Congratulations on being wise enough with your money at such a young age to do your research and ask questions. That's exactly what you should continue doing, as it will pay off in the long run far more than any single investment you can make right now.

Along those lines I would invest a small amount of that money in some basic books about money that will help you develop a fundamental philosophy about your relationship with money and building wealth. Ebook, blogs and apps all have their benefits, but you really should have a basic financial library of physical books you can have on hand.

Your Money or Your Life:
https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780143115762

The Simple Path to Wealth: Your road map to financial independence and a rich, free life:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1533667926%5D(https://www.amazon.com/dp/1533667926/

The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing https://www.amazon.com/dp/1118921283/

The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy https://www.amazon.com/dp/1589795474/

That short list is in no way complete, but will get you started.

As far as websites/blogs/free reads here's a few to consider:

http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Main_Page

https://yourmoneyoryourlife.com/book-summary/

http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/blog/

https://www.thesimpledollar.com/

It's great that you have a nice little lump sum of money to invest right now, but the key to building wealth generally won't involve lump sums every now and then and finding places to put them. The key is to discipline yourself to set aside portions of any amount money that comes in and have an automatic system to invest it and let it grow without touching it.

Have a plan for every paycheck, bonus, tax refund, inheritance, bank heist money :) you come into to have a portion funneled into your investments before you're tempted to find other, unlimited, things to do with it.

This is the greatest book probably ever written on that concept:

http://www.ccsales.com/the_richest_man_in_babylon.pdf

Having a goal, a plan for getting there, and the discipline to actually execute it will make you wealthy. Wealth gives you choices, freedom, and opportunity, and the earlier you start building it, the easier it will be to have these things. If you don't appreciate how important those are to living a good life, I guarantee you will in the years ahead.

At some point you will hear the name Warren Buffett (if you haven't already). He's the single greatest investor who's ever lived and my personal favorite. Once you have the basics down, and you might have further interest in investing I would recommend studying him. Even though there are countless books and websites devoted to him, he's already left us nearly everything you need to know about investing right there on his simple company website in the form of his annual letters--basically a free master class on investing, written by a genious who also happens to have great wit:

http://berkshirehathaway.com/letters/letters.html

In a much broader sense beyond investing, there is a book more than a hundred years old that discusses getting to wealth in a very interesting and powerful way. I've used it as inspiration from a standpoint as a business person, but I think it's worth studying seriously for anyone trying to build wealth.

I believe you can still get a free copy here:

http://scienceofgettingrich.net/subscribe.html

If you don't want to subscribe, just Google "The Science of Getting Rich".

And here's a good audio version as well:

https://archive.org/details/TheScienceofGettingRich

No matter what philosophy and path you take, I always include another personal recommendation to set aside a small portion of your portfolio into something "alternative" that interests you and might have the potential to build or at least preserve wealth. For me it's basically precious metals, and more specifically collectible silver and gold coins. I've also collected old paper money, stamps, stock certificates, rare books, and music and movie memorabilia all to a lesser degree. Keeps things interesting, and sometimes you can do pretty well with experience and a little luck.

And best of luck to you!


*Edit: Sp+fixed links, and here's my best TLDL:


Buy physical copies of some basic wealth building books. Consider :

Your Money or Your Life: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780143115762

The Simple Path to Wealth: Your road map to financial independence and a rich, free life:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1533667926/

The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing https://www.amazon.com/dp/1118921283/

Read "The Richest Man in Babylon" and follow the concept of always paying yourself first:

http://www.ccsales.com/the_richest_man_in_babylon.pdf

Warren Buffett is an investing God. If/when you're ready to learn more, just start here:
http://berkshirehathaway.com/letters/letters.html

Read and/or listen to "The Science of Getting Rich":

http://scienceofgettingrich.net/subscribe.html

https://archive.org/details/TheScienceofGettingRich

Diversify a small portion of your wealth with physical assets you can hold and that might have a lifelong interest to you. A quick recommendation would be to start with 5% of your portfolio in precious metals, perhaps a small variety of silver bullion coins and bars. (I'd be happy to give you specific suggestions on these if wanted).

*edit, I hit save thinking it would save a draft, this post is still in progress Done finally

To be as helpful as possible I'm going to break out of ELIF mode:

Since this post got much larger than I expected, I'm going to cover 4 things in detail in this post, in order of importance IMO:

• Costs
  
• Aggressiveness: Value vs. growth
  
• Diversification
  
• Active vs index funds
  
  The biggest drag on any long term investment investment is costs. If you're buying individual stocks it's the trading fee, if you're buying a mutual fund it's the investment fee. Either way over a long period of time, large fees can break a portfolio. If you're buying your own stocks you're paying a ~$5 fee every time you buy or sell a stock. With $1000 in the market buying a stock will cost .5% of your entire nest egg, and selling the stock again will cost you the same. This means that your stock will have to go up by %1 just to break even. If you had $10000, the stock would only need to go up by %.1 to break even. With how much money you have with a mutual fund the fund often charges fees based on a percentage of the money you have in here. According to vanguard full disclosure I have an IRA with them. The industry average is 1.15% This means for every $1000 you keep in a mutual fund for a year, the fund manager/owner will take $11.15, with vanguard the average expense ratio is .21%, you're looking at paying ~$4/year with them. that's about as much as it would cost to buy or sell one stock at the $5 price I assumed, and it seems that $5 for a trade is a bit low even.
  
  One of the major risk categories in terms of investing is categorized as value vs growth investment. wiki. As a general rule, value investment is buying something you know to be a good value: say McDonalds, or burger king. These two companies have been around forever, and their sales, market penetration etc. are fairly stable so you know they're going to generate a profit. Because everyone and their brother knows they're going to generate a profit, they're low risk but low reward. Compare this to growth stocks, continuing the fast food analogy you would be investing in an up and comer. Take someone like chipotle, or jack in the box. They've proven themselves in their regional markets, and they hope to go national. There is a lot of potential for them to make a lot of money, but at the same time they could fall flat on their face. They might not turn a profit, but they're still growing. At today you are buying a fraction of 50 stores, but next year it could be 200 stores, or maybe the company will fall into bankruptcy. Because of these uncertainties growth stocks tend to be riskier, but provide greater rewards. As a younger investor you're much more open to growth stocks and funds than someone who is older.
  
  Another major component to long term goals is diversification: While it is easy to associate this with risk, it really has little to do with 'risk' in the investment sense. What diversification aims to do is to make sure you're exposed to lots of major parts of the economy. This allows you to hopefully do well no matter what part of the business or market cycle you are in. In some times tech is doing better, in others manufacturing, real-estate, etc. Additionally you can diversify in terms of risk levels, extremely risky, to strong value stocks. What diversification does is makes sure you've got your fingers in different investment types. You can be well diversified and still be as growth or value oriented as you want. I can't easily find any hard and fast studies about diversification, but here's a good theoretical that supports other studies I've seen linky
  
  Another thing to consider is active portfolio management vs. index funds. About.com has a very good read on it, that links to studies etc. but here's the quick and dirty. An active fund is a fund managed in the end by a person, and what they believe the market will do. A index fund is a fund managed by a set of rules, with a pretty fixed breakdown of what types of stocks and bonds it will hold. Time and time again, index funds tend to do slightly better than average, while active management tends to yield better than average or worse than average results (well duh.) Long story short is when looking at active management of funds, it's often hard to tell if the fund is truly better than average, or just getting lucky. Sometimes this is true over a large time frame an active fund can be getting lucky for 5-10 years just to pretty much completely crash unexpectedly. Here's the major point, if you're buying your own stocks you're pretty much your own active portfolio manager, going up against people that do this for a living. You have the advantage of not having to pay their salary, but they spend a lot more time studying than you, however generally the costs associated can be much higher if you're going on your own.
  
  In conclusion: (whew! finally) In your situation I would offer an index based mutual fund. First, because you aren't investing a lot of money by wall street terms, your goal should be to keep your costs low. Mutual funds offer a good way to do that. For the cost of one trade or two a year, you can own a fund with exposure to many stocks. It's good to be aggressive at your age, and you can find mutual funds that cater to those aggressive tastes. Diversification, is always a good idea, and buying an individual stock wouldn't provide that. Again you can be diversified in many areas and still be aggressive. At your risk tolerance I would focus more on diversifying across industry rather than across value and growth options. Lastly in terms of active vs. passive or index portfolio management, index seems to be the slow and steady. If you go with an active manager, it's hard to tell if they're lucky or good. If they're lucky it will eventually come back to bite you, and chances are they're lucky, although this point is definately a distant fourth to the other three.
  
  **I am not a financial adviser, this is not investment advice etc. etc. etc. seriously the best thing you can do is go out and read on your own. I found the book The Boglehead's Guide to investing Very valuable, but you can get a lot of same information from their forum

Yeah, I was atheist for ~ 4-5 years during college. I'm 23 now and consider myself a nonaffiliated theist.

I grew up vaguely Christian. My father and mother had, respectively, been raised in Protestant and Catholic churches and had had issues with their practices. My brother and I were never raised in any church, but were told that God exists.

I also had a number of "spooky" experiences growing up. Ghosts. A dead great-aunt maybe visiting me before family deaths. These mainly occurred during my high school years. They make me strongly believe in some sort of afterlife. I describe them here.

In college, I grew skeptical of God -- Problem of Evil, the incompatibility of free will and "a divine plan", and whatnot. I adopted a materialistic worldview, and my spooky past experiences were essentially ignored because they couldn't be reconciled. But they humbled me and made me a bit skeptical of my own worldview.

I graduated this year in March with a BA in philosophy. I needed some sort of direction/purpose, but, after reading Change of Heart and Predictably Irrational I grew skeptical of human reasoning. And of course our senses and memories are flawed. Of all the animals in the world, from worms to cows, with all their limited perceptions of the world, why do we humans assume that we have a correct perception of the world?

I concluded that we can't have a firm, certain grasp on anything. And so my endeavor to live the best life was impossible. And my reliance on science and reasoning were shattered because humans and their reasoning are flawed.

• Note that science is built upon theories/principles of knowledge founded in empiricism, a school of metaphysics. Science uses metaphysical and epistemological principles and applies them to the world. But science isn't capable of looking at its foundational principles. That's a job for philosophers.
  
  
• And science makes only objective observations, not normative ones. Science can't make moral claims. It can inform morality, but it can't arrive at moral conclusions alone.
  
  
• On top of that, we have no fucking clue what consciousness is or how it arises. The Problem of Other Minds reminds us that we can't be sure of who or what is also conscious. We just do our best to make sense of how something acts and how much its anatomy resembles ours (because I know that at least I'm conscious.)
  
  On top of that, as a graduate, I no longer had college professors telling me what to do. I had no clear goals in life to work towards. And so now, post-college, all the responsibility was on my shoulders to choose what to do and pursue with my life. That's a big responsibility. But how do I make decisions if I have no certain grasp on anything? I spiraled into depression.
  
  So I sought wisdom.
  
  I talked to friends and family about wisdom. I looked at the Greek philosophers who spoke of wisdom and virtue.
  
  I looked at all the major religions to see what wisdom they might hold. I looked for patterns between them in hopes of finding something universal that they all described.
  
  I also became increasingly focused on immediate sensory and intuitive knowledge as opposed to the theory and abstract nature of science and philosophy. I started reading from NDERF's archives of self-reported near-death experiences to look for patterns.
  
  -----
  
  ....
  
  Anywho, I've arrived at the conclusion that everyone does their best to make sense of the world. I try not to judge others. Even if they're Mormons or Scientologists or Wiccans. I have my spooky history. I've come to believe that an afterlife exists. I see what others think about the supernatural, and I see if it appeals to me. I think Sikhism is pretty reasonable and beautiful, and I think my attachment to the afterlife belief almost obligates me to believe in a higher power. Sikhs seek to create and maintain chardi kala, a happiness in life by being content and thankful, which greatly appeals to me. But Sikhism does have a fair bit of ritual (albeit with legitimate purpose) and some guru praise which, given my history, seems a bit too much of a commitment.
  
  What I can say with some certainty is that it's good to live a life of virtue. It is good and feels good to help others. It's good to enjoy life and not take it for granted. Everyday, I consciously make an effort to be virtuous and to be thankful for my blessings. Veganism and activism are obvious applications of virtue and helping others. If God exists, I thank It everyday for all the good I experience. I thank it for the beauty in the world. As flawed as the world is, it's certainly more wonderful than horrible.

First, I feel like I was in the exact same place you were when I was 15, back in 1997. However, I didn't listen to my parents when they gave sound advice about saving and investing. Luckily, I managed to turn things around by the time I was about 25. Now, I've got over $200K invested and saved and my wife and I just got back from an eastern Europe road trip over the xmas break and didn't have to think twice about money. We still make a budget for everything and spend as little as we can.

Here are the 4 pillars of finance. They are all equally important and you need to know what part they all play.

• Banking
  
• Savings
  
• Budgeting
  
• Investing
  
  This book will be a great introduction for you. You can get it used on Amazon for $10, or better yet, try to find it at your local library, or your school library.
  
  When I was 15, I made minimum wage by working at a fast food restaurant, great way to get money. I usually spent all that money on taking my girlfriend out on dates to restaurants and movies, and on gas for the car and the car payment itself. It will be difficult, but staying single will save you a lot of money. Or, splitting the bill on dates will at least help. If you have to buy stuff, try to buy it used. The best way to accumulate money is to only spend it when you absolutely have to.
  
  
• You don't need an awesome car, just a cheap one that will get you around or a bike if your town is conducive. Take the bus, or car pool with friends as much as you can to save on gas.
  
• If you're out with friends, don't spend money if you don't have to, or at least only spend a little on cheap stuff, like just a cheeseburger and water, not the $8 value meal. Your friends may look at you weird now, but they'll look back on it later and see how smart you were.
  
• You don't need awesome clothes, so don't waste your money on that. Same goes for gadgets, or at least try to buy them used, only if you must have it.
  
• Stay home as long as your parents will allow, even in college if you can.
  
• Before you start investing, become familiar with investing. You can read all you want for free at Investopedia. They have great videos too. The Motley Fool is not a great place for beginners, but this page is ok. Seriously, don't read anything else on that website, it's mostly BS.
  
• I'm not trying to ruin your childhood with these suggestions, but there are tons of free things you can do with friends or inexpensive things. You don't have to spend money to have a good time.
  
• Ask your parents if there are things you can do around the house for allowance. Ask them if they will give you your week of lunch money up front and let you keep it, even if you spend it on bread and lunch meat and take a sandwich everyday. Save that left over money! DON'T spend it on crap foods and candy in vending machines. It's not "extra" money to waste, it all adds up.
  
  As you get older:
  
  
• Credit cards can deplete you of all your money, very fast. DO NOT GO INTO DEBT. If you do get a credit card, do not use it unless you have the money to pay it off right away. This will ruin your life, not kidding. No amount of rewards points or "cash back" is worth going into even $1 of debt. When I was 15, I couldn't get a cell phone plan unless I had good credit. However, they did let me get the account if I could pay a deposit of $150. Hopefully, your parents will do this for you though.
  
• If you don't get a scholarship and your parents can't pay for college, DO NOT GO INTO DEBT by taking out student loans. Go to a local state college or community college and try to pay your tuition with cash. You might miss out on some of the cultural aspects of a university, but you'll still get your education and I've never been turned down for a job because I went to a community college instead of an expensive university.
  
• Once you've read up on the basics of investing, read this book, you can get it used for under $5 or free at your local library.
  
• Another great book that taught me a ton about accumulating wealth is The Millionaire Next Door. It might not all make complete sense right now, but it will demystify what it really means to be rich.
  
  Wow, this post got a little long winded. I've got plenty of other advice information that I've learned over the years. I'll try to post it later when I get a chance. Last bit of advice, as for investing, take your time, don't be in a hurry. Make sure you know what you're doing before investing your money in anything. Good luck!
  
  Edit: I just read the bit about you living in Finland and having free school. Rock on! I'll leave the advice about student loans and community college for others.

Caution: Wall of text to follow.

Firstly, congrats on caring at a young age about your finances. That's something not a lot of people can say. With that being said I'll like to take each of your paragraphs in turn and answer your questions at the end.

NOTE: If you just want answers to your questions and not my advice skip ahead.

> While I believe that there are some truths behind "Money doesn't buy happiness", it is a lot easier to be happy knowing that you are well-off.

As a word to the wise from someone a little further down the road let me just say there is more truth than you yet realize in those 4 simple words. Many people don't come to see the truth till their old age looking back on a life filled with regret, so take some time now and seriously contemplate it, because the reality is in 85 very short years you'll likely be dead, and all you ever had will belong to someone else. If the only happiness you get in this life is seeing dollars in your bank account you'll miss out on a lot.

> The leading cause of divorces are because of financial issues. I mean, that has to speak for something.

In the vast majority of divorces it's not a lack of money that's the problem, it's a lack of agreeing on what to do with the money that is. Marriage can work below the poverty line, and above the 1% line. The financial issues of marriage aren't solved with just "more money!"

> I want to be able to support myself, other family members who aren't as well off, and be able to buy my kids (if I have them) a car, pay for their college funds, etc.

Supporting your own family is honorable, but beware when helping out "less fortunate" family members. There are many, many problems that can arise from that if not done properly, and enabling a family member will only make their situation worse, not help them.

> I don't want to be a doctor. Or a lawyer. . . . . who can bank at least a million in one year.

That is a very big dream, but it's not unrealistic. Big dreams are good, and as long as you can approach them level headed they help give you focus. I say that your dream is worthwhile, and although I caution against greed as it can destroy you and your life, there is nothing wrong with wanting to be a CEO making $1,000,000.

ANSWER TO YOUR QUESTIONS

> So tell me. Where do I start investing and also building my way up to becoming the CEO of a company?

You start right where you are. There is nothing stopping you from pursuing your dream now. Begin with learning. Learn what it takes to be a CEO, learn how other CEO's have done it, learn what your talents are. There will be much learning for you starting out.

I recommend the internet and a library card. Read a CEO's biography (it's as close as you'll come to getting to interview some CEO's). How is it that Donald Trump was able to go from rags to riches twice?! What would it take for you to do that? Learn all there is to learn about running a business, being a leader, and leading a successful venture.

> At what age?

NOW! Bill gates was already writing software and starting Microsoft at your age (not to say you're behind or anything like that.) There is no age limit on being a CEO, and there is certainly no age limit on learning and working hard.

> What majors in college should I be looking at?

This will be up to you and what you feel you would be good at. Do you want to be a CEO just to be a CEO, perhaps some business major then? Learn from other CEO's stories and what they majored in.

> And at what colleges?

Personally there is little impact based on what school you choose. There are CEO's that never went to college, and there are CEO's that went to Yale/Princeton.

The fact is it takes maybe $200 to start an LLC and call yourself a CEO, no college degree needed. What comes after that is actually making the money! In order to do that you have to provide a good or service that people want. The more people you make happy, the more money you'll get.

Something you should know now is that starting a company, and running a company is HARD WORK. I know some owners of start-ups that had to work 60 - 90 hours a week with little to no sleep to build their business. I know others who fell into the CEO position because their daddy owned the company, and they were lazy, and thanks to their lack of action the company collapsed.

> And of course, looking to do this in a legal way.

Welcome to America :), where hard work, sacrifice and the willingness to learn and strive can and do payoff.

One last piece of advice: Don't be a jerk. When you become the CEO of a company and you are making the millions, when you someday are the hotshot, don't look down on those around you. Remember where you came from, and those that helped you along the way, and there will be those that will help you!

People will always respond better to someone who is nice than someone who is a jerk.

Here is some recommended reading once you get that library card:

• Start by Jon Acuff
  
  
• EntreLeadership by Dave Ramsey
  
  
• I will teach you to be Rich by Ramit Sethi
  
  
• The millionaire next door by Thomas Stanley
  
  
• The seven habits of highly effective people by Stephen Covey
  
  There are many more books, but that's a start.
  
  Jon Acuff went from amateur blogger to best selling author, and is a great motivational writer. His books make me want to run a marathon, and are good for motivating you.
  
  Dave Ramsey went from bankruptcy to running a 300 person business and earning in the %1 of earners in the nation with a national brand. His book is about being a leader in business and you'll need to lead if you want to be CEO. It's a hard job, and not nearly as cushy as you might think.
  
  Thomas Stanley is a researcher who studies those with a net worth over $1M and his book will show you that being rich doesn't contradict with a frugal lifestyle.
  
  The others and highly recommended in general!
  
  The fact is you'll need to grow up, turn off the TV, and look weird to your friends. How many 15 yr olds do you know reading books about how to run a company and studying up on what it takes to be a CEO, or how to start a business? I don't know many, but I do know that at 17 years old William Gates III started a joint venture with Paul Allen (their first business). They both went on to make the top 20 richest billionaires list. Bill still holds the top spot.
  
  If you want to be rich, you want to be a CEO, then work at it. Work at it now, work at it often, and work at it always. I have no doubt if you dedicate yourself you can do it. The fact of the matter is that most people reading this are tired just thinking of the work it takes to be CEO, and that's why they never will be.
  
  Best of luck on your future success, and don't forget the little people.
  
  ~ Dragon J.
  
  Edited for formatting.

Hey eggshellmoudling! I'm at work so I can't pull up many references, but I'll see if I can help with some of your questions here.

First, the question of income inequality being a threat, and how it relates to redistribution. I definitely agree with your assessment of the last answer. It was more of a condonement of wealth redistribution than an explanation of the problem we (saying that as a libertarian, but I don't speak for all of us) have with calling income inequality a threat. In and of itself, wealth inequality is simply a consequence of how society is working. I think that a good argument could be made that inequality IS a threat in a system like we find ourselves in now, because money is so closely tied with power and rich people can use their money to influence the government and get richer. However, a small percentage of a population being incredibly rich isn't inherently bad. As long as they have come across their money in a fair (loaded word) way, as in without coercing or tricking people, they have given enough to society to merit having that amount of wealth. The only potential threat, which is a pretty minor one really, is that they don't spend their money responsibly. If, for example, they use their money to pay every person in the world to stop working, they would disrupt every market and people would starve to death. A more realistic example might be hoarding it in a place where it isn't effectively invested. If they are using the money to invest in other industries or employ people for tasks that add wealth to the system, which almost every rich person does, they aren't hurting anyone by simply being rich.
As far as redistribution goes, we believe that the current amount of inequality is heavily aided by things like redistribution of wealth and government regulations. For an example of that, say a really poor person finds out that they have a knack for orthodontics (not sure how they found that out :p) and that they could help a lot of people and make a ton of money practicing it. It wouldn't matter at all in today's system because they would be restricted by the barriers of entry to that field established by the government. Like I said before, you can argue that wealth inequality is bad right now, IMO, because the rich are so easily able to use their wealth to keep the poor poor through government coersion, which is unfair to the poor.


Second, how do we address the problem of a tiny minority controlling the wealth and allow people like you to thrive? I don't think you'll like my answer to this one, but please understand that I'm trying to be respectful and if anything comes off as rude or condescending I apologize. One way to think of wealth is as a big pool. Production adds wealth to the pool, and by adding to the pool people are allocated a certain portion of the pool. It might help to say this simple truth: there is only as much wealth in the world as is produced. That sounds simple but has huge implications. Mainly, it means that if everyone is doing the thing that they do most effectively, society as a whole benefits from a bigger pool. Now, back to your question. I have addressed the first part already, but when it comes to people that are trying hard but aren't getting a big enough portion of the pool, the fundamental reason (in a market society) is that they aren't contributing enough to earn a bigger portion. They are contributing less to the wealth of the world so they don't get as much wealth themselves. The ways to fix that are to either (1) grow the entire pool or (2) find a new way to gain more of the pool, thereby contributing to (1). That being said, I would be willing to bet that your situation is entirely different from that. For example, I highly doubt that you would feel maxed out on effort, talent, and luck if there weren't so many boundaries set up in society today.

I rambled a bit there but hopefully it was helpful. Let me know if you have questions about anything. If you are interested in why we (or at least I) believe that our system would be the best for every individual on average, I would highly recommend reading Economics In One Lesson or Capitalism and Freedom (this one is a little more difficult). They lay everything out very logically and had a huge impact on my belief system.

> For me, RP is like economics. It's a model of human behavior that is built on predictions and patterns.
> TRPers are like economists. There are many "schools" that are built around RP, some of which are more closely aligned with the model (from my perspective) and some of which are not. And just because someone says they are an economist does make them an expert in economics.
> Trying to understand RP just from reading what various TRPers write is as ridiculous as trying to understand economics from what various self-proclaimed economists write.

Actually, I'm mostly referring to the sidebar when I discuss TRP concepts. And comparing TRP to economics is a great example.

Remember why the financial crisis happened in 2008? That's right - flawed ideas of economics. There's tons of literature on how applied neoclassical economics quickly can become a self-fulfilling prophecy which apparently produces results in the short term, but in the long term spells doom.

Same thing applies to TRP. Compare the average TRPer to an investor during the pre-crisis area. The investor buys MBS-funds which seem to pay off infinitely. So he puts more and more money into it, after a while he has invested everything he owns. Sometimes people warn him that his assets are based on mortages that will immediately default, and thus are worthless in the long run. But he points at his current net worth: Can't people see that this is working? Suddenly the entire market crashes do to the innate rotten nature of his MBS funds, and he is left with no assets and a whole lot of debt.

Same thing for the TRP guy. Spends years acting in line with TRP philosophy. It ostensibly works at first, but people are telling him that his behavior will not allow him to reach his goals in the long term. He ignores them and continues his TRP lifestyle. 5 years down the line the woman of his dreams leaves him. She's tired of him dissmissing her and walking away at the slightest hint of anger from her ("Holding frame"), she's tired of him not taking her seriously ("Amused mastery") and she has grown aware of how fragile and insecure his ego is as he seems to interpret anything she says as an insult ("Passing shit tests"). Now the man is fucked.

> Ugh. I hate the direct comparison to PUA. I know little about PUA as a whole (though some of their actions do seem to line up with what I would recommend), but I know I'm not the only RPer who bemoans RP turning into something like "PUA 2.0". RP, to my mind, is not just a new form of PUA. It goes way beyond what I understand of PUA, which really seems to only focus on short-term hookups.

Every single TRP idea existed in the PUA community. The most famous part of the community (popularly seen in "The Game" By Neil Strauss) involved tips and tricks for short-term hookups. The "Inner game" part of the community is pretty much identical to TRP. Just look at videos from RSD (Real Social Dynamics) and you'll find pretty much every TRP concept there.

> Again, you are focusing on the doing and not on the being (which isn't surprising, given that many TRPers make the same mistake). It's back to the old "fake it until you make it" idea. If you know who you need to be (like, say, confident), it can be useful to emulate that quality until you actually express it naturally, but to assume that the faking it is the making it is completely off-base.

I disagree. This is a flawed way of thinking. You cannot emulate confidence until it appears. Confidence is a feeling that makes you act and feel a certain way. We know from psychology that confidence is the result of your experiences within a given field and your interpretation of that. The only thing you accomplish by acting confident is that you get better at... acting like a confident person. Most people see through that easily.

> The end goal of RP is not to "do alpha", it's to "be alpha." If you are being alpha, all the rest of the shit will fall into place.

I understand the differences her between being and doing. But if you are actively (as is promoted in the sidebar) doing "Alpha male stuff" like "Holding frame" or "Amused mastery", then you are actually just teaching yourself a set behavior. You are not actually being authentic and acting in line with your own values - which would be what the idealized "Alpha male" would do.

> I can always tell that someone just attended a class or training by the fact that their actions are so out of alignment with their being.

And this is exactly what I'm talking about! Would that leader "Be" a leader by faking it until he made it?

> My understanding of the "hypergamy" dynamic and how men and women express and feel love differently comes from years of both reading various experts and studies on the subject of human sexuality and from my countless conversations (and relationships) with other people from all walks of life, so it's hard for me to reference something off-hand. I would say that the work of David Buss goes a long way towards validating the idea of hypergamy/polygyny as base sexual drives in humans, so I would check him out for that. Not included in this discussion, but I found that Esther Parel advocates a view of sexuality that confirms the idea of AF/BB, so that's another non-RP source.

I'm familiar with David Buss and evolutionary psychology. And yes, it describes why the impulses men and women have when it comes to sex have evolved. Women have evolved to be more selective because they risk pregnancy, while for men no such mechanism has been adaptive. However, men are also strongly attracted to visual cues of genetic fitness, just like women. There is nothing gender specific about the idea of "Hypergamy" if it is merely defined as the desire for an attractive partner.

> Why is that so hard to believe?

There are plenty of reasons for this in an evo psych perspective. The most important one being that the high SMV man has other opportunities. Unless the woman is equally high in SMV, there's no way for her to know that he won't just pump and dump her, then leave her for a prettier woman. Then she's stuck with a baby and no man to protect her. Bad idea.

But in terms of real life applications, I was referring to the "Branch jumping" idea. Let's say you have a girlfriend. She meets a guy who has a better job than you, is more confident, looks better than you - he is a higher SMV male.

Does she immediately leave you if he hits on her? According to the idea of branch jumping : Yes.

> What people ideally want and what people can realistically get are two totally different animals.

Of course. I mean, If everyone got what they wanted, I'd be a space cowboy. But I'm not, and I'm still quite happy with my career. And just like I'm happy with my career, a woman can be happy with her man even though he's not the perfect man. And a man can be the same.

> Most of life requires trade-offs that result from a cost benefit analysis.

Are you applying classical economical assumptions to human behavior? Because it seems you're talking of humans as rational actors. I recommend this book by Daniel Kahneman, Nobel Prize winner in economics, which describes why humans do not fall in line with the assumption of the classical "Economic man".

> And it's interesting that you perceive polygamy as the result of patriarchal societies. I would maybe conjecture that you think that, conversely, monogamy is not a result of patriarchal societies? If so, there are many anthropologists who would disagree with you. They see enforced monogamy as something instituted by men for men and not for the benefit of women.

The old-fashioned form of monogamy is patriarchal because women had to marry. They couldn't work or go to school. Modern monogamy is not a patriarchal construct. And since we've already covered evolutionary psychology, it's worth mentioning that humans have an evolved pair-bonding mechanism which includes emotions aimed at keeping the relationship exclusive (Jealousy).

> The assertion that "women wouldn't want to share" presumes a modern setting for mating, which would be a mistake. I guarantee you that, at a time when resources were scarce and survival was a daily question, the concern over "sharing" becomes far less important than the concern over "how do I ensure the survival of my child and myself? How will I ensure that sufficient resources are available for accomplishing that?"

We agree here. If nuclear war ravaged the world tomorrow this would definately be the case.

> Additionally, it must be noted that the whole notion of humans being naturally monogamous, especially for life, doesn't really hold up in either an academic or a real world sense. Clearly, monogamy, especially life-long monogamy, is not the natural order of things for humans (otherwise, we wouldn't have all the conversations about n-counts and cheating and divorce and...). Humans have found that lifetime monogamy can work well for both parties in certain settings, but that does not mean that's what we are wired to do.

We have a drive for pair bonding, that's about it. It doesn't really make sense to talk about a "Natural order of things" with humans, the entire success of our species is contingent on us being adaptive. For a lot of people. life long monogamy will work. For a lot of people, it won't. The reasons why and why not are unique to each case and infinitely complex.

> I could write a book on this. Many authors already have. I don't have time now, but maybe we can get into it at some point. In the meantime, this is probably one of the most explored topics in human sexuality.

Sure, I'm interested.

I am going to give my perspective, but as always, your milage may vary.

>When and how did you start?

I didn't start programming until I started in college. I knew I was good at Math, and good at Science, and that I was interested in Computers. I pursued a CE degree (I was 18 at the time), and am now pursuing a Ph.D. in CS. My wife started her CS degree 1 year ago (she's now 25), after being dissatisfied with (and subsequently abandoning) a degree in Marketing. For the sake of mentioning it, we both started with Java.

My real point is: I don't think it's ever too late to start. If you're sincerely interested, your passion will take you far.

> What are some daily things you do that drove/drive you to your goals?

I consider programming a type of carpentry, and so, I strive (and don't always succeed) to program as much as I can, in as many languages as I find interesting. So far, I've programmed in Java, Python, Javascript, C#, C, Objective-C, and Lisp. It can be daunting to learn new programming languages, but I wouldn't worry. I got around to playing with each one because I found they were good tools for things I wanted to do. In academic circles, I believe that's called "project-based learning," where you learn as much as you need in order to complete some project or task.

> What books do you recommend, ones that have had a huge positive impact in your professional career?

I absolutely love the Head First series, and it made me value my own unique learning style (which in turn led me to discover that I learn better through projects). I own 6 Head First books, and I absolutely love each and every one of them.

My wife recently discovered (and I also really enjoyed) the book Cracking the Coding Interview, which is a concise review of the fundamentals of programming, as well as very good guidelines for doing well in your coding interview.

> What advice do you give to junior programmers that want to plunge into open-source community but are just overwhelmed by the amount of complexity in most of this projects?

If you're just starting out, I would start your own project to do something you want to do. The chances are that, in doing so, you will leverage someone else's tools, and in turn, you may discover that a tool you're using...
...has an obscure bug, or
...would be really great if it had this one other feature

You then contact the project lead (or project board of directors), and state your case, and then...BAM. You're an Open Source contributor.

> Which work-related fields are you most interested in?

I am a fan of artificial intelligence, and I think it's the bees knees. I also do game development, which I enjoy very much.

> What was your first big investment after your degree?

I bought a car, mostly because I needed it. Bear in mind, I am on a graduate student salary, which isn't necessarily the most financially rewarding position out there.

If you have any other questions, or if you would like me to go more in-depth into some of the previous questions, do let me know. :)

I'm trying to be more on the SEO/IM side of things for my own personal affiliate sites so in my opinion, the best way to learn is trial and error. I put a bunch of things online and see how they do and then test and adjust. That being said, I do use a fair few other things to try and boost my knowledge.

YouTube

Steven Bartlett
24 year old owner of a successful social media marketing company in the UK, vlogs his daily life and shares a few nuggets now and then.

Valuetainment
Based on an Iranian immigrant to the USA, not 100% on his back history but the way he talks about the immigrant fire to earn money I am pretty sure he went there with little to nothing in his pocket. Judging by his house, cars and life style he has did very well. He has kind of diluted the channel recently in my opinion though by letting other people make videos for him.

Gary Vaynerchuk
Pretty much owns the entrepreneur vlogging space right now. He seems the type of guy where you either love him or hate him. Personally, I like his no BS approach of giving people reality checks on what it really takes to be an entrepreneur rather than posting photos on Instagram of a nice life.

Podcasts

How I Built This
He basically interviews a bunch of CEO/MD types of massive successful businesses. It's not really a how to type of thing but I enjoy listening to how people got their projects off the ground and I have picked up a fair few things from it.

Indie Hackers
Only recently found thing one but so far so good.

Black Hearted
I'm a bit of a fan boy when it comes to these guys to be honest, they are US military vets who now own a number of successful businesses and they get other vets on the podcast who also own their own businesses and talk about them. Its not just focused on business though but I love the military humor and get it done attitude of them.

Reading

I update this post with all of the books I have read but here are my top picks.

Zero To One
The first book that I couldn't put down until I completed it. Picked a fair few things up from it as well as a bunch of things I hope to move forward with in the future with startups.

The 33 Strategies of War
Not a business book but definitely my style if you take the examples and strategies and turn them into business. This is the second book I have not been able to put down once picking it up.

The E-Myth Revisited
Although I had a decent understanding of how to allocate duties to people depending on their job role this helped me better understand it as well as the importance of doing it.

ReWork
Another book I loved, just introduced me to a bunch of new concepts with a fair few I hope to use in the future.

Black Box Thinking
Coming from and engineering background I was already used to being ok with my failures provided I was learning from them but this book is based around how different industries treat failure and how it is important to accept it and grow from it.

The 50th Law
Currently reading it but so far i'm loving it. Never realized how much crap 50 cent had to go through and I love Robert Greene's work so I can see my classing this as a tier one book.

OK, so here is my advice.

First, some background on me so you know where I'm coming from with this. I started my own business almost 5 years ago. It's a tech company, but I think I've learned enough that there are applicable lessons, not only from my work but from the other entrepreneurs this has put me in contact with. Currently my company is self sustaining, has 5 full time employees, and Fortune 100 customers (we make B2B software).

First thing - you have to be really careful starting a business around your passion. This can be an easy way to come to hate your hobby. Remember that it is a business first. While I haven't reread it in years, you might want to read a book called The E Myth which talks about starting a small business.

Second, if you're serious about this, I hope this post wasn't some sort of customer validation experiment. Of course people here are going to be interested. However, most likely no one here is an actual potential customer. I've read some of your other answers here where you've mentioned that games sell "like hot cakes" and there is no real competition and it's a large market. If you do this without any real customer validation you're going to have a rough time at best and be out of business quickly with a ton of debt at worst. Who are your customers? How are they going to know about this place? How do you know what they are willing to pay to participate? How do you know THEY want a place like this? How do you know they are actually willing to pay you money to come to this place? A good book to help understand the various ways you can gain traction is Traction which discusses 19 different traction channels and how people have put them to use to grow their business.

Can you deal with competition? Even if there isn't another business like this in the area, how do you know someone isn't working to start one? If your business is a success will someone start a competitor? Are you ready for that? What if a month before you open a competitor beats you to it? If you have a solid business and plans to grow in place you'll be fine.

I don't know if you plant to raise money or not, but regardless of that fact, think of how you would pitch this to someone who could invest but doesn't give a crap about boardgames or pubs. Would someone who is looking at this from a purely objective money making standpoint be interested? Have you generated enough traction, attention, and interest to make this an appealing business prospect? If not, what can you do to change that? If you can't figure that out now, do you really want to wait until you're deep into this business to try and figure it out?

Set up some metrics. Probably the best way to do it for your business is to measure revenue per visit. How much profit do you expect to make per person per visit? If you are charging $4 per person and then you expect some % of them to buy additional things (food, games, drinks) - your avg per person should be over $4, obviously. How many visitors and at what average profit per visitor do you need to stay afloat? You can increase your overall profit 2 ways - increase the number of visitors or increase the average profit per visitor. You'll have some limits - you an only fit so many people in the building, for example. This will help you determine if this business can be profitable and give you an idea of where you need to be so you know early on if you're tracking well or not. Measure everything that you can.

Basically, just be careful. You're mixing your hobby with your work, but you have to remember it's a business first and foremost. Treat it like a business and be honest with yourself and you'll be fine.

Also, fried foods with games sounds like a good way to end up with a library of greasy games.

Rich Dad Poor Dad catches a lot of flak, but it's actually really good at teaching the absolute basics in an easy-to-follow manner. Like, learn what a Cash Flow Statement is, increase your asset column, learn basic accounting language, separate emotions and money, minimize taxes. Just glean the overall principles he's teaching and don't blindly follow his specific strategies.

The Richest Man in Babylon is another great, easy to read, investing 101 book.

And The Millionaire Next Door is a research-based book on Millionaires in America and what kind of habits and mindsets got them to their current wealth. It's a wonderfully refreshing read after being brainwashed by tv and movies saying that millionaires won it or stole it and live lavish lives. Most actual millionaires are pretty frugal and hard working with modest lives.

---
And here are some resources to help you learn all the new words and concepts:

• Investopedia
  
• Bogleheads
  
• Khan Academy
  -- Microeconomics
  -- Macroeconomics
  -- Finance
  
• Personal Finance subreddit
  
• Investing subreddit
  
• Finance subreddit
  
• Accounting subreddit
  
• Financial Independence subreddit
  
• Business subreddit
  
• Economics subreddit
  
  ---
  And when you get pretty familiar with the basics and want to start messing with stuff, I've enjoyed the Think or Swim paper money route. They give you $200,000 in fake money to play around with and invest and practice your strategies. It helps you get acquainted with the research and the interface and the fees for investing. It's a wonderful tool.
  
  And then The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham is supposed to be a pretty good comprehensive guide the advanced basics (is that a term?) of investing.
  
  ---
  Or if you want to skip alllll of this and just hire someone, I've read in those subreddits that you want to find a fee based financial adviser. Which you can do here.
  
  .
  
  
  I hope I've helped man! It's a lot of fun to learn about. I wish you all the best.

You own shares of mutual funds. A mutual fund is a group pool for owning stocks and bonds. The number of shares you own of the funds does not grow other than (the number might change, technically, but this is not a means of making money, but just an accounting detail), you but the value of each share you own goes up. Obviously, you get more shares when you contribute to your 401(k).

Stocks are pieces of companies. They make money by becoming more valuable over time and lose money by becoming less valuable over time. (They also sometimes distribute some of their profits directly, though not all companies do this.) The value is established by the market--what people are willing to pay. They go up and down constantly. Although you can think of the growth like interest in a lot of ways, it's not like an interest-bearing account where the value goes only up with time.

Bonds are essentially IOUs. Someone gives a bond issuer (a national or local government or a company) some money, and the issuer agrees to pay it back at a certain rate of interest over a certain amount of time. There is a chance they will default--not be able to pay back everything they agreed to. If they are trustworthy, the interest rate is very low. If they are not trustworthy, it's higher (but there's a better chance they will default). The value of a bond goes up and down as the assessment of their trustworthiness changes and as the world changes.

Within the mutual fund, the reason you get growth is either that they own more valuable assets or they own assets of similar value but more of them, depending on what the fund does with their gains. Each mutual fund you own shares in has a dedicated staff to do whatever it is you do. Traditional funds employ people who try to make smart decisions and charge you more. Increasingly popular are index funds, which try to diversify over an entire market and have much lower fees.

It is very much worth learning about investing, as it is what will enable you not to have to have a job to get by. http://www.amazon.com/Little-Book-Common-Sense-Investing/dp/0470102101 is a book many people recommend.


^Pedants ^of ^reddit: ^you ^can ^own ^things ^other ^than ^mutual ^funds ^in ^a ^401(k), ^mutual ^funds ^can ^own ^a ^small ^number ^of ^cash-equivalent ^securities ^that ^aren't ^stocks ^or ^bonds, ^and ^some, ^rare ^mutual ^funds ^pay ^dividends ^(which would probably be used to purchase more shares) ^. ^I ^decided ^for ^simplicity ^to ^assume ^(reasonably) ^that ^OP's ^401(k) ^was ^in ^absolute-return ^stock/bond ^mutual ^funds.

Yes! Also, quite honestly I don't know that many CS majors who took linear algebra at my school for whatever reason.

Where do you get started?

• If you're the type of person who likes an organized class to learn concepts, consider checking out coursera or other similar websites which offer free online learning courses! Check out their CS offerings and start from the intro.
  
  
• I must be known for spamming this SR with this, but check out CLRS, it pretty much contains most of the "CS math" you need to know for algorithms. As well as pretty much all you need to know about Algorithms and Data Structures for any basic job.
  
  
• REALLY make sure you understand your Algorithms and Data Structures, nearly every interview for a basic position centers around these topics. As well as some others, depending on the company: Bit manipulation, multi-threading, TCP/IP, etc.
  
  
• You want to learn some mainstream language as a lot of other people mentioned: C++, Java, C#, Python are a few that come to mind (though there are more like Ruby!). Side Note: Some people have differing opinions on whether C++ is good to learn as a first language. I don't know C# (but from its apparent similarity to Java) I would say C++ is probably the most difficult language to learn of the four I listed, but I feel that it also provides the most flexibility, because once you understand C++ it's easier to trainsition from C++ to Java, than say Java to C++ (similar for the other languages).
  
  
• Practice! Start working on some Project Euler problems, or other practice problems. Bonus: Someone in another thread mentioned that they made a blog post for each problem they solved and explained every one of their design decisions. This seemed like a bit over the top, but it really is a good practice for an interview and a job! You can even put a link to this on your resume to share.
  
  
• Find an Open Source to contribute to, come up with your own projects and post them on your github! This can show off your skills to a potential employer!
  
  Bonus for programming:
  
  
• When coding alone it's easy to get lost and start "hashing" together code. When you get to big projects, you'll find that this causes a lot of problems (and when working with other people it can cause even more). Some things to keep in mind when coding:
  
  
• Make sure your code is maintainable.
  
  
• Make sure your code is scalable.
  
  
• Test, test, test!
  
  Maintainable kinda means that your code is easy to test, easy to comprehend (by others) and easy to modify. Read up on different design patterns to learn more about this.
  
  Scalable is something you'll learn more about later, but basically it's kind of thinking about whether your code will be "good" enough to handle a lot of users (how fast is it how much memory will it take up)
  
  Testing is very important when coding. You want to try to write small pieces of code then test it (i.e.: make sure it works).
  
  All three of these things show up a lot in interviews, and if you can relate why you made your code the way you did to one of these three points (or something else) you should be pretty well off :D
  
  How do I land an interview?
  
  
• In your resume make sure to list any CS projects you want to mention, a link to your website (if you have one) or to other work. As well as Operating Systems you're familiar with (Linux is a big plus, but not absolutely necessary), IDE's you're familiar with (things like Eclipse, Visual Studios), and Languages you know. If you can, make sure to relate those three bullets to your project and work somehow to reiterate your experience with each language.
  
  
• A lot of recruiting is done on-campus, but there are other options, like applying online or even better...
  
  
• Network your way in. This gets your resume through the massive HR screen
  
  
• Edit, edit, edit (ask friends who are in the industry).
  
  How do I study for an Interview?
  
  Typcially, an interview will have you and the interviewer. The interviewer will first ask questions about you, what you're majoring in. And then maybe ask questions about your previous projects, and then he'll throw you a programming problem. Sometimes these can just be questions like "Which is faster: quicksort or mergsort?" or something like that, but other times they'll have you code something. If the interview is online, this will either mean you'll need to tell them the code you're writing or you'll code online on some collabarative envirionment (i.e.: you type the code online). If it's in-person they may have you write on a whiteboard. There are other formats of interviews as well, so make sure to research. Typically, for most larger companies, they won't care what language you code in (hopefully though it's mainstream!), but if you don't code in a language which they use, they may test you later for proficiency in one of their languages.
  
  
• As I mentioned before, Algorithms and Data Structures are usually go-to's for interviews, but other topics may come up so check out the req's for each job specifically.
  
  
• It may have been a while at this point since you studied your material, to brush up on interview questions, Cracking the Code Interview is a great book to brush up on your topics for an interview, it also has some resume advice, etc. if you choose to follow it.
  
  
• Be sure to practice talking out loud while you're coding, as this can help you during interviews. If you're stuck but your thought process is good an interviewer can help push you in the right direction.
  
  
• If you struggle with interviews, try having a friend who you know has experience and having him ask questions, better yet if you know a friend at the company, ask him to mock interview you.
  
  
• If you have time ALWAYS make sure you run test cases through your code mentally, and mention the test you're running and what it's supposed to catch (expected behavior) to your interviewer! If you have time and choose to ignore these, it can give the interviewer a wrong impression :\ (it also makes you look really good if you come up with all the boundary cases)
  
  Sorry, not sure if this helps or not!
  Good luck!

I've posted this before but I'll repost it here:

Now in terms of the question that you ask in the title - this is what I recommend:

Job Interview Prep

1. Cracking the Coding Interview: 189 Programming Questions and Solutions
   
2. Programming Interviews Exposed: Coding Your Way Through the Interview
   
3. Introduction to Algorithms
   
4. The Algorithm Design Manual
   
5. Effective Java
   
6. Concurrent Programming in Java™: Design Principles and Pattern
   
7. Modern Operating Systems
   
8. Programming Pearls
   
9. Discrete Mathematics for Computer Scientists
   
   

   Junior Software Engineer Reading List
   

   
   

   Read This First
   

   
   

10. Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware
    
    

    Fundementals
    

    
    

11. Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction
    
12. Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art
    
13. Software Engineering: A Practitioner's Approach
    
14. Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code
    
15. Coder to Developer: Tools and Strategies for Delivering Your Software
    
16. Perfect Software: And Other Illusions about Testing
    
17. Getting Real: The Smarter, Faster, Easier Way to Build a Successful Web Application
    
    

    Understanding Professional Software Environments
    

    
    

18. Agile Software Development: The Cooperative Game
    
19. Software Project Survival Guide
    
20. The Best Software Writing I: Selected and Introduced by Joel Spolsky
    
21. Debugging the Development Process: Practical Strategies for Staying Focused, Hitting Ship Dates, and Building Solid Teams
    
22. Rapid Development: Taming Wild Software Schedules
    
23. Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams
    
    

    Mentality
    

    
    

24. Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency
    
25. Against Method
    
26. The Passionate Programmer: Creating a Remarkable Career in Software Development
    
    

    History
    

    
    

27. The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering
    
28. Computing Calamities: Lessons Learned from Products, Projects, and Companies That Failed
    
29. The Deadline: A Novel About Project Management
    
    

    Mid Level Software Engineer Reading List
    

    
    

    Read This First
    

    
    

30. Personal Development for Smart People: The Conscious Pursuit of Personal Growth
    
    

    Fundementals
    

    
    

31. The Clean Coder: A Code of Conduct for Professional Programmers
    
32. Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship
    
33. Solid Code
    
34. Code Craft: The Practice of Writing Excellent Code
    
35. Software Craftsmanship: The New Imperative
    
36. Writing Solid Code
    
    

    Software Design
    

    
    

37. Head First Design Patterns: A Brain-Friendly Guide
    
38. Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software
    
39. Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software
    
40. Domain-Driven Design Distilled
    
41. Design Patterns Explained: A New Perspective on Object-Oriented Design
    
42. Design Patterns in C# - Even though this is specific to C# the pattern can be used in any OO language.
    
43. Refactoring to Patterns
    
    

    Software Engineering Skill Sets
    

    
    

44. Building Microservices: Designing Fine-Grained Systems
    
45. Software Factories: Assembling Applications with Patterns, Models, Frameworks, and Tools
    
46. NoEstimates: How To Measure Project Progress Without Estimating
    
47. Object-Oriented Software Construction
    
48. The Art of Software Testing
    
49. Release It!: Design and Deploy Production-Ready Software
    
50. Working Effectively with Legacy Code
    
51. Test Driven Development: By Example
    
    

    Databases
    

    
    

52. Database System Concepts
    
53. Database Management Systems
    
54. Foundation for Object / Relational Databases: The Third Manifesto
    
55. Refactoring Databases: Evolutionary Database Design
    
56. Data Access Patterns: Database Interactions in Object-Oriented Applications
    
    

    User Experience
    

    
    

57. Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability
    
58. The Design of Everyday Things
    
59. Programming Collective Intelligence: Building Smart Web 2.0 Applications
    
60. User Interface Design for Programmers
    
61. GUI Bloopers 2.0: Common User Interface Design Don'ts and Dos
    
    

    Mentality
    

    
    

62. The Productive Programmer
    
63. Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change
    
64. Coders at Work: Reflections on the Craft of Programming
    
65. Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering
    
    

    History
    

    
    

66. Dreaming in Code: Two Dozen Programmers, Three Years, 4,732 Bugs, and One Quest for Transcendent Software
    
67. New Turning Omnibus: 66 Excursions in Computer Science
    
68. Hacker's Delight
    
69. The Alchemist
    
70. Masterminds of Programming: Conversations with the Creators of Major Programming Languages
    
71. The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood
    
    

    Specialist Skills
    

    
    In spite of the fact that many of these won't apply to your specific job I still recommend reading them for the insight, they'll give you into programming language and technology design.
    
    

72. Peter Norton's Assembly Language Book for the IBM PC
    
73. Expert C Programming: Deep C Secrets
    
74. Enough Rope to Shoot Yourself in the Foot: Rules for C and C++ Programming
    
75. The C++ Programming Language
    
76. Effective C++: 55 Specific Ways to Improve Your Programs and Designs
    
77. More Effective C++: 35 New Ways to Improve Your Programs and Designs
    
78. More Effective C#: 50 Specific Ways to Improve Your C#
    
79. CLR via C#
    
80. Mr. Bunny's Big Cup o' Java
    
81. Thinking in Java
    
82. JUnit in Action
    
83. Functional Programming in Scala
    
84. The Art of Prolog: Advanced Programming Techniques
    
85. The Craft of Prolog
    
86. Programming Perl: Unmatched Power for Text Processing and Scripting
    
87. Dive into Python 3
    
88. why's (poignant) guide to Ruby

Qualifications: grew up in a very modest (i.e. lower) part of town, parents worked in blue-collar professions, and started buying a rental property in the 1960's, then dad passed away (with four kids). Now definitely intergenerational wealth, all kids went to college in STEM, parents in their 90's (step-dad helped build up RE holdings to 36 units) with holdings in the 8-figures. No I haven't inherited any of it (yet) but well into middle age myself, make very good money (and will leave it at that), and have a few RE holdings.

> I'll have manager experience. I'm also reading a book called "real estate investing for dummies" and I just finished "rich Dad poor Dad"

Good for you, I didn't start reading books on anything finance related until well into my 20's, and then I read a lot of very good books. I don't think much of Kiyosaki, frankly, but as Brian Tracy said 'to earn more you must learn more'. So don't stop, keep on reading, and especially books over blog posts and short pieces. Why? Books will have more complex ideas and more research to back it up.

Regarding your game plan: you did not indicate what you are interested in doing, and what you do well, and what people will pay you to do, and what the world needs. Take a look at this ikigai graphic. Not sure if you know that welding or sales is this for you, and of course there are other things you may grow into. But hey if you have a good idea that this is the path you want to take, good for you!

I came here to say about sales, few salespeople are on Reddit, they are very busy making lots of money to talk about it. In my own (technical) sales field base runs from $65K up to $120K with another 40% commission, but you need to have the right background (STEM college degree, experience as a customer, and aptitude for outside sales) so barriers to entry are high. So yes, six figures in your late 20's is achievable, and it does take a lot of hard work, no doubt!

Of course owning your own business as a contractor, or becoming a top welder, or tons of other things you could do, I know of plenty of people who do very well.

Regarding the end goal, admirable, and I say your thinking is in the right place. The road to FI is varied - real estate is a very good method (the way my parents went, they bought low and held onto their properties in a HCOL area), investing into index funds another good method (again read books like Boglehead's Guide to Investing, or another favorite of mine on the sidebar called The Richest Man in Babylon) The amount these books can make you over five or ten years is a lot. Over 15 or 25 years is huge.

> Even if I don't get to enjoy it

I see many piling on here saying 'you should enjoy it' but I didn't interpret this comment in that way. You realize it's a road not many take (too many live way beyond their means, and don't have savings / passive income / true wealth to show for it). Yes there's sacrifice, and it takes a long time to build up $1,500 in monthly passive income much less $15,000, but people do this and often you cannot tell. (For example, look up the book The Millionaire Next Door.)

Are you on the right path? Definitely YES. The path to financial independence starts with a mindset, and the fact you are asking the question puts you out in front of all the peers of yours who are thinking about lots of other things, which you know all too well.

Will you make mistakes along the way? Of course, we are all human. The important thing is mindset, and the great thing of being younger is that you have time to make other choices, and learn along the way.

OP! Super late reply but i hope you have the time to read. /u/ProphetThief and the children comments for that have awesome advice so I'm not gonna reiterate everything. But I just wanna give you a bit of my own experience, etc. and hope it helps!

Good job on signing up for the gym membership, I think thats the best thing for anyone who is trying to change their mindset. It's not about getting the best body or "GETTING SWOLEE". From my experience going 3-4 times a week lifting heavy weights, really changes your brain (yeah it sounds weird) and you'll feel more positive. Personally, prior to going to the gym, there would be times throughout the day when something "bad" happens, and I'll get all depressed and shit. But after going to the gym consistently, now when something "bad" happens, it's really easy to "force" my mind in a positive direction. IMO it's the best way to break out of a bad mindset.

Secondly, I read below that you like programming. Someone below gave you the link to www.freecodecamp.com which should be pretty good. I believe they teach HTML/CSS/Javascript, which is good for front-end and back-end, which means if you like web development, that's literally the most minimal amount of languages you'd need to learn. Maybe a goal you can have for the time being is to learn these skills while thinking of a cool web application that you can make. That way by the time you feel comfortable developing in those languages, you can build a project. Then you can learn new tools and build more projects with those new that. And you just keep doing this. After while you'll have a bunch of awesome projects you can put on a resume and you'll have the skills to back it up. I'll link you to some of the stuff that I found useful:

-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pB0WvcxTbCA (So you know what technologies you should learn. Yeah i know it says 2015, but it still applies)

-http://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-6th-Edition/dp/0984782850 (So you know what it takes to get a dev job)

I hope you get the chance to read this and I hope it helps! GL MAN!

Some version of this question gets posted at least once a week. Heres a repost of my normal response.

Recommended reading

Here is my suggested reading list for anyone who ever wants to be a small business owner. I like audiobooks but you can get some of these in print also.

Entrepreneur Mindset

There are several books that talk about the entrepreneur mindset. “Rich Dad Poor Dad” was one of the first that I had encountered. “Four Hour Work Week” is a popular one among young adults and lazy millennials now. But I think this one below sums it up in a relatively fast and easy way. To me there is nothing wrong in this book, but in my opinion it’s a little incomplete and inaccurate and won’t work for some people. It doesn’t say how to switch lanes, or say that you can be in two lanes at the same time. Still, it should be required reading for anyone remotely interested in business. It’s at the top of my list because the correct mindset is required before anyone can think about actually doing business.

http://www.audible.com/pd/Business/The-Millionaire-Fastlane-Crack-the-Code-to-Wealth-and-Live-Rich-for-a-Lifetime-Audiobook/B0143BEDUO


Business and Marketing

These two combined are basically an MBA in a box and then some. High level practical information. They are long audiobooks that go over the lessons of an MBA program, and the first one also covers a lot of life hacking and mind hacking theories such as how to stay motivated etc. Some of this stuff is very interesting, some if it is boring to slog through. But knowing what is in here will have you well versed to communicate about business at a high level. I have listened to both several times, I keep coming back because it’s a lot and I can’t learn it all at once.

https://www.amazon.com/Personal-MBA-Master-Art-Business/dp/1591845572

http://www.audible.com/pd/Business/Critical-Business-Skills-for-Success-Audiobook/B00UY842O8


The E Myth series basically describes how many entrepreneurs fail to implement systems in their business. It has a couple other important business concepts and is geared mainly for beginning entrepreneurs or those who have not yet studied a lot about business at a high level.

http://www.audible.com/pd/Business/The-E-Myth-Revisited-Audiobook/B002V1LGZE

Mike Michalowicz, Solid principles, Some are regurgitations of Seth Godin and E-Myth, but some are original and insightful. Not very efficient in delivery of material, seems like he stretches it out. But one of the few business authors who gets into nuts and bolts and not just rah rah. I would highly recommend.

https://www.audible.com/pd/Business/The-Toilet-Paper-Entrepreneur-Audiobook/B00FKCI3I4

https://www.audible.com/pd/Business/The-Pumpkin-Plan-Audiobook/B008CHN41K

https://www.audible.com/pd/Business/Profit-First-Audiobook/B06X15WX5B

In the world of marketing, Seth Godin is well known as a forward thinker. He has a new perspective of thinking about marketing in the internet age.
Seth Godin Startup School. This is a series of 15 short podcasts, maybe 15 to 20 minutes long each. It’s a good cliff notes version of a lot of his other books.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/seth-godins-startup-school/id566985370

http://www.audible.com/pd/Business/Purple-Cow-Audiobook/B002V0QOJS

http://www.audible.com/pd/Business/All-Marketers-Are-Liars-Audiobook/B002V1NIMI

Gary Vaynerchuk is well known in online entrepreneur forums, especially with a younger audience. He is interesting to listen to and talks at a basic level mostly about social media marketing.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfA33-E9P7FC0AoARnMLvgFgESJe4_Ngs

This is a link about fashion, but it could just as easily be about any other business. As you read it, substitute the product for your product or widgets and it makes sense.

https://moz.com/ugc/how-to-build-a-great-online-fashion-brand-34-things-that-really-amazing-fashion-retailers-do

It’s probably not necessary to read this whole book, but it’s widely referenced and it’s important to understand the theory. This guy basically coined the phrase “Lean Startup” to describe businesses that start small and apply the scientific method to determine which direction to grow. Inspired by LEAN Manufacturing methodology made famous by Toyota, but follows similar principles.

https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898


There are a lot of great posts in reddit. There are a lot of crappy ones too. But worth trolling.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/

https://www.reddit.com/r/smallbusiness/

https://www.reddit.com/r/restaurateur/ (yes it’s spelled wrong)

For example, this post basically has a step by step guide to start a small business.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/5lfy6n/4_years_ago_i_wrote_a_case_study_on_reddit_on_my/

Other links
21 Lessons From Jeff Bezos’ Annual Letters To Shareholders

https://www.cbinsights.com/research/bezos-amazon-shareholder-letters/#2000


E Commerce, Design, Online Marketing
This guy has a very interesting perspective on display tactics.

https://www.nickkolenda.com/

A good source for tactics. Also offers one of the better wordpress themes

https://thrivethemes.com/6-brain-hacks/

These guys offer great information and insight in their podcast.

https://ecomcrew.com/episode-1-welcome-to-the-ecom-crew-podcast/

Landing Page Optimization
Important for all businesses even offline, for example with restaurants these principles could help for menu design or digital signage, for other businesses this knowledge can help with advertising layouts etc.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/5-brand-strategies-uniquely-position-your-ecommerce-above-bhardwaj

https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/7-landing-page-design-tips

https://blog.kissmetrics.com/landing-page-design-infographic/

https://moz.com/ugc/how-to-build-a-great-online-fashion-brand-34-things-that-really-amazing-fashion-retailers-do

https://thrivethemes.com/6-brain-hacks/

This book discusses platform or marketplace apps, especially networking apps like Uber for x or dating apps. A must read for anyone thinking about attempting any kind of similar online platform.

https://www.audible.com/pd/Business/Platform-Revolution-Audiobook/B01DDX7MJ2

Also

http://andrewchen.co/marketplace-startups-best-essays/

A good page of links

http://www.themissionmarketer.com/digital-marketing-resources/


For Restaurants

http://www.restaurantowner.com

Very valuable stuff here. Business plan templates, etc. $30 a month for a subscription but well worth it if you are starting or running a restaurant.

https://www.restaurantmastering.com

http://www.typsy.com

Not worth the paid membership yet, but it's growing. And you can get a free trial for like a week and binge watch everything.

Dealing with delivery aggregators

https://www.reddit.com/r/restaurateur/comments/76sd1i/uber_eats_what_percentage_you_paying_em_anyone/

Disclaimer: I teach at a bootcamp in the midwest.

Here are some things I'm noticing:

1. Your job sounds like it sucks quite a bit.
   
2. You're feeling a lot of pressure to make a big move right now.
   
3. You're feeling afraid that you don't currently have what it takes to make a big move.
   
4. You've got some funds saved up.
   
   I'm going to suggest a couple of things to try before you enroll in a boot camp.
   
   
5. Spend a few hours researching job boards in your area. Make a list of jobs where you've got 50% or more of the qualifications listed, or where the thing listed is close enough to what you already know that you could learn it sufficiently quickly. Make another list of things that appear pretty frequently, and see if you can categorize them. What's in your area? In my city, we've got lots of graphic designers who mostly build out Wordpress sites, a small but growing number of startups who mostly use Rails or an MVC Javascript framework, and a whole bunch of big finance corporations who mostly use Java. Your city is probably different, but it's also got some trends.
   
6. Reach out to your network. You surely know some folks from college, from meetups, etc. Don't tell them that you need to escape your current terrible gig, but do tell them that you're looking for a change and see if they know anyone who's looking for a junior dev, especially one with a CS degree. Be frank -- you've been working mostly QA and support for the last year and a half, and you'd like to move to development instead.
   
7. Take a few days off. They can even be unpaid days (if you can swing boot camp tuition, you can swing not getting paid for a few days). Doesn't even matter if you code on those days off. Just give yourself a chance to be a person.
   
8. Pick up a copy of Cracking the Coding Interview and practice. Don't know Java? No problem. Do the exercises in a different language. Do one-sided mock interviews and record your answer with your webcam, then watch it. Don't worry about 'ums' and 'uhs' -- instead worry about clear, concise, and precise responses. (NB: almost everyone hates watching themselves talk, and almost everyone finds it excruciating. Don't worry about that part. You don't suck anywhere near as much as you think you do).
   
9. Once your finances are set (i.e. at least 6 months worth of living expenses in the bank. Even better if you've got a year of living expenses, as that'll help if you've got an emergency), quit your job.
   
   From here, it's a matter of learning. You're never going to learn everything (there's too much out there), but you can definitely learn quite a bit.
   
   If you've got a CS background, you should be able to pick up the basics of Ruby on Rails. Michael Hartl's Rails Tutorial is pretty commonly cited; if you want to do web development, go through this tutorial twice. Maybe three times. Then start building projects on your own. Alternatively, Daniel Kehoe's Learn Ruby on Rails is also pretty commonly cited.
   
   A good understanding of Rails, plus a solid foundation in HTML, CSS, and Javascript/jQuery will make you a reasonably compelling junior developer for a company that builds web applications. Doubly so if you can show off a few good personal projects. A good bootcamp (like the one where I teach) will give you a structured and guided opportunity to learn these skills. A terrible boot camp will also give you this opportunity, but you'll have to work a lot harder on figuring out how to make it all happen.
   
   In addition to self-study and building projects, start attending meetups and actually talk to people.
   
   If you do decide to start looking at different boot camps, here are some questions to ask:
   
   
10. What will we be learning?
    
11. What sorts of jobs do graduates have?
    
12. What are your placement rates? How many graduates have internships after graduating, and how many go into full-time jobs? What sorts of support do you provide graduates who are searching for jobs? How long does it usually take for all the graduates from a given class to find jobs?
    
13. What is the typical experience for new graduates in their first 6 months as an employee?
    
14. What are some examples of student projects? What are some examples of average work? Some examples of really stellar work?
    
15. What opportunities will I have to design and build a project of my own determining? How many portfolio pieces can I expect to have by the time I graduate?
    
16. What are some examples of typical days?
    
17. Who's the instructor? How long have they been teaching? What are their qualifications?
    
    Of course they can lie to you, or use weasel-words to obfuscate, or make stuff up, or.... Of course that's the case.
    
    A good boot camp will give you lots of opportunities to practice AND will help you find your first job. We (where I work) do a lot of talking with recruiters and companies in our network, and we work really hard to make sure that our students get jobs that offer lots of opportunities for growth and development, and, when possible, that align with strengths and interests (there's not usually too big of a disjunct there). So far, we've had quite a bit of success in terms of our students finding employment, and even the companies that have been resistant to hiring students like our grads have started coming around (albeit slowly) as more and more companies hire our grads and have good experiences with them. But it'll be at least another year or two before our grads reliably get hired as junior devs in the bigger corporations (as their first or even second job) without first having a CS degree.
    
    There are lots of different ways you can find success, and almost anything you do (quit your job and self-study, stay at your job and self-study, go to a boot camp, backpack around Europe, and so on) can be reasonably explained in an interview, especially if you can demonstrate that you are someone who is smart and gets things done.
    
    Even your current job can be explained. Sure, your dev skills aren't what you want them to be, but you've got a ton of practice fixing code, which means you've got a huge list in your head of all the different mistakes you might make while writing code (which then means that you can, given adequate leeway, build systems that help you avoid or at least catch those mistakes). Don't discount that. It's important stuff that you learned, even if the way you learned it makes you feel really terrible.
    
    Hope this helps.

TL/DR: Know what you want to be paid, be specific, show off your work, your resume isn't graded, and interview the company as much as they interview you.

Got my first industry programming job by posting on here about a year ago. I'd just graduated uni and was looking for a serious gig.

It took three or four posts over two months before I finally was starting to get decent offers. The ads that failed were generic, didn't market my skills well, and weren't specific enough as to what I actually needed, thus I got lots of Rev-Share-only offers, lots of $400 a week offers, and lots of "exposure" offers. There were a few offers for positions I was in no way qualified for, either.

For reference, this and this were my unsuccessful ads, this was my successful one.

I'm actually just now starting to look for a new job (my contract is up), and revamp my portfolio site, and my general advice is:

1. Know your worth up front. Figure out what your time is worth to you, and then ask for a little more than that (because you'll probably settle for less than your up-front offer). Make it clear what you won't accept, too. On my ad one of the things my boss said had caught his eye was that I was extremely explicit that I was looking for a job, not a quick gig. I have loans to pay off, a family to support, and rent to pay. Rev-share-only was not okay, nor were tiny $400 a month contracts. He could tell I was more than just a student looking for a meal ticket, but that I was ready to start my career.
   
2. Market a particular specialty, not general expertise. A character artist or engine programmer will get way more targeted offers than someone who markets themselves as a generalist.
   
3. Words mean nothing. Visuals are everything (or sounds if you're an audio/music/sound person). Have demos on your website (get a website for free on github.io if nothing else) that people can see, touch, play with. This is whether you're a programmer, artist, designer, or sound person. If you can point to a project, talk about what you worked on, and point to specific things you did in an interview, all the better. If you're a programmer, make public projects on GitHub.
   
4. Don't sweat your resume. More specifically, don't feel like you're a slave to one format or another. It's not a paper that's going to be graded by a teacher. It might spend 5 minutes in front of a recruiter or potential employer, so you want to get the most important information up front. If you're not super experienced, functional resumes are a great asset, because you can list unpaid projects (like ones you did at school, or just for fun), and forego unhelpful work experience like that retail job you had for five years that has no bearing on your programming/artistic/musical/design ability.
   
5. Interview the Interviewer. They need to be happy with you, yes, but you need to be happy with them. Ask lots of questions. Show interest. Listen. Find out their scope, and whether it's the right amount of work for you. Make sure that your expectations and theirs are crystal clear.
   
6. Finally, one third of Kickstarter projects succeed. Let that sink in. While your chances of successfully Kickstarting a game are nonzero, and there are tons of things you can do to affect the outcome of your Kickstarter to give yourself a better chance of succeeding, it should be clear that you should not accept "payment after Kickstarter" as a possibility, unless you're confident that you can get paid (or okay with not being paid).
   
   Bonus: If you're a programmer, get "Cracking the Coding Interview". It is amazing and will help you figure out what potential employers are looking for.
   
   edit: ._. oh. This is a bit old. Oh well. Hopefully someone'll see it and get something from it.

The infographic, frame by frame

I'm a data analyst by profession, and this book would help anyone understand what is going on here.

Not because mormons are all liars, far from it, they are some of the most honest people, but the newsroom likes to juggle statistics. Every piece of information individually is true, but when placed next to each other they build a picture that is deceptive.

Frame 1: Sacrament meeting attendance "100%"

This is straight out deceptive

The Numerator here is "Active mormons" and the Denominator here is "Active Mormons". Now my wife is an active mormon, and she misses every once in a while so on top of measuring the same number on the top and on the bottom, they've also rounded up.

Frame 2: 1.3 million worship services: Straight forward, take the number of chapels in service x the number of weeks in the year. Somehow I think it will still fall short of 1.3 million. Let's check: 21,335 church units x 52 = 1,109,420. I'm not sure how they get 1.3 million, but it's > 1 million Close enough.

Members believe

They do believe in the bible as well as the book of Mormon, and Christ is mentioned that frequently, which is fascinating because 2/3's of the book occurs before Jesus is born. In fact, Mary is given by name hundreds of years before she was born, and John the baptist's exact phrases are quoted hundreds of years this should give one pause.

9 out of 10 members pray daily This is taken from active temple-recommend holders, or the most faithful of the members, certainly out of that "regular attendence" number above, these people are probably only half. Denominator units matter.

4th largest church here is where the deception begins. Because those "member" numbers above were only for active people, but to get the "Largest in the U.S." status they claim here, they include anyone who was ever a member. i.e. babies who never went to church, individuals who died until they are 110 years old, people who have resigned from the church. census records indicate that only 5 million members are active

According to the study

Mormon's placed 3rd, which is impressive, right after atheists and agnostics. Interesting tidbit

77% of members attend weekly again, one must ignore the 2/3rd of members who no longer self-identify as members, who were included in the 4th largest calculation. Members who self identify attend church more regularly. Imagine if catholics could remove from their denominator everyone who doesn't attend regularly from their attendance calculations!

73% listed marriage

Again, we're looking at the top of the top members. These members hold recommends and were probably already married. We're not asking kids if they are going to get married, we're asking already married people if marriage was a top goal. The idea that 27% of them do not have it as a goal should be telling.

96% donate These donations are required to be counted as an active member. They don't donate free-willing, they give money because it is required, like a tax, for membership.

80% donate to non-religious causes The Boy Scouts of America is closely tied (most would say owned) to the LDS church. Most of the "Non-religious" donations go to the Boy Scouts, which are allowed to use the church buildings for fundraisers, and to request funds twice a year in church. This year, my local authority (The Bishop) gave a talk in Sunday about the importance in donating to the friends of scouting program.

70% participate in religious volunteering again, most active members, but yes, they are excellent at volunteering. I have to wonder if they include volunteering at church run facilities (Such as the welfare farms) in this number.

Fasting this is true that they fast once a month, and donate the value of two meals (Usually much more) to the church (not to any charity, to the church). The church then puts this money into an interest bearing account for 3 years, and finally allows it to be spent at the end of those three years, when a bishop makes a request. This money is used for things such as reformation of gays at private company camps. Interest spun off the money is used in for profit ventures such as the mall. Most members do no know how their fast offering money is used.

More members live outside the U.S.

It was just discovered that almost 1 million members in Brazille do not exist. I would suggest that this is using global numbers including inactives to get this total, but if we are to use the "Active membership" numbers from above, we'd find that most members are not only in the U.S., but in Utah.

I don't know where they get the 28,000 congregation number, as I took my 21,000 congregation number directly from the 2012 conference report. Unless we built 7,000 ward houses in the last few months, I am suspicious of this number.

Total Church Membership as mentioned before, this includes anyone who was ever baptized whether they left, died until 110, etc. This is not the denominator for most the statistics on this infographic.

185 countries this is an accurate number by everything I could find.

I don't think I could do a mock interview exactly... not sure that would be kosher. But I can definitely offer you some tips from my experience with both the intern and full-time interviews.

How to prepare:

• Study algorithms and data structures as much as you can. Google doesn't ask the type of questions where the answer is just "a hash map!" or "depth first search!". But those things will be the building blocks of your solutions, so know your tools.
  
  
• Pick a language you're comfortable in ahead of time. Python is my favorite for interviews, since it's pretty terse and clear. But you can pretty much choose anything. The coding questions aren't language-specific.
  
  
• Take some problems from a textbook or something and practice coding in a plain text document, or even on paper. No IDE, no compiler, no running your code, etc. You won't have any of those tools in the interview, so you should practice without them.
  
  
• If you can beg, borrow, or steal the book "Cracking the Coding Interview" and read it in the next two weeks, do it. The author, Gayle Lakmann McDowell, worked at Google, where she interviewed a ton of candidates and was on a hiring committee. She also has an interview prep website, CareerCup, which I haven't explored.
  
  
• There are some YouTube videos going through the interview process and providing some tips. I linked two but the "Life at Google" channel has more.
  
  
• Feel free to ask the recruiter if there's anything in particular you should study or how you should prepare. They really want you to be ready and do your best, so they should be happy to guide you in the right direction.
  
  How to interview:
  
  
• Take a deep breath first! (literally... you can mute for a moment so you don't sound creepy.) You can do this. You've studied for this and you're ready. Once you've got a problem in front of you, stop thinking of it as an interview at all. It's just coding, and that's your thing.
  
  
• You may get a few easy questions first, but sooner or later you'll be faced with a problem you don't know how to solve. That's exactly as intended. The interviewer wants to know how you approach a hard problem, to get an idea of how you think. In fact, solving the problem is not necessarily the goal.
  
  
• Ask for clarification about the problem. What does the input look like? What does the output look like? How big is the data? How should you handle a certain edge case? The interviewer will be happy to answer, in fact, sometimes the problem can only be solved by asking the right questions first.
  
  
• If you're stuck, your interviewer will likely toss out a hint or nudge you in the right direction. Definitely pay attention to that hint, because the interviewer is honestly trying to help you succeed.
  
  
• Think out loud. As long as you aren't typing, describe what's going through your head. "Well, the naive solution for this would be [...], but that would take O([...]) time, and I think I can figure out something better..." The more you say about what you're thinking, the easier it is for the interviewer to help you. Having been on the interviewer side, it's really hard to think up a hint for someone who's just going "hmmmmmm" over an empty doc.
  
  
• No matter how interview #1 goes, you have a clean slate with interview #2. So stay calm, and whatever happens, let it go and focus on the next problem.
  
  What's next:
  
  
• For interns (at least when I was an intern), they don't do onsites. So this is the main part of the interview process that is basically intended to assess your technical abilities. If it goes well, the rest will be placement interviews where you'll talk to potential hosts and try to find a good fit for an intern project.
  
  Good luck!! It's always really exciting for me to hear about young women applying to Google. Hopefully I'll see you rocking the propeller beanie this summer. :)
  
  P.S. I love your username. Avocados are amaze balls and I don't know what I would eat if they didn't exist.

My Story

Hey pal, I was in a similar boat about 8 months ago. It was my senior year as an Economics major, and after taking a programming class, I instantly fell in love with it. I crammed a few more programming classes in before graduating, but in the end, I sure as hell wasn't employable as a software engineer.

​

I had a choice: become a data analyst (the path I was currently on) or follow the software engineering dream. I chose the latter.

​

I decided to go to a (remote) coding bootcamp after college. The program was 6 months. It taught web development (Node, React) and some very basic CS fundamentals. I spent my free time outside the bootcamp inhaling all the computer science and industry information I could. I did this because I wanted to be a competent programmer. I found it fun.

​

This week I had my second onsite. I expect to receive a full-time software engineer offer (my second offer so far) later today, and I have 4 other onsites in the near future (a big 4 + a few startups). It has been a heck of a lot of work to get here, but if you want it badly enough, it's possible.

​

My Tips

• Try not to be intimidated by these tips. Software engineering is something that you take little bites out of. You cannot become an employable developer in one bite, and sometimes the field can be intimidating.
  
• Your options right now are self-teaching, a coding bootcamp, or a CS master's degree (might be hard to get into a good program without a bit more relevant experience, tbh.).
  
• It's going to be pretty difficult to break into anything other than web development for your first programming job without a CS degree. Titles like Front-end Engineer, Full Stack Engineer, Backend Engineer, and Software Engineer (at a web company) are within reach. More specialized titles probably aren't very realistic.
  
• Basic toy projects (i.e., simple HTML/CSS or similar) probably aren't enough to get significant attention. You need things more complex, like full-stack applications built from scratch. This means a working backend, a working database, a modern front-end (using a framework like React, etc.). Here's my portfolio if you're curious about the type of apps I mean.
  
• Other types of programming applications outside of web dev are also fine, as long as they are sufficiently complex and interesting.
  
• Put your projects on your GitHub no matter what. Learning how to commit code to GitHub is an important industry practice. Having a green GitHub history makes you look better.
  
• Try and build a portfolio once you get better at coding. Don't kill yourself making it look amazing, but do try and make it look good. Not everyone will care about your portfolio, but some people will. I got an interview just based on having a nice portfolio.
  
• Your university course sounds like a great primer, but you need to go deeper to be competent enough to pass interviews. I took similar courses at my university, but what really helped me was going through a few textbooks (1, 2, 3 -- some suggestions) and watching MIT 6.006 lectures. You will still have gaps in things like web security, scaling systems, networks, and operating systems, but I wouldn't spend a ton of time learning those topics as a new grad. Knowing the basics can be helpful though, because these things do definitely come up in interviews.
  
  ​
  
  Happy to answer any other questions you may have. I'm not an expert or an experienced software engineer yet, but I've walked the path you're considering, so hopefully my tips are helpful.

This sort of thing is like getting hit by lightning.

Imagine this: if you were around in the early 1900's, which car company would you have invested in? There were hundreds of them. Most of them looked pretty good. Even as late as the 1950's Studebaker, Nash, and American Motors would have looked pretty great. You would have no way of knowing Ford, GM, and Chrysler would have been the survivors and good investments.

Moreover, you don't remember it, but in the late 90's Apple was totally on life support. I think it was either Microsoft or Bill Gates tossed them some help, it was so bad. Steve Jobs came back and turned the whole mess around. If your dad had invested in them in 1986, he'd have sold it within 10 years and been happy to have walked away with more than $0.

Moreover #2, the late 90's was the tech boom. Look up some info on Pets.com. Yahoo was the internet titan. AOL was everywhere and bought Time Warner. Dell Computers were huge. Compuserve. The 90's was the same thing as cars in the early 1900's. You had no way of knowing out of all the tech companies that Amazon and Google were going to be the survivors.

You know how Amazon basically used the internet to eat Sears' lunch? That means smart and connected people fully immersed in the retail industry running the biggest retail business in the world and able to afford all the consultants and research they could want couldn't even comprehend what technology was going to do within a decade or two or spot what was going to be their downfall and you think you could have managed to pick Amazon out of all the tech companies at the same time?

Moreover #3, the places where there are spectacular opportunities, they occur to people around the founder and early employees and people in the venture capital industry. You'd had to have known Mark Zuckerberg in college or his parents and been able to lend a nerd with a computer $50k, or been an early employee of a "shaky" at best company. That's the risk you run if you go to work for a startup. If you have claim to a percent or two, if the company takes off, that's huge. But way more likely the company probably flops or gets bought out for a modest amount. Are you friends with college tech nerds? Are they working on stuff that you think giving them $10k's wouldn't be throwing money away? Do your relatives know their relatives? Are you in an area where you'd come into contact with those people?

Additionally, I'm 32. Part of getting older is realizing you've made choices and decisions and they create opportunities and paths and take away other opportunities and paths, and learning how to cope with seeing that you should have done something differently. We're all doing the best we can at the time. If any of our parents had bought $10k or 20k worth of Apple or Microsoft in the 90's they'd be millionaires by now. If my parents had bought a different house on a lake in the same town for a slightly higher price 30 years ago, they'd be in significantly different financial position too. If only my grandfather had bought large amounts of land near where he lived Washington DC during the Great Depression! You made the best decisions at the time, don't live life looking in the rear view mirror and second guessing yourself.

Looking at my situation, I could buy a flashy car that I like and would enjoy a lot or I could take that few hundred per month and invest it. What happens when I'm 60 and have an account with a big number in it? Then I buy the car I'd enjoy having and go on a lot of vacations, except I'll be old. And I don't expect suddenly when I'm older, my feelings will switch around and I'd suddenly start to enjoy spending money and seeing the number go down rather than saving it. And I've talked to my coworkers, a decade ago there was a person in the office where I work now was mid-50's and came down with brain cancer and was rapidly gone. We have other coworkers who die right after retiring, or aren't healthy enough to get much enjoyment. Think about that--you or me could spend our whole working lives saving money for retirement and then die in our 50's or right after retiring and not being able to get any enjoyment from it. And it's not just dying, but coming down with an illness or having a lot of pain. That isn't a very enjoyable life.

And yet I'd rather save money and push that problem out of what to do with it. This is what I think about when I think about whether to get rid of my cheap, working, boring car and consider getting something fun.

I think autonomous vehicles will be a large source of growth in the coming decade. So which company do you think will do it first? Ford, GM, Chrysler, or Tesla? What if Apple or Google or Uber or Yahoo or some company you haven't heard of right now swoops in and does it first? Surprise! You chose wrong. You could redeem yourself if you invested in a car company the tech company chooses to partner with because they know how to tech but not to make cars. Which car company would they partner with? Is it the one you chose?

Healthcare is big. It's 17% of our economy. How do you invest in that for 10 years for now? What if the people start electing progressives and they completely rearrange the healthcare system and do something like eliminate the need for insurance companies or sharply reduce the profitability of pharmaceutical companies?

Don't dwell on hindsighting yourself. If you look at any graph of a stock or anything it is sooooo obvious to spot the times to buy or sell and pick an optimum path through different investments but when you have to do it live you never know what is going to happen. If you had $10k now, do you think you'd invest it right now or do you think we're on the cusp of a recession where if you hang on to that sum for part of a year or more, you can get a much larger return? What do you think, hmm? It'll be so easy to be able to see what you should have done when you're 32 in 2029 and pull up a graph of stocks and what they did in 2019-20.

I don't want to be rude but stop it with the crypto. You know how gambling works because it exploits people who have the inclination in them to say 'just one more for sure!' even with games where the odds are actually pretty low to ever come out ahead. The fear of missing out is what compels people to get involved with it. People who say "If I had put $100 into bitcoin in 2011, I'd have $10 billion now!" like, no. It's exploiting the people like you who want to look at the graph of Apple's stock price and say "if I had bought in '86...". Also last week the Fed announced it's working on developing a peer to peer live payment system--you know one that will use real actual money so actual real people will be able to use it. That is going to diminish the real world use crypto claims to have. Canada already has a system like this and I don't know if European countries do as well.

Read this book, pup.

Basically monthly I buy the S&P 500 index. It's a trade off between how much return I want and how much effort I want to put in. I doubt I'll beat skyscrapers of people with PhD's who are experts in this, know accounting, read boring reports and do all sorts of research, and actually talk directly to the people running companies so I buy the index and won't ever be worse than the market as a whole--which the skyscrapers of people can't consistently beat. I own some other company's stocks separately, like a railroad, an industrial conglomerate, and Google and all three of those have done great. In that book I linked to, a section talks about how you can approximate the market performance with like owning any 25-30 random companies' stocks--because he's from a time before there were actual market indexes you can hold. Lately I've been starting to think that you can probably beat the market if you avoid the obvious loser or stagnant companies that are big enough to be part of the S&P 500. Like just buying and holding blue chips like McDonald's or Coke or IBM or Disney for multiple years will probably beat the S&P 500. You won't get rich enough to be able to retire at 35 that way, something like what Apple did, but you'll come out pretty solid in the long run. At the same time, so like I own say $10k of Google. If the company doubles, now I have $20k. Big whoop. Now I can retire. If the company 10x, I'll have $100k. That's even better but I still can't retire from that. The big companies can't grow so much--how would Google or Apple double in size from where they are now? Apple would have to completely invent a whole new industry again (and it'd have to be like actual AI or something nutty like teleportation). And if any one knew what that was going to be, they'd have done it already. We have RFID tags now and have had them for over 10 years yet stores still would rather pay cashiers than have customers simply walk through an RFID detector.

The next stuff to come is going to be connected with faster internet and reducing labor. Drones and getting rid of human drivers? E-doctor video visits?

I looked at the FreeCodeCamp curriculum, it looks good for an entry level javascript developer, so since you already started it, you might as well finish it (since, like I said, everybody implicitly expects you to know at least one of python/js/perl as well as HTML+CSS).

2 hours per day is a bit too little IMO - but I understand that it's hard to find time when you have a demanding job and a family that needs time and attention. Just study as much as you can, 2h being the mininum (do keep in mind that CS students, your competition, will be studying at least 8h/day for at least 4 years with tons of homework and more advanced material). So you should probably focus on studying more in the weekends (just typing and thinking about this, I'm actually lucky I started when I was a kid, with all my bills paid for!)

Anyways. You should focus on getting a job first - do keep doing the FreeCodeCamp, as many hours in the day and weekends as you can. Explain to your significant other, if you haven't already done so, your plan - that you're studying hard to upgrade your career, that it might take some time away from them but it will pay off in the long run, etc. Ideally you should be studying at least 4h/day, so try to keep close to that, study more on weekends if necessary. Check this guy for reference on his plan and what he's studying (and note that he's studying full-time - a luxury, I know, but just to put your 2h/day into perspective). This guide is helpful too. Note that you don't need to know all that to get an entry-level development job, but keep that plan in mind for the long run (as you progress your career).

Once you finish the FreeCodeCamp, or even before (I would say, once you finish "Basic Algorithm Scripting"), try doing some local interviews if you can do it without jeopardizing your current job just to get a feel of how interviews work. You won't be trying to get a job (but hey, if you do, awesome), this is just to get your feet wet on interviewing (which is a skill in itself). Since you're not shooting to get a job right now, you won't be as nervous, which is the state of mind you want to be in. If you're relaxed you can talk better, think better, make jokes, be more presentable, which is great - this will put you in the right mood for your future interviews. Try finding people online that can do mock interviews with you in the area you will be focusing on (web/javascript/frontend initially).

Once you're past the basic HTML/CSS part and you start studying JavaScript, I suggest you look into Python as well at the same time. It is a very simple language, quick to learn, and will double your opportunities for employment. As you study both at the same time, you might notice that you like one or the other better - if that happens, focus more on the one you like better, this will accelerate your learning and get you ready for a job faster in your chosen language.

At one point you'll finish HTML/CSS and JavaScript+Python (finish as in be comfortable with them - you'll see that you'll still learn new things as years go by, it will take a few years for you to "master" them). After you're comfortable with JavaScript and Python (and hopefully gainfully employed in development), start studying that book (where you'll learn a GREAT deal about many important things, it will be a dense read, and you will come out of it knowing assembly and C) and then you can focus on algorithms and exercising your thinking with algorithmic puzzles and how computer networks work, operating systems and everything that is generally on this list.

Then after studying all that and with 2-4 years of experience under your belt (and still studying 4h/day), you can start thinking about the next level in your career and preparing for it (larger companies, mid to senior positions, etc) - add a couple more years of experience and you'll be ready to interview for large Valley companies (Google, Apple, FB, etc).

If you plan to self-study all the way through and never join an University, you can look into full-fledged CS courses online and follow that to get a complete theoretical background on CS (that all your colleagues will eventually have and expect of you, at some point in the future).

I'm a technical PM for two teams, as a well a contributing dev on both teams.

While the skills are definitely different from programming a few things I've found that helps:

• Get to know AGILE really well. Read the manifesto, read about scrum vs kanban . Understand each's strengths and how to do the process correctly for both. I tend to think SCRUM is like fitness, you have to do it right to get the full benefits. If I go the gym and work out then, eat a gallon of ice cream everday, I won't be fit.
  
  
• Understand how to write good user stories, look into different patterns people use . For example the "As a <user> " format is quite popular but really understand how to flush out stories .
  
  
• Avoid strict timelines (I know you mentioned it in the OP) but a PM can't be 100% rigid on timelines and even suggest them . The way that works for our entire company is we base everyone complexity and use the fibonnaci scale to estimate complexity by having multiple people on a team vote. I (as the PM) look at past velocity (how many points we completed) and then project out how long something will take based on the point values estimated by the team. This works FAR better than "oh it will take 2-3 weeks". People are bad at time estimates, complexity estimates are a much better gauge.
  
  
• Practice your networking skills and diplomacy skills. Part of being a good PM is having established relationships with other teams and getting things for your team. A good product owner is a leader, but not a dictator. You don't tell the team what to do, you set the vision, and remove any blockers in their way. As part of this too is being available to answer questions.
  
  A few books you should read:
  
  
• Notes to a Software Team Leaders Even though its focused on being a lead/supervisor, you can get a lot of good insight on how to help guide the vision of a team.
  
• [Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time] (https://www.amazon.com/Scrum-Doing-Twice-Work-Half/dp/038534645X). Really good book on understanding the spirit behind scrum, with real world examples. Not very technical , more about why rather than what scrum is. I've read this several times.
  
• The Phoenix Project. Good book about breaking down barriers between teams and working towards a shared goal. It is devops focused, but I believe product managers would benefit from reading this as it illustrates the importance of shared ownership, automation and avoiding silos.
  
• How to Win Friends and Influence People. Great book on interpersonal relationships and how work with others.
  
• The Clean Coder. A book focused on professionalism for developers (not so much the code, but overall environment/culture). This is a good resource to understand the dev cycle in the real world and what teams should be doing to be professional. This will help you when making decisions on specific things to focus on.
  
  In terms of sprint plannings, just remember it's a negotiation. You're not there to tell people what to do. Rather you have the stuff you would like done, but you negotiate with the team on what's possible and what's not. I've seen too many PM's get pissed cause their teams couldn't do 100% of what they wanted and that's not right. Rather a good PM, imo, brings options and lets the team decide how much they can handle. There have been times when I've gone into sprint plannings and non of items made it on the sprint, and that's ok.
  
  Sorry for the long rant!
  

Short answer:

> "People want an authority to tell them how to value things, but they choose this authority not based on facts or results, they choose it because it seems authoritative and familiar." - Michael Burry; The Big Short.

> Why don't any of the people around us understand bitcoin? Why do they ignore it? Why do they refuse to look below the surface?

Because critical thinking consumes energy, and is not pleasant. Whenever we learn new things we have to fire up parts of the brain that we don't use as often.

For example: Learning to drive a car is a stressful and unpleasant time because your brain is fired up learning all the new skills, at once. After a few years you can drive without even thinking.

It's called Fast Thinking and Slow Thinking, slow thinking being when you are learning new skills, material, ideas etc., and fast thinking when you can do things automatically.

In short: People, all of us, don't like to think slow.

Long answer:

There's a book on the subject Thinking, Fast and Slow by Deniel Kahneman

> Major New York Times bestseller
> Winner of the National Academy of Sciences Best Book Award in 2012
> Selected by the New York Times Book Review as one of the ten best books of 2011
> A Globe and Mail Best Books of the Year 2011 Title
> One of The Economist's 2011 Books of the Year
> One of The Wall Street Journal's Best Nonfiction Books of the Year 2011
> 2013 Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient
> Kahneman's work with Amos Tversky is the subject of Michael Lewis's The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds

> In the international bestseller, Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman, the renowned psychologist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, takes us on a groundbreaking tour of the mind and explains the two systems that drive the way we think. System 1 is fast, intuitive, and emotional; System 2 is slower, more deliberative, and more logical. The impact of overconfidence on corporate strategies, the difficulties of predicting what will make us happy in the future, the profound effect of cognitive biases on everything from playing the stock market to planning our next vacation―each of these can be understood only by knowing how the two systems shape our judgments and decisions.

> Engaging the reader in a lively conversation about how we think, Kahneman reveals where we can and cannot trust our intuitions and how we can tap into the benefits of slow thinking. He offers practical and enlightening insights into how choices are made in both our business and our personal lives―and how we can use different techniques to guard against the mental glitches that often get us into trouble. Winner of the National Academy of Sciences Best Book Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and selected by The New York Times Book Review as one of the ten best books of 2011, Thinking, Fast and Slow is destined to be a classic.

>I have a general theory that ~95% of the people recommending this book either did not read it or did not understand it when they did.

Ahh, but let us seperate the difference between a good theory and speculation.

A good theory is one which, upon thorough analysis promises a high probability of being proven true. Operations not meeting these requirements are speculation.

Does your theory rest on the merits, facts and content contained within the pages therein? Can your theory be falsified or is it speculation?

Let us analyze your conjecture and see if it holds any water.

• Amazon says The intelligent investor has an average rating of 4.6 on 242 reviews and is the #1 best seller in its category: https://www.amazon.ca/Intelligent-Investor-Definitive-Value-Investing/dp/0060555661 Could it be that all these reviewers have not read the book? Well it seems almost all the reviews have verified purchased and offer specific quotes in their review. The evidence does seem to support the speculative assertion that 95% of people did not read the intelligent investor.
  
• Let's go to investopedia.com where The intelligent investor ranks #1 as the undisputed best investment book of all time: https://www.investopedia.com/articles/basics/03/050803.asp Could it be that the Investopedia editorial team reviewed all investment books but forgot to read the Intelligent Investor? I would find that to be a highly speculative theory.
  
• What if we look to see what books other professional investors have recommended: https://www.thewaystowealth.com/investing/best-investing-books/ By far and away the Intelligent investor reigns supreme. Is it more likely that these investment gurus chose not to read the Intelligent investor and yet recommend it, in some sort of cabal conspiracy?
  
  Instead of speculating that no one has read the Intelligent Investor, let us borrow some principles from Ben Graham. It seems overwhelmingly based on all the available evidence and after sound and rational observation and analysis that the Intelligent Investor could be a good book! Now in order to justify reading this book, I would need a margin of safety that the book offered value beyond the cost of reading it and the time to complete it. Well at $10 for a paperback copy and an estimated 3-4 day read I have to say I think those criteria have been met! The intelligent investor is a buy!

Homework can be found in the "Recommended Reading" section of our FAQ. I've pasted it at the end of this comment for your convenience.

If there was one book most worth reading I would argue it's Smarter Investing by Tim Hale. It gives you all the basic grounding that you need to know in an easy-to-digest manner.

Another good source for information is www.monevator.com, though the writers are very opinionated and not great fans of people in my profession.

You could potentially seek financial advice, and pay a fixed fee for some recommendations, or even pay Hargreaves Lansdown directly for advice (they offer telephone-based advice for a fee), but at your level of savings the costs may be disproportionally high.

Recommended Reading

Books about investing

Intelligent Investor - Benjamin Graham

This book was written by the father of "value investing", and the mentor of Warren Buffett, who is widely accepted to be the world's most successful investor.

It was originally published in 1948, but Ben Graham updated it periodically over the years, and it stands as true today as it ever has.

Beating the Street - Peter Lynch

Published in 1994, this is arguably showing its age more than Intelligent Investor. Either way, valuable reading from one of the best managers of money in the past few decades.

Naked Trader - Robbie Burns

Subtitled "How anyone can make money trading shares", this is an entertaining, tongue-in-cheek account of one financial journalist's attempt to quit his job and make £1,000,000 using a short-to-medium term trading strategy. Not very scientific, but an interesting counterpoint to the previous recommendations.

Smarter Investing - Tim Hale

The ultimate counterpoint to attempting to "beat the markets" - after spending 15 years working in active fund manager, Tim Hale concluded that the best outcomes for most investors in most situations would be a simple portfolio of "passive" investments (that is, funds which attempt to track a market, rather than outperform it). This style is favoured by the likes of Monevator, and many of the subscribers here.

Berkshire Hathaway's annual shareholder letters - Warren Buffett

Not a book, but a series of essays over the years from the world's most successful investor. Makes interesting reading! Notably, the 2014 letter (not published in the above link but published here in abridged form) implies that he now feels most investors would be best served by low-cost trackers.

The Financial Times guide to investing - Glen Arnold

A great starter guide, going from the very basics (why businesses need shareholders) to more in-depth explanations of different types of investment, and step-by-step guides on how to execute trades.

I really dug into the idea after reading about it in Discover Your Genius. It took a little while to get into the habit, but now I go about it like its second nature.

One of the best ways to improve your memory is by not having to remember stuff to begin with. Even better, it frees up my mind to focus on learning concepts and bringing creativity to the equation.

Although it doesn't help to pick up these techniques: Joshua Foer: Feats of memory anyone can do. It is really quite astounding how well people in the past had their shit together.

----

The indexing system was a natural fit for my workflow. It makes for a great addition to the Ubiquitous Capture aspect of GTD/ZTD, amplifiying it's utility, and doubles as the way to keep track of resources that both systems gloss over. I was already using OneNote with GTD in a similar manner to how The Secret Weapon does it with EverNote, so it just clicked for me.

If you are interested in how all this fits together works, its well worth spending the time to review their series of videos, and segueing into the easier to manage ZTD system.

The system also works well along side the method in "Time Management for System Administrators". There is an excellent collection of videos by the author on YouTube that goes into how it works.

----

To me, the core idea has been coined "The slow hunch". I've made it my goal to setup how I do things to allow it to happen. Here's another related quote about Darwin:

>"People love to tell stories, so it’s no wonder that most describe the advent of an idea as an epiphany, a brainstorm, that “Eureka!” moment, a brilliant flash of insight that seems like a bolt from above. Even the famous scientist Charles Darwin attributes his theory of natural selection to one such moment, and even described the moment in his autobiography.

>Unfortunately, that wasn’t actually the case. Another scientist reviewed Darwin’s massive collection of notebooks that he kept through all of his studies, and found that Darwin had developed the idea of natural selection several months prior to his epiphany moment. He just had not combined all those ideas into his theory until then.

>That shows, according to Steven Johnson in his TED talk, how ideas come more from a network than a spark. He even refers to it more as “The Slow Hunch” than a brainstorm. Your ideas come from a lifetime of experiences, so let them take the time to stew in the back of your mind, and wait for a new configuration of neurons flowing in your brain to make the connection."

>http://www.sharedidiz.com/ideas-eureka-or-incubation/

• Get books on starting a business. There are plenty of them and you don't have to read them back to back. Get them as a reference and reference them often. The Small Business Start-Up Kit and Start Your Own Business, Fifth Edition are good ones.
  
• Accountants and lawyers will be very helpful to getting you guys get setup. Seek them out and bring them on board early.
  
• Form a corporation. Either an LLC or S-Corp. If someone sues your business for a million dollars and wins, they can only take what the business owns, not what you own personally (your car, your house, etc.).
  
• Create a business bank account and business credit cards. This will be critical for bookkeeping purposes and for keeping track of expenses.
  
• Are you forming a partnership with your friends? How will you work out the percentage each person owns? Will it be based off how much capital each person contributes? Be VERY careful with partnerships.. treat it as if you are marrying someone. Because that's what it is. Your business partner can drastically affect your life positively or they can destroy your life. Even if you like each other now, money can change things. Be future minded and write up an operating agreement to protect all of yourselves. What if 10 years down the line you want to quit? Or a business partner wants to move to another state and wants to quit? Who gets what? Don't leave this to chance or goodwill or you will regret it.
  
• Learn accounting software. Your accountant will likely have a say in this but it is ultimately your decision. Most accountants are familiar with Quickbooks or Quickbooks Online. There are alternatives like Xero. This will help you track your expenses and be critical to filing taxes.
  
• Get CRM software to keep track and manage your clients. ShootQ is one of the best in the wedding realm, although it can take time to learn and get it set up.
  
• Get project management software (Basecamp or Apollo). This will help everyone in the business stay up to date on to do task lists and deadlines. Apollo has time tracking software which is helpful in knowing how many hours you spend on a project. Historical data will be useful in knowing how much to charge for future projects.
  
• Be wary of taking out any loans. It's often better to bootstrap yourself off the ground.
  
• If you don't take a loan, you all may need to work side jobs to pay the bills until you are ready to go full time. Don't expect to have enough cashflow to pay full time salaries for a few years. This is just being realistic.
  
• Weddings have a low barrier to entry. Do your first or two for free to build up a portfolio. Then charge very little. If you're not charging a lot, don't create a million hour long edits for them. Charge little and promise little so you're not stuck with them. Same principle applies to commercial and corporate. Seek out the type of work that you want to do, approach businesses and offer to do it for very cheap or for free. Do a killer job so that it looks like they paid you a million bucks. This will open doors.
  
• It is very easy to get bogged down with wedding edits. Consider yourself warned. Sifting through hours of footage and piecing edits together is a lot of work. Do not underestimate it.
  
• Only market the work you want to attract. Don't post all your work on your blog.
  
• Contracts are important to look professional, and more importantly, to protect yourself. A lawyer will be helpful here. Many books on filmmaking also have sample contracts.
  
• You are essentially a start up business. Be prepared for long work weeks, very little pay, and high stress. Not everyone is cut out for being a business owner. Don't think it will be like a 9-5 job.. you don't go home and tune the business out.. it will be very much a part of your life. I'm not saying that it should take OVER your life since you should do everything you can to maintain some sort of work-life balance. If any of you are married, you will need supportive spouses who are willing to make sacrifices.
  
• Read The E-Myth. It reads like a story but will teach you very important business concepts and how to think like a businessman. This is very important as you start to grow.
  
  This just scratches the surface. It's not rocket science, but it's a lot.. it will take time. CONSTANTLY evaluate and look for things that can be improved.
  
  Source: Started a few businesses, the current one being a filmmaking one.

Sorry to hear about your situation. I'm not sure on the focus of Infomatics, but by the sounds of your post you are well equipped and looking for a programming (web dev) job. So I'll focus on the job part because realistically it's the only thing I feel I have any (possibly) useful advice for. I'm sorry to hear you haven't found a job yet. But you are quite fortunately (unless I mis-read what you want) looking in one of the most in demand, albeit competitive industries around.

So here is my (hopefully semi-useful) advice. Most are things that I was told to do when interviewing that I thought helped me quite a bit. I hope they help you too. You may be doing all of this already so I am sorry if it is obvious things you've been doing.

I strongly recommend buying this book if you can. Read it cover to cover and do as many of the exercises as you can.

https://www.amazon.ca/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/0984782850/ref=dp_ob_title_bk

Next I recommend applying to any and all tech companies you can find, it doesn't matter if they are asking for a specific framework or language or more experience than you have. A lot of people are put off by the 2 to 3 years in x that most postings have. Usually they just care that you have some experience and seem smart enough to learn. The fact that you have side projects is a giant plus for you, they love seeing that.

These sites are great ways to practice for interview questions:
https://www.hackerrank.com/
https://leetcode.com/

Doing these questions really help with interview questions in my opinion.

From there just cycle, continue to read the book, apply to as many places as you can, do practice problems. Work on your own side projects, the experience gained from them is extremely important.

If you have any public repos on github clean them up. If you do not, register for an account and put your personal projects on some (if you can). That way you can start to include the account on your CV. (If you aren't already)

Practice explaining your projects (what you did and why) and try to think of the questions they could ask you.

In terms of financials/housing/immediate work, I would look at moving out of the downtown core and try to find a basement suite or something affordable. Maybe try to get a roommate. I would try to find a job (starbucks, best buy, london drugs, etc) to support yourself in the short term. If you have a friend that might be willing to let you stay with them while you find a place talk to them now, and let them know the situation. That will help them prepare for you if you can't find a job/place.

Also, don't be afraid to post your resume to subreddits that focus on that sort of thing (remove all personal info!) or feel free to pm me yours and I will be more than happy to try to provide some constructive criticism.

Sorry for the book, I hope at least some of it was useful to you.
Also sorry for the grammar/spelling/shitty writing style I am a programmer, but not a good writer.

If you're working on your math and might pursue a CS degree I'd recommend Cracking the Coding Interview. I actually haven't read it myself but it's a highly recommended book often mentioned on subreddits like /r/cscareerquestions

EDIT: Perhaps pair it up with books on algorithms and data structures so you get comfortable in working with, lists, arrays, trees, graphs etc :)

EDIT: (currently 0) Why would someone down vote this? I just don't understand why?

EDIT: Someone mentioned that it could perhaps be because I hadn't read it myself so I thought I'd add a heartfelt recommendation by /u/amputect that I just read in the authors AMA:

> Gayle, I don't have a question, but I wanted to say that your book helped me get two programming jobs. I used to push grocery carts in the arizona summer, now I work for Google. I also, like, went to college and learned and stuff, but your book was a huge help in prepping for interviews. Thanks to you, I felt more confident and more prepared, and I was able to interview with several major tech companies without fear vomiting a single time which for me was a pretty big deal.
Seriously, thank you, thank you, thank you. Your book is great, I recommend it to everyone. You are a fantastic writer and a brilliant human being. Thank you!

This is what I tell all beginning investors, also being told this myself as a beginner, but before you find any sort of apps to trade on or taking stock recommendations, you need to figure out what kind of investor you are and develop an investing technique that fits you. What kinds of stock you invest in are mainly determined by how long you want to wait before selling the stock and how urgently you need the money.

Most investors are typically classified as either Defensive or Speculative. Defensive investors are ones who buy stocks in companies that have a long history of slow growth, and are not likely to make big gains quick. These kinds or stocks are the kinds people would invest in for their retirement or educational plans and are either classified as Defensive stocks (slow steady growth) or Income Stocks (stocks that pay out high dividends above the national inflation rate).Stocks like these would belong to companies that sell products that are classified as Essentials such as food, water, or energy.

Speculative investors invest in stocks that they believe are going to grow quick, and are willing to take on major risk in order to potentially see those large gains. These kinds of stocks are classified as Speculative (high growth and risk), Growth Stock (small or start up companies with high risk), or Cyclical (performance fluctuates with the economy in major losses or gains). These kinds of stocks would belong to companies that sell luxury products that may not sell well if demand is not high enough.

What you need to know is what kind of investor you are, and what kinds of returns you want, and how quickly you want them. Once you know that, you can find the right stocks for you. But now is the best time for people like you to be learning about investing, gaining experience, and investing in companies.

Once you know how quickly you want returns, and how much risk you want to take, you can begin to develop an investing technique that suits your comfort zone. This will ensure that you don't get ahead of yourself, and lose all your money in blind foolishness.

If you want an app to practice investing before you do the real thing, Investopedia.com has a great simulator that lets you invest fake money and get accurate feedback of the market. The website also has a wealth of information about every subject you could learn about in regards to the stock market and trading.

Yahoo Finance is one of the best websites I've found for easily accessing the data you need on each stock and getting the best feedback of the current state of the market. You can also easily find stocks with the Yahoo Stock Screener.

If you want a book recomendation, The Intelligent Investor is considered an essential read for anyone who wants to have success, large or small, within the trading market. Warren Buffet, the most successful stock trader in history, said that it is "By far the best book on investing ever written." Here's the amazon page to buy it.

I went to one AA meeting when I first got clean and never went back. I understand people have found support and success in it but to me, personally, I felt it only increased the stigma of drug addicts as these broken hopeless people barely hanging on by a thread. It's an outdated system that relies on little science or attempting to progress the participants and relies more on holding people in place and focusing on the past. Instead I just worked towards becoming a normal person. Here are some of the resources I used:

r/Fitness - Getting Started: Exercise is probably the #1 thing that will aid you in recovering. It can help your brain learn to produce normal quantities of dopamine again as well as improve your heath, mood, well being and confidence.

Meetup: You can use this site to find people in your area with similar interests. I found a hiking group and a D&D group on here which I still regularly join.

Craigslist: Same as above - look for groups, activities, volunteer work, whatever.

Diet

This will be the other major player in your recovery. Understanding your diet will allow you to improve your health,mood, energy, and help recover whatever damage the drugs may have done to your body.

How Not To Die Cookbook

Life Changing Foods

The Plant Paradox

Power Foods For The Brain

Mental Health

Understand whats going on inside your head and how to deal with it is also an important step to not only recovery but enjoying life as a whole.

Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy

The Emotional Life Of Your Brain

Furiously Happy

The Science of Enlightenment: How Meditation Works

Educational

If you are like me you probably felt like a dumbass when you first got clean. I think retraining your brain on learning, relearning things you may have forgot after long term drug use, and just learning new things in general will all help you in recovery. Knowledge is power and the more you learn the more confident in yourself and future learning tasks you become.

Illegal Drugs: A Complete Guide to their History, Chemistry, Use, and Abuse

Why Nations Fails

Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to Freud

The Modern Mind: An Intellectual History of the 20th Century

Thinking, Fast and Slow

The Financial Peace Planner: A Step-by-Step Guide to Restoring Your Family's Financial Health

Continued Education / Skills Development

EdX: Take tons of free college courses.

Udemy: Tons of onine courses ranging from writing to marketing to design, all kinds of stuff.

Cybrary: Teach yourself everything from IT to Network Security skills

Khan Academy: Refresh on pretty much anything from highschool/early college.

There are many more resources available these are just ones I myself have used over the past couple years of fixing my life. Remember you don't have to let your past be a monkey on your back throughout the future. There are plenty of resources available now-a-days to take matters into your own hands.

*Disclaimer: I am not here to argue about anyone's personal feelings on AA**

First off, you've already made a good decision. It's good you don't write like an academic, because when most writers use that term, it usually means a writerly voice that uses big fancy words in order to project intelligence and education. It's a type of writing that may hide the real person behind the words, if done badly.

Of course academics will use big fancy words, because their chosen discipline may require them to do so, but the best academic writers will still write clearly, and with clarity.

My roommate in college was a T.A. (teacher's assistant) and he'd often ask me for second opinions while grading papers. You could tell the people who were trying to sound smart, over the ones who just tried to be honest. Almost always the ones who tried to communicate well, rather than the ones who tried to sound "academic," were the students who received better grades.

So, in your case, strive for honesty and clarity. If you need to use simple words, that's not only okay, but desirable. You want to reveal yourself in your words, as so often big words or using an academic-like voice will get in the way of that.

Having said that, if you need to write as a steam of consciousness. Go for it. Stream away. Then afterward you can edit, revise and reorganize your thoughts.

Because you haven't written in so long, your writing muscle, so to speak, is dormant and weak so the number one priority is to just write. Get words on the paper. That's the only way you'll know what you want to say.

After that, polish it up. Maybe start all over, but now you know where you are going with your writing.

Here are a few books that can help give you good writing advice for nonfiction writing.

• [On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction](
  https://www.amazon.com/Writing-Well-Classic-Guide-Nonfiction/dp/0060891548/) by William Zinsser
  
  
• Writing to Learn: How to Write - and Think - Clearly About Any Subject at All by William Zinnser
  
  This first book by William Zinnser is a classic. He has basic advice on how to improve writing skills, and provides various examples for different types of writing, like memoirs, job interviews, science and technology, etc.
  
  The second book goes even further exploring more disciplines like mathematics, art and music, nature, technology, liberal arts, etc.
  
  I think both would help you not just with your application essay but also with your writing while at graduate school.
  
  Lastly, you may already have this general writing advice book:
  
  
• Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr.
  
  I hope that helped. Don't be afraid to write, and good luck!
  
  

The purpose of frugality is to save money in some areas of your life so that you can live the life you want. What are your goals in life? If you want to travel, travel. If you want an iPhone, get an iPhone. If you want to learn to fly, learn to fly. If you want to buy a house in 5 years, save! I want to retire pretty early and build a house, so I am saving/investing a large portion of my income like you.

It sounds like you've got this Frugality thing down pretty well, so here are some Personal Finance basics:

1. Start an emergency fund in a new savings account with 3-12 months of expenses. Don't touch this unless there is an emergency (job loss, car repairs, etc.). This will keep you from acquiring any debt and allows you to be bold with your savings/investment and other life goals.
   
   
2. Take advantage of any/all tax-advantaged investment vehicles that Australia offers. (American equivalents would be 401Ks, Roth IRAs, etc.)
   
   
3. If you've made it this far, all you have left to do is live your life. You're making all the right decisions, so do what you want. Save for a house or a car, start a family, give to charity, take time off from work, travel, etc.
   
   
4. If you don't know what you want, continue to save, save, save so when you DO find out you can do what you want. If you can max your retirement accounts every year, you'll be well on your way to financial security. But those are your retirement savings, and you won't be able to utilize them for a while. So your best bet is to save and invest a large portion of your remaining income - this will ensure that you will not have to take on any additional debt and can save thousands if not hundreds of thousands along the way (think paying cash for a house vs. a 30 year mortgage)
   
   I would also start reading some about personal finance. It sounds like you might benefit by reading Your Money or Your Life - it's a good philosophical read for those that are thinking about a money/life balance. For a little motivation to keep up your frugality, try The Millionaire Next Door - It's pretty eye-opening and I recommend that to everyone regardless of their personal finance goals. For starters in investing, The Boglehead's Guide to Investing is great, and a lot of the information can be found free at the wiki.
   
   Good luck!

Thinking, Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman


Major New York Times bestseller
Winner of the National Academy of Sciences Best Book Award in 2012
Selected by the New York Times Book Review as one of the ten best books of 2011
A Globe and Mail Best Books of the Year 2011 Title
One of The Economist's 2011 Books of the Year
One of The Wall Street Journal's Best Nonfiction Books of the Year 2011
2013 Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient
Kahneman's work with Amos Tversky is the subject of Michael Lewis's The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds

In the international bestseller, Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman, the renowned psychologist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, takes us on a groundbreaking tour of the mind and explains the two systems that drive the way we think. System 1 is fast, intuitive, and emotional; System 2 is slower, more deliberative, and more logical. The impact of overconfidence on corporate strategies, the difficulties of predicting what will make us happy in the future, the profound effect of cognitive biases on everything from playing the stock market to planning our next vacation―each of these can be understood only by knowing how the two systems shape our judgments and decisions.

Engaging the reader in a lively conversation about how we think, Kahneman reveals where we can and cannot trust our intuitions and how we can tap into the benefits of slow thinking. He offers practical and enlightening insights into how choices are made in both our business and our personal lives―and how we can use different techniques to guard against the mental glitches that often get us into trouble. Winner of the National Academy of Sciences Best Book Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and selected by The New York Times Book Review as one of the ten best books of 2011, Thinking, Fast and Slow is destined to be a classic.

https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/0374533555
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow

You're GPA is great so you don't need to worry about that, IMO I'd list it on your resume.

I would recommend the following:

1. Do this book, attempt all the chapters if you can (you might be able to leave out threading, but I still recommend it): https://www.amazon.ca/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/0984782850 (Note: there is a better book but this is a good starting book)
   
   While concurrently (har har) reading the book, any data structures you don't know, learn. Program them and test that they work.
   
   Further, check out CSC263 materials and see if you can implement the data structures. You should also at the end of CtCI be able to attempt some of the assignments from CSC263 and complete them.
   
   Also try coding problems on hackerrank or leetcode or w/e the sites are called -- note they can be demoralizing on hard but it's worth it and you learn a lot
   
   
2. Now that it's the summer time, try to create some bigger projects. If you're going to make a smaller project then make sure you learn something inside and out... for example if you're learning Java and do something with reflection, go absolutely ham on learning how reflection works
   
   Pick a language and learn it well, again if you do Java, then know how garbage collection works and other core language features (ex: If I ask you what a GC root is, do you know? [ask yourself this in 4 months] Can you compile from the command line? Do you know what Maven is and how to use it? Can you use lambdas and the new stream API? What is type erasure? etc)
   
   C++ is great at removing your hair, but you'll learn a lot... and if you ever have to work on a C++ project you won't want to kill yourself when you accidentally do object slicing or something funny like this.
   
   
3. Learn SQL/databases/one ORM framework, and interface it with your language of choice (will make CSC343 much easier for you)
   
   
4. Try to learn some web stuff so if you come across it you won't be confused by what to do. Making your own personal site from a template is a good start
   
   
5. Learn either Git or Mercurial well, and good practices (ex: always branch and pull to the master), which will dramatically save you headaches when you get hired. You do not want to be 'that guy' who fucks up the repo...
   
   
6. Learn C or assembly if you can, this will give you the bigger picture and make CSC209/CSC258 also A marks for you (I recommend NASM but MIPS or ARM can work great too)
   
   
7. Get someone to proof read your resume, I don't know anyone who had a proper first resume.
   
   
8. IF YOU CAN... try to contribute to a massive project. Committing even a one line bug fix to a massive project can be a significant amount of work and looks really good on a resume. In fact, I've been told by multiple employers that seeing someone do work on a massive code base that isn't theirs is great brownie points for getting hired since that is what you'll be doing.
   
   Obviously put your work on github or somewhere, though I think you know that this is implied
   
   As you can see, attempting the above will directly benefit the following courses:
   
   

• CSC207 (if you do Java)
  
• CSC209 (if you do C, or C++)
  
• CSC258 (if you do any assembly)
  
• CSC236/240/263/265/373 (from CtCI, general experience, etc)
  
• CSC301/302 (if you do contributions to a large database)
  
• CSC309 (if you do any web stuff)
  
• CSC343 (databases)
  
• CSC369 (threading, other misc stuff)
  
  Sounds good doesn't it? Though this is probably only possible if you are doing literally nothing over the summer ;)

>The good traders GameKyuubi was wrong about only one thing: There aren't any good traders.

If you haven't seen a good trader yet, does that mean they do not exist?

Nobody had ever seen a black swan. For thousands of years, that meant that they didn't exist. Until someone saw one, of course.

You are running into a fundamental problem of inductive logic, and it's preventing you from seeing trading rationally. If you want to read more on how this matters to traders, I'd suggest The black swan by Nassim Taleb

>There are lots of us who believe we are good traders. But we aren't. Of course, some of the loudest voices on Reddit regularly remind us about how well they time the market. Except when they don't time the market well.

Here is the first misconception about trading. The best traders have never timed the markets. They utilize arbitrage opportunities, which exist in countless forms across every asset class, and rarely have anything to do with market timing.

I highly recommend reading The Quants if you're interested in learning how successful traders operate, as well as their history. It's not only extremely informative, but highly entertaining

>A paper published last October by the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley entitled "Do Day Traders Rationally Learn About Their Ability?" used nearly 15 years of stock market day trading data to conclude that all day traders are irrational, the vast majority of day traders lose money, and even when day traders are successful, they "irrationally attribute success disproportionately to their ability rather than luck."

Now this I agree with. The vast majority of traders are terrible at trading, and when they do win, it's because they are lucky, not because they are smart. One of the fundamental books on Wallstreet for understanding this is What I learned losing a million dollars

The entire story is about an extremely successful trader who lost everything on one bet, mainly because his entire life before that had been a string of extremely lucky coincidences, and he never realized it.

>Of course, their success was due to their unique trading ability and not the fact that the entire market rose like a rocket.

Keep in mind, the best traders are always benchmarked against an asset or index. This is called beta weighing. If you make less money trading then you would have from just holding the bench marked asset, you have effectively lost money from trading.

>Warren Buffett, the most successful investor of modern times, has often said that he only invests in what he knows. His preferred holding period: forever. With that model, his company, Berkshire Hathaway, has averaged a 19 percent annual return since 1965 which means it has risen more than 1 million percent.

There are a lot of reasons for Warren Buffet's success, but it's worth pointing out that it's a lot more complex than just picking a security and holding it forever. If you want to learn about value investing, and the fundemental analysis behind it, check out Security Analysis

It's written by Ben Graham, the guy who taught Warren Buffet everything he knows. Arguably the most important concept in the text is called [investing with a margin of safety](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margin_of_safety_(financial)

Bitcoin definitely has intrinsic value. The problem is, nobody knows what that intrinsic value is worth. Since there is no currently known method of valuing a decentralized network (although progress is being made) Warren Buffet wouldn't touch bitcoin with a 10 foot pole, and if you want to invest in value, the way he has, you shouldn't either.

>Trading is no solution for intelligent people. What we need are new ways to use cryptocurrency.

Ouch man, that's harsh. I'm interested in why you correlate hodling with intelligence. IMO, there are dumb people hodling, and dumb people trading. Most of the time, it's those who form an opinion based on a single source, or worse yet a single quote, who are dumb. It's those that think in absolutes, and without a healthy degree of skepticism.

According to Ben Graham, it's not the speculators or the investors that are dumb. It's the people that can't tell the difference between the two.

EDIT: Sorry, typed this up real quick at work. Spelling and grammar mistakes everywhere.

Read Tim Hale's Smarter Investing and then The Intelligent Investor.

Yours isn't the worst active strategy I've seen, but it seems like guesswork that their "longterm promise" means they're currently below intrinsic value. Likewise, selling them after 15% or 20% seems quite arbitrary.

The investors I respect look at the fundamental value of the company, based on historic earnings and growth. Some dismiss the term "value investing" but nevertheless their work is built on the foundations of Benjamin Graham's principles.

If you find a company which sells for £1 a share and it has been paying dividends of 10p a share the last several years then you can have some confidence that buying that share is going give you a 10% annual return. That is the fundamental value of the company.

Obviously you can't look solely at dividends for a number of reasons. They have become unfashionable, and share buybacks are more tax-efficient in the USA. A growth company will reinvest its earnings, so your stock holding is more valuable if it opens more stores or factories but pays no dividends - hence earnings-per-share is a more accurate representation of how well the company is doing. To be any good at this kind of thing - and I certainly am not - you must consider things like cash-flow, margins and debt (in the event of crisis all debt will be paid before shareholders).

I believe you should read Smarter Investing first, as it's a very clear explanation of the current state of evidence-based investing knowledge. The majority of retail investors are best off in index funds, as the majority of professional fund managers don't beat that [1, 2, 3] - I think I know why that is, but do you have a theory? IMO you should fully understand passive investing because it's the methodology that you, as an active investor, have to beat or disprove.

Then Benjamin Graham's books will set you down the path to valuing companies.

If you paid off your mortgage yourself by the age of 36 then you're on the right track.

There are some excellent videos on YouTube. IMO the Fundsmith AGMs are worth watching; my current favourites are of Paul Lountzis speaking at the Ivey business school.

• Spend less time on your business plan and financial planning and execute your idea (not to saying you shouldn't spend anytime on it...you should but bottom line is: Keep moving forward). By doing so, you will generate the revenue you are seeking without being in debt. It's easier to sell an idea by showing it rather than telling someone and showing them a spreadsheet with your fictional guesses. I initially wasted 4-5 months on creating the "perfect" business plan.
  
  
• Don’t be married to any particular software platform/language, as they can all change. If you don’t have a technical background, find a CTO/co-founder that knows one language well, and has the same passion for the idea, and build it in that language. I spent a year convinced that not knowing Ruby on Rails was the sole reason I couldn't execute my idea.
  
  
• Definitely keep costs down to a bare minimum but don't be afraid to spend money when you have to. There are a lot of incredible open-source platforms out there for practically everything you could imagine but there are also awesome premium services that help you become more efficient and perform better.
  
  
• Push yourself to rent a desk at a co-working space. Staying at home, going to the library and having meetings at various Starbucks just doesn't push you enough to want to succeed.
  
  
• I'm probably the most frugal person in the world and will walk 20 blocks to save ATM fees but I now pay $90/month to Harvest for invoicing/time tracking because it works and I get paid faster and has saved me headaches come tax time.
  
  
• Find a niche market that you are passionate about and target it. You business can evolve to a bigger market but focus on what you know.
  
  
• Creating my LLC was a powerful step forward. Obviously seek legal counsel and talk to your accountant before taking the plunge. Once I had my LLC, I could then create a merchant service account to obtain payments online via Authorize.net rather than utilizing PayPal.
  
  If you have the time, I would enroll here:
  http://fasttrac.org/entrepreneurs/programs/FastTrac%20NewVenture.aspx
  
  If you live in NYC:
  
  
• http://www.nycedc.com/service/programs-entrepreneurs
  
  
• http://zicklin.baruch.cuny.edu/centers/field
  
  Helpful books/resources:
  
  
• Rework (Awesome)
  
  
• Four Hour Work Week (With the understanding the author had $40,000/month coming in)
  
  
• Definitive Drucker (Broader business topics but great concepts)
  
  
• Why Small Businesses Fail (simple but effective)
  
  
• Why Contractors Fail (simple but effective)
  
  
• NOLO (legal resource)
  
  
• http://www.codecademy.com/ (learn to code)
  
  This quote helped me:
  “Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery - celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: “It’s not where you take things from - it’s where you take them to.” -Jim Jarmusch
  
  Services:
  
  
• Harvest
  
  
• ZenDesk
  
  
• MailChimp
  
  
• BaseCamp
  
  
• StudioPress

Here is a scientific explanation of the Artosis curse: Regression toward the mean.

Basically, Artosis makes his predictions based on observations of high above (their own usual) average achievements of players. The problem is that there is actually quite a bit of randomness involved. At the high level SC II is being played at no single player is skilled enough to dominate everyone else (consistently, but likely not even at any one point in time if everyone would play against everybody else instead of just a random(ha!) selection). Randomness means, that when you observe someone being above average the chance that next time you observe them they will be WORSE, closer to the mean (back to normal!), is much higher compared to observing them doing something outstanding again.

I would like to point out that this is ONE of the forces at work. It does explain the Artosis curse. It does not (need to!) explain everything that goes on in the world or even just in the world of SC II. And it doesn't claim that this happens every single time, only on average.

Here is what Kahneman used as an example:

> The psychologist Daniel Kahneman, winner of the 2002 Nobel prize in economics, pointed out that regression to the mean might explain why rebukes can seem to improve performance, while praise seems to backfire.[8]

> “I had the most satisfying Eureka experience of my career while attempting to teach flight instructors that praise is more effective than punishment for promoting skill-learning. When I had finished my enthusiastic speech, one of the most seasoned instructors in the audience raised his hand and made his own short speech, which began by conceding that positive reinforcement might be good for the birds, but went on to deny that it was optimal for flight cadets. He said, “On many occasions I have praised flight cadets for clean execution of some aerobatic maneuver, and in general when they try it again, they do worse. On the other hand, I have often screamed at cadets for bad execution, and in general they do better the next time. So please don’t tell us that reinforcement works and punishment does not, because the opposite is the case.” This was a joyous moment, in which I understood an important truth about the world: because we tend to reward others when they do well and punish them when they do badly, and because there is regression to the mean, it is part of the human condition that we are statistically punished for rewarding others and rewarded for punishing them. I immediately arranged a demonstration in which each participant tossed two coins at a target behind his back, without any feedback. We measured the distances from the target and could see that those who had done best the first time had mostly deteriorated on their second try, and vice versa. But I knew that this demonstration would not undo the effects of lifelong exposure to a perverse contingency.

If you only read one book this year, let it be Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow.

To address the title of your post as to whether or not this is a reliable and safe way to get into the stock market I'd advise against it.

 

I can't speak to whether or not this guy is 'reliable' (though I share fcb98292's misgivings about him), but trading on signals (while simple to understand) is somewhat of an advanced level of investing. You still need to decide when to trade. You could blindly follow the advice and do exactly as they say when they say it, but you may run out of money before your performance meets what they claim are their average returns (if ever). It might seem reliable and safe following the advice of an (maybe) expert, but the experience of signal trading can feel very different. There are plenty of ways to appear wealthy and many more ways to make money telling people what to invest in (with little risk to yourself). I can't say that this particular guy is not legitimate, but I've seen my fair share of folks that look like investing gurus but that get their money from those they advise and not the market itself.

 

If you're interested in getting into investing in a safe and reliable way, I'd recommend starting simple with an index or mutual fund and branching out from those once you feel more comfortable. The Bogglehead's Guide to Investing is a great resource if you're looking to start (though given your links, there may be better resources if you live in the UK). I'd also suggest you visit r/personalfinance for advice when it comes to getting into investing. r/investing may be better if you're more interested in doing more than sitting and holding stocks and bonds. I hope this helps. No matter what you choose to do, best of luck with your adventures in investing.

Here are all the books with amazon links, Alphabetical order :)

---

• Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant by W. Chan Kim et al. Link: http://amzn.com/1591396190
  
• Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose by Tony Hsieh et al. Link: http://amzn.com/160941280X
  
• Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown Link: http://amzn.com/0804137382
  
• Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days by Jessica Livingston Link: http://amzn.com/1590597141
  
• How Google Works by Eric Schmidt et al. Link: http://amzn.com/1455582344
  
• Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook: How to Tell Your Story in a Noisy Social World by Gary Vaynerchuk Link: http://amzn.com/006227306X
  
• Losing My Virginity: How I Survived, Had Fun, and Made a Fortune Doing Business My Way by Richard Branson Link: http://amzn.com/0307720748
  
• Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath et al. Link: http://amzn.com/1400064287
  
• Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck Link: http://amzn.com/0345472322
  
• Never Eat Alone, Expanded and Updated: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time by Keith Ferrazzi et al. Link: http://amzn.com/0385346654
  
• Relentless: From Good to Great to Unstoppable by Tim S. Grover et al. Link: http://amzn.com/1476714207
  
• Rework by Jason Fried et al. Link: http://amzn.com/0307463745
  
• Talent is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else by Geoff Colvin Link: http://amzn.com/1591842948
  
• The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss Link: http://amzn.com/0307465357
  
• The Choose Yourself Guide To Wealth by James Altucher Link: http://amzn.com/150100994X
  
• The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison: *God Doesn't Think He's Larry Ellison by Mike Wilson Link: http://amzn.com/0060008768
  
• The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz Link: http://amzn.com/0062273205
  
• The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book That Will Change the Way You Do Business by Clayton M. Christensen Link: http://amzn.com/0062060244
  
• The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries Link: http://amzn.com/0307887898
  
• The Millionaire Fastlane: Crack the Code to Wealth and Live Rich for a Lifetime by MJ DeMarco Link: http://amzn.com/B004BDOUAI
  
• The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph by Ryan Holiday Link: http://amzn.com/1591846358
  
• The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results by Gary Keller et al. Link: http://amzn.com/1885167776
  
• The Startup Owner's Manual: The Step-By-Step Guide for Building a Great Company by Steve Blank et al. Link: http://amzn.com/0984999302
  
• The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell Link: http://amzn.com/0316346624
  
• Traction: How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth by Gabriel Weinberg et al. Link: http://amzn.com/1591848369
  
• Unlabel: Selling You Without Selling Out by Marc Ecko Link: http://amzn.com/1451685319
  
• Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel et al. Link: http://amzn.com/0804139296

> He has had one junior developer interview that I found for him (another client of mine, after I talked up his progress and how proud I am of him) but he froze up and didn’t get the job. Since then it’s been mostly daily auto rejection emails. I can tell he is starting to lose hope and shut down because he is very ambitious and hardworking (much more than I’ve ever been).

> So, what actions, steps, courses, books, words of support, etc did the people in your life share with you or do for you that made a long, difficult job search bearable or better or easier? Or what do you wish they had done or said differently?

So I don't know your BF, but one thing to keep make sure is that he welcomes your help. I know some people take offers of assistance as a sign of weakness. It's great you're trying to help him, but it's best to make sure.

I've been through the same process - albeit single at the time. But I understand the stress and fear of uncertainty he's going through. One of the best thing you can do is not involve this in your interactions/dates/etc. Just being a good girlfriend/boyfriend is usually more than enough when someone is going through a stressful time. Having small moments with you where he can destress will do wonders for his mental health.

More than anything - be understanding. I've known some couples that have broken up because the other party didn't understand the stress the other party was going through. For example, having issues with not spending enough time together, closing up, etc. Being understanding and being there for him is really one of the best things you can do even if you don't directly help him. If he needs time alone, don't make it a personal issue - he's probably dealing a lot within his head and he will come to you after he's had time to himself. If he lashes out at you due to his stress (which is quite common since he's trying to find an outlet), try to defuse it or just shrug it off. Of course, don't take it lying down if he crosses the line - but know that it's coming from a place of fear and assuming it's no big deal, just letting it go will work wonders.

When this is all over, he will know all the things you've done for him and will appreciate you that much more as a girlfriend/boyfriend.

One book I do recommend is Cracking the Coding Interview. It's been basically my bible when I went through the interviewing phase and it's helped out tremendously. It goes through in-depth about how to change your mindset during an interview and what to expect. Having more knowledge builds confidence. Having confidence will prevent him from freezing up. I don't know if your BF already owns this book, but it would be a great gift - assuming he's welcoming to your assistance.

I would go with Kahneman's "Thinking, Fast and Slow". It can be rather tedious at times, but it's such a great summary of recent work in social and cognitive psychology that it's worth it.

Oliver Sacks, as mentioned before, is another great author. Very approachable, very interesting, yet quite informative.

I have heard that Dan Ariely is a great author. Predictably Irrational might be a great read.

Steven Pinker's How the Mind Works is also great, but I would recommend Kahneman over him.

Finally, I would recommend a classic: William James - The Principles of Psychology. It's old, and some stuff is dated, but the guy had amazing insight nonetheless. It'd be a great intro reading just to see where psychology came from.

I would stay away from Jonah Lehrer, since he was accused of academic dishonesty. His book "How we Decide" was an extremely easy read, and a bit watered down. On that tangent, I would also avoid Malcolm Gladwell. Sacks does a better job at explaining psychology and neuroscience to a general audience.

Hope that helps!

Without knowing more about your current financial situation (current net income and net worth, goal net worth and net passive income), it is hard to comment on what may be the strongest investing strategies for you.

If I assume you have basically nothing (no assets and no debt), then for you to be financially free in 10 years (lets say 2M net worth, 75K passive net income/yr) will almost certainly require you to either have a VERY high income and savings rate from now until your goal age or to build something of significant value you can sell to fund your freedom. I suppose you could speculate a bunch in the market and wind up winning big, but the prevailing opinion is that you might as well go to Vegas and put it all on black if that is your overarching strategy.

My opinion, is that if you want to achieve financial freedom by 30 (and are starting from nothing today), than you are best off building a business and spending your time increasing its value. This is not a path for the faint of heart, and a lot of people who try quickly find out they are not up, but if you want to get out of the rat race in such a short time span it may be a good option. Maybe check out this book. I have found it useful, and it does a decent job explaining why systems development is key to the success of most businesses.

Real estate may also be a good avenue for you to look into as well. If you do go that route, understand that the majority of your profit on a real estate investment will be based on buying heavily undervalued assets. Finding motivated sellers is essential (people moving right away, kids squabbling over their dead parents house etc.) and you need to be extremely conservative when analyzing potential buys. Also, property management is very demanding and more complex that it may appear so be prepared for that.

Good luck!

> However, something pulled me away from Marketing, and I decided to try and go the tech route. I took two basic programming courses (Java/C++ & SQL) at school however because of lack of time did not do a minor/major.

From this I would suggest data science, but it looks like you're already into that. If you like programming, maybe find a marketing position that needs some programming rather than going for a full-on programming position. That way you can ease yourself in.

> I consider myself pretty creative, and I think about things deeply/logically

That's great!

> however even when I programmed I never felt like a smart/clever programmer, more so watching what others do and replicating.

Don't worry about that too much. Programming is a trade--a very sophisticated and exacting one, but it's still a trade. There is no silver bullet to gaining great programming skill. You need to make 10,000 mistakes to be a master.

I've been programming for ten years now, others have told me I'm clever or a good programmer so I suspect it's more or less true. All of my clever tricks, good ideas and ability to make difficult things simple come from others. When I see something I like, I remember it. When I build something later I can pull out my bag of tricks and build elegant solutions to complex problems. Study other people's code and learn from it. Try to figure out why they chose to make every decision they did; every line tells a story.

If you want a good place to start with that, look at the JavaScript source files for 2048 (ignore the ones that end with polyfill). It's one of the most beautiful pieces of code I've seen.

To quote this

> Every programmer occasionally, when nobody's home, turns off the lights, pours a glass of scotch, puts on some light German electronica, and opens up a file on their computer. It's a different file for every programmer. Sometimes they wrote it, sometimes they found it and knew they had to save it. They read over the lines, and weep at their beauty, then the tears turn bitter as they remember the rest of the files and the inevitable collapse of all that is good and true in the world.


> I did receive a Data Science internship, as I knew the answers to basic programming questions and was able to think through a problem logically. However, today I had a technical interview where I had to join a chatroom and write pieces of code for the person. I struggled with 2 out of the 3 problems and they were fairly simple-- a little embarrassing.

These types of things are designed to trip you up and separate the people who can't program at all with those that can. The link is short and worth a read. If you want to practice read Cracking The Coding Interview by Gayle McDowell.

> So now I am really doubting going to programming track as maybe I am not 'talented'/capable of really performing that type of thinking, especially for an entire summer & career. Any advice or tips is greatly appreciated!

Impostor Syndrome runs high in CS. There's too much to keep up on and it's impossible to know it all. In a way, we're all constantly beginners. Learn as you go and don't be afraid to ask questions, nobody knows everything.

i was a renter a long time, i know the argument well and supported being a renter for those reasons and tried that approach. its really hard to get a consistent good return on your capital. interest account? forget it, govt just taxes it as income. that pretty much leaves equities and bonds. i did it myself at first buying shares with all sorts of strategies (built trading bots as well), but realised index funds were a much better alternative exception to this is unless you really know what youre doing trading wise. also forget managed funds, fees eat into your profit big time and some studies say that they dont beat indexes over time on average.

the best alternative i found were index funds (they are low cost) but specifically a blend of bonds and equities indexes. best product are from the vanguard index funds having read boggleheads book (highly recommended on the finance sub) https://www.amazon.com/Bogleheads-Guide-Investing-Taylor-Larimore/dp/0470067365 I got the growth fund from vanguard 30% debt based income 70% equities

basic idea is you have your bonds in your age, equities in the rest with a mix of international and local shares. the idea of this strategy is when the market goes pair shaped people buy bonds for saftely and vice versa when things are good people buy shares but bonds are safe to hold to maturity. so this balances out your portfolio.

the above strategy is prob the best possible chance to get a good return on your money but its a long term strategy, 5 years min but ideally its a lifetime thing. but it did help me save for a deposit.

EDIT: I don't want to discourage anyone from saving for the future and this article does do a good job of pressing the importance home. That said, the specific advice it gives (buy managed, equity funds) is neither good generally nor good for you personally, whoever you are. So buy a book or two and talk to friends and others and make an informed decision.

Don't be put off saving by my comment, but don't let the article make you think that investing is any simpler than any other "purchasing decision" involving 1000s of products costing 1000s of $/£/Euros

Original Comment:

fyi: Pretty much everyone agrees that the stock market is over inflated right now as the fed and EU and UK flood the market with cheap credit. Also, he says that investors should not accept the low returns from bonds when they can do better in stock but right now many bonds offer better returns than stock (arguably because the price is over inflated...).

Here are a selection of links underscoring this point:

http://www.multpl.com/s-p-500-dividend-yield/ - S&P currently yields less than 2%

http://indexarb.com/dividendYieldSortedn1.html - NASDAQ yielding 1.23% at the moment.

You can do better than that is a (government backed) high interest cash account or buying some government bonds.

Also, forget mutuals or managed funds. They don't perform better than the market before fees, so really you are just paying someone no smarter or better than you to pick stocks. This is again widely accepted (at least in part because anyone actually able to pick winner soon attracts clients will many millions or bns and does not have to deal with plebs like us!). You would be better picking stocks yourself at random as you would at least avoid the fees.

A great introduction to all this is "The Intelligent Investor". It is geared at people like us who have:

• Small amounts to invest
  
• Long term gains in sight
  
• The usual concerns around person disasters
  
• Little time, specialist training and no special tools to use
  
  
  

The first thing that I suggest is that you buy a reputable book that will teach you how to write. I'm not saying that you're a bad writer, but I would wager that most people write three times worse than they think they can (I am including myself). On Writing Well is a classic, and you might also want to read this one and this one, although I strongly recommend completing the first one. What's included is:

a) Keep it simple. Don't say it's going to be a turbulent precipitation, say that it's going to rain. A lot.

b) Study each adverb and adjective. Any words that aren't necessary should be cut. Is it really important to say that the violin was wooden? Probably not. What about the sentence "She smiled happily"? The "happily" isn't necessary, that's what "smiled" means.

c) Use specific verbs.

d) Consistency is key. Switching tenses or something similar in the middle of writing is generally a bad move.

e) Proofread. Duh. That goes hand in hand with editing.

So, yeah. You should really look into that stuff area. One read-through will help significantly.

Ok. So now that I finished preaching to you, let's move on. I didn't find any templates in my quick search, so that's of no use right now. What you can do, though, is study very well-written program notes. Are their sentences long or short? When are they longer or shorter, and why? Is the tone active or passive (psst. it's probably active)? What's the tone that they use, and what is your impression at the end? You get the gist. If you write down what you think your thoughts for three of these, you'll have a good idea what you're shooting for. Other than that, it's all up to you, so go nuts.

Anecdotes are also a nice way to make things entertaining. Search for stories, or impacts on the audience. Did you know there are at least six editions of the Rite of Spring? Why was the one your orchestra's performing (let's assume) created? Many people also don't know about the riot after its premier. Stravinsky escaped out the back entrance to avoid the aristocratic mob. Say fun things, win fun prizes, or something like that.

It's also important to know that stories tend to follow the path of one person. The Odyssey could have had its crew be the focus, instead it was Odysseus. Inside Out could have placed all the emotions front and center, but it was Sadness and Joy that saved the girl. Keep that in mind if you're going down a similar path.

Man, I went all out on this. Good luck with your program.

>Not now, but the first such study was certainly interesting! How is that different from what we have here?

The first such study was useful, but not interesting.

As to the difference between this paper and the first study linking exercise and heart disease, I see a couple relevant differences:

1. This isn't a study. Nobody gathered any real world data. Linkage to real world results is therefore unconfirmed.
   
2. This is far from the first economics paper written on the topic of talent and luck that suggests that luck may have an outsized role in success. Indeed, this ground is so well covered that there aren't just papers, but books and books and books already.
   
   >The idea that we are solely responsible for our successes and failures already shapes social policy, so why wouldn't evidence for the contrary position do the same? At the very least, it should introduce more uncertainty and flexibility to evaluate specific circumstances.
   
   In my view, the theory that luck has a strong effect on success and failure has already been well established in society. The proverb that "it's better to be lucky than good" is so old that no one knows how old it is. I don't believe that social policy is grounded in the theory that people are solely responsible for their own success or failure.

TL;DR Improve yourself, invest in your future, don't worry about the mistakes...read the books listed at bottom, and practice!

Few months ago I royally fucked up an interview at Microsoft. A really simple question. But I had no experience doing coding on paper instead of a computer.

I spent a lot of time studying various books and paper coding to make sure it wouldn't happen again.

I then had an interview for another (in my mind at the time) dream job. I did fine for all the phone interviews and they flew me over to the west coast for an in person interview for the day. I did well for the first bit until they started pulling out dynamic programming and integer programming questions on me and expecting me. Once again something I didn't prepare for, and f'd up. Didn't get this job either. For the longest time I was really hard on myself at fucking up on both these interviews one after another. Especially this second one since a lot more was riding on it than just the job (another story).

But then I decided I didn't want to have this sort of experience again and expected better of myself. I made myself further improve and brush up on all those concepts as well. Did a few mock interviews with friends, spent some time working on interview type questions on both the computer and on paper. A month or two later I started interviewing again. By this point I was an interviewing machine - and I'm now able to do just about anything thrown at me. I've had my choice of employers and until just recently, was in the situation where I had so many offers I didn't know which one I wanted most. I'll be heading to silicon valley soon at one of the top tech companies in the world with a fantastic offer considering I just graduated.

The point is - learn from the mistakes and improve yourself. I realize you don't want to be that guy spending heaps of time coding outside of work or whatever... but this is an investment in yourself and your career. Do it once, and then just brush up on your skills from time to time. Get into the interviewing mindset and just rock them so you can have your choice of job - and then you can go about your thing once you have the job locked. The up front investment will be worth it!

Things that helped me:

• www.hackerrank.com - practiced a lot of questions on here
  
• www.careercup.com - another great site for questions
  
• Cracking the Coding Interview More help on questions, but also some great insights into the interview process for the larger tech companies and many hints and tips on how to go about solving the more complex problems
  
• Code Complete A great book for helping you to refresh or learn about software design
  
• Eternally Confuzzled Great resource to learn how to think about common data structures and algorithms
  
  Having trouble with Algorithm design/analysis? These are some of the go-to books for that:
  
  
• The Algorithm Design Manual Probably the defacto for learning about algorithm design and analysis
  
• Introduction to Algorithms A great book with many different algorithms and data structures to learn about
  
• Algorithm Design A great book if you want to dive deeper into more complex subjects like graph theory, dynamic programming, search algorithms, etc.. etc..

I'm going to give you the pathway that I read that has me where I am today, its mostly going to steer you towards dollar cost averaging and passive management, but the easing of exposure to alternative strategies was invaluable and eventually brought me to value investing. Dollar cost averaging in low cost index funds is the training wheels of investing and should be the way every novice investor starts IMO.

1. The Wealthy Barber - this is the sesame street book on investing and everyone should read it when they're starting. It'll expose you to the ideas of dollar cost averaging, low fee index funds, and the importance of using TIME as your biggest asset in slow growing your net worth. Its like $6 and 100 pages, you can read it in afternoon. http://www.amazon.com/The-Wealthy-Barber-Updated-Edition/dp/0761513116
   
   
2. The Little Book Of Common Sense Investing - if you want to skip the previous book and go straight to this one that would make sense, they cover much of the same info but this one is written by John Bogle (founder of Vanguard) and very much pushes the idea of low cost indexed mutual funds as the only way the casual investor has a chance. If you read the wealthy barber, you'll be a little bored with this book, so take your pick. http://www.amazon.com/Little-Book-Common-Sense-Investing/dp/0470102101/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1425572242&sr=1-1&keywords=John+boggle
   
   
3. A Random Walk Down Wall Street - its been recommended several other times in the thread and I recommend it too, but not as a starter book, read one of the two books above first. The ideas presented in Random Walk are a bit more advanced and will begin to expose you to the ideas and methods of identifying risk and diversity in a portfolio, such as alpha, beta, mordern portfolio theory, and discounting. In the end the book is going to push the novice towards low cost passively managed index funds, as it should IMHO. Absolutely worth reading once you have built a small nest egg.
   
   At this point if you've taken a year or two or more to invest using what you learned in the above books you'll have a better idea of what you really want to start doing with you're money. Perhaps its value investing, and now it starts to get more technical.
   
   
4. The Little Book of Valuation - Good intro to valuing companies that begins getting into the technicalities of analyzing balance sheets. If you think this is the route you want to go then give it a read, but not until you've read the books above and cut your teeth for a year or two managing your money and exercising good decision making and patience with dollar cost averaging. http://www.amazon.com/Little-Book-Valuation-Company-Profit/dp/1118004779/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1425572657&sr=1-1&keywords=The+little+book+of+valuation
   
   
5. The Intelligent Investor - now you're really ready to dive into the details of a companies financials to determine its worth in 5-10 years. This book by Benjamin Graham (warren Buffet's mentor) is the go to book on value investing, and I take this review seriously: "“By far the best book on investing ever written.” (Warren Buffett)". Do NOT start here, you'll just be confused, bored and frustrated. http://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Investor-Definitive-Investing-Essentials/dp/0060555661/ref=la_B000APZXBQ_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1425575056&sr=1-1
   
   By this point you'll no longer be an investment padawan and be well on your way to a master of the force. Do not be tempted by the dark side of day trading and penny stocks. Much fear there. There is no need for level 2 quotes with value investing because you're relying on your due dilligence from the previous years and quarters to take your portfolio higher, without worrying about the road bumps in the market today. You'll be able to happily live your life until the next quarter or two when its time to reevaluate and rebalance your portfolio.
   
   Good luck.

\> This is not a financial problem, this is a trauma problem.

Perfectly said.

OP, in therapy you can talk about your experiences growing up with financial worries. A good therapist can help you explore how those experiences affected you and help you identify the narratives you tell yourself as a result.

It sounds like the financial hyper-awareness has actually served a very useful purpose for you so far. You did well in school and worked your way into a good career. But there's a saying: "What got you here won't get you there." Now your anxiety around finances is holding you back, and you would be better served by spending less energy worrying about finances while still putting a plan in place to responsibly manage your finances.

A therapist can also help you retrain your thinking. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is one type of therapy which is aimed at retraining negative automatic thoughts. You identify negative thoughts and write them down, then apply techniques from the CBT toolbox to understand why those thoughts are distorted and replace them with more adaptive thoughts that better reflect reality.

The key point is that your brain won't let you simply choose to stop thinking a negative thought, because there's usually a kernel of truth. You need to replace the negative thought with a new thought that also true but is more adaptive.

So for example, when you think:

\> I'm suddenly gonna lose all my money at the blink of an eye

You can write that thought down, then look at a list of cognitive distortions and identify things like "all or nothing thinking" and "jumping to conclusions". From there you can identify potentially useful CBT techniques. Some techniques work better for certain types of cognitive distortions. So you might try techniques like exploring "What's the worst that would happen? How would I need to react if I actually lost all my money?", or you might try keeping count of unwanted thoughts to make yourself better at noticing them as they appear. There are dozens of techniques.

I'll note that studies have actually shown that CBT from a book can be just as effective as CBT with a therapist. I'd recommend finding a therapist if you're able, because they can help in ways that a book can't. But it's worth mentioning for anyone who isn't able to see a therapist, or isn't sure whether their therapist is any good.

You can just open up the book, start reading, and do the exercises. The key is that you can't just skim the book. You have to actually do the work and write down your answers.

Here's a good book on CBT:

https://www.amazon.com/When-Panic-Attacks-Drug-Free-Anxiety/dp/076792083X

Here is a good blog post on how to find a therapist:

https://blog.valerieaurora.org/2016/04/17/howto-therapy-what-psychotherapy-is-how-to-find-a-therapist-and-when-to-fire-your-therapist/

Finally, one way to feel more in control is to learn more about managing your finances. I'd recommend reading a good book on personal finance, like this one:

https://www.amazon.com/Bogleheads-Guide-Investing-Taylor-Larimore/dp/1118921283

And then I'd recommend writing out an "investing policy statement". Basically it's a written statement describing your financial goals and long term plan of how to attain them. You're effectively writing instructions for your future self. This can help put worrying to rest. For example, you can consult the statement to remind yourself that you planned to save $___/month toward a house and $___/month toward retirement. If you are meeting your goals, you shouldn't feel guilty about spending money on things you enjoy.

Here's a blog post describing an investing policy statement:

https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/how-to-write-an-investing-personal-statement/

Read. All the famous investors started reading at a young age and read ferociously (ok maybe not all but most).

Go to the library if you can, they generally will have all the quality investing tomes, without some of the "get rich quick manuals" which only benefit the authors.

Here is a few books to start with:

• The Four Pillars of Investing
  
• The Intelligent Investor
  
• The Bogleheads Guide to Investing You could start here. Pretty good introduction.
  
• A Random Walk Down Wall Street
  
• The Richest Man in Babylon (PDF) This is a quick read, and more a story than anything. Still worth it.
  
• [The Little Book of Common Sense Investing] (http://www.amazon.com/Little-Book-Common-Sense-Investing/dp/0470102101/ref=pd_sim_b_3?ie=UTF8&refRID=16QN03Q9GFZ6NG5PPJ6P)
  
  Most of this stuff is investment theory. To be a successful investor as an average American, without a job in the finance industry, you probably don't have to read all of those books. If you really want to get into investing, that's a good place to start.
  
  Also, the Bogleheads book is a great one to start with because you can decide if you really are interested in investing. If not, that book is good personal financial advice regardless who you're getting paid. It will benefit the regular American.
  

Throwaway account because I'd rather not have my current coworkers knowing about this.

About a year ago, I heard about Google Foobar from an article on Hacker News. I had never seen that before but it sounded interesting, and I'd always wanted to work for Google (sent my resume some years ago, heard nothing). Long story short, I found a backdoor way into Foobar, and went through the coding challenges until I got past level 3, at which point they ask if you'd like a Google recruiter to contact you. I said yes and gave them my details.

Fast forward to about two months ago. I finally got an email from an internal Google recruiter asking to talk. I freak out a little bit and start madly researching what a first contact entails (as it turns out, just an informal phone call about your career and what you might want to do at Google). During my research I also looked into what the infamous Google technical interviews might look like, and discovered that I needed to brush up on my algorithms and data structures, and fast. I told the recruiter I needed two to three months to prep (this is apparently not too uncommon, thankfully). She said that when I was ready, I should send her my resume and the jobs I'm interested in (probably in the Pittsburgh office so we can stay close to my wife's family), and she'll get the ball rolling. She also mentioned that it's possible that I could skip the standard video tech screen (since they already had a coding sample in the form of my Foobar submissions) and proceed directly to the onsite interviews.

The thing is, I've been primarily doing PHP web development for ages. I've done a bunch of freelance work previously and I've been working for a great startup for the last few years after immigrating to the US from Canada in 2009. But as far as I know, Google doesn't do much / any PHP, and we all know the general opinion on the language. I have, thankfully, done many other languages throughout my career... Javascript (lots), Java (college / some Android development), C++ (in my college days), C (when I was first teaching myself to program in a real language). But my professional experience has been dominated by PHP.

As far as education goes, I have an associate's degree in programming and about two years of a CS program (interrupted to move to the US). I always thought Google had a hard Bachelor's requirement but that's apparently not the case (you just have to show that you have the aptitude, skills, and experience necessary).

My prep so far has been reading through The Algorithm Design Manual (at least the theory part of the book), and more recently, reading through Cracking The Coding Interview and doing the questions, on paper first, and then verifying on my laptop. I am doing these questions in Python, which was the language that I did Foobar in, and probably the language I will interview in. That said, I learned Python for the first time going through Foobar, so I'm far from an expert in the language. I'm doing this prep while managing my current full time job and caring for a four month old, which I wouldn't even come close to managing without my wife's amazing support.

Doing a search here, I found the MIT Hacking a Google Interview site which seems like a goldmine, and Pramp which also seems like a great resource once I'm done with CtCI. Considering Interview Cake but only if people think it's indispensable ($200).

I have about one month left in the original timeframe I gave the recruiter. I am incredibly excited by the prospect and also incredibly intimidated. Do you have any advice for me on how to maximize my chances?

Also, should I apply as a SWE or a SWE-Frontend? My full stack web development experience seems relevant to SWE-Frontend but I don't want to only end up doing frontend work and I don't want it to be career-limiting; I like the backend stuff as well, and I'm definitely not a designer.

Thanks!

Edit: For those looking for the Foobar backdoor, it no longer works. It was a crossword you could solve that randomly generated (easy) CS and crypto clues, and was accessible from an IP apparently found in promos for The Imitation Game, but the crossword entrance has since been shut down. However, I figured out why I couldn't get in through the main method (searching Java- or Python-related CS queries). You have to both be logged into Google, and, crucially, you have to have search history enabled. Once I reenabled search history, the Foobar break-in came right up after a couple Python searches.

This is just my 2 cents, but the first thing you should be asking when learning any language is what problem are you trying to solve with the language?

C# as a language doesn't amount to anything, but it's real potential comes from the frameworks it is associated with.

​

If you're wanting to:

web develop then you would need to look into .NET Core + WebApi + MVC or a front-end framework (Angular, React, Vue).

This is a great course to get you started with. It'll create a basic web application you can modify and play around with from the database to the front-end:

https://www.pluralsight.com/courses/aspdotnetcore-efcore-bootstrap-angular-web-app

​

desktop development then look at Wpf (window presentation forms) or use electron and c#

mobile development then take a look at xamarin

​

from your use of Unity though, it seems as if you are more into game development which I would advise then to go a bit lower and really learn algorithms and good implementations. For this, there are some greats books you can use to help you get started:

Cracking the Coding Interview: 189 Programming Questions and Solutions by Gayle Laakman - Even though this is an interview book it's a great intermediate book to algorithms. The book does assume you have a basic understanding of elementary data structures.

The Algorithm Design Manual by Steven Skiena - This is definitely more advanced and heavy but it's a great book to really dig down into the nitty gritty

A great website for practicing writing algorithms in c# is leetcode.com. It's a site that basically lists a bunch of small questions you can solve with an in browser compiler that includes c#. This way you wouldn't need to download visual studio to practice coding.

if you're up for the challenege, then you can download a framework like SFML.Net and try to develop a game from the ground-up without using an engine like unity. But this is obviously a lot of work ;)

​

Overall it's hard to give really specific advice without knowing where you're trying to head. But it's a good time to get into c# and in general microsoft's development stack. In the past people were shoe horned into using microsoft's technology stack from top to bottom but recently microsoft has made a lot of stride in making there tech more open which is making a lot of people turn heads.


If you are also looking for a more lite-weight ide then I recommend visual studio code or vscodium which is the same but without the trackers :)

You're still being quite general, but I'll answer the best I can.

To be honest, as a trader I mainly traded OTC (Over-The-Counter) interest rate products that are not available to trade for retail investors, so you learn most of it on the job, other than pricing and valuing the products themselves, which appears on textbooks, but nothing that can be of much use for a retail investor.

Each financial product is different, so although there are some "transferable" skills, it truly depends on what you are trading, but again, trading is very short-termist so I wouldn't recommend it to a retail investor in spite of all those guru books that sell you that you can be a successful day trader, you can't: you'll just bleed losses, bid-ask spreads, brokerage fees and short-term taxes, plus again there is no way you'll beat full-time pros.

In terms of learning Economics and Finance, I'm afraid I'm of little help because I learned it all during my degree and masters at a very in-depth, specialised level, purely through textbooks. Also, a lot of it is very theoretical and not sure if of much use for an amateur level, or for real life, for that matter.

I did watch quite recently a video by billionaire hedge fund manager Ray Dalio, which explains quite well and succintly how the economy works. For those readers that don't speak English very well, if you go into Bridgewater's youtube account, you can find the video in different languages.

If what you refer to is equity investing, but not anything related to the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH), I quite sympathise with the value investing approach. In that sense, books I'd recommend are:

• The Snowball by Alice Schroder
  
  
• The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham
  
  
• Security Analysis by Benjamin Graham and David L. Dodd
  
  
• The Most Important Thing Illuminated: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor by Howard Marks
  
  Oh, and you'll have to learn public company accounting and valuation inside out, as well as get used to reading annual and quarterly company accounts (amongst other things) on a regular basis.
  
  The info sidebar of /r/SecurityAnalysis is probably a good starting point.
  
  Anyhow, the real and only way to learn about investing is to get down to it and put some money on the line. Books will only get you so far.

You inspire me.

Fellow Vancouverite here (19). I see a lot of myself in you (which is why I'm replying) but in the opposite situation: we always lived comfortably. Either way, that drove me to the same motivation and has since I was little; I've always been an entrepreneur, and I bet you will be too.

Here are a few principles I've compiled over the past 10-ish years of my passion for business:

• Be great to do great. Put an emphasis on developing yourself and your skills (especially communication and leadership, drive and productivity, and the ability to learn quickly). You can consult all the resources you can, but there's nothing like:
  
• Putting yourself in uncomfortable situations. By that, I mean sign up for and attend things you wouldn't expect yourself to attend; start a project, invest 100% of your time in it, and think big; do the unconventional.
  
• Be fucking audacious. Identify goals, make them visible, and break them. Don't let friends, family, relationships get in the way of what you want and when.
  
• Surround yourself with people that push you and reframe your perspective every month. I review often and ask: "who is the one person in my social circle that lights a fire under my butt?" Then I spend more time with that person and seek similar people, and re-evaluate. you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.
  
• A specific one: don't take a bachelor of commerce. That was my mistake. Technically-skilled people are way more valuable because that teaches you how to create; I did 1.5 years in BComm at UBC and discovered that they only teach you how to take instructions.
  
  You asked for actual resources:
  
  
• Know yourself: Take a Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test and read up on your type, strengths and weaknesses.
  
• Also, find a mentor. A 1-to-1 connection with someone you can go to and ask these awesome questions without hesitation is so much more valuable than a Reddit thread.
  
• Entrepreneurship: Though I've never had my own startup, Lean Startup changed the way I think about every one of my life endeavours.
  
• Economics: I'm studying Economics @ UBC, and the Economist is one of the best publications - period - regardless of discipline. It gets you thinking about problems. And problems are where entrepreneurs thrive.
  
• Creating, building, and seizing opportunities: Do a little "design thinking." By that I mean go to Chinatown and walk around the homeless population -- even ask them questions ("I'd love to hear your life story"). When you immerse yourself in the real world with real problems, you start to find solutions you can't think of in your bedroom. Then, scale up. If you have an industry you want to hit, do the same thing. Immerse yourself, learn stories, and find problems.
  
  I'm missing so much but I have to go. Hit me up if you ever want to chat and I'd love to help you however I can. People like young, ambitious, driven people. So go start talking to people!

>The purpose of this post is help new investors. Often times we may be asked by a friend or family member what they should invest in. They can be easily turned off by throwing multiple FAQs and guides at them. I have found that for a new investor, reading through wikipedia pages on lazy or 3-fund portfolios can be daunting. Reading books on the subject can be over the head of most people as well, if they do not have a finance background. Understanding stocks and bonds as well as the overall market is difficult so don't feel bad about not understanding it. I will try to keep this as short and sweet as possible. Hopefully you can link friends or family who are just starting off with investing to this post to set them on the right path. This information is covered in the FAQ very briefly without much explanation, however. Hopefully others can add insights that could be helpful for readers of this guide or additional questions to add on if they come up.
>
>Disclosure: I am not a financial adviser. I do not work in the financial sector. I do invest in some of the funds that may be listed in this guide. I did not author/publish any recommended books in this guide. I am also not a CPA. This guide is not intended to discuss tax planning.
>
>#Why should I invest?
>
>You should invest in order to help your money grow. Without growth from investing, it would be impossible for most people to retire. 401ks, IRAs, Pensions, and even Social Security all rely on investment returns to meet their obligations.
>
>#Isn't investing risky? How can I be sure I'm not going to lose everything?
>
>Investing doesn't have to be very risky. If you are investing in a single stock and that company goes out of business, then you can lose a lot of money. This is why diversification is important. It like the saying goes, "never put all your eggs in one basket." If they basket breaks then all your eggs break. If you invest in thousands of companies or put your eggs in thousands of baskets then you are much less likely to lose your investment and are quite more likely to gain money. For example, since it was started in 1994 the LifeStrategy growth fund listed below has grown 8% on average per year and invests in thousands of stocks and bonds, international and domestic.
>
>You may think that a 1% high yield savings account is a "safe investment." However, if inflation is over 1% per year, which it often is, it means that you are actually losing purchasing power on that money in the savings account.
>
>Even if you started investing right before a major financial crisis, you would still have more money than a very high yield savings account: Chart
>
>#I Know absolutely nothing about investing, what stocks should I buy?
>
>Target Date Fund or Lifestyle Fund. These are ALL-IN-ONE solutions for investing.
>
>Step 1: Open an account with Vanguard if you don't already have one.
>
>CLICK HERE to determine a good Target date fund for you. How a target date fund works is that it starts off with a higher percentage of stocks to bonds such as 90/10 and then moves toward 50/50 as you near the target date.
>
>For Lifestyle Funds:
>
>the Vanguard LifeStrategy Growth Fund is a solid choice that gives you an 80/20 stock to bond ratio.
>
>the Vanguard LifeStrategy Moderate Growth Fund is also a good choice for a 60/40 stock to bond ration.
>
>Vanguard can make a personalized recommendation for you as well if you aren't sure
>
>in general the higher amount of bonds you have, the less risk but lower growth potential your investment will have.
>
>#Shouldn't I listen to a financial adviser instead of some stranger on reddit?
>
>Well That depends on a few things:
>
>How much money is this financial adviser gaining from your business? I am gaining zero, so I have no reason to steer you wrong. Some times a financial adviser is out to make significant commissions by landing business, especially in extremely high fee "investments" such as whole life insurance or similar policies. Even 1% fees to hold and manage your investments can take a huge bite out of your account over time.
>
>Fee based advisers are the kind that you pay for an appointment, much like a doctor visit, and then they give you advice on your investments. Try to make sure however that they do not try to advise you into using investment vehicles that they receive commission from. These can be helpful in certain situations because you aren't throwing away money for years and years just to have an adviser handle your money.
>
>Consumer Reports says this could happen with some financial advisers. Basically they use their positions and your lack of knowledge to get you to invest in things to make them more money, costing you dearly in the long term.
>
>#Why are you suggesting Vanguard? What about other banks / brokerages?
>
>I find Vanguard the easiest to use. They also are structured to keep your investments safe. Once you reach a $50,000 with them, you have access to professional advisers. Unlike other banks/brokerages the advisers at Vanguard DO NOT RECEIVE COMMISSIONS. They are salaried so they have no reason to steer you wrong. Source
>
>Vanguard also has some of (if not the) lowest fees in the industry. This saves you money in the long term vs using other institutions or a financial adviser to manage your money.
>
>#Are there other investments besides these All-in-one funds?
>
>Yes, of course. Here are some more examples of portfolios that you could use as well:
>
> Examples of so called "Lazy Portfolios"
>
> These are some 3 fund portfolios
>
>
>#Are there any good books I could read to understand these investments more?
>
>Book recommendations:
>
> The Bogleheads Guide to Investing
>
> The Only Guide to a Winning Investment Strategy You'll Ever Need: The Way Smart Money Invests Today
>
> Book List from Bogleheads wiki
>
>

>The purpose of this post is help new investors. Often times we may be asked by a friend or family member what they should invest in. They can be easily turned off by throwing multiple FAQs and guides at them. I have found that for a new investor, reading through wikipedia pages on lazy or 3-fund portfolios can be daunting. Reading books on the subject can be over the head of most people as well, if they do not have a finance background. Understanding stocks and bonds as well as the overall market is difficult so don't feel bad about not understanding it. I will try to keep this as short and sweet as possible. Hopefully you can link friends or family who are just starting off with investing to this post to set them on the right path. This information is covered in the FAQ very briefly without much explanation, however. Hopefully others can add insights that could be helpful for readers of this guide or additional questions to add on if they come up.
>
>Disclosure: I am not a financial adviser. I do not work in the financial sector. I do invest in some of the funds that may be listed in this guide. I did not author/publish any recommended books in this guide. I am also not a CPA. This guide is not intended to discuss tax planning.
>
>#Why should I invest?
>
>You should invest in order to help your money grow. Without growth from investing, it would be impossible for most people to retire. 401ks, IRAs, Pensions, and even Social Security all rely on investment returns to meet their obligations.
>
>#Isn't investing risky? How can I be sure I'm not going to lose everything?
>
>Investing doesn't have to be very risky. If you are investing in a single stock and that company goes out of business, then you can lose a lot of money. This is why diversification is important. It like the saying goes, "never put all your eggs in one basket." If they basket breaks then all your eggs break. If you invest in thousands of companies or put your eggs in thousands of baskets then you are much less likely to lose your investment and are quite more likely to gain money. For example, since it was started in 1994 the LifeStrategy growth fund listed below has grown 8% on average per year and invests in thousands of stocks and bonds, international and domestic.
>
>You may think that a 1% high yield savings account is a "safe investment." However, if inflation is over 1% per year, which it often is, it means that you are actually losing purchasing power on that money in the savings account.
>
>Even if you started investing right before a major financial crisis, you would still have more money than a very high yield savings account: Chart
>
>#I Know absolutely nothing about investing, what stocks should I buy?
>
>Target Date Fund or Lifestyle Fund. These are ALL-IN-ONE solutions for investing.
>
>Step 1: Open an account with Vanguard if you don't already have one.
>
>CLICK HERE to determine a good Target date fund for you. How a target date fund works is that it starts off with a higher percentage of stocks to bonds such as 90/10 and then moves toward 50/50 as you near the target date.
>
>For Lifestyle Funds:
>
>the Vanguard LifeStrategy Growth Fund is a solid choice that gives you an 80/20 stock to bond ratio.
>
>the Vanguard LifeStrategy Moderate Growth Fund is also a good choice for a 60/40 stock to bond ration.
>
>Vanguard can make a personalized recommendation for you as well if you aren't sure
>
>in general the higher amount of bonds you have, the less risk but lower growth potential your investment will have.
>
>#Shouldn't I listen to a financial adviser instead of some stranger on reddit?
>
>Well That depends on a few things:
>
>How much money is this financial adviser gaining from your business? I am gaining zero, so I have no reason to steer you wrong. Some times a financial adviser is out to make significant commissions by landing business, especially in extremely high fee "investments" such as whole life insurance or similar policies. Even 1% fees to hold and manage your investments can take a huge bite out of your account over time.
>
>Fee based advisers are the kind that you pay for an appointment, much like a doctor visit, and then they give you advice on your investments. Try to make sure however that they do not try to advise you into using investment vehicles that they receive commission from. These can be helpful in certain situations because you aren't throwing away money for years and years just to have an adviser handle your money.
>
>Consumer Reports says this could happen with some financial advisers. Basically they use their positions and your lack of knowledge to get you to invest in things to make them more money, costing you dearly in the long term.
>
>#Why are you suggesting Vanguard? What about other banks / brokerages?
>
>I find Vanguard the easiest to use. They also are structured to keep your investments safe. Once you reach a $50,000 with them, you have access to professional advisers. Unlike other banks/brokerages the advisers at Vanguard DO NOT RECEIVE COMMISSIONS. They are salaried so they have no reason to steer you wrong. Source
>
>Vanguard also has some of (if not the) lowest fees in the industry. This saves you money in the long term vs using other institutions or a financial adviser to manage your money.
>
>#Are there other investments besides these All-in-one funds?
>
>Yes, of course. Here are some more examples of portfolios that you could use as well:
>
> Examples of so called "Lazy Portfolios"
>
> These are some 3 fund portfolios
>
>
>#Are there any good books I could read to understand these investments more?
>
>Book recommendations:
>
> The Bogleheads Guide to Investing
>
> The Only Guide to a Winning Investment Strategy You'll Ever Need: The Way Smart Money Invests Today
>
> Book List from Bogleheads wiki
>
>

>The purpose of this post is help new investors. Often times we may be asked by a friend or family member what they should invest in. They can be easily turned off by throwing multiple FAQs and guides at them. I have found that for a new investor, reading through wikipedia pages on lazy or 3-fund portfolios can be daunting. Reading books on the subject can be over the head of most people as well, if they do not have a finance background. Understanding stocks and bonds as well as the overall market is difficult so don't feel bad about not understanding it. I will try to keep this as short and sweet as possible. Hopefully you can link friends or family who are just starting off with investing to this post to set them on the right path. This information is covered in the FAQ very briefly without much explanation, however. Hopefully others can add insights that could be helpful for readers of this guide or additional questions to add on if they come up.
>
>Disclosure: I am not a financial adviser. I do not work in the financial sector. I do invest in some of the funds that may be listed in this guide. I did not author/publish any recommended books in this guide. I am also not a CPA. This guide is not intended to discuss tax planning.
>
>#Why should I invest?
>
>You should invest in order to help your money grow. Without growth from investing, it would be impossible for most people to retire. 401ks, IRAs, Pensions, and even Social Security all rely on investment returns to meet their obligations.
>
>#Isn't investing risky? How can I be sure I'm not going to lose everything?
>
>Investing doesn't have to be very risky. If you are investing in a single stock and that company goes out of business, then you can lose a lot of money. This is why diversification is important. It like the saying goes, "never put all your eggs in one basket." If they basket breaks then all your eggs break. If you invest in thousands of companies or put your eggs in thousands of baskets then you are much less likely to lose your investment and are quite more likely to gain money. For example, since it was started in 1994 the LifeStrategy growth fund listed below has grown 8% on average per year and invests in thousands of stocks and bonds, international and domestic.
>
>You may think that a 1% high yield savings account is a "safe investment." However, if inflation is over 1% per year, which it often is, it means that you are actually losing purchasing power on that money in the savings account.
>
>Even if you started investing right before a major financial crisis, you would still have more money than a very high yield savings account: Chart
>
>#I Know absolutely nothing about investing, what stocks should I buy?
>
>Target Date Fund or Lifestyle Fund. These are ALL-IN-ONE solutions for investing.
>
>Step 1: Open an account with Vanguard if you don't already have one.
>
>CLICK HERE to determine a good Target date fund for you. How a target date fund works is that it starts off with a higher percentage of stocks to bonds such as 90/10 and then moves toward 50/50 as you near the target date.
>
>For Lifestyle Funds:
>
>the Vanguard LifeStrategy Growth Fund is a solid choice that gives you an 80/20 stock to bond ratio.
>
>the Vanguard LifeStrategy Moderate Growth Fund is also a good choice for a 60/40 stock to bond ration.
>
>Vanguard can make a personalized recommendation for you as well if you aren't sure
>
>in general the higher amount of bonds you have, the less risk but lower growth potential your investment will have.
>
>#Shouldn't I listen to a financial adviser instead of some stranger on reddit?
>
>Well That depends on a few things:
>
>How much money is this financial adviser gaining from your business? I am gaining zero, so I have no reason to steer you wrong. Some times a financial adviser is out to make significant commissions by landing business, especially in extremely high fee "investments" such as whole life insurance or similar policies. Even 1% fees to hold and manage your investments can take a huge bite out of your account over time.
>
>Fee based advisers are the kind that you pay for an appointment, much like a doctor visit, and then they give you advice on your investments. Try to make sure however that they do not try to advise you into using investment vehicles that they receive commission from. These can be helpful in certain situations because you aren't throwing away money for years and years just to have an adviser handle your money.
>
>Consumer Reports says this could happen with some financial advisers. Basically they use their positions and your lack of knowledge to get you to invest in things to make them more money, costing you dearly in the long term.
>
>#Why are you suggesting Vanguard? What about other banks / brokerages?
>
>I find Vanguard the easiest to use. They also are structured to keep your investments safe. Once you reach a $50,000 with them, you have access to professional advisers. Unlike other banks/brokerages the advisers at Vanguard DO NOT RECEIVE COMMISSIONS. They are salaried so they have no reason to steer you wrong. Source
>
>Vanguard also has some of (if not the) lowest fees in the industry. This saves you money in the long term vs using other institutions or a financial adviser to manage your money.
>
>#Are there other investments besides these All-in-one funds?
>
>Yes, of course. Here are some more examples of portfolios that you could use as well:
>
> Examples of so called "Lazy Portfolios"
>
> These are some 3 fund portfolios
>
>
>#Are there any good books I could read to understand these investments more?
>
>Book recommendations:
>
> The Bogleheads Guide to Investing
>
> The Only Guide to a Winning Investment Strategy You'll Ever Need: The Way Smart Money Invests Today
>
> Book List from Bogleheads wiki
>
>

Depends on how old you are.

• Middle school: I really enjoyed this, this, and this, but I don't think I can read those books now (29) without cringing a little bit. Especially, Getting Things Done because I already know how to make to do list, but I still flip through all 3 books occastionally.
  
  
• High school: I really enjoyed this, this, and this, but if you're a well adjusted human and responsible adult, then I don't think you'll find a lot of helpful advice from these 6 books so far because it'll be pretty basic information.
  
  
• College: I really enjoyed this, this, and started doing Malcolm Gladwell books. The checklist book helped me get more organized and So Good They Can't Ignore You was helpful starting my career path.
  
• Graduate School: I really enjoyed this, this, and this. I already stopped with most "self help" books and reading more about how to manage my money or books that looked interesting like Stiff.
  
  
• Currently: I'm working on this, this, and this. Now I'm reading mostly for fun, but all three of these books are way out of my league and I have no idea what their talking about, but they're areas of my interest. History and AI.

Funny, I just had a conversation with a buddy about this. From 2005-2015 I spent a TON of time in researching and trading FX. Similar to most traders, I blew up a a couple small accounts (~5k total losses) and then spent a few years looking for a holy grail trading strategy. I really enjoyed the challenge of FX because it forces you to be in tune with world economies and interest rates but, even after a decade, I had trouble being consistently profitable (granted I did have some severe periods of trading ADD) During that time however, I did study a lot of technical analysis and became pretty good at very short term price action scalping. My problem was that I could just never reach the point in FX where I felt confident enough to throw money down the gauntlet again, no matter how well I did in paper/demo accounts.

In 2015, after watching some friends making easy money in stocks while I was doing brain surgery on the EUR/USD, I decided I would start spending more time studying stocks and doing some stock demo/paper trading. Turns out it was MUCH easier for me to look at a company's earnings/filings for fundamentals and then read the price action day to day. Maybe also because with FX there are SO many things influencing the direction of the dollar on any given day. For me, it made trading a micro/small cap much easier to read in terms of straight price action/volume. IMO FX is the perfect training ground to build solid TA skills.

It wasn't until May 2018 that I decided I would start trading stocks seriously. Of course, that turned out to be not the best time to start trading stocks! BUT, I think the years I spent in FX helped prevent me from getting into any really bad/overvalued positions. So far I've built up an initial 8.5k into ~103k. A long ways to go toward being a 'pro' but showing consistent profitability (for now at least).

EDIT: Point of clarification regarding my balance, I should note that once I showed some profitability, I began making additional deposits to my account (which now account for an additional 16.5k). I’ve posted screenshots and deposit history here

I consider myself a 'trader' not an 'investor' and I think you can do that with stocks just as easily as you can with FX. You just need to know more about the fundamentals/drivers of price on whichever company you're trading at vs the economic implications on currency. Really just adapting what you know to a different market. Same thing goes for switching to futures/options. When I switched over to stocks, I started with a lot of the value investing classics like The Intelligent Investor and others in the Grahm/Buffet realm, just to get an idea for valuation and long term strategies that have worked for the most successful. Depending on your trading/investing style you can drill down from there.

​

​

>What did/do you find hard about learning programming? If you could be specific about things that frustrated you or roadblocks that got in your way, that would be helpful.

The hardest thing I've found about learning programming is knowing where to start. If you're trying to learn without a mentor its really hard to know what you need to learn and how. To someone inexperienced with the field, learning to program seems as simple as learning a language, but the difficult part is learning to apply that to different problems. Overall, the hardest thing to learn is something that you don't know exists. As for a specific subject, I remember finding recursion and Polymorphism hard to understand the first time I encountered them.

>Did you choose to go to an institute of higher learning for programming instead of using the free resources that are all over the net? If so, why?

I am an undergrad sophomore at Northeastern University, studying Computer Science. I chose to study computer science at university instead of using online resources, because I realized that there was a lot to learn which I couldn't find in a web page. I made the decision shortly into my Junior year of high school when I was taking AP Computer Science. I enjoyed studying the subject so much that I couldn't imaging studying anything else.

>What is something that you wish you could change about your current programming instruction?

My current programming instruction is great. I generally think that my professors are very interactive and experienced in their fields. Something I think is great is that most of my professors lecture without computers. They write code on the board, which gives them much more freedom to move about and ask questions, and it makes that classes interesting. I also think it removes the focus from the language being used and places it on the theory, which is the important part.

>Do you look for career preparation or support? If so, what have you been looking at or what resources do you use? To clarify - I mean interview help, prep questions, advice, etc...about preparing to enter the field.

One of Northeastern's greatest tools is its coop program. Typically students graduate in 5 years with 1.5 years of working experience over three 6-month coops. In preparation of this, I had to take a class to prepare me for applying to companies. The experience was amazing. The advising department brought in employers and other students to talk to us and do mock interviews. As someone looking for their first "real" job, this is invaluable. Technical questions are an important part of the application process, but for entry level programming jobs they aren't too difficult. I've heard that http://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/098478280X is a great resource.

>For those of you still in school/learning - do you worry about how you will find a job programming? What concerns do you have?

Nope, already got my first job in the field. From my experience over the past semester of interviewing, it you're excited about the field and have a reasonable ability to program, you can find a job somewhere (especially if you live in a city.)

>If you're out of school and in the workforce - do you ever worry about how you will move forward in your career?

Not there yet.

>Does your place of employment (you don't have to tell me who) provide you with feedback or a clear path to advancement? Tell me about your concerns here.

Not there yet.

>LMAO where have I heard this before??

I have attempted to explain how each author has presented a false understanding of Marxian value or the nature of social production. I have given in Marx's own words and my own attempts to explain these concepts. If you are struggling I am happy to try again. Dusty's essay in particular is just mind-boggling in terms of how closely it mirrors Marx and then seems to ascribe to him all of this 'intrinsic axiologist' stuff that is literally contradictory to the Marxist conception of the human species.

>Except there is no real difference in the real world.

Yes there is. Water may have a multitude of use values. It may have a multitude of exchange values in relation to any given object. It may be present in such a material condition as to hold no value whatsoever, it may be present in such a material condition as to be the most valuable thing an individual could possibly want. A man dying of dehydration in the desert does not care for water's utility as a solvent or cleaning agent. A man drowning in the sea is not currently looking for a refreshing spigot to drink from. No one object holds some singular intrinsic or objective use value, this is a socially and subjectively derived phenomena. No one object holds some kind of set exchange ratio with another object outside of a given relational context which ultimately stems back to the material conditions within which the exchange takes place. My knowing how much a bottle of water sells for in central London relative to a bottle of Diet Coke does not tell me how much water I am going to need to turn an area of dirt into mud for the making of bricks. These values are distinct and separate.

>This didn't clarify anything.

Well again, see above. You have an appallingly bad understanding of the Marxian conception of society, which is why you are repeatedly presenting these quite shoddy arguments and then pretending like no one is giving you any kind of answers. The answer lies deeper than you want to look because you have not challenged some very basic presuppositions about our understanding of the material world around us. Like I said, I did not want to address what you said so much as critique the places you are clearly getting these ideas from. If you want to raise where you are struggling to understand or feel I am not making sense, I am more than happy to make another attempt in a more specific and detailed manner.

>We hate Mondays because we don't like working.

Except people will spend hundreds of hours working on whatever hobby satisfies them? Labour is not simply the act of going to work for your employer or engaging in market activity. As per Dusty's essay that you shared to support your position -

>Value-judgements and actions on them do not spring from a vacuum and can not float away and apart from the axiological lattice binding all values as instruments to a standard or ultimate value...It is the constant conditionality of the form of life that gives rise to the need of values and to the need of acting to secure and keep things instrumental to an organism’s preservation.

So when we say forced to work, as the video makes clear, we are talking about being forced to work in a manner in which we are unfree to determine how to allocate our own labour, rather than simply the need to labour in and of itself. In fact the need to labour freely is, again as mentioned in the video, part of Man's intrinsic nature without which we become alienated from both ourself and the society in which we exist. We hate Monday's during the work-week because it signals a resumption in which the majority of our time is spent working in a manner in which we have little to no control over.

>No one is forced to work for a capitalist.

Yes, you are free to go to the woods and build a mud-hut and die of starvation a few months down the line. Well, not really because most land is privately owned, but in principle. The reality is of course that we are social beings and we are talking about social labour. Your ability to engage in social labour under Capitalism without engaging with the market is... not really possible. Hence you are always going to be reliant on some form of Capitalist or Capital in order for your labour to actually meet your basic needs for survival, let alone the needs required to enjoy a social existence.

>Capital also does not concentrate or accumulate into fewer hands.

There's a big door-stopper book published on just this not that long ago. It is worth a read, but it can be a bit exhausting! The accumulation of Capital historically since the 18th century has only been curtailed by an anomalous period of political restraint on the activity of Capital during the mid-20th Century.

>They are not "deprived" of anything to not get paid.

I mean... Yes you are? Time? Freedom to be doing things with that time? The money assuming you have signed a contract judging your labour-time to hold a certain agreed value between yourself and your employer and are not some slave-labouring illegal immigrant?

>Your life is not owned by someone else.

Well, yeah it is. Again back to the last example. Yes theoretically I can go out and make myself a farmstead and live off the wheat I grow. In reality there isn't the public land to be doing that, and realistically you're not going to get those materials to even do that without first exchanging your labour-time for money.

>Bosses are not unaccountable. Bosses do not control more of your life than dictators.

I would have preferred he used Capitalist or Employer over bosses. I chalk it down to English as a second/third language. But where was he incorrect? What dictator on the planet could hope to have 8 to 12 hours a day in the lives of each of their subjects in which they control the minutiae of their actions, dictate when they are free to take breaks for essential biological functions? What do you mean bosses cannot force you to work for free, you've never done unpaid overtime?

>I'm 3 minutes in...

Good to know one side can sit through three long-form essays of absolute trash and come out with 10,000+ words of argument, while t'other feels more knowledgeable despite being unable to sit through 3 minutes of a video before getting too emotional to continue :) If its trash then you can put together the same kind of argument against on a point-by-point basis as I have tried to do and we can discuss onwards from there.

Instead of buying tons of books, you might want to look at Safari Books. I have the 10-book bookshelf subscription, and it is seriously plenty. Pros, you have instant access to a massive library of tech books. Cons, you are stuck reading on your computer/tablet/phone (I did try reading a few chapters on my Kindle, but the didn't care for the experience).

Books I would suggest:

• UNIX and Linux System Administration Handbook - this is seriously a great book, that will make any admin better.
  
• Time Management for Systems Administrators - has a lot of good tips for time management, but some things are a little dated.
  
• The Practice of System and Network Administration, Second Edition - This is a great read on how to be a better system administrator.
  
  I'm not a huge fan of training videos, but generally watch recordings from conferences. Although, I do really enjoy the format of vimcasts though.
  
  As for general advise, I did see someone recommend looking for an MSP. If you are looking to be a Linux SysAdmin, I wouldn't recommend this route as you are going to be supporting MS installations. Personally, I started doing help desk for a web company and moved up from there. Also, I worked hard to create my opportunities within each position. You'll have to put yourself out there and be patient, It took me 4 years to earn the official title of Systems Administrator (in a small-ish town). The key to this is finding a good Sr. SysAdmins who are willing to mentor you, and some environments/people aren't conducive to this.
  
  EDIT:
  
  BTW, I have a B.A. in Political Science, so don't be ashamed to rock that Philosophy degree. You will see a lot of posting that are looking for a B.S. in Computer Science/Computer Engineering/Rocket Surgery, but seriously don't even worry about that. Most job postings are a list of nice to haves, and most places really only care that you have a degree.
  
  I've been recruited by and interviewed with some very respectable tech companies. I just usually have to explain how I got into tech with a political science degree. In an interview, having the right attitude and knowing your stuff should say more than your major in college. But, you will also run into elitist douche bags who knock your degree/doubt your abilities because you don't have a B.S. in CS/CE. If you work with these people, your work should speak for itself. Don't try and get caught up into a pissing match with them. If it is an interview (as in someone you might work for), practice interviewing never hurts.

Rule # 1 - DO NOT HAVE A PARTNER.

TLDR - We failed due to a lack of trust between partners that grew over time and I was going through a divorce and emotionally checked out of the business. (I was in charge of all production...ie. when I checked out, shit fell apart)

Here's what we did to scale from $120K the first year to $1.2 mil in 18 months (10x growth).

We hosted all client sites through 2 reseller accounts with Hostgator and Godaddy. Hosting revenue pays the light bill and cable bills. Plus, your contractors only need to know how to do everything in 2 Cpanels. It's more efficient and profitable.

Outsource: ALL design. Wireframes in-house.

Outsource: Hosting setup, domain pointing, CMS/Wordpress installation, theme installation

Outsource: Email marketing. You define strategy and design etc. but the build and automation is all outsourced.

Outsource: Bookkeeping. Automate everything using IFTTT and Freshbooks. Automate as much as you can.

Outsource: All Local SEO - We used LocalOxygen.com to scale production 10x.

Outsource: All social posting. Give the workers access to your posting software and let them post that shit. You do the strategy, they do the execution.

Outsource: Adwords management. Find a certified overseas crew to access your MCC and again, talk to them about how you want the accounts managed.

Outsource:Remarketing/retargeting - Overseas Adroll team or GDN team. You'll have no problem finding teams that know more than yourself overseas at reasonable rates.

Hire a part time VA (Virtual Assistant) for $3.00/hour and have her handle your email, send out client intake forms, invoice reminders, all reporting that isn't automated. After 3 months, this person can basically serve as your remote office manager for $4.00/hour from Peru,Greece or the Philippines.

When/if hiring overseas workers, look for countries with a favorable exchange rate and a bad economy + strong English presence. They must be available during US business hours and have a microphone and camera for face time chats throughout the week. https://Upwork.com and https://www.onlinejobs.ph (we actually bought mics and cameras for those who did not have them.)

We handled SEO in-house and had a small overseas team to help with link building.

90% of my time as founder was spent on project management and helping sales people understand this stuff so they could sell it better. You can find competent workers all over the world for under $10/hour. We used Odesk/Upwork and took the time to build a solid base of loyal contractors. We trained our contractors to do the work the way we wanted it done. I was paying several people in Pakistan full-time @ $38/week or $.96/hr) to do link building. Profile creation etc. etc. I simply made a video explaining what I wanted them to execute on and how to do it and they went off and did it.

We had writers in Isreal (with Masters Degrees) paying the $15/hour to write great content.

If I got back into the game again, as an owner, I would literally outsource 99% of the work. Some to overseas and probably the SEO to a US based company. The rest of my time would be selling. I'll never work IN an SEO company again knowing what I know now...so much easier to train people on systems and let them execute. This way I get to stay working ON the business, not in it.

Remember taxes take 39% roughly.

Number 1 lesson - Find a great sales person who is wide but not deep in their understanding and who is also great at establishing rapport , then you go along with them on the sales call. You're the credibillity. Rapport + Credibility = Trust = Signed Contract

Lesson 2 Create documented processes and train others on how to execute.

Lesson 3 As quickly as possible put yourself in a spot where you are able to work ON the business and not IN it. If you do not do this then the business is owning you.

Lesson 4 Read the E-Myth - https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-About/dp/0887307280

Lesson 5 - Bask in 80%-85% margins and pay yourself well. Also bonus your contractors often and healthily ($20-$50 bonus every two weeks) and they'll never leave.

Hope this helps...

>I don’t regret having one, just extremely ashamed of being sexual and communicating it to girls and also showing it to the world. Attracting girls’ attention and whatnot isn’t very hard but progressing things to dating, holding hands and eventually sex is impossible. I can’t even call them or message them on Facebook or Whatsapp because I just feel like an idiot for doing so. Making a move in clubs and bars is also difficult although I once got close to leaving with a girl but she didn't want to. I got made fun of a lot growing up for not having a girlfriend and this made me feel like i do not deserve one. It doesn't matter if I've got the green light to go ahead I just feel really ashamed do it. Even something like looking at a fit girl wearing a short skirt makes me feel bad for checking her out and that I shouldn’t be doing it.


I know what you mean. I've been there myself, but even when I was there I was entirely self-aware of my shame and I was skeptical of the validity of my emotional reactions; I realized they were ingrained. Being aware of your emotional reactions allows you to be emotionally proactive. Your sex-negative problem is mostly an emotional issue, and not much else, right? I've been there. I wouldn't doubt that you are also decent looking and have both latent and actualized social skills. Most intelligent introverts have a lot of potential to be who they want to be because they know themselves more deeply than others. You must use your introverted nature to your advantage and recognize the differences in others and yourself. In all honesty, there are an infinite number of unwritten rules; everyone's abstract/emotional logic is different. Many of them are foundational and predictable, however; including yours and mine. Like anything else, being emotionally predictable is not a black/white issue. It is a grey area, and you have to balance your reliability with creativity.


Being made fun of for not having a girlfriend is just as sexist as being made fun of for not having a boyfriend; gender equal too. Were you ever shamed for not having a boyfriend? It's clearly a matter of groupthink and extroverted style; not for everyone. Dating relationships, for extroverts especially, are often attention-getting and showy. They wear their relationships like trophies won. Usually introverts prefer a more private relationship because they have less social desire and are often shamed because of it. Introverts are “themselves” more often in private. Extroverts are “themselves” more often in public. There is no shame deserved either way, regardless of popular opinion. Both styles have their strengths and weaknesses, and you should try to introject some of the traits that you enjoy in others; regardless of type. That is how you become balanced.


>I’m receiving counselling from a pastor who advocates the whole “no sex before marriage” thing and believes that people should only date to get married and sex is only for making kids which is stupid IMO because I do not plan on getting married anytime soon.


Counseling from a Catholic pastor? Watch out, that is one of the most notorious sex-negative societies out there. They own the abstinence-only charade while they parade horribles. Marriage is not the answer to anything; it is an institution of the state. Anything else attached is sentimental.


If you haven't already, I recommend doing an in-depth study of animal sexual behaviors; especially the most intelligent animals. All animals have sex for pleasure, but some animals are only driven to have sex at certain times of the year; humans are on a 24/7 system.


>I’ve tried the no fap route and gotten very high days counts but that hasn’t really helped me at all.


Sexual frustration doesn't help anyone. If you are mindful, then you can use your libido to further your goals, but it is not an all-cure.


>Got any sources to help overcome sex-negative perspectives? I’m interested in recreational sex not baby making sex.


Absolutely. I recommend starting with actual sex science and learning about male and female psychology and neurology. Then work your way into reading about sex culture. You should also study developmental psychology as you will probably need the clinical context in order to objectively self-evaluate your childhood influences; it is necessary for self-therapy. The best therapy will always be self-therapy; no one will ever know you better than yourself.


Evolutionary Science and Morals Philosophy:

The Selfish Gene

The Moral Landscape

The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined

Justice: What's The Right Thing To Do?


Sex Psychology, Science, and Neurology:

Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex

The Female Brain

The Male Brain

Why Men Want Sex and Women Need Love

What Do Women Want

Why Women Have Sex: Understanding Sexual Motivations from Adventure to Revenge (and Everything in Between)

Sex: The world's favorite pastime fully revealed


Behavioral Psychology and Abstract Economics:

How Pleasure Works

Freakonomics

Quiet: The Power of Introverts In A World That Can't Stop Talking

Thinking Fast And Slow

We Are All Weird


Developmental Psychology:

Nurture Shock

Hauntings: Dispelling The Ghosts That Run Our Lives


Empathy Building:


Half The Sky

The House On Mango Street

Me Before You

The Fault In Our Stars

Also check out James Hollis' Understanding The Psychology of Men lecture if you can find it.



Movies: XXY, Tom Boy, Dogtooth, Shame, Secretary, Nymphomaniac, Juno, Beautiful Creatures, and The Man From Earth.



All of these things are related, but it is up to you to make the connections; pick and choose which material suits your interests best. These are the things that came to mind first, and they have all influenced my perspectives.

I'm a software developer with about 5 years of experience , and I used to have the same sorts of problems where I would over-commit to getting work done and under-deliver. To summarize, I changed to where I only commit to tasks that will take 1-2 days or less at a time, and I make it very very public what I'm working on in order to manage both my and my team's expectations. Here are the gritty details (ymmv of course):

1. I got my team to start using a ticketing system and explicitly define what we are working on with explicit acceptance criteria for each ticket. That way you know where your finish line is. There other huge benefits to this but its outside of the scope of your personal workflow. This of course takes buy-in from your team, but at the very least start a board on trello with "todo", "in progress", and "done" columns, and try to keep the number of items "in progress" to a minimum, and work on them until their finish. A cardinal sin here is to move something from "in progress" back to "todo". This thing you're setting up is called a kanban board
   
   
2. I break the work I do into 1 or 2 workday 'chunks' on our team board, so I don't lose interest or chase another issue before the work I'm doing gets finished. Keep in mind that some workdays, depending on how heinous your meeting schedule is, a workday may only be 4 (or less :[ ) hours long. An added bonus to this is that its easier to express to your team what you're working on, and after practice chunking up your work, you and they will reasonably be able to expect you to finish 2-3 tasks a week. There are always snags because writing software is hard, but in general smaller tasks will have a smaller amount of variability.
   
   
3. As I'm coding, I practice test-driven development, which has the benefit of chunking up the work into 30 or so minute increments. While I'm making tickets for the work I do, i explicitly define the acceptance criteria on the ticket in the form of tests I'm going to write as I'm coding ( the bdd given-when-then form is useful for this ) , so the flow goes write tests on ticket -> implement (failing) test -> implement code to make test pass -> refactor code (if necessary)
   
   
4. This is a little extreme but I've adopted a practice called 'the pomodoro technique' to keep me focused on performing 30-minute tasks. Basically you set a timer for 30 minutes, work that long, when the time elapses take a 5 minute break. After 5 or so 30-minute intervals, you take a 20-30 minute break. There's more to it, but you can read more here. Again, this is a little extreme and most people don't do things like this. Here is the timer I use at work when its not appropriate to use an actual kitchen timer (the kitchen timer is way more fun though). There's a build for mac and windows, but its open source if you want to build it for something else.
   
   
   Side note: in general I limit my work in progress (WIP limit) to one large task and one small task. If there are production issues or something I break my WIP limit by 1 and take on a third task (it has to be an emergency like the site is down and we are losing money), and I make sure that whatever caused the WIP limit to break gets sufficient attention so that it doesn't happen again (usually in the form of a blameless postmortem ) . If someone asks me to work on something that will break the WIP limit by more than one, then I lead them to negotiate with the person who asked me to break it in the first place, because there is not way one person can work on two emergencies at the same time.
   
   Here's some books I've read that lead me to work like this
   
   

• [Kanban: successful evolutionary change for your technology business] (https://smile.amazon.com/Kanban-David-J-Anderson-ebook/dp/B0057H2M70)
  
  
• The DevOps Handbook: How to Create World-Class Agility, Reliability, and Security in Technology Organizations
  
• The Phoenix Project: A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win
  
• Continuous Delivery: Reliable Software Releases through Build, Test, and Deployment Automation
  
  As you may notice, the latter 3 books are mostly about how to quickly and reliably ship software. Developer workflow is a big part of getting that to happen, and many people have some of the same problems we do.
  
  I could go on like this for hours because I fucking love kanban. Feel free to PM me if you want to chat about your specific problems. There is figuratively nothing that I would rather talk to internet strangers about.
  

I do like Basic Economics a lot, but it's Chicago School, not Austrian. Sowell tends to focus everything around allocation of scarce resources, and through that lens come to a lot of the same conclusions as Austrians, but for different reasons. That was the book I started with when I began my search to figure out how an economy works (well, not including when I took AP Microeconomics 15 years ago), but I was eventually won over by the Austrians (who I initially resisted). If you would like an Austrian view on monetary systems to supplement your research, the Mises Institute has a lot of resources available for free, such as Rothbard's What Has Government Done to Our Money?. But, instead of focusing on what the possibilities are under a fiat currency as the MMTs do, it argues that the system is entirely perverse. It was written before MMT was a thing though, so if you'd like to hear a lecture on the Austrian view of money against the MMT view, Mises U had a good video on it. Granted, this was my intro to MMT (and it obviously favors the Austrian view), but I looked into it more afterward from the people pushing it, and I thought that lecture was fair. I am fascinated by the MMT view, but I think that looking as money as being exempt from the laws of supply and demand is hazardous at best and reckless at worst. As far as I can tell, it completely ignores or devalues saving, which isn't exactly new as the Keynesians have been doing that for nearly a century. Peter Schiff's How an Economy Grows and Why It Crashes actually does a magnificent job of illustrating the importance of saving, although the allegory slightly obfuscates the concept for the sake of grasp-ability by replacing gold with fish. It's easy to illustrate the value of saving when doubling your output of fish caught reduces the amount of time you have to spend producing food in half. It's also easy to see that having a bunch of fish stored up means that society has saved more than it's consumed. Having a build up of savings in real money like gold merely indicates that a society is producing more than it is consuming, but it's not as clearly visible.

What MMT book are you reading? I wouldn't mind delving into the school more. Btw, if you want the Austrian equivalent of Sowell's Basic Economics, that'd be Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson. It was written a long time ago, so the issues of the day have changed, but a lot of is still extremely relevant (and it's interesting to see him forecast things like our modern healthcare crisis). This is roughly the intro to that book if you want a preview.

This is a repost of my comment on this reddit thread

Check out harry potter and the methods of rationality.

• A Brilliant fan-fiction about Harry potter, much darker and smarter. Both informative and entertaining.
  
  Read/Learn Non Violent Communication
  
  
• Language shape our thinking, this method is absolutely brilliant and will immediately improve understanding for oneself and other people. The book & [Youtube videos] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dpk5Z7GIFs&list=PL16F02595B1BB9FA8)
  
  Start to [Meditate] (http://humanistsofmn.org/127-better-critical-thinking-through-meditation)
  
  
• Emotions and unconscious thoughts and belifs are many times very irrational. Meditation is greater for becoming more aware of them, which is the first step before critically evaluating them. Also many studies show a myriad of benefits such as: Increased happiness, better health, lower stress, increased IQ & EQ. And much more
  
  Philosophy - "love of wisdom"
  
  
• [Philosophy for Life and Other Dangerous Situations: Ancient Philosophy for Modern Problems] (http://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Life-Other-Dangerous-Situations/dp/1608682293) , Is a great introduction to Philosophy. Very practical, will increase understanding of oneself and help in living a happy life.
  
  
• Or if you prefer video [Philosophy: Guide to Happiness] (http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/philosophy-guide-to-happiness/) , Is a great introduction to Philosophy. If you want it bite sized [School for life] (https://www.youtube.com/user/schooloflifechannel):s youtube channel is also very good.
  
  Read about rationality/critical thinking
  
  
• [Less wrong] (http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Sequences), [Audio] (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1267969302/lesswrong-the-sequences-audiobook). Less Wrong is a community blog devoted to refining the art of human rationality. Video
  
  Learn about the common [cognitive biases] (http://www.businessinsider.com/cognitive-biases-2014-6?op=1) and [logical fallacies] (https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/)
  
  
• [Thinking fast and slow] (http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/0374533555) Is a brilliant book by Nobel prize winner Daniel Kahneman which shows oh so many ways we are less smart than we think. podcast
  
  
  Create some rationality habits
  
  
• [Memorize the Rationality checklist] (http://rationality.org/checklist/). anki deck (anki is an app for memorizing facts)
  
  
• Center for applied rationality have workshops (mostly in the USA).
  
  Learn about the ways Marketing/propaganda is used to influence you
  
  
• [The century of the self] (http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-century-of-the-self/). This series is about how those in power have used Freud's theories to try and control the dangerous crowd in an age of mass democracy.
  
  
  The Trivium
  
  
• General Grammar, Aristotelian Logic, and Classical Rhetoric comprise the first three rules-based subjects of the 7 Liberal Arts and Sciences. As these disciplines are learned and practiced together, they form the overarching, symbiotic system for establishing clarity and consistency of personal thought called the Trivium.
  

I think I disagree, but guess I haven't read a ton of books about writing. In my experience, they can be helpful, especially to people who are just starting out. Maybe not as helpful as reading the types of books that you want to write (and reading the stuff you don't want to write—it's important to read widely), but I don't know if I'd call them a waste of time. King's book is great (but that might be because I got the impression that I'd like him as a person while I was reading that), Strunk and White Elements of Style and Zissner's On Writing Well are helpful for tightening beginners' prose, Writing Fiction: a guide to narrative craft has great exercises at the end of every chapter, and I'm reading Benjamin Percy's essay collection Thrill Me right now, and it's great. I feel like a large part of /r/writing would really connect with the first and titular essay in that collection, actually. He talks about reading a lot of so-called trash genre fiction before being exposed to literary fiction and how he kind of overcorrected and became a super-fierce advocate for that-and-only-that before he realized that you can take the good parts of both to create amazing stories. I've also never read any other respected literary person mention reading R. A. Salvatore, which was cool to see since I forgot I was a big Drizzt fan when I was younger.

Hi! I love your username btw.

I'm going to try and find stuff over time, so I may add to this comment. It's going to take a bit to trudge through, but if you get just a little practice with each concept, you'll be pretty set. These companies don't need you to answer everything perfectly, that would give you a 99th percentile or whatever on Leetcode. If you know the basic concept, and you can mold it to the problem and give a time complexity, you'll be fine.

1. Cracking the Coding Interview is a good book that details interview process and gives a basic view of data structures.
   
2. There are some good courses in this link. I can't tell you which ones are the best, but I would probably recommend one by a university. Most are free without a certificate, but if you wanted to go for a certificate for any reason, it would look much better to have it from an reputable university.
   
3. I have the algorithms book from this set on my phone. I have used it for review quite a bit. There is a lot in there, but what I would recommend is to use it to supplement your algorithm exercises online.
   
4. I'm sure everyone else has recommended Leetcode, because it translates very well to the big N interviews. I would like to personally recommend Exercism. There aren't a ton of unique problems (a lot of the language tracks have repeat problems), but it has the advantage of giving you free code reviews, a summary of unit testing frameworks in the various languages, and I prefer the way it works. You can maintain a GitHub repo with all of your problems, and submit them through the command line. I'll have to warn that it is slower, because you have to wait for code reviews to continue on the core exercises. I would sprinkle this in with your other practice.

OP I have a degree in finance and I'd like to provide the counterweight to this sub. Please take the time to read my comments, despite the inevitable unpopularity of my advice:

• Try to think of the initiatives of the average investor here. Chances are they are a 20-something guy with a computer science degree, who's following the circle-jerk strategy of 'put all in S&P 500' because of fear of taking responsibility for their financial decisions. That helps them sleep at night. The easiest thing to do to just keep throwing your money at S&P, but seldom the easiest solution is the best one. I don't know of anyone with a understanding of economics or finance who follows this strategy, as nicely put as the only book this sub reads.
  
  
• Don't read pop-economics/investing books. While doing your degree, try to read more books like international finance and less books targeted at pop-culture like the intelligent investor. The former gives you an understanding of the economy, the later gives you some feel-good advice to parrot.
  
  
• There are signs of drop in the market. I'd advise you to read opinions of renowned economics like Shiller, Krugman and the like. Subscribe to the financial times and the economist and with time you'd get a pretty good picture. But in order to asses your risk properly you will have to know the theory and hit the books. From the top of my head, Shiller P/E has something like 60% correlation with future market returns. Given the current valuations of S&P the current historical 10-y return is 1-2%, not 7% like the /r/investing-ors are hoping. Since people expect 7%, but the fundamentals predict 1-2%, that difference has to come in the form of a stagnation or a crash.
  
  
• Now long term: Is 1-2% better then cash? Yeah. Is it better then just dumping your money in Poland instead? No. The point is not to choose between "in S&P, out cash" and "out S&P, in cash" the point to choose between the 1000s of options and find the one that gets you the best return.
  
  
• why am I writing a comment that will have negative karma return, you may ask? Because I once got a guy in the right way through my rants, and he wrote me later to thank me. That felt good. So I guess I'm hoping to hammer some more common sense into someone else.

If you don't want to make a career out of trading, a helpful rule of thumb is a 90 / 10 principle popularized by Andrew Hallam in his text Millionaire Teacher: Stick 90% of your capital in tax sheltered, virtually passive forms of investment like index mutual funds or ETFs with an IRA wrapper and stick the other 10% in whatever investment vehicle you want to learn.

For example, I put 90% of my capital in a batch of index funds and ETFs predicated on John Bogle's suggestion of "your age in bonds, the rest in common stock" index funds and ETFs by way of an account with Vanguard for my IRA and my company's 403(b) program. Vanguard makes this really easy through their target retirement funds, which automatically adjust the ratio of stock / bonds over time. I'm really interested in value investing; so, I take long positions in individual stock that meets the criteria Benjamin Graham identified in Security Analysis and The Intelligent Investor with the other 10% of my capital via a brokerage account with TD Ameritrade--this isn't tax sheltered like my retirement accounts but it's basically an ongoing education in investing since TD Ameritrade offers a ton of instructional materials on topics like options, commodities, etc. and I want to see my money grow.

Let's take a look at what this could look like for your situation. Starting with $5k and doing something like what I'm doing, you would:

1. Open an account with Vanguard or whomever else you want to deal with for your IRA and invest $4500 there. If you follow that same rule of thumb I mentioned from Bogle, you could stick 18% of that in a bond ETF like BND, i.e. $810. Of course, you'll have to purchase in units equivalent to the going rate of the ETF shares, which $83.22 at present. So, you'd have to go with 10 shares for a total of $832.20 invested. Then, you could stick the rest in a total stock market ETF like VTI, whose going rate is $103.50 at present. To invest 82% of your available $4500, or $3690, you would need to buy 35 shares for a total of $3685.50 invested. But maybe all this seems way too complex to keep track of year after year; so, you could instead just invest all $4500 in a one-stop-shop composite index fund like Vanguard's Target Retirement 2035, which currently features a ratio pretty close to what you want between bonds and stock and will automatically adjust for you over time.
   
   
2. Open an account with pretty much any other decent brokerage, study up, and invest your remaining cash in whatever you want to learn how to do. $500 is not going to buy you much stock, but you could pull off a few options plays with that amount of cash. The key here is to provide a context where you basically force yourself to learn how to invest by having an actual stake in the game. A lot of people advocate paper trading, i.e. executing trades with fake money but real stock market numbers, as a way to learn how to invest; however, we all behave differently when our actual money is at stake. It's better to learn with actual money, even if it's not much. As I mentioned before, I personally like TD Ameritrade because they provide a lot of instructional content; however, your mileage may vary.
   
   Any follow up questions?

The answer, as usual is: it depends.

If you want to invest your money, then there's no better time than now. However, the implication is that when you invest that money you have to leave it sit long enough to do it's work.

At 19 and wanting to invest, you have time on your side. You need to be able to stomach volatility in the market and not get excited when your stocks rally for 30%, nor should you despair when the stocks plummet by 40%.

Traditionally speaking, the stock market averages between 6%~8% a year, which is much better than any savings account you're going to find. However, you shouldn't treat it as a savings account because volatility will almost certainly put you in a bad position to sell whenever you need the money most.

If you feel like you can stomach that volatility and turn a blind eye to both the rallies and collapses, then the stock market may certainly be for you. If you are NOT looking to place your money in good companies for a long period of time (10+ years), then it's my opinion that you are simply speculating... in which case you may as well go to the casino.

If at this point you have decided that you would like to invest in the stock market, you now need to figure out the degree of involvement you would like to dedicate.

If you're looking for a simple hands off investment, then you should just invest in an index fund such as VFINX, SWPPX, or QQQ.

Index funds closely track the performance of the market and charge minimal fees. They are pretty much totally hands off on your part, and are the Ronco of stock investing. Just set it and forget it, and enjoy your ride on the market.

A step above that are mutual funds. They actively try to beat indexes, but charge a fee to do so. There are mutual funds for any style of investing, and people tend to choose mutual funds that coincide with where they think success will lie. That means choosing foreign or domestic, stocks or bonds, and even individual sectors like technology, retail, energy, etc.

The world of mutual funds is vast, and provide an opportunity to beat the market, but it comes with a price. I'll leave the rest up to you to do your research.

Finally comes individual stock picking. Picking individual stocks is the highest risk, but also have the potential for the highest returns. Also, there are no fees except for the fee for purchasing your shares.

There is also a lot to this world, as I'm sure you know, but if this route interests you, then I would suggest you pick up a few books, beginning with The Intelligent Investor.

This book is, in my opinion, the best introduction out there to investing for long term wealth.

Finally, since you're so young and you seem to have an eye out for your personal finances, I absolutely recommend you read The Millionaire Next Door.

Good luck!

Someone that hires first years here [1]:

Resumes

I can only speak from the perspective of a smaller company, but I have several suggestions, some of which may be more applicable if you're going to apply to somewhere with less than 100 employees:

1. A good resume is a must, this is a template that I recommend, keep it one page or less Make sure you get someone else to proof read, because it's a HUGE ding to your 'getting an interview' score if you have obvious typos in your resume.
   
   
2. Some things I look for are open source contributions (github links are very valuable), even if they are just documentation changes. [2]
   
   
3. Also, make sure you include your full (legal) name, phone number, email, and mailing address. Some people don't do this and I probably won't bother emailing you to ask you for those details if you don't include them.
   
   
4. Even if you don't have any personal projects, have taken CSC240, CSC236 or CSC207 and having >80 usually means that you'll at least get an interview as a first year, but larger companies probably won't know the significance of having taken 240.
   

• If you want an internship at big-4, you will probably need to talk to an on-campus recruiter at somewhere like YNCF, or have an internal reference. I don't know anyone that even got an interview as a first year except for within those means.
  
  

5. If you've placed in a hackathon or have interesting (or challenging, and well put together) personal projects, that's also good enough to at least land an interview at my company.
   
   

   Cover letters
   

   Some companies will care about cover letters -- I personally count it as a negative if you include a cover letter that is obviously templated:
   
   Dear hiring manager, I see you are doing [some random thing copied from our website] and I am myself very passionate about [that thing]...
   
   If you are actually reaching out specifically to join my company because you know someone else that's worked here, or you've used our product and want to work with us for that reason, a cover letter is probably appropriate.
   
   

   Interviewing
   

   Interview in as many places as possible. There are really only two things you should be focusing on as a first year: Cracking the Code Interview, and not being too nervous.
   
   Seriously. Buy cracking the code interview [3], and spend a week or so solving problems and learning memoization / pointer manipulation / dynamic programming. You'll be SO much better off.
   
   I find that if you think of every interview as "interview practice for when it matters in later years" you will not be so nervous as a first year. Expect to not know the answers to some questions, and just explain what you are thinking to get "part marks." Freezing up looks much worse than going down the wrong path with confidence.
   
   

   References
   

   [1] I'm CEO of ParseHub -- you can contact me at colin@parsehub.com
   
   [2] I also do optional lectures for CSC207 on Fridays noon-1PM @ BA1200, one of which will be on how to make open source contributions. Feel free to email me if you want to come.
   
   [3] It's available on amazon

Since you are from the UK I'm going to recommend /r/UKPersonalFinance's bible of Tim Hale's Smarter Investing. That basically explains passive investing, investing aims and timelines, portfolio strategies, etc and also inoculates you against trying to be too clever.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Smarter-Investing-3rd-edn-Decisions/dp/0273785370

You can also read the more general The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham but unless you are going to really dedicate a shed load of time to it Tim Hale's book is precisely what you need. Graham is basically the standard text on the matter but it goes into a lot of detail that isn't really relevant anymore whereas Smarter Investing is primed for modern investing and particularly deals with the UK environment more.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Intelligent-Investor-Definitive-Investing-Practical/dp/0060555661

If you are going to invest you absolutely want to use the right platform for it. The UK has a good number of tax efficient platforms for investment. Specifically:

1. Stocks and Shares ISA - Standard tax free investment account. You can put in £20k annually and will never pay capital gains taxes on the earnings. The new tax year starts on the 5th of April so if you have money to invest now you can put money in without using the limit for 2018-2019.
   
   
2. Lifetime ISA - Similar to a S&S ISA except there is a £4k limit (this counts to your £20k limit but you can only put £4k in a LISA). The big win with a LISA is the government puts in 25% of whatever you put in. The downside is you cannot withdraw money penalty free unless buying your first house or when you are 55. Withdrawing otherwise means you pay a 25% penalty on withdrawal (and because -25% is bigger than +25% you actually lose money). Again a LISA opened now can take £4k before the tax year ends on the 5th. Then you could put in another £4k from the 6th. One other detail is you cannot use a LISA towards a house within 12 months of opening it.
   
   
3. SIPP - A tax free investment pension. You never pay CGT like an ISA and you can put in however much you want. The government will give you back your income tax on up to £40k (that is the amount put in + the returned income tax caps at £40k) though you'll have to self assess to reclaim tax on higher rates (basically the government will put up your tax free limit for next year, the bonus is only directly 25%). You cannot withdraw until you are 55, penalties on early withdrawal are absurd (60%+). At 55 you can immediately take out 25% tax free. Any further withdrawals are taxable income.
   
   Basically it boils down to SIPP for retirement, LISA for buying a house (and to diversify against potential changes to the SIPP in law), S&S ISA for everything else. The one upside of an ISA over a SIPP is withdrawals from ISAs are never taxable. So using the £4k LISA limit each year makes sense once you are below the upper bands on income tax. As you'll effectively be able to withdraw from your LISA at will from 55.
   
   //edit - List of platform providers and fees below.
   
   http://monevator.com/compare-uk-cheapest-online-brokers/

The best place to start if you really want to get into investing is the classic, "The Intelligent Investor", by Ben Graham (he has another book called "Security Analysis", but it's very dense and some of the info in it is pretty dated, even though it has been updated a bunch of times). Graham was the mentor for Warren Buffett, who, if you don't know who he is, is widely regarded to be one of the greatest investors ever. The book has been around for a long time and has gone through a number of editions, but the principles have stood the test of time. Also, there was an edition that was updated by Jason Zweig, a financial writer: http://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Investor-Definitive-Investing-Essentials/dp/0060555661/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1451140254&sr=1-1&keywords=the+intelligent+investor

A caveat though: if you want to be very successful at investing, it requires fairly serious commitment, with regularly staying current on the state of your portfolio, going through financial statements, (not as hard as it sounds, but it requires learning and discipline), and understanding the economic environment the companies you're investing in are facing. And maybe more important than any of that is discipline; it takes a lot of guts to make decisions when your money is involved and you're sometimes going against the crowd.

The other two resources I would check out are, The Motley Fool, who generally put a lighthearted and fun spin on investing, but also take a value based approach (not strict value investing, but they are focused on company fundamentals more than typical Wall Street chatter). And Index Funds: If it turns out that you don't want to spend time every week reading financial statements or, at the bare minimum, Value Line reports, Index Fund investing is a great way to get into the market in a highly diversified way that doesn't require the same rigor that individual stock investing does. (Also, look at ETFs with regard to Index Funds, as they tend to be lower cost than investing in the fund itself -- Exchange Traded Funds are basically mutual funds you can buy like a stock, as opposed to traditional mutual funds, which you invest in by opening an account with the mutual fund company itself).

This is the first book I read - Basic Economics By Thomas Sowell. The author is quite libertarian (which I am not) but I don't remember the book being particularly radical. I read the book 10 yrs ago but it stood out, definitely piqued my interest, and really helped things 'click' for me regarding basic economic theory. Diving directly into a micro 101 textbook or just reading 100 econ blogs would not be advised as you don't learn the basics and traditions. Give yourself a reason to be interested and the rest will follow.

Free to Choose is pretty valuable, though it can be more a work of political-economy. Freakonomics is also great because its easy/fun to read and gives you a good understand of just how super valuable numbers are.

These are all on the light side and not 'textbook' quality; however, I'm sure they'll pique your interest, give you a good foundation, and the rest will follow.

Read these books, in this order:

Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist
https://www.amazon.com/Buffett-American-Capitalist-Roger-Lowenstein/dp/0812979273/

The Little Book That Still Beats the Market
https://www.amazon.com/Little-Book-Still-Beats-Market/dp/0470624159/

Margin of Safety (only available in free PDF now, out of print)
https://files.leopolds.com/books/Margin.of.Safety.1st.Edition.1991.Klarman.pdf

Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits
https://www.amazon.com/Common-Stocks-Uncommon-Profits-Writings/dp/0471445509/

The Intelligent Investor
https://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Investor-Definitive-Investing-Essentials/dp/0060555661

They'll teach you what's called value investing. As a system it was approximately originated by Benjamin Graham, Warren Buffett's mentor. It's the only system of investing that has been shown to consistently work over an extremely long period of time (nearly a century at this point) and anybody can learn to utilize it.

The first book will give you a close-up walk-through of value investing by following Buffett from his earliest days forward, including how he thought about investing (the most important aspect). That'll prime you to more easily be able to understand and digest the next value investing books. Once you have digested enough about value investing, you'll be able to adapt its ways to the things you're particularly good at (there are various styles or approaches to value investing; the best at it all use slightly different custom techniques in how they find stocks, what kind of levels of value they require before they invest, when they prefer to sell or not, risk tolerance, etc). As a system it's fundamentally built around logic / reason as the primary tools of appraising investments and making decisions, it encourages you to push emotion out of the equation of investing as much as possible (and in doing so, you automatically acquire a dramatic leg up over most investors big and small).

Of critical importance: value investing is not about producing small conservative returns. The best value investors have smashed the market's average returns over extremely long periods of time and they have tended to beat all other types of investors. Value investing is about: 1) not destroying capital, so that you can retain and compound it, taking maximum advantage of the extreme power of compounding returns; 2) picking investments that have an appropriate margin of safety (they've been significantly mispriced by the market), that protects your downside, while exposing you to a very large potential upside.

Ok, that's basically what I did when I started out. Let me just say, there is a learning curve- and LOTS to learn. However, if investing turns out to be something you enjoy, and you always continue learning, you open the door to higher returns in general (and a very interesting hobby :D ).

At the start, you don't need to know much more than the general facts. Equity, bonds, the market. What the lingo means, and where the resources are. The original book I got for an overview was the following, and I would recommend it: The
The FT Investing Guide - not a cheap book, but will go over the foundational knowledge you need.

I would then follow with The Intelligent Investor, which is THE great value-investment book. It will tell you about how to logically approach investing in companies, and give you a framework for choosing better companies to invest in, and not overpaying for the equity you invest in.

Knowledge of macro economics is also a plus, imo. I started off by reading Economics for Dummies (yes, really).

The basics of accounting is somewhat essential, but it's covered in the FT guide. If you can get to the point where you can understand a typical income statement, balance sheet or statement of cash flows, it should be enough to be a competent investor. It allows you to understand the underlying financial health of a business, which is very important.

Your aim is to find strong companies, with good future prospects, which are undervalued by the market, and invest for the long-term. This will allow you to maximise your returns.

..I was all set to continue writing this wall of text, but I think I'll leave it here for now. If you have any further questions, or would like more clarification on any points, I'd be happy to help. So just let me know.

Psychology (studied, but never practiced)

Here are a selection of interesting books:

• Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely. Easy introduction into behavioural psychology and decision making. I am pretty sure Dan did an AMA relatively recently. He's a champ.
  
  
• Quiet - The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain. This is a great book for those of us whose tendency is to listen more than talk.
  
  
• Tell Me I'm Here: One Family's Experience of Schizophrenia by Ann Deveson. Ann is a very well respected journalist in Australia. Her description of raising her son who had schizophrenia is well worth reading.
  
  
• Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's by John Elder Robinson - lesser-known brother of Augusten Burroughs. I did my research on higher-functioning Autism including Asperger's. This is a great memoir, and wonderful description of growing up different'.
  
  
• First Person Plural: My Life as a Multiple by Dr Cameron West. Whether you are dismissive of the validity of Dissociative Identiy Disorder or think it is a genuine condition, I read this many years ago, and found it compelling.

That's awesome. You have skills that are super relevant in today's age and will prepare you to have a big impact in your career.

What will be most meaningful is if you can create something of value to people in a demonstrable way - in your arena the natural idea is an app. Just creating things by itself is impressive, but even more impressive is if people actually find it useful and you can point to something as proof (eg number of downloads, metrics on usage)

So I would encourage you to think: what can I create that will solve a real problem that people will care about? What do I wish I had that doesn't exist yet? Then you go from there.

One of the best books you can read on how to achieve this is [Lean Startup] (http://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898/), which will give you incredibly useful advice about how to test whether your idea is viable and push you to prototyping faster.

The most important advice I can give you is, don't be afraid of shipping. As a first time creator you will be so scared about getting a bad reception that you spin your wheels adding features or perfecting the app. Resist this temptation - the app will never be as good as you want it to be. Ship early (what Lean Startup says is the "minimum viable product") and get feedback on how you need to improve as fast as you can.

^(This reply got kinda long, sorry)

> in an ideal world, yeah 50-50 is best, but I thought about it.

50/50 has it's own host of issues. What happens when you need cash? What if one of you wants to make a critical decision but the other objects?

Assuming your bootstrapping the startup, you're going to need money and that likely means one or both of you will need to invest. Do you do it at even levels? Let's say you launch and there's enough interest that you need the dev to start pulling more hours. Does he still need to contribute the same as you?

When it comes to decisions, it's natural to assume that you and your partner could work your way through any disagreement. While that may be true, you'll never really know until it matters. It's easy for a person's priorities to shift after going through the grueling process of launching a startup.

> Where I would come in the picture is at the very end when we launch our project and I would deal with sales/marketing, as these our my strengths and not my friends'.

No. Go read (or re-read) The Lean Startup. If you're wearing the hat as the business guy, then there is so much that you will need to do even before you should consider bothering your friend with this.

Before you approach anyone, you should have already verified your idea through surveys, conversations with potential customers, and any other relevant market research. You should have all of that in an easily digestible document or presentation.

While you're doing the research, you should have, at minimum, a splash page that gives a brief overview of the idea, perhaps an explainer video, and most importantly, a way to capture user interest. Those future leads should be considered metrics on your past tests.

Basically, you want to have everything ready as if you're pitching to a n angel or VC investor. The reason for this is simple: you are pitching to an investor. The only difference is that instead of trading money for capital they're trading sweat, blood, tears, a healthy social life, and a lot of sleep. A fringe benefit of pitching to your potential partners this way is that you'll get great experience pitching in a lot less stressful situation.

Once you get someone to partner up, there's still a lot that you will need to do while your co-founder is coding away. You'll need to continue on with the market research. If you're using the "minimal viable product" approach, you should be the one ultimately responsible for navigating pivots and releases.

You should also be cultivating a pre-release userbase. This means kicking out regular newsletters to anyone that subscribes to your landing page, building rapport with relevant bloggers and reports, and chasing potential leads.

If you're bootstrapped (self-funded) and you wait until you release to do any legwork then you've already put yourself in a situation where you're underwater. You'll have bills, your partner will have spent a fair to insane amount of time building the app/SaaS, and absolutely zero positive cashflow. What's more is you won't know that a market really exists or what price you should charge.

The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature - evolutionary psychology, behavioral genetics. (probably most interesting from a Freudian perspective, deals with many of our unconscious instincts)

Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces The Shape Our Decisions - Unconscious decision-making, behavioral economics, consumer psychology. Fun read.

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion - Most popular book on the psychology of persuasion, covers all the main principles. Very popular among business crowds.

Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships - Social neuroscience, mirror neurons, empathy, practical stuff mixed with easy to understand brain science.

Authentic Happiness - Positive Psychology, happiness, increasing life satisfaction.

Feeling Good - A good primer on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Also widely considered one of the best self-help books by mental health practitioners.

The Brain That Changes Itself - Neuroplasticity, how experience shapes our brains. Some really remarkable case studies that get you wondering how powerful our brains really are.

The Buddhist Brain - The practical neuroscience of happiness, love, and wisdom from a Buddhist perspective.

That should give you more than enough to chew on.

You really don't need a good GPA. Here's the big stuff:

• Put a lot of work into your resume so it looks nice. This is sort of obvious, but a lot of people just throw one together without a lot of work. Also, don't listen to the CCO's resume advice, they don't know what they're talking about for CS.
  
• Side projects are really important, especially if you aren't confident with your GPA. You want to show companies that no matter what your grades are, you know your stuff where it counts.
  
• Along the same lines, you want to have an active github (and link to that on your resume). Ideally you want to shoot for one commit per day, but obviously school is a timesink and that's not always easy. One trick you can use is to commit all your school projects into private github repos, since those are still displayed on your timeline. This shows companies that you're hacking away in your free time, even when you don't have to.
  
• Read through cracking the coding interview and do some online practice questions (firecode, leetcode, etc..). It's great to land the interview, but unless you're ready for the technical interview questions you won't make it through. If you haven't experienced one of these interviews before, you should know that they're pretty different than you might expect. The resources above (especially cracking the coding interview) will give you a great idea of what to expect.
  
• Also keep in the mind that the first internship is the hardest to get. You should expect a lot of rejection letters. Even the best candidates will be getting a lot of rejection letters. If you apply to 100 companies and land a handful of interviews, that's a win. Don't let a few rejections get you down!
  
  Good luck :)

Here's my suggestions:

• Freakonomics is a fun introduction to economics. It has some caveats (most high-level economists disagree with the book) but I think it's a great way to get excited about economic concepts and see some of the things you can do with them.
  
• There are a bunch of excellent topic-focused lighter-reading economics books such as: Wikinomics, The Wal-Mart Effect, and Predictably Irrational, to name a few.
  
• I know you said "pop-sci" but if you're into mysteries at all then there's a fun series of two books written by a pair of economists called Murder at the Margin and Fatal Equilibrium. The books are murder mysteries in which the main character solves the mystery using economic principles. They are a little silly but an entertaining read.
  
• If you're interested in something a little more hands on there are a number of free (low expectation) online introductory courses. The University of Illinois in particular is offering a completely free course in Principles of Microeconomics. It's fairly unorthodox and should be both fun and informative. I highly recommend it from personal experience.
  
  Hope that helps!

I did economics and highly recommend it. A few years out and I'm at 100k with a secure job now and promising career. I had a similar academic situation as you but decided to just stay at a state school where tuition was free. I don't know if I would have accepted it (because of the financial costs) but I wish I would have applied to some Ivy leagues and considered it more.

As a side, studying behavior economics contributed greatly to me leaving the church. Daniel Kahneman won the Nobel prize in economics and I'd highly recommend his book: Thinking, Fast and Slow.

Ultimately my advice is to remember that you're going to win in the end on this one so make it a priority to keep a good relationship with your parents. They'll probably be upset when they find out; they might start yelling; just stay calm, don't get angry back. Keep telling them that you love them and want to have a good long term relationship with them.

An hour a day devoted to learning about stocks is a solid plan. I would suggest that the very first book you read be "The Intelligent Investor" by Benjamin Graham who was Warren Buffetts mentor at Columbia University and taught Buffett how to use the Value Investing approach https://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Investor-Definitive-Investing-Essentials/dp/0060555661

This is a dense read and you should approach it as if you were taking a course and studying for a final exam. Get yourself a notebook and write down all of that golden info buried in each chapter. Keep in mind this book was first written in 1949 and the format of it and the financial language may be difficult to get through but take your time, don't rush through it, take notes, highlight paragraphs, and absorb the information you'll be glad you did in the future.

​

Below is essentially a list of things I wish I could have told myself years ago in order to save a lot of heartache and lost money. Hopefully it helps you to avoid a lot of painful lessons that I learned the hard way.

• Study "value investing" in depth. Ignore the people who say Value Investing doesn't work, Warren Buffett, Benjamin Graham, Joel Greenblatt, Peter Lynch, Mario Gabelli, Mohnish Pabrai, etc... have made fortunes buying companies at discounts using the value investing approach.
  
• After reading The Intelligent Investor further educate yourself on value investing by reading about the above investors, some have written book themselves others have had many books written about them. Also checkout r/SecurityAnalysis
  
• As a beginner invest heavily in a broad based index fund that cover the whole S&P500 (VTSAX, SPY, etc...) and only devote a small percentage of your portfolio at first to stocks you've selected until you get your feet wet.
  
• Ignore the financial media at all costs (Mad Money, Fast Money, Squawk Box, basically everything on CNBC...) they will lead you down a dark path that mostly resembles gambling as opposed to investing.
  
• Be in it for the long haul. Do not day trade. Find undervalued companies with great management teams that have been beaten up by the market and buy shares that you know should be valued at $50 on sale for $25 dollars when the conditions are right. As Buffett has said imagine that you have a punchcard that has 20 tickets and each time you buy a company a ticket gets punched all you get for your whole life is just those 20 companies. You would want to take your time and analyze each company to ensure you're making the right decision before you buy.
  
• Don't spend 10 minutes even thinking about buying a companies shares unless you are comfortable enough with your decision to hold it for 10 years.
  
• Do not trade options, futures, forex, etc.... as a beginner just stick with equities at first. Get some experience under your belt and then if you want to tred into these waters later do so, but with caution.
  
• There are some decent financial advisors out there but there are also lot more not worth their salt. It's good to talk to them once in a while but take their advice with caution, no one will safeguard your money or care about it as much as you do. Also most of them get paid commissions for putting you into whatever investments will give them the highest commission so look for a "fee-only" advisor if you're going use one. Trust me your financial advisor will still sleep like a baby if he loses your entire life saving, how will you sleep though?
  
• Pay no attention to the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) this is some academic mumbo jumbo out of the University of Chicago that tries to make the case that markets are always efficient, it's been in most financial textbooks for decades and like most things learned in college is complete bullshit. Markets are very emotional and prone to all types of irrational behavior because well people are very emotional and irrational at times....especially when money is on the line.
  
• Pay attention to large scale macro-economic conditions such as the current 10-2 year bond yield inversion that just happened a few days ago and has been a signal that has preceded the last 5 recessions. Usually a recession doesn't occur for 12-18 months out after the yields invert and there's no guarantee that it will happen just be aware of it and other macro economic indicators so you know where the economy is in the business cycle. This will allow you to take advantage of certain buying opportunities when prices are depressed.
  
• Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful.

I would cross-post this to /r/cscareerquestions since that's the subreddit that's more career focused.

My recommendation is to start building a coding portfolio. Specifically set up an account on www.github.com and start posting some of your projects there. Basically how github works is after you set up an account you download the client and create a folder on your computer. Any code or documents you put into that folder and then "push" will appear online. This will allow you to have lots of code samples to show a prospective employer. Another good idea is to build your own website. There are a couple of good web hosts such as www.bluehost.com and www.nearlyfreespeech.net. I personally use www.nearlyfreespeech.net because it's very very cheap. (You pay only for what you use and since your website will primarily be used to show employers it will be a few cents a month.)

Once you have a website and Github you'll also want to start studying more and learning more and then creating personal projects. There are a lot of good places to continue learning programming. You could sign up on www.pluralsight.com for their $29 a month plan and then follow along with courses. Alternatively you could buy books about programming and go through them and upload code samples to Github as you go through them. (A strategy I use is to look at books on www.amazon.com and buy used copies or copies that are 1 edition older than the current edition, it is very realistic to get books for $4 including shipping and handling.) There are also many free resources such as www.codeacademy.com.

Some good books you could buy that will help you once you get job interviews are: Cracking the Coding Interview, Programming Interviews Exposed, and Elements of Programming Interviews. Out of these books "Programming Interviews Exposed" is the best for beginners while the other two are more meant to get you ready to interview at huge companies like Google or Microsoft.

As far as projects to do just pick some ideas and implement them. For me personally I made a website (www.cslearner.com) and created my own blogging software. There is better blogging software out there then the stuff I wrote for myself but it beefs up my portfolio and gives me something to talk about in job interviews. One idea may be to make some sort of CRUD application/website. CRUD stands for CREATE, RETRIEVE, UPDATE, DELETE. Since a lot of what we do as software developers is data manipulation you can create some sort of app or website that creates and manages information. In my case the first CRUD thing I created was a comment section using PHP and MySQL. Literally all it did was allow people to post comments on a website and then a SELECT statement would display all the comments that people had left. You could do a similar project. The cool thing about CRUD is that you can build apps using a huge assortment of technologies. You could create a CRUD app using ASP.NET, server side Java(JSP), PHP and MySQL(the LAMP stack), or a bunch of other technologies.

Also a huge thing is to apply for jobs even if you don't feel very ready. Check out this YouTube video in particular. Employers put down a wish list of things they'd like in a candidate but know in advance they won't get everything they'd like. If you seem like someone that could learn the technologies they may hire you even though you don't know everything yet. Also you'll want to apply to a lot of places. I've had 15 job interviews so far (I'm graduating this next April) and I have no job offers yet. This means I have to apply to even more places. Even though Computer Science is a very high demand field job hunting is still hard and you still need to put out lots of applications.

A lot of this comes down to how actively you want to engage in the process, how much of an "enterprising investor" you want to be as opposed to a defensive investor.

For the more defensive position, a lot of /r/investing appreciates Graham's approach emphasizing value, even if a substantial quantity of capital is devoted to playing the market itself (something Graham called speculating). If that approach is interesting to you--which seems likely given your stated desire for low to medium risk with steady growth--then the main adjustments you'd need to make are as follows:

• Quit sinking the majority of your capital investment into just a couple stocks and stay away from actively managed mutual funds, too. For upwards of 80% to 90% of your capital, go with a balance of indexed stocks and bonds. A common way to do that is to subtract your age from 100 and let the difference be the percentage of stocks; in your case, we're talking 76% of your capital in indexed stocks and 24% in bonds if you did not set aside anything for more speculative forms of investment. If you set aside, say, 10% of your capital for speculation, then we'd be talking about roughly 68% of your total capital in indexed stock and 22% of your total capital in bonds. Periodically buy / sell to maintain this balance; some people who are really disinterested in closely playing the market do this only once or twice per year with long term success. Your goal here is to diversify your capital outlay in one of the most boring yet demonstrably low risk / consistent growth ways out there, and that is a portfolio heavily biased towards indexed stock and bonds. For a text that develops the logic and details of this approach, read The Millionaire Teacher.
  
  
• There are tax advantages to contributing to a 401k; so, a lot of people would council maxing this out. Nevertheless, a 401k is just a type of account; you would still want to follow the principle in the previous point in deciding specifically what sort of investment you want to "point" your 401k towards. (I say this because some people are under the mistaken impression that a 401k is itself a form of investment, e.g. "I have some capital in stocks, some in bonds, and some in a 401k.")
  
  
• With whatever quantity of capital you chose to devote to more speculative activity, say, 10% of your total capital outlay, think of this as your chance to experiment. If you like KO and WEN, great. As frequently as you want to play the markets, whether you want to go long on this stock or short on that, this (and only this) portion of your capital is yours to do with as you please. Have fun, but don't ever allow yourself to pull capital from your more secured forms of investment over to speculative activity if your goal is "low to medium risk with steady growth." Speculation is inherently risky; that's the way it works. And it's not something you can just do every once in a while with consistently solid results; it takes serious devotion.
  
  
• Since you mentioned holiding a normal savings account and/or a CD, I'm going to mention that most folks council retaining upwards of 3 to 6 months worth of expenses in a totally liquid form of savings. This won't make you any money whatsoever (well, unless we wind up with a nice drop in inflation and you can take advantage of some pretty crazy rates select credit unions offer, like Baxter's "Rainy Day Savings" at 3.0% APY). But that's okay; the goal here is to have cash on hand for an emergency. CD rates are pretty terrible across the board right now; so, you're better off going with a high interest online savings account like ING Direct Savings or Discover Online Savings if you don't want to bother with or cannot get credit union membership enabling you to snag those nicer savings account rates.

I just walked into a Fidelity office and asked them for help opening an account. Now I can access it online to look at stocks available for sale, set up stock screeners, and find their SEC filings (oftentimes I go ahead and just check the EDGAR database..

There is some minimum you have to have to start out with but I've forgotten what it is (I think $1k). I started with only $3k.

People here are going to recommend you not retail invest. Considering your statement "I'm mostly interested in companies that pay dividends like ge or intel since I want stability and low maintenance." I'm going to recommend you do some more reading and research before you start investing. If you really, truly want 'low maintenance' then you don't want to pick stocks. It involves reading long and dry financial reports and SEC filings, doing some easy but boring math, and following up every now and then with yearly and quarterly reports and shareholder voting. Technically once you get into the practice it only takes like a handful of hours a month if you're a sit-and-hold investor (which you should be), but it's a lot more work than most people are willing to do, and retail investors typically earn less than indices.

For basics of investing, check out Investopedia. Go through their tutorials; they also link to speculation games where you can purchase some stock and see how you do for a few months to a year. I'm also a huge fan of Benjamin Graham's The Intelligent Investor. Another book that comes highly recommended everywhere I look but I haven't read yet (high on my to-do list) is The Black Swan. I would say if you've gone through all the work of reading these books and STILL want to stock pick, then you're good to go.

As a relatively arbitrary decision, I decided to put 10% of my income into my personal investment account (this would be after employer matched 401k and taking out another 10% for savings). My philosophy behind this being that if I lose every single cent from my personal account, I've only lost 10% of my earnings (though more than 10% of my wealth). This way I get to have some fun and still be cautious. Not saying you should follow this as a rule, just saying that before you invest in a financial asset that can possibly lose all of its value, you should know how much you are willing to lose.

Edit: I just wanted to mention, I enjoy reading the financial reports and such, actually, because it gives me a new perspective on the world around me and the sorts of things running under the products I take for granted that I otherwise wouldn't think about. For me retail investing gives me access to a realm of information most other people are not aware of, or interested in. It's made me look at products, services, and businesses differently and now I have a lot more connected view of just where this bottle of shampoo came from, where the aluminum in a Coca Cola can was delivered, and so forth. This is an intangible benefit that can't be calculated into my ROI. If you're really interested in learning where Alcoa owns aluminum mines and the states of the roads leading up to those mines, become a retail investor. Or you can just read SEC filings. Few people, ever, mention this aspect of retail investment as a benefit.

I run a small IT shop with about 25 repeat customers. All but 4 are business clients, I do very little residential (with the exception of the home PCs of some of my business owner clients). My business has two parts: managed services and break fix. Managed services are contracted, and basically I guarantee "x" level of uptime for the client per month. For that, I bill about 50 bucks per PC per month, and anywhere between $250 and $300 per month per server. Break/fix services - I offer onsite or remote support, I emphasize remote where possible (much cheaper for all involved and less overhead for me). Break/fix is billed hourly and/or could be a project rate.

1. I do use contracts, one is a "relationship" agreement that spells out exactly what I am not liable for, and the other is a "service agreement" that guarantees "x" number of hours of service per month for a flat fee. The managed services contracts are specific to the client, and are generally pretty complex.
   
   
2. An LLC takes some, not all, of the liability off of your personal assets and puts them under the purview of the company. It's important, but not as important as liability insurance in two types- general liability, which covers your business for "accidental" type damage, and professional liability, which covers your business should you or an employee completely screw up a client's data or systems. PL insurance is sometimes called "errors and omissions" insurance and I consider it to be critically important (and a very good selling point for your business).
   
   
3. I am on retainer for a few businesses, as I mention above, and it doesn't give them carte-blanche to call for free advice. The contract spells out some conditions - you get free phone support (as opposed to a 15 minute limit for uncontracted calls) for contracts over 20 hours per month, but if you are excessive or the calls are the result of your own incompetence ("I deleted my system32 directory") I reserve the right to bill you anyway. And so on. But in essence a customer is buying x number of hours per month of service, use it or lose it.
   
   
4. If I am diagnosing one PC, I take a run at diagnosing or fixing the problem. At about the 15 minute mark, I start making noises about how this machine needs further diagnosis and I'd need to bill to continue (but honestly, I'm good at this, and I can tell in the first few minutes what kind of problem is happening and I pretty much know the way it's going to go in that 15 minutes anyway). If the problem is obvious - spyware, etc - I immediately quote a range of hours/rates and ask if I should continue. And if it looks like its going to take more than 1-2 hours to clear a virus/spyware, I'm just going to tell them "I'm going to pave it and start over" - meaning back up their data, reinstall the OS and patch it back up, reinstall the software and restore the data. Generally that's a 4 hour gig but if a PC is that tangled up, rebuilding is the smart answer anyway.
   Servers and business clients - generally if I come in your door (whether remotely or physically) I'm on the clock, and therefore diagnosis and repair are included in the service call. Its expected that you'll spend time researching a problem to arrive at a fix. That's called due diligence and good customers aren't afraid to pay for it. Just don't be blatantly googling and saying things like "No shit!" and "uh oh, really?"
   
   
5. Taxes and legal: Hire it done. A good office manager is worth whatever they want you to pay them. Get a CPA as a client, have them help you set up a "to-do" list for taxes and payments you have to make, and get them to sign off on your books once a quarter or so to keep you in line. If you're going to have a few employees, contract with a payroll service to handle them. Keep a little money put aside somewhere for legal calls to an attorney and pick up a couple of them as clients so you can trade for work if you need to.
   
6. My business has fluctuated and I've had employees. It's a pain in the ass, far easier to contract with fellow IT types and split the bill, so right now I've got some techs that I call on a freelance basis and they bill me if I use them.
   
   Three big things to keep in mind:
   
   

• Do not, I repeat, do not, lose sight of your financial condition. Its easy to let someone else handle this and every time I've seen someone do that, huge catastrophes happen.
  
  
• Put 25% of your weekly income aside in a CD or other not-easily-accessible instrument. This is your estimated tax payment. Don't do this, and you'll end up pwned on April 15.
  
  
• Read this book.
  
  And finally: Don't be afraid to fire a customer.
  

http://www.amazon.com/The-Intelligent-Investor-Definitive-Investing/dp/0060555661

This was one of those books that really got me thinking - there's a few more that come to mind ... Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits.

All of these books basically center around how to decouple emotion from the act of investing; hence, why these books are still powerful decades after being first published.

Sounds like you're not going out on the streets because of this - which is great. But, it sounds like you're kicking yourself in the butt (which you really shouldn't.) I recall the dot com glory days. I was in grad school, using this brand new website called e-trade and investing in all the companies whose products I used (sandisk, etc). Just making bank (on paper), it felt great. I thought that I understood the mechanics of the market but when things began to go sideways for me - I too hodl'ed.

Out from the ashes comes the phoenix... So take this as a learnable moment. Mine cost me dearly as well (sounds like more actually - if that helps ;-) ), but from the most expensive of all teachers (experience) I did walk away with new tools. So when fresh opportunities arose, I was in a better position to analysis, understand, and control myself to take fuller advantage of these gems...

Personally I think that we are really just beginning to see the power behind bitcoin and would suggest hodling. I'm sure that many will say that's a bad idea (perhaps so.) I'd also recommend paying off everything as quickly as possible and stopping any/all future trades - at least until such time that you feel more confident and comfortable in doing so. I feel that any further trades may result in compounding these feelings of dread and you may also regret them in the (long term) future.

Putting this aside to give yourself time to recalibrate is probably best.

I have no idea what the startup scene is like in Switzerland, but you should definitely find out! The best thing you can do right now is surround yourself with other entrepreneurs, for sure. Are there any events you can go to? Accelerator programs, incubators, or shared office spaces for startups? Even online communities where these people hang out, anything to get talking. If you can find other entrepreneurs, they'll love to talk with you about your idea. You need to get lots of feedback, and (hopefully) find another passionate soul (or two) to join you!

Pro tip: Don't keep your idea secret! Instead of me explaining it to you, just read this great post by HubSpot founder Dharmesh Shah

Spread your idea, get feedback, find a partner or two, read the lean startup, and go for it! Good luck!

First thing you have to do is learn all the lingo and jargon. Then you can learn the principles and strategies.

Investopedia is a fantastic place to get learn the lingo. Just search a word you don't understand and there will be a short article explaining it.

Then you can go two ways, learn pragmatic practices like Fundamental Investing vs Analytical Investing, Day Trading vs swing trading, stocks vs options trading, forex trading, etc.

Or you can study the grand scheme and mentality you need to become wealthy. From my experience you first need to have the mentality of a wealthy person before you can become wealthy. Like how TRP teaching you to be a certain way before you actually are. A good analogy is, "You don't meet any 80 year old people that are poor and great with their money". Just doesn't happen, your wealth is directly correlated to your behavior and outlook. Mentality and frivolous spending dictate your wealth, not how much your job pays you or your hourly wage. I know people making 100k a year that are fucking broke and will be broke the rest of their lives just because they don't care to learn how to use money.

I'd start with studying the most successful investors and businessmen ever. Learning how powerful compound investing is will probably be the most important thing. This is a great video over Warren buffett and his overarching mentality to investing. Study everything you can on him and how he "Thinks". He's mentality is what you need to learn and emulate.

The Intellegent Investor is probably the best primer book you'll ever read for investing. Its an extension to Buffetts mentality. The technicals will be over your head as a novice but pay attention to the mentality like buffett. It's written by a guy that entered the stock market in 1915 and survived through 5 recessions and is considered one of the best investing books ever written. It's one of the first books Warren Buffett ever read, he talks about it too in that video I linked. It's been updated every five years since it was written in the 70's. I'd suggest learning as much about Benjamin Graham, the author of this book, as you do Warren Buffett. Cause he's who Buffett learned from.


Now, once you get the mentality and lingo down you can focus on actual strategies and pragmatics. Financial Education youtube channel is a good place to learn fundemental investing. he's a bit goofy but he's solid on his delivery and takes a more modern approach to the buffett style of investing.

I'd recommend learning the basics of fundamental investing first. Learn how to read balance sheets, cash flow statements, income reports. Study market caps of companies, P/E Ratios, are they under or over valued, etc.

Once you have the basics of fundamental down then you can learn analytical. This is where you can make high returns on your investments but it is greater risk unless you learn how to manage them. Tons of people lose their ass in analytical because they don't know what they are doing. Educate yourself and don't be one of them. youtube the difference between day trade vs swing trade, momentum vs breakout trading, learn the difference between options and stocks, support and resistance lines, studies, indicators & signals.

That should be a good start.

edit Also Download the Robinhood app, it's the first free trading app ever. So you can literally start with $10 if you want and fuck around. the beauty of trading and investing is, it's not about the amount you start with. It's your % return per day, per month, per year. There are people day trading with 300%+ return in a month. They can take $50 and turn it into $15 or 5k and turn it into 15k. your return percent is the magic number, not how much you start with.

insomniac84, your response is lengthy and it is obvious this is something you care about. I would first like to direct you to Henry Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson. It is inexpensive, short, and concise.

Next, I would like to ask you how single-payer government healthcare would be any different from having insurance companies? Our problem right now is high insurance premiums. If federal healthcare was passed, wouldn't we be in the same situation with higher taxes (or deficit spending equaling inflation) replacing the insurance premiums, except without the option of not having insurance because we will be taxed for not having the government plan?

Think of Social Security. What was set up to make retirement an option to everyone by requiring lifelong payment has become a moneypit. The Social Security fund is spent annually by congress on other failing programs. Instead of people having the option of choosing different IRA plans through private banks, that money was pulled into the government, and never accounted for. I think everyone will agree Social Security has failed to do what it was intended and our seniors are not receiving enough if anything compared to what they paid in. What would make single-option healthcare any different?

Do you expect cell phone service to be "free?" Your 10 cents a kilobyte pays for the initial risk that company took when starting, the set-up of the network, the maintenance of the network, and the improvement of your network and cell phone service. Because there is profit in it for the cell phone company, there is motivation for them to continue service, hire smarter labor, and improve their service. Because there is profit in the cell phone industry, other companies are drawn to it, seeking to provide a better service, and lower cost to improve profits, resulting in the consumer having better, cheaper service.

I hope my response to your cell phone question also illustrates what Paul is trying to say about healthcare. Simply replace maintaining the network with medical school and drug research.

The monopolies you say run our nation are only allowed to do so by our legislators. A natural monopoly cannot exist unless it continues to provide the best product at the lowest cost. Utility, telephone, and other monopolistic industries are allowed to do so because laws have been passed by our politicians permitting it.

I know this is long, but I hope it has answered some of your concerns. Also, I have a close friend who took the PCAT today and would hope you don't want a shitty pharmacist. She is entering that field because it is profitable and she can make a good living while working with chemistry. She isn't paying for Pharm School to have her salary capped and do it "at cost" :)

Please read Hazlitt's book, he can explain this much better than I.

Sure, I can tell you how I did it.

First step, find companies/jobs you might be interested in. Biospace is a good place to start, but there's lots of other resources. Ask friends in industry, network at conferences, etc. Find a decent recruiting company that can hook you up with companies you've never heard of. Mirus Search was pretty good to me, and found a company/role that ended up giving me an offer. Figure out what you want --- small company or big company, public or private, location, field of work, and so forth. You're aiming for a list of at least a couple dozen companies and roles that look worth putting more work into researching. I stuck 'em all in a spreadsheet. A common error at this point is to miss lots of potentially good small companies, especially small private companies.

Second, research the company and the job. The goal here is to be able to answer the question "Why are you interested in this company" and "Why do you think you're a good fit for this job"? I had a row for each company/job and literally wrote the answers to these questions in a cell of my spreadsheet so I had them immediately on hand. If you can't answer either of those questions after some research, throw that company/job out.

Third, prepare resumes and cover letters for each one. Cover letters should be just a couple of sentences and personalized to each company. Mash them up out of your answers to the previous research. Again, I pasted this into my spreadsheet. Resumes should be short (1 page, maybe a second page for publications) and contain only stuff relevant to the job you're applying for. If you're applying to multiple different kinds of jobs, emphasize/cut different things. For any kind of job involving programming, link to your github/bitbucket/whatever account, assuming you've got something decent up there. Put something decent up there if you don't have it, just drop all your academic work in. I was told after being hired that my code sample from sourceforge is what got me the interview in the first place.

Fourth, send them off. I colored rows of my spreadsheet to keep track of everything. Blue for "sent off", green for "phone interview", red for "rejected". If you get rejected, be nice and say thanks. I got at least three follow-ups from companies about three months later saying that actually, they did have an opening for someone now. Expect a lot of rejections.

Fifth, prep for interviews. Expect technical questions. I got a lot of statistics questions and some programming questions. Prep for them. I spent a couple of months working through books like Cracking the Coding Interview and practicing questions on a whiteboard. I borrowed a whiteboard from work and did them at home on the board out loud. It helped a lot.

I started with ~30 companies of interest, had phone interviews with ~5, on-site interviews with 3, and offers from 2. Good luck! It's a lot of work.

>Also just to be fair, look at where this hero-based FPS style got Quake into, there is a reason why Blizzard made the most successful game in the genre, while others suffer from lack of development and direction.

Overwatch and Quake are NOT in the same genre. AT ALL. Overwatch is just as much an arena shooter as, say, Counter-Strike or Call of Duty are; which is to say not at all. You're making the same mistake everyone else is making in starting with incredibly superficial aspects of each game, namely that they have classes, and creating "genres" based on that rather than the actually significant gameplay differences between them (And they must be based on gameplay, since none of these games have any significant story elements in their actual runtime).

Overwatch is so far removed from traditional objective shooters, namely in how efficient use of abilities plays a much larger role in success than raw shooting skill than in virtually any other first person objective game that comes to mind. A large number of the classes don't even require any "FPS" skills, and instead have analogues in asymmetric strategy games and the like.

Quake Champions may be small, yes, but it IS attracting more people than just the quake crowd. On a technical level, it's an excellent blend between an archetypal arena shooter, the sort of game design Quake invented, while reducing complexity and convolution to make it much more approachable for those with more modern shooter habits. Lawbreakers, too, hardly suffers from any "lack of direction" in the design department. It's packed to the brim with great ideas and unique takes on the "high-skill FPS" concept, and had my jaw hitting the floor with respect for its elegant gameplay several times when I started playing it.

Success has far more to do with randomness and luck than most people in this thread seem willing to admit. Quake, Overwatch, and Lawbreakers AREN'T significantly better or worse than each other. No hypothetical backfit narrative properly explains why one would have hypothetically failed or succeeded without luck. We just live in a works where the big take the whole pie and the small get nothing; in a world of bandwagoning and herd mentality caused by popularity coming from whatever just happens to gain traction early on in its lifetime.

I bought in relatively early to all of these games because I'm a shooter fan and a nut for unique game design ideas. I will admit that I like Quake the most, Lawberakers second, and Ovwerwatch third, so I do have a little voice in the back of my head that gets irritated whenever others disagree with that assessment, but we all need to learn to come away form making simple judgements between them and other games in the same boat. All of them break the mould in different and unique ways, all of them have good ideas, and all of them could have been popular, in a world where luck happened to favor someone else.

I've immersed myself in science and history my whole life and quite possibly the best book I've ever come across that condenses everything in a sequential order is "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson.

> In A Walk in the Woods, Bill Bryson trekked the Appalachian Trail—well, most of it. In A Sunburned Country, he confronted some of the most lethal wildlife Australia has to offer. Now, in his biggest book, he confronts his greatest challenge: to understand—and, if possible, answer—the oldest, biggest questions we have posed about the universe and ourselves. Taking as territory everything from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization, Bryson seeks to understand how we got from there being nothing at all to there being us. To that end, he has attached himself to a host of the world’s most advanced (and often obsessed) archaeologists, anthropologists, and mathematicians, traveling to their offices, laboratories, and field camps. He has read (or tried to read) their books, pestered them with questions, apprenticed himself to their powerful minds. A Short History of Nearly Everything is the record of this quest, and it is a sometimes profound, sometimes funny, and always supremely clear and entertaining adventure in the realms of human knowledge, as only Bill Bryson can render it. Science has never been more involving or entertaining.

The book is simply amazing. I learn something new from it everytime I read it and I highly recommend it to everyone from an uneducated teenager to a PhD carrying senior!

While you're at it, I would also recommend the rest of his books. Bryson is an amazing nonfiction writer (I daresay one of the best in the world) and his penmanship will captivate you. Just search for him on Amazon and pick another one of his books up in a category that interests you as he writer about a very broad range of topics.

Edit: Also, I highly recommend "Guns, Germs, and Steel" by Jared M. Diamond. and Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt

1. The first half that you talk about is well known now, but that's because of Ben Graham. Don't forget, the original edition of the intelligent investor was published in 1949 nearly 70 years ago. Those ideas were revolutionary at the time. For someone who hasn't been reading about investing or done a lot of research those are also invaluable lessons to learn which is why the book is recommended so often.
   
2. If you're looking for some more detailed security analysis I think Graham's other book security analysis will cover what you're looking for. I haven't read it personally so I don't know for sure, but from what I've heard secondhand I think it covers it.
   
3. My own personal thought on the Intelligent Investor is that it's a good general book about the market and can teach you a lot. However, Graham is not the most engaging writer and reading through his book is a slog to say the least. I think there are other more recent books that teach the basics without being difficult to read. A Random Walk Down Wallstreet is one I've personally read that's good. I'm currently skimming through Heads I win, Tails I win and so far it covers the psychology of investing pretty well while also quoting from The Intelligent Investor directly. I've heard that The little book that (still) beats the markets is also good but I haven't read it personally.
   
4. One final thought is that some of the ideas presented in the first half aren't necessarily so obvious to most people. If they were, you would never get valuations into the triple digit (or infinite!) P/E ratios like AMZN, NFLX, TSLA, etc.
   
   Edit corrected the years to nearly 70 from nearly 60. Did anyone else know it's 2016 and not 2006?

Online courses are really hit or miss. Most college courses on "business" don't really teach how to start or run a small business. They either teach big business... how to work in a large corporation... or how to create a startup. Both of those are markedly different from starting and running a small business (even an online one).

There are some great books about starting and running a small business, though. Here are a few of my favorites:

Financial Intelligence for Entrepreneurs

This is an excellent book on business finances for the non-accounting types. I took accounting classes in college but never really got what all the financial reports really meant to my business' health. This will teach you what's important in the reports, what you should look out for, and how to read them. This is critically important for a small business owner to understand, even if you plan to hire a bookkeeper and accountant.

The E-myth Revisited by Michael Gerber

Awesome book about building systems in your business to really grow it to the point where it's not just a job for the owner. It's easy to read and probably one of the top 5 business books of all time.

Entreleadership by Dave Ramsey

This is a good book and covers several different aspects of entrepreneurship from hiring and managing employees to marketing, setting the vision, etc. It's hokey at times, but is a good read.

The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People by Stephen Covey

Not necessarily a "small business" book, but easily my top #1 book recommendation of all time. It's hugely applicable to any professional, or anyone really. I re-read this book every couple of years and still get more out of it after almost 20 years.

Getting Things Done by David Allen

THE productivity book. Even if you only absorb and implement 25% of the strategies in this book it will make a huge difference in your level of productivity. It's really the game-changing productivity system. This is one of the biggest problems with small business owners - too much to do and no organization. Great read.

> My strong suit is ruby/rails which I feel like is pretty rare and specific when it comes to most internship positions. (I can count on 1 hand the people who know rails in my school).

First off, trust me, you're not that special.

> So far, I have had interviews with 6 of the companies, and have yet to miss a question, & every time I am able to solve the technical questions relatively quickly (e.g. 45 min coding problem, done in 20 etc.) and then we go on to talk about interests etc. The thing is EVERY single company, after the technical interview (usually the 2nd-3rd phone interview), I am in limbo. Usually from 2-3 weeks, before I get denied.

So far, I'm picking up an attitude problem.

> I have only now started asking for feedback(but of course nobody replies to my emails).

Yeah, don't do that.

> I know they are large companies (vmware, yahoo, dell, etc.) but is it strange to have an interview go well and then just go into the void?

YMMV, but it's entirely possible. However, for myself I'd say 95% of the time, someone gets back to me.

> Also I am not socially inept, yet it always seems as if me and the recruiter get along great, while the technical people give off a cold disconnect (but still nice).

How often is this happening? I'd say there are some technical people who are just like that, but I'd say the majority of the time I see them acting that way in an interview is because it isn't going well.

> However it seems pretty inefficient to apply to jobs with 2000 kids hunting for 2 open positions, so it may be the lottery effect that is killing me.

Maybe, but if you're applying to 100s of jobs, you'd think something would eventually edge out in your favor.

Honestly, to me it sounds like:

1. You give off a cocky/bad attitude
   
   
2. You aren't doing as well on the technical questions as you think you are.
   
   There's nothing much you can do about an attitude problem other than hold your tongue and think before you speak on anything that isn't directly related to the technical question at hand. Explain, don't boast about past projects and experiences. Be open to learning.
   
   As for technical questions, the best I can do is prescribe the usual: Cracking the Coding Interview. Good book for getting the basics down for technical interviews. Others will suggest other books after that, but I've had good luck with geeksforgeeks and the interview section of Glassdoor for companies like Google and Yahoo for going above and beyond.
   

Hey There,

This might get lost in the reply avalanche, but if nobody has mentioned "I will teach you to be rich" yet -- I'd definitely encourage you to check it out:
https://www.amazon.com/Will-Teach-You-Be-Rich/dp/0761147489

It's one of the best personal finance books I've ever read and really think it's applicable across the spectrum of budgets. Think if you go to his website, he's got a lot of content and PDF's up for free and if you don't wanna spend the money and buy a physical copy, I'm sure you can get it from your library -- or you could do a one month free trial on audible, download the book and then make sure you cancel before your membership renews.

I found it to be an incredibly accessible and helpful book. Hope it helps!

You don't need to set up as a limited company, but it will look more professional, and it will increase your accounting costs.

Being is sole trader is very simple from an accounting/tax point of view, being limited means you need to properly record everything, and you need to pay yourself a wage each month. There's other considerations which an accountant will talk you through. You'll also need him/her to submit your accountants each year for a cost of circa £400

There are tax and other benefits to being a limited company, but it really depends on your turnover/situation. If you're not selling goods, investing a lot or employing people then the tax benefits are negligible imo.

If you decide to be a sole trader, by law you have to write YOUR NAME Trading As YOUR COMPANY NAME somewhere on your invoices.

A decent accountant will walk you through the up and downsides and it's up to you really. You might ask yourself will your target audience be prefer to (or maybe only allowed to) buy from a registered company, or are they OK with a sole trader.

This is me speaking as a sole trader for the last 4 year, if any accountants respond they might see this differently.



Beyond that, you can make yourself look more professional by using a virtual office in a proper address. These start from about £30 pm for just the address and go up in cost if you add more services like mail forwarding, meeting space or even a telephone receptionist. Most of these business centre type places have upgrade paths so if things go well you could upgrade to a shared space or even a dedicated one.

If you're operating near a bigish city try to get a virtual office with an address with a central postcode, this will help you show up in Google Map results better.

You can also get VOIP numbers that travel with you wherever you're working so you can move office addreses if needed. I use a Skype Landline number which only costs £20 odd a year and means I can keep my number wherever I'm based, have an area code for the area I want to do business, it rings through on my PC, and (if the Gods are smiling) rings through on phone app as well.

If you don't have someone to turn to for logos/business cards drop me a PM and I can recommend a very good/value graphic designer. I can point you in the direction of more featured VOIP. And -whilst you probably don't need this- I make small business websites. Feel free to ignore this pargraph because I'm not trying to push anything on you, you'll soon discover that when you run a small business -initially at least- there's a lot more people interested in selling to you than buying from you.

I'd strongly consider looking into local business network meetings. Some are paid for and some are free.What they deliver varies wildly. If you want more in this just ask.

I'd also consider having a read of this.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/E-Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-About/dp/0887307280/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1465382377&sr=8-1&keywords=the+e+myth

And have a glance over here. There's not much of a UK business community on Reddit.

http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/


Good luck, anything else just ask.

Short answer: Americanize your name on resumes to increase your chances for responses. Once you get interviewed and after you have established comfort/ease with the interviewer/employer, you can then casually explain your real name at an opportune moment.

Longer answer: Someone who likes "American-sounding" names isn't necessarily racist. It has to do with what scientists call cognitive ease. "American-sounding" names are more familiar, more easily recognized, and much easier to process by American brains. Less effort is involved, and what's easier is associated with more positive feelings. As we see from the article in this post (and that I've seen in other articles), that does give you an advantage.

In this job market, you want every advantage you can get. If Americanizing your name can do it, do it. You're not a race traitor or surrendering your heritage, you're being strategic. Like I said, you can always explain later.

Source for the cognitive ease stuff: this highly praised book by a well respected author. It's not some fad or psych mumbo jumbo, it's very well grounded in research.

Edit: Now if after you get called in for an interview you get vibes that the person is disappointed/not happy that you're different than what they expected...ok maybe then discriminatory attitudes are possible. But (a.) that still doesn't mean you might not impress them/change their mind anyway and (b.) better to have an interview with a chance of discrimination than no interview at all.

> I'm pretty clueless when it comes to direct investing, but I'll look into it. I really don't want to micromanage this stuff, but I'm willing to learn the direct investing route if it's a substantial gain that is worth my time. How easy did you find it to get into that? How much time investment is there to establish such a portfolio and bonds?

I think for any reasonably intelligent person, it's very easy. Again, I recommend sticking to what is generally considered the best option for us "regular folk": passive investing in index funds. That means choose a balance of index funds (eg. US, Canadian, and International markets, and bonds), and keep contributing over time. Every 6 months or so, rebalance to make sure your holdings are keeping to your planned ratio.

I highly recommend reading the Canadian Couch Potato blog mentioned above, and the book The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing.

Opening accounts at TD Waterhouse or QuesTrade is just a matter of filling out a couple forms, and the actual act of investing involves transferring money from your bank account to your trading account, then using their web interface to purchase the funds you've chosen.

By doing a little self-educating and going with low-MER index funds, you'll save thousands & thousands of dollars over the years that higher priced mutual funds would have charged you for administration.

Here is a random article I found about stock simulators.

How do you like to learn things? There are tons of books, podcasts and blogs about investing. Here are some popular ones or ones that I have read and used

• Books
  
  • The intelligent Investor
    
  • A Random Walk Down Wall Street
    
  • Your Money Your Life
    
  • The Richest Man in Babylon
    
  • I Will Teach You to be Rich
    
    
• Blogs
  
  • Stock Series
    
  • Mr Money Mustache
    
  • Mad FIentist
    
  • dozens of others, Google is your friend
    
    
• Podcasts
  
  • Money Tree Podcast -- pretty poor production quality but good general stuff.
    
  • There are tons of others, Google it.
    
    Warren Buffett famously/supposedly read every book in the financial section at the library by age 12--I think the important thing to take from that is you are still young and have tons of free time and aside from starting to invest as soon as you can (you can usually start as soon as you have earned income) you should be investing in yourself...getting good grades, figuring out what you want to do after high school, trying out businesses, learning marketable skills (e.g., coding, good writing skills, good interpersonal skills, good organizational skills, etc).
    
    Good Luck!

As a senior engineer living in Silicon Valley, I get pitched to all the time by people with "an amazing idea" that nobody has thought of that will change the world. Any engineer worth their weight has heard the same thing left and right.

The fundamental problem is that these "idea guys" think a good idea is all that is needed and the only thing getting in their way of a multibillion dollar valuation is some engineer that won't build this one little thing for them.

The problem is this: successful startup are not just about the idea but also the execution. You've probably heard this all the time how idea is worthless, execution is everything. But what I'm talking about is executing on the business and customer development side. Executing on technology is easy, building a successful business is more than just building the app, it's also about building the business side of the company.

If you follow any of the Lean Startup methodologies, the last step of building a startup is building the product. You don't start building anything until you have paying customers. Prior to that, it's all about Minimally Viable Product to prove a concept. A MVP does not need to be an app; there have been very successful startups that started out with paper mocks as MVP and manual processes as MVP. Even Uber's MVP is a fraction of what it ended up being.

So, I won't laugh you out of the room; I am extremely patient with every pitch that I hear. However, if you want me to take you seriously, bring something to the table. Find me 10 customers that have paid or are willing to buy this product that you are going to release. If you cannot find 10 paying customers* to validate your idea, it tells me a number of things:

1. You don't have what it takes to do customer and product development
   
2. You aren't serious about your idea and are just hoping someone does the work and you can gain
   
3. You can't sell
   
4. Your idea sucks
   
   So, my advice if you want to be taken seriously, bring something to the table:
   
   

• money (seed money to pay for the work)
  
• network (large number of people in the target market that can be leveraged to succeed)
  
• product development - the skill of knowing how to validate an idea, customer development, feature prioritization, vision
  
• leadership / experience: proven experience in building and leading a cross functional team tech, sales, product, etc
  
• sales: ability to sell anything to anyone
  
  Honestly, as an engineer, the two groups that are hard to find are good product managers and UX designers. As an engineer, I'm looking for someone to complement my skills. I am looking for someone that can hustle, do customer interviews and market analysis of the target market. Tech is easy, finding the product market fit is hard.
  
  Anyway, I recommend two books if you are serious about building your concept:
  
  
• Lean Startup - the goal of a startup is to identify customers
  
• Founders Dilemma - deep dive into decisions that you should think about in building a startup
  
  
• 10 is arbitrary number, use whatever metric you want. Find me xx users that have this problem that you're trying to solve.

As someone who has alot of friends who received the NIS previously and it has been rebranded to SG:D scholarship, I can you tell that almost all of them want to break their bonds if they could afford to.

Therefore my advice to you is to not take up the scholarship unless you need to for a various reasons:

• Unnecessary stress to maintain your grades to fulfill the scholarship requirements. Especially in tech, grades may not be the best indicator of your capability as many companies have been enlightened about that. Instead of joining hackathon, doing some side projects, a number of my scholar friends would rather focus on mugging and studying for grades.
  
• While a job is typically secured after your studies, you might not get to choose exactly what you want to do. Some agencies with better HR department might get your input and allocate a position for what you want to do, but that is not always possible depending on the manpower limitations or the projects going on.
  
• Lastly if you are really that good, then getting a job is the least of your concerns, and you are likely to get better opportunities than what you signed up, which is what my friends are complaining about but they LLST because they don't think it's worth it to pay 10% compound interest over x year for the liquidated damage.
  
  If you really want to take the scholarships in government agencies, there are some perks too:
  
  
• Little to no financial burden on your parents for your entire college education + exchange
  
• Scholars in agencies tend to receive all the high profile projects/opportunites first (however do prepare to work hard too)
  
• Due to the high profile projects, scholars tend to be fast tracked and promoted wayyyyyy faster.
  
• If you like the public sector, scholarship does help alot.
  
  To be honest, the first 5 years of your career is extremely important because they setup the stage for your career advancement. My (biased) advice if you are serious about tech and developing skills to do awesome work is stay out of public sector, typical MNCs, banks and consultancies because there's just too much wayang than doing the actual work. Most consultancies in Singapore are just sweatshops than doing good work. Go work in tech firms that are known for their engineering processes and build stuff.
  
  And if you want to get into FAANG, it's not that difficult if you put in the effort to prepare for it and try to do as many internship as possible. You should be willing to work through one of the following books
  
  

1. https://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/0984782850/ref=dp_ob_title_bk

That's one of my favorite popular science books, so it's wonderful to hear you're getting so much out of it. It really is a fascinating topic, and it's sad that so many Christians close themselves off to it solely to protect their religious beliefs (though as you discovered, it's good for those religious beliefs that they do).

As a companion to the book you might enjoy the Stated Clearly series of videos, which break down evolution very simply (and they're made by an ex-Christian whose education about evolution was part of his reason for leaving the religion). You might also like Coyne's blog, though these days it's more about his personal views than it is about evolution (but some searching on the site will bring up interesting things he's written on a whole host of religious topics from Adam and Eve to "ground of being" theology). He does also have another book you might like (Faith Versus Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible), though I only read part of it since I was familiar with much of it from his blog.

> If you guys have any other book recommendations along these lines, I'm all ears!

You should definitely read The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins, if only because it's a classic (and widely misrepresented/misunderstood). A little farther afield, one of my favorite popular science books of all time is The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker, which looks at human language as an evolved ability. Pinker's primary area of academic expertise is child language acquisition, so he's the most in his element in that book.

If you're interested in neuroscience and the brain you could read How the Mind Works (also by Pinker) or The Tell-Tale Brain by V. S. Ramachandran, both of which are wide-ranging and accessibly written. I'd also recommend Thinking, Fast and Slow by psychologist Daniel Kahneman. Evolution gets a lot of attention in ex-Christian circles, but books like these are highly underrated as antidotes to Christian indoctrination -- nothing cures magical thinking about the "soul", consciousness and so on as much as learning how the brain and the mind actually work.

If you're interested in more general/philosophical works that touch on similar themes, Douglas R. Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach made a huge impression on me (years ago). You might also like The Mind's I by Hofstadter and Daniel Dennett, which is a collection of philosophical essays along with commentaries. Books like these will get you thinking about the true mysteries of life, the universe and everything -- the kind of mysteries that have such sterile and unsatisfying "answers" within Christianity and other mythologies.

Don't worry about the past -- just be happy you're learning about all of this now. You've got plenty of life ahead of you to make up for any lost time. Have fun!

Pg 3 of 3
Step 3.
Hit the internet…..hit it hard. Hit it so hard, Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee (anecdotal inventor of World wide web), develops a rash. There are millions of websites, web pages, blogs, vlogs and other log-stuff all dedicated to market investing. Don’t expect to understand it all, don’t believe anything because you read it once. When you see a word or term you don’t understand, google it. Still don’t understand it? Make a note of it in a dedicated notebook and move on until you do. Every trading platform… Fidelity.com, Etrade.com, Scottrade.com and thousands of others are proud of all the articles, tutorials and informational video they provide in an effort to make you a better educated investor (and potential customer). The internet will become the single greatest tool you will have to get answers to your question, explore new areas of investing and learn what is actually going on in the worlds business and economy. Again, I caution never take anything as absolute truth from a single source…particularly the internet. Always confirm and reconfirm until you learn what is right and who you can trust.

Step 3a
Talk to people, ask questions, compare ideas and ask their opinion. Remember no one is always right, facts change when additional information is learned and different views can reveal opportunities and traps.

At this point, you are now comfortable with your personal situation and goals (step 1), comfortable with the basic of how the stock market works and how you make basic investments (step 2) and starting to see the effects events and information in the real world affects the performance of corporations and therefore the performance of your stock investments (Step 3).

Now, by this point in time, you will know if you want to stick in the shallow end of investing (long positions on broad index spanning Mutual funds, and ETFs) or wade deeper. There is nothing wrong with staying in this area, millions of people have built comfortable nest eggs by just buying massively held Mutual Funds and letting it do it’s thing. If you find it too confusing or just boring, it is better to stay simple, make smart choices and leave it be.

However, if you become like many of us, who, instead of falling asleep counting sheep, try to rank all the Dow companies by Market Cap at the time of the markets close that day, then you will want to continue your education.

But this is my recommendation to start and we can talk later if you want to move further.

Finally, I will leave you with three tips. The first was from my finance professor in grad school and has been a part of my financial life every single day since, the other two I learned from my life and those closest too me:

1. If you want to get serious about successful stock investing, read Graham’s book. It was written long ago and gets more useful every passing year. He was right, I refer to it weekly, if not daily
   https://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Investor-Definitive-Investing-Essentials/dp/0060555661/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1484795713&sr=1-1&keywords=benjamin+graham
   
2. Everybody is born penniless and dies penniless. What you do in-between is important but not the only thing. A.k.a Money is nice, but if you let it take over you will miss all the truly cool shit in life.
   
3. No matter how well you believe your financial plan is created, nothing will prove so wrong as an unexpected pregnancy.
   Best Wishes and good luck
   
   

It's very difficult to get around it.

You have to stay very focused on a goal. For me, since ROM7, it's been to finish every match I play. Has that happened? No, but I understand the situations it has not and I'm very pleased with how things have been going.

It also helps if you read autobiographies or books on sports psychology (or psychology in general) to get ideas & techniques on how to better your mentality.

Here are some that have helped me immensely.

• Golf Is Not A Game Of Perfect
  
  
  • Currently reading this. It's obviously about golf, but it's about the mental game of golf. It's applicable to Smash, or basketball, or most competitive subjects. One of my favorite take-aways thus far is to look at an error such as an SD or a missed tech and think of it like "Well, there was a percentage chance that this would happen. Odds are it wont happen again. Just gotta trust my tech skill and stay sharp."
    
    
• Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength
  
  • This goes into exactly what the title states. It gives a history of research into willpower, or ego, and describes how people can behave different based off their current situation. Sleep deprivation, poor diet, getting a burst of motivation and deciding to change everything (think January 1st) can all be detrimental to your mental state. It also discusses methods of improving your willpower which can be related to habitual actions.
    
    
• The Power of Habit
  
  • This is a book that goes into habitual responses and how one can better understand them/change them. Useful information across all parts of life.
    
    
• Thinking, Fast and Slow
  
  • This is one I've revisited multiple times. It's quite a long read, but there's much to learn. Specifically it goes into two systems of thought. Your system 1 is your implicit (unconscious) system. It's what tells you the answer to 2+2 as you read it even though I didn't ask you to solve it. System 2 is the system that takes over when I tell you to give me the answer to 72 x 103. (Mathematical examples are great for conveying the ideas of these systems) It later goes into more economic psychology and decision making.
    
    
    PS. I'm not telling you where, but if you don't want to create a book collection PDFs of each of these may or may not be online.

I'm a CS major that got an internship in college that turned into a full time position after college, then I used that to jump into an engineering firm in my field with the stipulation that I'd be a 100% remote employee. 100% remote work is really hard to get, there's jobs out there but they tend to be extremely competitive. I only got this job because my particular specialty (GIS) is pretty tight-knit and I knew some people who knew some people so I had great references. Granted, I still had to prove myself on my own merits in the interview, but having a network definitely helped. Basically I applied to a non-remote job and wrote on the application that I'd only consider remote work, they took a chance on it, and it worked out.

I can't say much on being self taught or finding a job after being self taught but if you know your stuff you'll be competitive regardless of the degree. If you know your programming languages inside and out and you can answer the questions in this book you'll get hired somewhere as long as you're a good fit. Remote might be harder and it involves a bit of luck, but I wouldn't expect getting that for your first programming job. In my experience people tend to want proof that you can be productive at a previous employer before they'll consider letting you work essentially unsupervised.

Salary went from $12/hour as an intern to $45k/year as a full time on-site contractor at state government to $63k in my current position (I graduated Spring 2014). I could make more elsewhere, especially if I lived closer to a city with multiple firms and I was willing to go into the office, but I'm super happy in my current job.

This is by no means either academic or comprehensive, but it's short, fun, and just might kick-start your interest, so give it a watch. There are a couple others following up. I seriously recommend you get one of the more accessible books on economics. NPR's Planet Money has a reading list of books they recommend, and a quick peek at top results in Amazon also indicate bestsellers like Basic Economics, Economics in One Lesson, or the humorously titled and fun Naked Economics.

Any of those will do wonders. Just select whichever looks like a good time.

Or don't -- what to do with scarce resources like your own time is of course your choice. An economic choice ;)

Wow, your story is so similar to mine. Sorry these posts are so long, but I wished I had someone to tell me all this stuff along the way..

I started a residential painting company. But I had no clue what I wanted to do when I started back to school at 25.

The key is that I started moving in a whole new direction. I had lots of job opportunities prior to college that I sabatoged for myself because I didn't want to wait to go to the next level. I would always excel, but I hated working for other people - busting my ass so some jerk can take his kids to Disney World while I trudge through another day.

Finally at my last job before going back to college, I struggled to work 40hrs a week because they just didn't have work all the time. That was it for me. I knew if I was going to get to a place in life where I could make the money I wanted and live the life I wanted I WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO DO IT AS AN EMPLOYEE. Due both to my past and in general that's just the way it goes when working directly for someone else.

I had no clue but I knew I wanted to be a boss, create jobs, be the man. And I knew to get to that I would have to work harder and smarter than the average Joe's in school and business.

I ended up going to a really good business school and through that experience I learned about the painting industry.

I'm not saying you have to start a business, but you have to start a journey. It took me 6 years to get my bachelor of science accounting degree. I met my wife and had a child along the way. I struggled with strained relationships, financial hardship, car troubles and even classes sometimes (which I dropped and took in the evening or summer when they're easier). But, I didn't waiver in my zeal to be the new me. A college man, father, businessman, job creator, client pleaser.

Just start SOMETHING. Choose a general direction and MOVE. You don't know for sure, but go in a direction that's forgiving. For me I reasoned an accounting degree will work regardless of what I choose to do in business. Once you gain new experiences you will realize your talents. Or find some you never knew you had. I thought I would never be a salesman, but through a close friend I met in college I learned that other than the owners of a business salesmen make the most money. And to create my own business I had to become a salesman. And I'm really good at it thanks to my past experiences.

Oh, And my buddy from college- he makes bank too and was just like us-that's why we got along so well. Because we had a deeper drive than the rest. We had to succeed to get where we wanted. And so will you.

Regardless of what you choose to do, you should read "E myth" as soon as possible!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0887307280?pc_redir=1404788599&robot_redir=1

You won't need to really do anything as far as getting your business in order, but it will give you a perspective on business that gives you an advantage over most regular people in society. The perspective the book gives is one of three things I paid thousands of dollars to learn in a top business school. The second thing I learned is to have a goal and move toward it; along the way make meaningful connections / network, and finally I learned about the opportunity in the industry I now work. You get most of this wisdom for free. You simply must do it. It's that simple; do it.

Let me know if you have any other questions, any time.

These are books I actually own and would recommend. Of course there are other great/better books out there, but I'm going to stick with what I've actually bought and read or "read".

I say "read" because several books are NOT meant to be read cover-to-cover. These typically have about 1/3 that you should read like normal, and then skim the rest and know what's in the rest so that you can quickly reference it. These books are no less important, and often even more important. I've marked these kind of books as #ref for "read for reference". Normal books that should be read cover-to-cover are marked #read


For learning your first language: This is really the hardest part and unfortunately I don't have any books here I can vouch for. I started with "C++ for Dummies" and am not including a link because it's bad. Your best bet is probably "Learning <language>" by Oreily. I also love the Oreily pocket books because you can carry them and skim while on the bus or the john, but you can just do the same with your smartphone. Pocket Python, Pocket Java, Pocket C++

Top Recommendations:

Accelerated C++ #read Made for people who already know another language and want to pickup C++. Also great for people who need a refresher on C++. I really like how it doesn't start with OOP but gets you familiar with the imperative parts of C++ before diving into OOP.

The Algorithm Design Manual #ref This is my new favorite book and the first I would send back in time to myself if I could. Each algorithm & data structure is given a mathematical breakdown, pseudocode, implementation in very readable C, a picture (very helpful), and an interesting war story of how it Saved The Day.


Cracking the Coding Interview #read I originally avoided this book like the plague because it represented everything I hate about coding interviews, but many interviewers pull questions straight from this book so this book can equal getting a job. Put that way, it's ROI is insane.

The Pragmatic Programmer #read Must-have for any profressional software engineer that covers best-practices for code and your growth. You can also find the raw tips list here

Head First Design Patterns #read Many prefer the "GoF/Gang of Four" Design Patterns which is more iconic, but Head First is a modern-version using Java to cover actual design patterns used day-to-day by programmers.

For Intermediates:

Effective Java or Effective C++ and Effective Modern C++ #read When you're ready to go deep into one language, these books will give you a huge boost to writing good Java and C++.

Design Patterns #ref You'll want to get this at some point, but early on it's too much for a beginner and many of the patterns are obsolete.

The Art of Computer Programming #ref The programming "bible" but like Design Patterns you should hold off on this iconic book until you've got your basics covered. It would make for a great purchase with your first paycheck or first promotion :)

I just stumbled onto this subreddit for the first time now, so apologies if I'm not replying to the request as desired.

Investing isn't really something that you can learn, in the sense that it's not like riding a bike where you practice and then after a little bit you know how to ride a bike and that's it. Think of learning to invest more as a constant journey, where you're always growing and gaining understanding but you can't really ever know enough. Most successful investors, including Warren Buffett and Charles Munger, are voracious readers simply because there is so much out there to absorb.

Here's the start of a reading list to take a look at, listed in order of how I would tackle them in your place (though obviously skip some or jump ahead if one description catches your eye specifically):

• Millionaire Next Door--not an investing book, but you mentioned saving for the future and so I think this is a good place to start. This book, which covers the results of a study of many first generation millionaires, will teach you how you should be thinking about money, saving, and consumption. Dry, but not a difficult read.
  
  
  Indexing:
  
  
• Random Walk Down Wall Street
  
  
• Four Pillars of Investing
  
  
• Unconventional Success--These three I would consider as one big package, because they all address kind of the same philosophy and investing strategy (though in slightly different ways). There's no preferred order for this group, so I've listed them in what I think is from most accessible to least accessible (they all get into some technical details that may be difficult for someone not familiar with the topics, but they are all written for the layman so while it may take some work, you should be able to get through all three).
  
  
• Bogle on Mutual Funds--This is the only book I'm recommending here that I haven't actually read. I'm including it only because I realize that you asked for a crash course so to speak, and none of the three books above are 100% easily accessible (though they do cover everything). I've read other books by John Bogle and I know enough about him and his investment philosophy to be able to recommend this confidently enough and to have a good idea what he talks about here. I suggest trying as much of the above three as possible, but if you do find them too difficult try this one out first as it'll undoubtedly be an easier read all the while covering most of the basic points outlined in the above.
  
  
  Value Investing:
  
  
• The Little Book That Beats the Market--Very short, very accessible (all technical details are hidden away in the appendix. I don't recommend following his strategy outlined in the book verbatim, but as an intro to value investing concepts it's not a bad start.
  
  
• The Intelligent Investor--This is basically a summation of Warren Buffett's investing philosophy. It is quite old, and definitely difficult at times, but well worth reading.
  
  
  Those are what I would start with. I recommend reading the books on indexing first not because I think the efficient market hypothesis (one of the topics covered in all three books) is 100% correct (it isn't), but because you need to have a filter in place that makes you skeptical and able to dismiss all the garbage investing advice that's out there (technical strategies promising 10%+ yearly returns guaranteed, etc). The value investing books I include because it is the only chance you have of beating the market over the long run, though I would only recommend the active management route if you have the time and energy to dedicate to it.
  
  Most of what's in these books does boil down to a few basic tenets that could probably be summarized in a few pages, but I would discourage you from looking for quick investing summary information because it won't be of any use to you. It's not enough to understand/know the concepts. You have to believe in them, and live them every day. If you aren't absolutely convinced of the investing strategy you're using you'll wind up capitulating at the worst possible time and losing a lot of money, or at the very least being one of the many people who 'chase winners' only to suffer from consistently mediocre performance. That's why you need to be reading regularly--to keep your conviction and refresh yourself on the fundamentals.
  
  Best of luck.

I would read a handful of books first - I'd highly recommend reading The E-Myth Revisited
and Business Model Generation

As for courses, I wouldn't just stick to one resource to learn these things, but take advantage of free trials like lynda.com, they have super good courses on SEO and Marketing.

There are also thousands of great YouTube videos, articles and blogs which you can follow too. Stanford Business School have many lectures online also.

Trust me, you don't want to rely on one resource for this stuff, build your knowledge from many different places.

Good luck.

There's a popular book I used that helped me get great job offers, and it was written by someone who interviewed many candidates at Google: Cracking the Coding Interview: 189 Programming Questions and Solutions. The questions are general enough that you could write solutions in whatever language you want.

> Is it just a balance between knowing the language, putting it to use and demonstrating the thought process to get there?

Syntax doesn't have to be perfect, but it should be mostly correct. I will say back when I was doing interviews sometimes they would be typing what I'm writing on the whiteboard into a compiler to try and find errors. And they might say "you have an error on line 3, do you see what it is?"

Another important thing is asking a candidate to design the big picture for something - let's say a phone app. That app has to send/receive data from a server, so what OS and webserver software would you use? And that server needs to store data in a database - what database would you use?

For things like that it's just drawings of boxes and arrows with names of existing tools you would use to build a project. (There's usually never one right answer, but some designs are better than others.)

> what do you look for when you hire someone? Impressive githubs?

I think it's great when someone puts a url to their github profile on their resume. I don't "deep-dive" into it, but I glance ahead of an interview to see what kinds of projects they've worked on, and how some of their recent code commits look. I might ask questions about that project in the interview.

> Also, is the market saturated or is it pretty easy to get a job?

Definitely not saturated. I would recommend staying away from the Bay Area and New York though. I considered job offers there myself, and I have friends who work still work there. But the cost of living has reached ridiculous levels there (e.g. a 2-bedroom home even 45 minutes from work can cost $900k or more).

Big companies like Google, Apple, Amazon, others have branches at other cities around the country. Find those smaller tech cities with more reasonable commute times and housing prices.

Check out page 11 of this report for average Software
Engineer salaries by city in the US, keep in mind it's 3 years old now (and doesn't include cash/stock bonuses which can be significant): 2016 Tech Salary Report.

IF you are trying to maximize your rate of return, you should be maximizing your 401(k) contributions up to the matching limit. Otherwise, you are passing up FREE GUARANTEED money. You can then invest this money in a low cost index fund offered by your plan administrator by using dollar cost averaging. The bottom line is that if you really are solely motivated by getting the highest rate of return, you should be maxing out your contributions to your 401(k), but only to the matching limit.

After reading all of your posts here, I think that you need to be honest with yourself about your motivations with this money. If you just want to play around in the stock market, that's fine. But know the difference between "maximizing returns for the long run" and playing in the stock market.

Don't get me wrong, I have money that I invest in the stock market that is separate than what is in my IRA/401(k). Some money I do not feel comfortable kissing good-bye until I'm in my 60s. I sense that you feel the same way. But you have to realize the consequences of not putting that money away (i.e. paying taxes on capital gains AND giving up FREE MONEY through contributions.)

So in the end, if you seriously want to maximize returns in the long run:

1. Max out 401(k) contributions to the matching limit, then
   
2. Max out a Roth IRA to the contribution limits, only then
   
3. Invest via a traditional taxable account.
   
4. Use dollar cost averaging in those accounts to buy low cost index funds as repeatedly recommended by Warren Buffett or, if you want to put in more time to your investing, read The Intelligent investor by Ben Graham as repeatedly recommended by Warren Buffett.
   
   Best of luck!

I make about the same as you, only I've been in the situation for a year longer, and I definitely shared the same anxieties about my adult financial life as you.

Two pieces of advice: First - Read I Will Teach You To Be Rich. You can find the PDF online for free somewhere. Don't worry, it's not one of those sleazy get rich quick books. Instead it's a very level headed go-to guide to set up your financial life. It's been a huge help. Listen to the part about setting up a second savings account that automatically deducts a small amount ($50-$100) of money from every paycheck. It's an idiot-proof painless way to save.

Second, you're still young. Sometimes on this board it's easy to forget that twenty-something's with six figure savings accounts aren't exactly common in the real world. Don't forget to stay calm and try to have some fun. I went through a period of penny pinching every expense. All of my friends were buying nice clothes or going on trips to the beach while I sat in my apartment eating Ramen. As you get older the chances to ride off to the beach with friends or rage at the best music festivals become fewer and far between. Don't forget to enjoy yourself.

Don't let the lucrative offers some people get, deter you from turning down a very solid offer to get some good experience even if it's a little below your compensation expectations. Being unemployed for 3+ months and never getting that 110K + bonus + relocation @ [Insert Big N Name] is a shitty situation compared to some 65-70k at a less expensive city with a smaller company that has some new tech they're trying to scale.
In a year, you'll be surprised how much you can save and if you play your cards right, network, do a great job, you'll be worth a decent amount of money after a year.
Have friends whiteboard you for practice. Get used to writing "nearly" build ready/compile ready code using built in Java language data structures and functions. Especially get used to the Collections library, iterating over two collections in a single pass while checking for duplicates or comparators on each entry.
Buy this book and this book and sign up for LeetCode on a free account.
Honestly, try to enjoy your spare time. Do something logical but fun like playing strategy games or solving puzzles. Go to meet & greets, club meetings, volunteer at a dog shelter. Don't try to "win" this game because out of all the people that "win", some end up having severe issues with stress, time management, "loving" the job/life and life after college is nowhere near as sunshine and rainbows as during.
I wish I could "skip" a lecture and work from home, watch Netflix or go with some friends to go eat food in a town nearby or catch a convention or watch some concert on campus. All the college fun stuff? It's gone. Now it's just work... Well, work and money but still... Not as much fun college stuff. Some fun college stuff, but not as much.

Congrats on landing the interviews. I don't have any specific advice, but perhaps pick up the book "cracking the coding interview" and give it a once over. It offers some good technical and non-technical advice that may be helpful.

You're probably right in saying that you're not going to become an expert by reading books over the next few weeks. I think the best thing you can do is gain as much knowledge (within reason) in the areas you think you are deficient in.

The ideal candidate doesn't necessarily posses all of the skills at day 0, they're going to be judging you from a standpoint of whether or not you have the prerequisites to grow into the position as well. You've already proven to them that you have talent. So, in addition to last minute gap filling, also focus on your soft skills and your ability to demonstrate a growth mindset... it may take you further.

https://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Investor-Definitive-Investing-Essentials/dp/0060555661


Well yes, I do promote the book because I everyone should read it, but if you do a google search there are pdf available for free. :) I like the first edition best since it's really easy to read.

​

If you want to use a screener, something that is free and available then that's ok too. I mean I believe stock investing is a personal journey; so you decide for yourself what you want. And accept all consequences because you chose it.

Your question is very important. Especially for early stage or even first-time founders, who don't have the right support network yet. There are many more resources like Facebook groups, and youtube channels that you can leverage to learn more about entrepreneurship, specific skills, and industries. Let me know if you're looking for something more specific. I'd be more than happy to give you additional pointers.

 

Here is a list of resources that I found very helpful on my journey:

 

Forums
 

Reddit: I was impressed with the quality and depth that you can get by asking meaningful and targeted questions in the right channels such as r/entrepreneur and r/startups.

 

Podcasts
 

All of the podcasts provide a great learning experience through case studies, founder interviews, and startup pitches. Believe me when I say that whatever challenge you're having someone more experience can very likely help you.

 

1. Jason Calacanis: this week in startups
    
   
   
2. Tim Ferriss: The Tim Ferriss Show
    
   
   
3. James Altucher: The James Altucher Show
   
    
   
   Newsletter
    
   
   Launch Ticker News: One of the best newsletters out there that captures the latest tech and business news sent to your inbox several times per day.
   
    
   
   Blogs
    
   
   
4. Andrew Chen
    
   
   
5. Entrepreneurship Unplugged
   
    
   
   Books
    
   
   
6. Roger Fisher: Getting to Yes
    
   
   
7. Dale Carnegie: How to Win Friends and Influence People
    
   
   
8. Dan Ariely: Predictably Irrational
   
   
9. Eric Ries: [The Lean Startup] (https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1522354359&sr=8-2&keywords=the+lean+startup)
   
   
10. Noam Wasserman: The Founder's Dilemmas

You might find some of these resources helpful to get a sense of some of the moving parts for the "lean" / "customer development" approach:

Steve Blank's free Udemy course: https://www.udacity.com/course/how-to-build-a-startup--ep245

And his protege Eric Ries' Lean Startup book:
https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898

And Blanks'
https://www.amazon.com/Business-Model-Generation-Visionaries-Challengers/dp/0470876417

A rough, top-level, possible roadmap for a bootstrapped solo product:

1. Talk with a bunch of potential customers to validate whether the problem you will be solving for is in fact an acute problem.
   
   
2. Validate that your solution is a good one to solve that problem. Again, you can start with customer interviews with a prototype of your product. Validation can also be pre-sales, one pager landing page "coming soon" sign ups and other things.
   
   
3. Product development and customer development happening in tandem. Customer feedback informing the product. Yeah minimum viable product: what's the minimum version of your product that proves your assumption that people will find this valuable?
   
   
4. Participating / building an audience / community around folks who value solving this problem can happen during development too. Some like to do this BEFORE building the product -- and having an audience to pitch different variations of products to.
   
   
5. Get early adopters in the door, helping you improve the product. "Doing things that don't scale" while you are still in learning mode.
   
   
6. Try different experiments to improve A) the product and B) different ways/channels to find customers.
   
   
7. McClure's Pirate Metrics: measuring the customer journey of acquisition, activation, retention, referrals, revenue. At this stage retention is probably #1: am I building a product people are finding valuable enough to stick around and continue to use?
   
   
8. "Product/market fit" means your product and the particular type of people you are helping are a happy fit. Time to make those "things that don't scale" more scalable. Time to hit the gas pedal on the marketing side. More experiments to find growth...

So there's not a lot for us to go on here, but one thing I'll say is that good software development jobs are not easy, even for those completely qualified for them. If he's in the middle-high range salary-wise, then the challenge and expectations are probably all there. Software engineers are not cheap, so while they're treated very well to attract and retain talent, they're also seen as a big investment that had better pay off.

I was laid off from my first full time job and while my coworkers spoke very highly of my skills and the care I took with my work and went out of their way to emphasize how bright my future was in the industry both in person and in my peer reviews, my managers made things very clear: For the level of work they needed me to do, I simply was either not skilled enough or experienced enough to make the cut. It wasn't personal, or a statement about how smart I was, it was a cold and completely practical business decision.

What did I take away from that? Well after I stopped feeling bad for myself I realized that there wasn't anything wrong with me, that I was perfectly capable of cutting it in this industry, that many engineers less smart than me got along just fine, and that I simply needed to up my game and get a new job. It wasn't about getting smarter, it was about getting my shit together and working out of Cracking the Coding Interview daily, learning the hot frameworks that everyone needs engineers for, building a real portfolio and GitHub profile, and being ready to work that hard even after I got a new job. And I got a new job where I was paid over twice as much and so far I love it.

If you want to learn more, I would absolutely say take courses on it. My friends who are engineers have mentioned a lot of companies look very favorably on engineers who have business/finance knowledge, especially if you want to move into management.

If you wanted a book to read, I'd recommend Benjamin Graham's The Intelligent Investor. Graham was an investment professional in the early 1900s who managed to make money through the Great Depression in the stock market. In his later years, he taught a finance class at Columbia and according to legend only one student ever got an A in that class, and that student was Warren Buffet. Look for an updated edition, as the book was written in the late 1960s, so some of the examples are pretty dated. This is the version I have. It looks like there is a newer revised edition too.

If you like podcasts (I am a huge podcast junkie), the podcasts from The Motley Fool are good and not very technical. Vanguard also puts out good podcasts, but those are a bit more technical. Planet Money from NPR is a good one that covers topics in economics in a way that is both interesting and engaging.

If you're a student, you can get a great deal on a subscription to the Wall Street Journal, which now includes a digital subscription iirc. I had it all through college, and it was a great resource. Seriously, it's $50 for the year. It's worth it.

Timing the market mainly refers to buying something with the expectation it will change in price fairly soon and you'll be able to sell for profit. Timing the market is a short-term strategy, but as you know, as an investor you should focus on long-term strategy so switching over your 20% to a index now would be a good move. If your company just starting offering index funds and your portfolio already consists of 80% index, I'm assuming you are pretty early on in your investment lifespan so making the switch now is much better than waiting to do it down the road or just leaving the 20% in the managed funds until you retire. Managed funds almost never match the market year after year, which is the appeal of index funds. Also, the lower costs will mean more of your money remains yours and it leaves more available to compound over the years.

I'd recommend this book for you, it's fairly short, but contains a lot of great information for someone newer to investing. I learned a lot from it. A Random Walk Down Wall Street is another one I'd recommend.

A few months ago I didn't really know anything about investing, but after reading those two and The Boglehead's Guide to Investing, I've learned quite a bit and feel pretty comfortable with the investment knowledge I've gained from them.

> Most of the jobs out there are temporary or contract (short/long/C2H)

This sounds patently untrue. I'm certain that the vast majority of people in CS have full-time jobs rather than temp or contract.

> Recruiters won't even look at you if you don't have a knowledge in a specific stack (even for entry level)

Also untrue, especially for entry level, where good companies won't care what tech stacks you know.

> Recruiters don't even look at your resume, all they do is keyword search

Partially true. Resumes are often automatically filtered by how many buzzwords they contain. If you can use buzzwords without making your resume seem over the top, do it.

> I've been told that I shouldn't even apply for SDE jobs because I'm a "tester" and how I probably don't know of any CS fundamentals (because my degree is in CompE, not CS)

Bullshit. Any company worth working for - most companies - will not take that attitude. They might be skeptical, but they would never suggest you don't apply.

> Interviewers don't seem to have interest in interviewing

It doesn't matter; it's their job. And most interviewers are competent at interviewing, so nothing to worry about, regardless of how "interested" they are. (Though an "interested" interviewer, while rare, is a pleasure!)

> Companies have absurd hiring standards (they are all looking for a unicorn for 50-60k/yr pay, through contract)

Depends on the company.

> * Entry level jobs require years of PROFESSIONAL experience in a specific technology


Entirely false.

---

The current job market is fine, prosperous even. Craft a strong resume, post it in the resume advice thread, and send it out to companies. Apply to a bunch of companies, account for a 5-15% response rate (higher if you're more skilled).

Getting interviews will be the easy part; to pass them, you'll need to pass difficult algorithms questions. Books like Cracking the Coding Interview and Elements of Programming Interviews are essential reads; then go on a website like LeetCode and grind away at problems until you can solve easies in 20 minutes or less, mediums in 30 minutes or less, and hards in 60-120 minutes. I'd say a 3:9:1 ratio of easy:medium:hard would be a good ratio to go with, and do as many problems as possible until you're comfortable with where you are (for me, that was about 120 problems). The premium subscription is well worth it for problems tailored to certain companies.


Edit: spelling

Congrats on the good technical review!
Generally soft skills are 'inter personal communication' and 'customer service'.

Answering your direct question though. . .

I think it boils down to time and prioritization. You have to take the appropriate amount of time to do things correctly, and you have to retrain yourself that you want to do things correctly (remember things), and you want to dedicate the appropriate time to meet those goals. I think empathy helps, but its not required.

Develop a discipline to cataloging things in things in whatever system you use at a corporate level. Ask for refresher training from a manager or team-lead.

For a low cost personal solution, just use a pen and paper and write down what you need to complete today. when new things come in, add to the bottom of the list. Mark through them as you complete them. I sometimes use two columns, one for work, and one for home stuff that I need to complete during the day - bills, things like that. When you keep at something like that for a little while, it helps you figure out what's important to track, what details are important to capture, and what is fluff.

For work with teams, I think digital systems are best - ticketing systems specifically, so everyone can see what others are doing, and with appropriate priorities. Details and action logs go there in case you are out, or someone needs to check status but you are busy. Hopefully you have one.

Don't let app vendors and websites trick you into thinking they have a better mousetrap and all you need to do is spend money. If you don't have the discipline, you won't use them. Some apps do make this process more friction-less, but you may spend more time playing with features than with defining your discipline and using the systems for their intended purposes.

This book may help, and may give you some different perspectives.

TL;DR: There are all kinds of tools that claim to 'do it for you' - ticketing systems, to do lists, iphone apps, but without discipline and re-prioritizing, you probably won't use them.

Everyone sucks at something at one point, but with practice you'll definitely be able to get better! I highly recommend writing over typing out the solution when you practice. Also, 90% should be dedicated to planning out path to the solution and 10% for writing/typing the solution out. Sooner or later, things should start clicking and making sense. Here's a list of resources that helped me get all the way to the Google on-site interview (Didn't get an offer but it was an amazing learning experience)

Data Structure And Algorithm 1: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLH73N9cB21W1TZ6zz1dLkyIm50HylGyg

Interviewcake: https://www.interviewcake.com/

Khan Academy: https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/computer-science/algorithms

Leetcode: https://leetcode.com/

Cracking the Coding Interview: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0984782850/ref=pd_aw_sbs_14_1?ie=UTF8&dpID=51F6Lwyq5JL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL390_SR390%2C390_&refRID=1PE4XEBQDDHEF4T1ZA9K

Algorithm Design Manual: http://www8.cs.umu.se/kurser/TDBAfl/VT06/algorithms/BOOK/BOOK/BOOK.HTM

Make sure to practice everyday and have a strong understanding of the concepts. Network, contribute to open source projects, and keep on learning!

>Why does it matter - in daily life that is - whether people are the way they are because of nature or nurture?

It informs how you should go about achieving your goals. If a property is intrinsic and cannot be changed then you need to construct your systems of behaviour around accommodating that property.

For example, hobbes' leviathan. We know that when left to our own devices, humans aren't very fair to each other. Not even necessarily because of maliciousness, but because of a bunch of intrinsic cognitive biases, that among other things predisposes everyone to perceiveing losses they experience as far worse than gains they (and others) receive, which means that any time two parties take from each other they will both perceive the other party as horribly injust and themselves as perfectly reasonable, leading to ever-increasing escalations of reciprocation that rarely lead anywhere good. But you can mitigate all that by taking the enforcement of justice out of the people directly involved's hands and giving it to an (ideally unbiased) third-party.

Of course this is a lot more complicated than my simple explanation here, but hopefully you get the point I was making. When we know what parts of human nature can't be changed (at least not yet, eh), we have a much better chance of building an environment that leads us to the results we want to have. The same goes for interacting with others in daily life. You are much better equipped to interacting with people when you really understand why they do the things they do (and why you do the things you do!) than when you're not.

Incidentally, if you want to read a good book about a lot of these intrinsic cognitive biases then I recommend Thinking, Fast and Slow. It summarizes a lot of often surprising intrinsic cognitive biases - and outright cognitive illusions - that our brains fall prey to, which we have to be aware of when we design our systems in order to get those systems to do what we want them to do.

I think it sounds like a great idea - but you need to create a better MVP than just a signup page. Something that explains/shows very simply how it would work and what the value is.

I would recommend checking out resources like The Lean Startup and validate, validate, validate.

Good luck!

To first answer question above, sounds like they invest in company but you have every right to re-balance as suited. And re-balancing is something you should do once, MAX twice a year.

We do it just once at the end of the year, and forget about it until then (unless we receive a letter that X fund is being replaced).

Anyone interested in a good investment read, and fresh off the boat in regards to Wall Street- I'd suggest "The Intelligent Investor" by Benjamin Graham (Warren Buffets teacher). Great book that references old corporations and compares/contrasts them to companies nowadays. And provides ways/what to look for if you want to dabble in individual stock investments. Cheap on ebay/amazon too...

Regarding investing in a company, my wife has a decent plan with her company. Nice balance of large-, mid-, sm-cap's (bonds/internationals too), some indexes etc, but also the chance to invest in the company.

Agree with most redditors here, diversification is essential and key to not overloading/losing it all at once (i.e. Enron).

However, we do invest max 2% (or 3) of her contribution with company stock. I don't think it's too harsh to invest a very modest amount with the company; as long as you feel they're large enough/stable to be around for 10-20-30 years etc (it's one of top 5 media companies in the US).

Good luck!!

For me:

Freakonomics <- Showed me a different level of problem solving, via thinking about the motivation behind things.

The Icarus Deception & Linchpin <- Helped me realize I hate doing the work of a cog in a machine and that I enjoy my work if I get to express myself via creativity.

Currently reading:

How To Win Friends And Influence People <- It may be old, but it's still a great resource for human relations, even today. I don't know about most people around here, but I don't like only staring at my monitor 24-7. You can kind of think of it as the start to social engineering. You learn the correct inputs so that you may get the outputs you desire.


Bonus: Not sure if this counts, since it could be considered "technical":

The Phoenix Project <- If you ever interact with non-IT folks, you should read this book. If you are a non-IT person and interact with them, you should read this book. It shows you there are more ways then simply supporting a business that IT should be utilized. I read this after I'd been "doing devops" for a couple years already, and it really solidified a number of points. It's also a great talking point if you ever interview with someone who HAS read it. The only feedback I've received has been positive when I mention this book (to someone who has read it).

edit: words

Submission Statement: Universality fairly easily leads to the conclusion that humans anywhere out of the left tail are fundamentally the same, mentally speaking.

>In computation, universality simply means a process that can simulate all processes — including itself. By simulation, we mean copying the behavior of a process to as much fidelity as we would like. At some point, if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and walks like a duck, we stop, and consider it a duck for all practical purposes. (There, I wrapped the Turing test for artificial general intelligence in a nutshell for you.) Replace “processes” with “machines,” and you roughly see how computers work: a universal machine is a machine that can simulate all machines, including itself. You can think of a machine simply as a process that transforms an input to an output following a fixed set of rules.
>
>...
>
>Think about it: if the human species depended on exceptional geniuses who nevertheless could never communicate their exceptional thoughts to another human being, then either they are intellectual con-artists (like postmodernist “philosophers”), or we would have been doomed a long time ago. Although a few critical individuals clearly hit upon the right ideas at the right place at the right time, many other individuals need to be able to independently verify and improve upon these ideas. The real intelligence lies in human cooperation. There is no such thing as an exponentially smarter human being for the same reason as there is no such thing as an exponentially taller human being. A genius who cannot communicate his thoughts to another human is, in fact, not a genius!
>
>...
>
>As an individual, what matters much, much more than your alleged IQ is what you do with your precious, limited time on Earth. Remember, universality says that we are all capable of exactly the same ideas. That is why even differences in human languages don’t really matter. (Whether or not the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is true, we get for free the result that it is ultimately irrelevant.) Remember, the insidious thing about IQ — as Nassim astutely observed with his owl eye— is that there are people who fancy “their” people genetically smarter than yours, and only want to “help” you. (They are often the same people who like to mistakenly think that the “West” discovered all civilization, and that the “West” is Nordic / North Atlantic / North Europe.) At best, they are overeducated idiots; at worst, they are racialists. No matter what anyone tells you, you can learn about anything you like. Go out, and find out what you are good at, what Nature put you here to discover, and teach the rest of us.
>
>So, who should care about IQ? Nobody! Why? Because we are universal!

My advice is based on you being together forever and that there is no yours/hers. Whether there is or is not a yours/hers dynamic is up to you, of course, but many committed couples choose this route. My advice pretty much boils down to two things you should do: pay off debt and save for retirement.

The first thing you should do is pay off any high-interest-rate debt. Why is this the first thing you should do? Because a penny saved is a penny earned. A good rule of thumb is to put your money toward whatever option has the highest rate--either earned or paid. In terms of how it ultimately affects how much money you have, paying off high-interest-rate debt is like putting your money in a high-yield investment.

Let's say you have $200,000 to spend (your case). Let's also say you have $50,000 in debt with a high interest rate of 11%. Right now your net worth (assets-debt) is $150,000.

Choice A: If you put it all in the stock market, you'll earn a (inflation-adjusted) yearly average of 8%, which is the historical average. So after one year you'll earn $16,000 (200,000.08), but now you still have to pay interest on your loan of $5500 (50,000.11). So your net worth after one year is 200,000 + 16,000 - 5,500 - 50,000 = $160,500.

Choice B: Pay off your loan and invest the remainder--$150,000--in the stock market. After one year you'll earn $12,000 (150,000*.08). Your net worth after one year in this case is 150,000 + 12,000 = 162,000.

Hopefully that explains why, if you can't beat in the market the interest rate you're paying on your debt, you should just pay your debt. So yes, pay your credit card debt. Pay your student loan debt.

After that, save for retirement!!! Not exactly sure how to do that? Get this book: I Will Teach You To Be Rich. Hyperbolic title aside, it provides sound and concrete advice as to what you should do to save for retirement. As you can see, the reviews on the book are great. Let me know if you have any other questions.

I had an internship with Amazon during my Sophomore to Junior summer. I also received offers from Microsoft and Google to intern this upcoming summer (Junior to Senior), but instead took an offer from Fog Creek Software. I have friends that have interned or are full time at Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, all from Rutgers University.

My advice is to anyone looking to get one of these positions is:

1. Start early, companies have only so many positions, and once they are taken, they stop looking. Generally this means you need to apply by November.
   
   
2. Data Structures and Algorithms, know them inside and out, know their complexity, know how to implement them, know their tradeoffs, and know when to use them. A great book for someone who has never done any data structure stuff is Data Structures and Algorithms in Java. I took CS111 and read this book and was able to get through the Amazon interview.
   
   
3. Read and do the exercises in Cracking the Coding Interview. Also use the author's resume template for making your resume.
   
   
4. Interview every chance you get. Seriously, I interviewed at about 15 places before I interviewed with Amazon, by the time that I got to the Amazon interview, I was fairly comfortable with the process. I was still nervous about the interview, but I knew generally what to expect and didn't get hung up on their curveball questions.
   
   
5. Pick a single club, whether it be IEEE, USACS, RUMad, etc. and be deeply involved with it. You can be a member of more than one, but you should be really involved with one.
   
   
6. Pick a language and know it. You aren't going to lose points because you don't know Python, or Ruby, or whatever else is the hot language this month. Java, C, C++, you should know one of these languages, and preferably two, C and then either Java or C++.
   
   
7. And finally, the only way to really know a programming language is to use it, so program, program, program, and then program some more. While you're doing all this programming, you should take a few minutes out of your day to learn about source control (git or git, there are no other options :) ). Then put the cool stuff you make on github or some other source control website.
   
   This may seem like a lot because well frankly it is. But if you actually enjoy programming and computer science, than this is pretty straight forward and easy. And finally, don't get discouraged. Just because you didn't make it into one of these companies the first time you apply, doesn't mean you'll never make it. Some people don't interview well(it is its own skill, hence #4), some people just can't build out a good resume(seriously use the template that I provided and read cracking the coding interview from front to back), and other people just aren't ready(you really need to program a lot). But that doesn't mean that you will never make it with them, just give it another year, identify your weakness, and work on it.

>do you have any suggestions of things to add?

VTI and/or something like VIG or DGRO, which capture dividend growth stocks - companies that have a history of increasing their dividend. I wouldn't let individual picks comprise more than 10% of my portfolio, but admittedly I'm an ardent index investor.

>I want to keep the dividend ratio over 7%

Why? You're just increasing your tax burden unnecessarily in doing so, especially with REITs, and you're missing out on mid- and small-caps, which have outperformed large-caps over time. I don't recommend chasing yield as income. Just sell shares when you want to.

>I prefer companies with growth potential and companies that survived the 2008 recession.

Look into VIG and long-term treasury bonds. This link shows how they fared better during the 2008 crash compared to the S&P 500. Long-term treasuries are usually inversely correlated to stocks.

>I feel like adding to many more would hurt my return as I have picked the "best" in the sectors I am involved with that support the dividend I would like to sustain.

How do you know you've picked the "best?" Evidence has shown time and time again that even most professional investors can't pick winners that beat a straight S&P 500 index fund over 10+ years, much less the average retail investor. I learned this the hard way firsthand.

You've said you're a beginner investor, which is even more of a reason to simply use index funds, or at the very least sector/factor ETF's as core holdings and then a small allocation for your individual picks if you want to keep things interesting. Or if you like the idea of picking winners, you can let Warren Buffett do it for you by simply investing in Berkshire Hathaway.

>I was considering a Chinese market ETF as the Chinese market is growing faster than the U.S. market currently. Opinions?

I don't know much about the Chinese market and it doesn't align with my investing strategy, so I can't really comment on that. You could utilize VIGI to capture international dividend growers.

I would suggest reading:

• The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham
  
• Common Sense Investing by John Bogle, founder of Vanguard
  
• Google for articles related to "asset allocation," "risk management," "diversification," and "volatility reduction" in relation to investing.

> As a general thing, I'd avoid useless tokens as rewards. Something like a special edition logo t-shirt or free time on a tool that normally costs money to operate (we charge for laser cutter time) would make MUCH more sense than a star or ribbon. A yearly appreciation dinner / party with voted awards and accolades might work as well.

Just the opposite -- I've observed (and this is really well explained in Predictably Irrational and presumably other pop-psych lit) that when you offer money or money-equivalent for some things people previously did for free, nobody does anything for free anymore. Once you take things out of the social space and into the market, you can't go back.

So I think it's most important for the rewards to be purely for fun, so people continue doing them for the same reason people volunteer their time for everything else around the space -- because it makes them feel good. Give 'em a funny giraffe on their userpage that says "Glorious" or something, because you can't trade that for money.