Every blade of glass is a different shade of green

4 points by emrahyalaz 15 years ago | 10 comments

Hi, this is my second post on Hacker News, and I read it every week or so. My name is Emrah, and I'm a seasoned entrepreneur with complementary skills to a hacker (capturing user stories, figuring out human needs, UX, architecture, agile methods, merciless testing to break your code over and over again) and have access to lotsa money. I would like to co-found with 1-2 exceptional humans who can code, and dis-intermediate a large industry that will see tremendous demand thanks to baby boomers (thank you Drucker for making us rich, again).

I am an ex-introvert geek (I hacked my mind successfully to see the other side). So are many of my friends. But they are not here. I moved to San Francisco after riding 7 months around the country on a GS1200 (swam with sharks and got stranded on an island:). I don't know many people here in the industry (just one Stanford CS professor, who is a close friend). I'm looking for intelligent, imaginative, and brave engineers who have an appreciation for irony and distaste for blind status quo. I deeply respect Graham, DeMarco, Brooks, Weinberg and Spolsky. I applied what they wrote over and over to win with position+tempo+material (I think chess strategy dominates all business strategy).

So here's my question to the Hacker community, I am looking for some of you: intelligent, passionate, gets things done, and excited about making something people will like. Now, HOW would you meet and gently seduce YOU to build something great, if you were to ride into an American city where you don't know anybody?

Nice to meet you virtually:)

Make something people will like. All else follows.

Emrah

PS: To switch from introvert to extrovert, especially to attract a mate, I found the first step is to let go of guilt/shame/regret etc. They all are exotic forms of self-torture. Smart people like exotic mental expressions to amuse themselves;)

j_baker 15 years ago |

For the record, it sounds like you haven't made the transition from introvert to extravert. You've made the transition from shy to not shy. :-)

That said, my advice is to hit up various meet up groups or go somewhere like noisebridge. Find someone who's interested in what you're working on, and then... Just ask. It's really not totally different from asking someone to go out with you if you think about it.

emrahyalaz 15 years ago | |

Oh, and no luck at meetups. Nobody so far seemed smart or passionate enough to build something great. Perhaps I'm missing the good ones.

wallflower 15 years ago | | |

Interesting question(s) to ask if you want to cut to the meat of someone's core. The first is "What is your story?" and when they naturally stare at you like "Huh?" - you answer your own question (prime the pump). Tell them who you are and where you want to go. Reveal some insecurity but confidence. And then you pause and wait confidently for the other person to start talking, with a bit of who they are. Done with honesty, you can cut the smalltalk bullcrap and start talking about what matters in life.

The other question: "When were you last lucky?"

Remember success comes from connecting and helping people. Not from not listening

j_baker 15 years ago | | |

If you're an extravert (which I don't doubt), then you may have a problem with judging people based on what you see on the outside and not digging any deeper. There isn't necessarily anything wrong with that. It's just that sometimes you have to appreciate depth as well as breadth, especially when you're dealing with a field that tends to attract introverts like programming does. This may or may not be you though. I haven't met you to figure it out though.

emrahyalaz 15 years ago | |

That may be true:) Although I test this with new people I meet, and they label me as an extrovert:) Especially, people who know myers-briggs label me an extrovert now. I liked certain aspects of being shy. There is a very subtle satisfaction from being isolated deep into one's mind. A very, uhm, masturbatory satisfaction. kinda like coding;)

markchristian 15 years ago |

Hacker Dojo, down in Mountain View, is a nifty hackerspace down started by a few friends of mine. There are always clever people congregating there.

emrahyalaz 15 years ago | |

hacker dojo, check! When is the best time to show up as a stranger? Thank you Mark Christian, you are an honorable person of good taste:)