From me to Scott:
Exactly. You got it. That is the number one reason why we do the codes.
I think you'll find after a couple of these that the guilt feeling will go away.
Once you understand how to get the students to develop their ruby careers, you won't need the Amazon codes to make you feel less guilty for taking their money and then your classes will even be more popular and efficient. Takes a while to get to that though. Not easy, a lot of work. But if you get there you have a good side business which will make 50-100k+/year. All cash. If you can do this then you have a more pleasant lifestyle in addition to a side business. And your demeanor of how you deal with stress at work will change; work will be less stressful and a lot easier also. Big win.
Kinda similar to tutoring someone in math. Once you see them get A's, that is priceless. And once people see that you will have unlimited customers.
dc
Notes to myself: I'm trying to keep Scott focused on creating a better lifestyle for him and his family. When I was a kid growing up I always looked up to people who had their own businesses because they not only had a better lifestyle but they were also leaders of usually good personal values. Scott eventually will get there then everybody will wonder how he did it. Hard work and patience.
Thank You email from Scott:
Doug,
Thanks for the advise and in the mean time I hope the tests go well
and that you start feeling better. I'll keep you posted on the event
and will go ahead with the rest of the schedule I bursts over the next
week(s)
Also, Sebastian is confirmed to talk about Scalr for deploying an
auto-load balancing auto-scaling solution for the last class. I am
driving the content of the class with real world examples and i like
supporting the local startups.
Thanks again for everything.
That means a lot to me.
And a response to Mike's email:
Hi Mike: team sounds very promising. Definitely look into it. People are very good. Steve Chen is a genius. If he is working there daily the company is a cant miss, looks like he is there just a part time advisor though.
Those cofounders look young, I'm not sure if they are susceptible to all the traps along the way which can hinder growth. I don't know them as people. I don't see anyone from Google working there fulltime on their engineering staff in a senior leadership position. Google has good track record of retaining good people.
If I read carefully I would want to know who their VP/Directors of Engineering are. More than some programmers who can program really fast. Somebody with 10+ years systems experience, etc... not just people with UI experience which is the easiest to get.
My advice, if it makes sense, would be to position yourself as a data mining machine learning advisor and do a couple of these companies if you can in return for stock and cash. You have more ability than working at a single company at a time and you have clearly outgrown the corporate jobs like working at Google in the machine learning dept. There would be a lot of politics in those companies. Politics isn't worth your time. Do what the VCs do, they dabble in a couple companies at time. That way they learn more, have more fun and make more money, all at the same time, without wasting their time on meaningless corporate politics.
Keep on doing what you are doing, as you grow your public reputation, more companies like this will come to you. I'd take this job offer as a sign you are doing the right thing. There are more coming. This is just an indicator variable. You can set the bar a lot higher and have a lot more fun buildiing a lifestyle vs. just taking a single job. But you have to figure out what that is and what it looks like. Try to figure out what they want, what people see in you, and build on that. And then if you can see if you can create more Mike Bowles' then you are really really powerful. That is very exciting. Most people can't do what you are doing. Somewhere along the way you worked your butt off to get to this. Don't sell yourself short.
It may be they insist you work there full time. If so then that looks like a good one to try out. If you can do it in a way that doesn't prevent you from growing your public reputation then that would be good. The skill level you show off when you are doing the classes and talks are very impressive.
hope this helps. you know all of this anyway.
dc
------ Original Message ------
Received: 09:45 AM PDT, 10/21/2010
From: "mike_bowles"
To: "'Doug Chang'"
Subject: i need a startup
Doug,
Do you know of the startup? The founder is Sakina Arsiwala and there are several other google players ( Rajeev Motwani (RIP), Gideon Yu, Ron Conway, Steve Chen, David Lee, Aydin Senkut) involved. They've only got 3 people and are looking for data mining. Damn that sounds good to me.
MIke
Mike is going to make it also. I think I'll go remind him of that this evening in his class.
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