Early Career Advice

Mark Zuckerberg: Could Facebook move faster? March 30, 2012

I’m rejecting the career ladder metaphor in favor of the career river. Here’s why: 1. The ultimate goal of the career ladder is: reach the top. The ultimate goal of the career river is: reach your ocean - a thriving, wide-open ecosystem fed by other rivers to explore. /

Everyone wants to decouple time from money. The problem? It's an extremely unpredictable way to make a living. For every successful creator, there are thousands who make nothing or almost nothing. So, how do you make the unpredictable, predictable? Here's what I learned:

Early career years are painful. You feel like an idiot 98% of the time - lost, confused and insecure. I wish I had a cheat sheet of principles for my first job. So I put one together. Here are 20 things about building a career I wish I knew sooner: