Jayson_Virissimo comments on Open Thread, September 15-30, 2012 - Less Wrong

7 Post author: OpenThreadGuy 15 September 2012 04:41AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (206)

You are viewing a single comment's thread.

Comment author: Jayson_Virissimo 15 September 2012 07:45:42AM 6 points [-]

I've enrolled in 3 Coursera classes as a kind of warm-up for (possibly) going back to school to study computer science (if my start-up succeeds before then). They are:

  1. Introduction to Mathematical Thinking by Keith Devlin
  2. Learn to Program: The Fundamentals by Jennifer Campbell and Paul Gries
  3. Introduction to Logic by Michael Genesereth

Reply to this comment or PM me if you are interested in collaborating.

Comment author: datadataeverywhere 16 September 2012 03:14:38AM 3 points [-]

...going back to school to study computer science (if my start-up succeeds before then).

That's amusing. Usually I would say the value of the founder being present is much higher for a successful company than one that has failed. I would actually expect my freedom to pursue other avenues diminish as my success in my current avenue grows.

Do you mean that your start-up, if successful, will pretty much run itself? Or that if it hasn't succeeded /yet/, then you will feel obligated to stay and keep working on it?

Comment author: Jayson_Virissimo 17 September 2012 10:11:43AM 1 point [-]

Schooling (for me) is as much consumption as investment. I'm merely saying that if my income significantly increases, then I will engage in more consumption (getting a degree in computer science, going on a pilgrimage in Europe, etc...). Is this really so strange?

Comment author: datadataeverywhere 18 September 2012 02:04:12AM 1 point [-]

A little. As your income increases, I expect your consumption to become more expensive in monetary terms, but as your business grows I expect the value of your time to increase and for your consumption patterns to become less expensive in terms of time. College is very expensive in terms of time.

I'm not saying this is a bad choice, but it is one that surprises me. I'm still interested in the answers to my questions. Do you intend to sell your start-up, have it run itself, or abandon it? It seems like those options cover the gamut (I might consider requiring < 40 hours a week of your time to be "running itself"; if you're quite dedicated, you could probably fit being a full-time student in even with the start-up taking 40+ hours of your time, making that an alternative option).

Comment author: Jayson_Virissimo 18 September 2012 03:44:33AM 2 points [-]

A little. As your income increases, I expect your consumption to become more expensive in monetary terms, but as your business grows I expect the value of your time to increase and for your consumption patterns to become less expensive in terms of time. College is very expensive in terms of time.

Ah, I think I see the source of your confusion. If my start-up succeeds, then I plan to increase the time I spend doing it and schooling, since I currently work a full-time job and work on my start-up part-time.

The relevant options are full-time work/part-time entrepreneur or part-time school/full-time entrepreneur.

Comment author: datadataeverywhere 18 September 2012 04:00:32AM 1 point [-]

Indeed, I misinterpreted you in multiple ways. My model went something like "Jayson_Virissimo is currently working 60-80 hours a week on his start-up. Once it exceeds ramen-profitability, he intends to scale back his efforts to become a full-time student." How very foolish of me!

Comment author: eurg 17 September 2012 11:49:36AM 0 points [-]

Is this really so strange?

No, but context and wording is sometimes everything. I assume that datadataeverywhere has imported some HN style startup discussion context here.

Comment author: somervta 29 September 2012 05:10:21AM 0 points [-]

I'm thinking of doing all three, though I might skip 2 since I'm already doing things along those lines.

Comment author: Jayson_Virissimo 29 September 2012 07:02:48AM 0 points [-]

So far, 1 and 3 have lots of overlap. I'm not sure if that is good or bad yet.

Comment author: tgb 15 September 2012 01:22:21PM 0 points [-]

I've been taking their Quantum Mechanics and Quantum Computation course that is about to end. I would recommend it to anyone interested. The course doesn't do a good job emphasizing the linear algebra prereqs (basically the only prereqs of importance) and it sounded like a lot of people got frustrated with that early on. A college course in linear algebra definitely suffices and one could even learn this sufficiently for the course on your own if you were ready to dedicate some time to it.

Comment author: khafra 25 September 2012 12:09:41PM -1 points [-]

I'm doing mathematical thinking as well. I have a two-person local study group; how large is the LW study group looking so far?

Comment author: Jayson_Virissimo 25 September 2012 12:24:45PM 1 point [-]

I'm doing mathematical thinking as well. I have a two-person local study group; how large is the LW study group looking so far?

So far, it contains Curiouskid, khafra, and Jayson_Virissimo.

Comment author: Curiouskid 26 September 2012 05:19:10PM 0 points [-]

Should we set up a facebook group for this? How do you guys plan on communicating?