I am an entrepreneur and I am dyslexic and I have ADHD. It's way worse with numbers than words though. Basically I just have to be really careful copying numbers by hand. It made proofs in E school a nightmare. For a few days I even had numbers reversed on my own phone number for my answering machine message!
I agree with this article completely. As a matter of fact I have never read an article from new.yc that hits home more than this one.
"If you have a healthy dose of rejection in your life, you are going to have to figure out how to do it your way."
I like this a lot. Living in the bowels of the the academic system taught me to think fast. I was constantly one step away from total academic destruction and I had to think on my feet to beat the system. Often that meant talking parents out of punishments and teachers out of giving me bad grades. Great training for startups. Everything is always on fire and your company depends on convincing clients, investors, employees and customers to keep cool in the midst of a blaze. Only now we get to do what we're good at and hire people to do what we're bad at.
I also like the parts about verbal communication, delegation and trust. All apply to me in spades. My co-founder is hyper-organized and hyper-systematic. He's the tortoise and I'm the hare. He is very good at keeping us on track and not forgetting details and I'm really good at game time decisions during sales and VC meetings.
I also think hacking is great for the dyslexic. You can write code that masks your weaknesses. Also ADHD people fear repetition above all else. Some say we descend from hunters who thrive in dynamic environments, while most "normal people" descend from farmers and thrive in more predictable environments. It means that hacking is our natural ally in the fight against repetition.
Whatever the case, I don't think kids should be put on drugs to solve these so called problems. They need HEAVY exercise and an some recognition that they have something offer even if it doesn't happen in school. Though perhaps with that recognition they might no longer be outside the system and they may not develop the strengths that this article suggest. That is something I've thought about a lot...
I'm not dyslexic, but my healthy doses of rejection occurred because I was nerdy, poor, and liked talking about things like robots, space, and role-playing games.
It's helped quite a lot when dealing with rejection in the business world. Paul Graham is just like Charleen from middle school.
I agree with this article completely. As a matter of fact I have never read an article from new.yc that hits home more than this one.
"If you have a healthy dose of rejection in your life, you are going to have to figure out how to do it your way."
I like this a lot. Living in the bowels of the the academic system taught me to think fast. I was constantly one step away from total academic destruction and I had to think on my feet to beat the system. Often that meant talking parents out of punishments and teachers out of giving me bad grades. Great training for startups. Everything is always on fire and your company depends on convincing clients, investors, employees and customers to keep cool in the midst of a blaze. Only now we get to do what we're good at and hire people to do what we're bad at.
I also like the parts about verbal communication, delegation and trust. All apply to me in spades. My co-founder is hyper-organized and hyper-systematic. He's the tortoise and I'm the hare. He is very good at keeping us on track and not forgetting details and I'm really good at game time decisions during sales and VC meetings.
I also think hacking is great for the dyslexic. You can write code that masks your weaknesses. Also ADHD people fear repetition above all else. Some say we descend from hunters who thrive in dynamic environments, while most "normal people" descend from farmers and thrive in more predictable environments. It means that hacking is our natural ally in the fight against repetition.
Whatever the case, I don't think kids should be put on drugs to solve these so called problems. They need HEAVY exercise and an some recognition that they have something offer even if it doesn't happen in school. Though perhaps with that recognition they might no longer be outside the system and they may not develop the strengths that this article suggest. That is something I've thought about a lot...
Sorry for the ramble, like I said, that hit home.