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Ending the week with a bang πŸ’₯

October 28th, 2023 (12 months ago) β€’ 2 minutes

3 most important capital to leverage

  • Human Capital - What skills improve over time.
  • Social Capital - Our ability to build connections and influence others.
  • Reputational Capital - What people think of us.

Day-to-day work often inhibits the growth of these capitals, so we need to be more intentional about growing them. Patrick mentioned that many things we do on the job don't really matter in the long run, which I agree with - we are essentially machines churning tickets every week and collecting paychecks at the end. So, we should make more efficient use of our time to level up.

Prefer Working on Things We Can Show

  • A good example is working on OSS (Open Source Software) as it majorly increases our social and reputational capital.
  • Building in public is something we should strive to do more now as hard work != reward; impact and visibility do.
  • Produce artifacts, i.e., publish more articles, share resources, and join conferences.
  • Choose jobs that allow you to showcase your work.

Prefer To Work Where People Can See You

  • No need to optimize for 'sexy' projects, but pick those with impact and visibility.
  • Overworking on a highly technical project < Working on a high-impact, low-technical project.
  • Networking is very important (DevRel (Developer Relations) people often have better job prospects after leaving their position).
  • Start a blog and collect an email list (Be consistent).

Prefer To Work On Things You Can Keep

  • 90% of all shares of early-stage startups are worthless.
  • Invest money in index funds rather than in company-provided stocks.
  • Don't throw OSS artifacts directly to the public; instead, build more web presence β€” create artifacts/community around it, i.e., Reddit, blog posts, etc.

References

I admit a lack in several areas of these and should really work on polishing:

  • Impact & Visibility > Sexy project
    • Focus on more visible project across the team instead of the latest coolest thing
  • Networking
    • Start having regular coffee chats from now
  • Web presence
    • Consistent blogging and try contributing to OSS