about me / buildinpublic
How to Succeed in Life: The 11 Steps I Actually Took, With Receipts
These are the eleven steps I took, and every one comes with the real photo or document behind it. I survived open heart surgery in December 2019. I got a 4.0+ GPA in high school, took first place at the USAPL Ivy League Championships in 2017 with a 1,174 lb total, graduated from Cornell, earned a master's in software engineering from Carnegie Mellon, and spent a summer doing research at Princeton.
Then I taught myself to build software. NexusTrade has 35,138 users, and I made 11,173 GitHub contributions in the last year. I worked as a software engineer at Coinbase, I start at Figma soon, and I turned down a $475,000 offer that was not a good fit. I share what I learn on Medium, on TikTok and in a guest lecture at Harvard, and I help people with their job searches for free.
Transcript
0:00Step 1: Survive open-heart surgery.
0:06Step 2: Get a 4.0+ GPA in high school.
0:10Step 3: Win the Ivy League Championship. 1st place. 1,174 lb total.
0:14Step 4: Graduate from Cornell and CMU.
0:17Step 5: Go to Princeton.
0:19Step 6: Teach yourself to code.
0:22Step 7: Build something people use. 11,173 GitHub contributions in one year. People using what I built: 35,138. 1,800 GitHub stars.
0:29Step 8: Get paid for it. Software engineer at Coinbase. Coinbase total compensation: $235,025. Base salary offer: $275,000. Starting at Figma: $300,000+.
0:34Step 9: Turn down $475,000. The offer I turned down: $475,000.
0:36Step 10: Share what you learn. 55K followers on Medium. 1.2M views in 60 days. Guest lecture at Harvard.
0:40Step 11: Help people for free. Messages from people I helped for free: referrals at Google, Citi, J.P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley and Charles Schwab, then an interview at Wolverine.
Join the conversation
Loading conversation…