartUps/innovations for the missing pieces.
Here are many sub-search sites which doesn't deliver like Google, but are famous because they are more ethical. The question is: Is it real innovation or just an addiction for everything new and shiny.
Of course it's about perspective, I just don't think you have a very broad one. That Google didn't come from Europe has little to do with the current situation. Europe doesn't lack innovation at all, in fact the reason that startups aren't very popular is that there are many other interesting engineering companies to work for. Talent flight is not particularly significant, especially with the US visa rules.
European startups often out innovate companies like Google, but there's no way you can win when Google owns the platform. We already have sub-standard foreign technology when US companies don't roll out features in European countries. Yet, again you can't win because who's going to fund a company that any minute can be crushed by a much larger US competitor.
Being able to compete with US companies is very much a problem for European startups, not because of talent flight or innovation but because they have such strong market positions that they don't mind taking advantage of.
The funny thing is of course that a decade ago no one in the US cared about Europe, but now with all the shit going on in the US you constantly see shallow argument how horrible Europe is. I see that as a good sign.
"The funny thing is of course that a decade ago no one in the US cared about Europe, but now with all the shit going on in the US you constantly see shallow argument how horrible Europe is. I see that as a good sign."
Your entire post is full of the "troll level" ignorance that you claim mine is, but this right here is the ignorant cherry on top.
Thank you for demonstrating that you embody the criticism that you level on others.
P.S. Americans complained about European regulation, inability to compete in less regulated capitalism, laggy adoption of technology, and lack of innovation 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago...
P.S.S If the only reason Google didn't come from Europe is that Google has a giant market to use against competitors, how did Google get to its position? Why didn't the first Google come from Europe? Or Facebook? Or Twitter? Or ANYTHING? It's a chicken/egg problem for you to blame Google's dominance on its size, since it didn't always have this size, and there was ample opportunity prior!
If my post is so full of ignorance it should be easy for you to formulate an argument against it, like I did against your comment. Yet, you seemingly can't.
Europe has been far better at adopting technology than the US has. Everything from Internet connection speeds and traffic prices to digital payments and identification. Europe has many successful technology companies and technologies, why they don't grow into the next big company is in part because they get acquired by US companies with offshore funds. The growth of silicon valley in the first place wasn't exactly a demonstration in free market capitalism if that's what you're claiming.
Edit: Of course none of this matters since your original comment gathered so many responses that the article got caught in the flame war filter (more comment than points over 40 points).
It takes time to get used to, but after 6 years on and off, I am using it for the last 8 months regularly, and I already saved enough money for the next 4 months in advance.
But, of course, what these two have in common, is simply:
1. Spend much less than you earn
2. Try to just spend 30-40% of your income, but an emergency fund which stores 6 month worth of money, and then invest the saved money.
What I recommend, is a little game:
1. Don't eat out for a whole month
2. Don't do any big purchases for a whole month
You will see how much many you usually spend, and how your mind is triggering you to buy things. It will be really hard, so instead of thinking about "oh no, I shouldn't buy this", just write a note on a piece of paper everytime you want to buy something.
At the end of the month, you will see how "stupid" you were to want a certain things. If a certain things come up on this list over and over, then maybe it could be useful.
YNAB is good if it's just you or you're the sole manager of your account, but multi-user is hard to maintain, spent more time fixing syncing issues etc. I also don't like things that claim to solve money problems by asking you for money
Well, they don't solve your money problems, nobody can do this :) They offer you a really good service, which of course they want money for. But I think its around 2,50 Dollar a month? I already saved up to 15k in the last few months, so they can have their 2,50 ;)
Unfortunately, they're going the web route for obvious reasons; but for me, I'm holding on to the desktop version as long as it can run on a Mac, which I hope will be a long time. I've backed up the installation file and my license.
Last time I have used AngularJS was in 2014, so that's why the project structure looks a bit dated. I am open to suggestions on how to improve it, or even simplify it further.
If you be honest, almost every suggestion won't work. When you feel the need to really finish a project, you just cannot hold back and start to code in the night or during your normal work day.
What I can suggest (for your sanity and social life):
- Pick the weekends (one or two days) where you code for 5-6 hours.
- Do it during your work day. If you want something out of your side project, just don't work hard enough at work so you have ressources left for yourself
- Ask your boss for a 25 hours working week or try to get one day off without salary reductation to see if you be as productive as before. If not, ask for 10% less.
Divide your side project in learning and developing.
Get a book which you can read during your commune, or even an ebook which you can read during work.And then, at home, take a weekend/one day off/two nights off to develop and code.
I also suggest the Lean StartUp method, which is not only helpful for StartUps, but also for side projects. The key is to develop in small iteration to always have a finish product you can test.
So, don't do everything, pick one little feature, develop it and see where it goes from there.
Experience (5+ with StartUps and contract projects) in JavaScript (Angular 1+2, React, NodeJS), HTML5, CSS/SASS
I can create and deploy a Microservice architecture using Docker (with DockerCloud or others).
Also: Go and a bit of Python (develop small pieces and read/debug code).
GitHub: https://github.com/gruberb E-Mail: gruberbastian /at/ me.com Website: gruberbastian.com