Career

A large percentage of people I hang out with work in tech. Most of them have only ever known salaried 9-to-5 jobs. Every few months, someone asks me how I ended up doing independent consulting. These conversations have become more frequent in the last year or so. AI-driven (or at least AI-justified) layoffs have tech workers worried about job security for the first time in a while. None of the advice you’ll read below is something that I came up with on my own. Over the years I’ve come across many online discussions and personal blogs discussing this. Every once in a while you come across something that clicks for you. None of it is groundbreaking or eye-opening either. This advice has barely changed in the last couple of decades. Yet the same questions keep getting asked online and in person, because each new person leaving salaried employment believes their situation is somehow unique. It never is. So here you go. ...

We (esp. those in the tech industry) have an instinctual aversion to pedagogy. “Those who can’t do, teach” the old saying goes. But the truth is the opposite. Teaching does not indicate an inability to do something. On the contrary, teaching empowers and enables ability. It is the highest form of understanding. When you teach something, you gain a deeper mastery over the subject matter than you would as a passive student. As Leonardo da Vinci said: ...