How I got a USD 100/hour offer at 21[Storytime Saturdays]
It's simpler than you'd think.
Hello all,
Since I’ve covered many amazing stories from other people, I figured it would only be fair that I cover one of my own. After all, y’all deserve to know more about who I am before committing to this newsletter. So in this newsletter, I will be covering how I managed to land this offer.
There were a few good things about this offer-
It allowed me to work on my own time.
It was potentially a lot of money
This was with a top stock recommendation service in the USA. Great for networking.
It was remote.
In this post, I’ll share how I did it, and some important takeaways from this journey. But first, in the next section, I’m going to briefly cover why I didn’t take this role. I believe in transparency, so if I’m going to show off, it’s only right I also share what didn’t work. If you’re not interested, just skip this next section, and proceed to the summary(beyond the stars).
Summary/Timeline
This story has several important milestones. Learning these will help you understand the story better.
Feb 2020- Around this time, I had just gotten into investing (talk about timing). I had started listening to economics and financial analysis online. I came across Krabs at this time. I reached out to him on LinkedIn because I enjoyed his work. Krabs is a very senior person, in the biggest name of the field.
August 2020-Because of encouragement from Dr. Shivam Gupta, my supervisor for my work at Johns Hopkins University, I decided to start writing online on Medium about Machine Learning. My work was received well, which got me to put more energy into it (and into online content in general).
September 2020- I found that the analysis of Facebook’s stock completely missed all the technically brilliant things their engineering (and useful) team had accomplished. I started talking about that online. Amongst my analysis (all of which is in the public domain), was my statement that Facebook had set itself up to dominate the Augmented/Virtual Reality space. This was a full year before Mark Zuckerberg announced the Metaverse.
July 2021- I reached out to Krabs about some economic analysis I had done on companies in the AI/Machine Learning Space. I had simply looked at the technical feats that the companies accomplished. Based on this analysis, I bought the companies when their stocks were down. The returns on those companies ranged from 300%-700% in less than a year. Krabs was very excited about this. He forwarded my work to his colleague, Icy T.
T is who gave me this offer after we talked about a few different ideas. One of the reasons he was keen to work with me was that his engineering teams really liked my Medium. You never know what skill helps you in the future. This is why it’s good to build a more well-rounded skill set.
I was reading more of your work on Medium as well and it's great to see your extensive machine learning knowledge!
The Highlights
This epic story has the following key learnings-
Have Hobbies- I got this offer in Oct 2021 (we both very were busy b/w August and September). But the process started in Feb 2020, when I connected with Krabs over something we both had in common. I elaborate upon this in my post on getting referrals the right way. Also, once you (e)meet with someone, you have to stay connected with them. I’ll share how I do that.
Have more tools- The stocks returning as much as they did was luck for me. I could not have predicted the extreme quantitative easing by the Fed. But to make this happen I had to do a few things. I needed to be able to combine my knowledge of foundational economics and finance with my experience in Machine Learning. And an ability to write proposals/articles that got strangers to read and engage with my work.
Keep your eyes open- There’s a lot of inefficiency in the market. In my case, I noticed that all the big stock analysis focused just on the financial analysis rather than actual analysis of the AI products. By pointing to my returns and the 47 Billion USD debacle of WeWork and other such startups that raised money on the Deep Learning hype only to crash because of bad products, I was able to carve out a niche for myself. I basically invented a job for myself by spotting a market failure and taking advantage of it.
Sound interesting? Let’s get into it.
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Hobbies are a cheat code to networking
We’re going to start of with something that I don’t see many networking gurus address. Which is the importance of having hobbies and shared interests when reaching out to connect with strangers.
Let’s take a look at the common advice given to all college students when reaching out to Alumni (which is about where all the networking advice ends). The advice is to mention how you’re also from the same university, and how you would love their guidance in your job search.
Here’s why that’s terrible advice- it’s too boring. My university has 20,000 students at one time. What stops anyone else from doing this? If multiple people from RIT send this message, then what makes me stand apart from the next guy?
I was also a student athlete with the RIT rowing team. Our total team size, counting all teams was about 40. 40 out of 20000. If I was reaching out to somebody from the rowing team, I’m much more likely to stand out and be remembered than generic RIT student.
Having common interests allows for another great benefit. It allows you to cultivate a relationship, not just get a referal. The benefits of this are profound.
Water your Plants to get the fruit
Most networking advice end at getting a referal. Not only will this make you look selfish, it also is an inefficient way to use your network. Let me give you an example.
Let’s say you’re looking for ML roles. You asked me for a referal and I give it to you. All well and good. We both go our seperate ways here. This is what networking looks like to most people.
In such a case, we both miss out on the opportunity to make a deeper professional connection. All you got from me was a referal. Since our interaction was relatively superficial. I will probably forget about you after a bit.
I come across interesting opportunities everyday. I pass those along to other people in my network. In this case, I’m more likely to pass this along to someone I know/remember. In the traditional networking way, you get one referal from me. Do things in this way, and you’ll get 10.
Okay cool, but what does this have to do with water and hobbies? And what is this better way to network that I’m talking about? It’s simpler than you’d think.
Here is where connecting with common interests is huge. Let’s go back to the deep bond b/w Krabs and I. In the year and 4 months b/w first contact and his referal, I was still talking to him. These were 5 minute check ins about interesting things we were upto, updates in our lives etc. If I came across any interesting economics/finance videos/memes, I’d share them with him. This way I was able to learn and have some fun while gaining a great contact for my network.
It’s really that simple. There was almost no additional effort on my part. Just clicking the share button, texting Krabs for 10-15 minutes every couple months and just like that, we were connected. Krabs forwards me contacts/opportunities even now, completely unprompted.
However, to truly benefit from your network, you need to be good at what you do. If you missed it, you check out how to be a 10x engineer by former Google engineer. That will help you become a more effective software engineer. However, you need more than just hard (coding) skills. You’ll need to be a good communicator and have a stronger overall basis. Let’s cover that now. Along with how you can learn to identify hidden opportunities for yourself.
How to be a Good communicator, Have a Bigger Foundation and much more.
Many people ask me how to improve their communication skills. The answer to that is simple. Communicate more. And watch more good communicators. I love YouTube because I can watch and learn about ideas from some of the best in the world, while also implicitly learning to communicate. There are professional communication. courses, but for most people, that will be overkill.
One of the most important things to be a good communicator is a grasp on a multitude of subjects. This will allow you to continue the conversation, even as it goes in multiple directions. Most importantly, a good understanding of the basics (and nothing more) will allow you to ask the right questions as you talk to those more experienced. My understanding of basic economics and finance allowed me to converse with and learn from Krabs, who’s an expert in this domain.
As engineers, I recommend the following list of subjects (technical and non-technical) that you must know about-
Math and theoretical Computer Science
Coding
Economics and Finance
Philosophy + Logic
Writing.
The first 3 are covered on this newsletter, extensively. I also provide resources in the posts for those who want to learn more. So as long as you’re regular, you will be fine.
Number 4 is a tricky one. Everyone takes to philosophy differently. The YouTube channel Wisecrack is a pretty fun way to learn about philosophy in a fun and digestible manner. I also like debates on this stuff. Start from there and see where the winds take you. Brilliant’s course on formal Logic is a great one to practice logic through fun puzzles. As is the book, Lady or The Tiger.
University of Chicago has some top tier content on writing and communicating effectively. That will help you with 5. Look Go from there into other free writing vids on YT. With this, you will have a solid foundation to leverage your engineering skills into building great products and boosting your career.
Now for the final part of this post. How can you learn to spot opportunities and take advantage of them.
Become the King of your niche
As you start combining these skills, you will become gain a set of skills that are very unique to you. This is because your own interests and talents will have you explore these very big subjects differently.
Once you do, you will be poised to spot something in the status-quo that you can do better. I noticed that the analysis surrounding AI companies was too focused on EPS, users and valuations. Nobody actually looked at the engineering, economic viability, and dug through the whitepapers for the nuances lost in the marketing. Too many people were investing on hype and misunderstanding. This is fine when things are going up. When things take a downturn; investors panic, lose money, and blame the stock recommendation service. This has everyone unhappy.
I showed Icy T and Krabs some examples of how I could do things better. They did a few test runs, and the results were very positive. So I got an amazing contract. Everyone wins. This newsletter is another example of me spotting a failure in the market. The results speak for themself.
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Great advice. Thank you for sharing
This story is very inspiring! I also enjoyed reading your advice on communication topic.