How Hacker News Completely Changed My Life
Seems like a massive mis-attribution error and I worry people will learn the wrong lesson here.The OP's story is:1. learned to program iOS (hard, completely under OP's control)2. wrote and published iOS app (hard, under OP's control)3. the app failed so wrote a blog post about his experience (easy although often neglected by programmers, under OP's control)4. HN picked up the story which led to interview (total crapshot, not under OP's control)5. a round of of interviews which led to job offer and "completely changed life" (hard, under OP's control)I understand why claiming step 4 ("HN picking up the story") was responsible for "changed life" plays well on HN, but it's irrational.The hard things that OP did and were under his control were: learning iOS programming, publishing iOS app, writing a blog post about it and doing well during an interview. Steps 1-3, 5 were necessary and responsible for his getting a better job.Step 4 is the only one that wasn't under OP's control, involved pure luck and is not even necessary.As an example, I get several interview inquiries every month but not because I post on HN (I do) or because occasionally what I wrote ended up on HN (it did) but because I have a website, github account and a portfolio of non-trivial projects.Step 4 is not necessary because in this market a competent iOS programmer can pick and choose. The OP would be better off if he pro-actively applied for several iOS positions in Silicon Valley (of which there are plenty) and picked the best offer, instead of passively waiting and accepting the first offer.I'm not saying that good things don't happen because of HN but in this particular case the lesson shouldn't be "write a blog post, hope it ends up on HN and then further hope someone will contact you with a job offer" but "learn a marketable skill (like iOS programming), produce a proof of your skill (write iOS application), market it a little bit (write a blog post about it) and then go on a job shopping spree (by applying for iOS jobs)".