The Mentor Manifesto

riffraff · on Aug 28, 2011

for a moment I've been wondering why "The Conscience of a Hacker"[0] had become popular again.

[0] http://www.phrack.org/issues.html?issue=7&id=3&mode=...

olalonde · on Aug 28, 2011

I was thinking exactly the same. For those who haven't heard of it before: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_Manifesto

jseliger · on Aug 28, 2011

I'd add a "mentee manifesto" too, since mentorship is a proverbial two-way street. I actually wrote an essay on that topic from an education perspective: "How to get your Professors’ Attention — along with Coaching or Mentoring" (http://jseliger.com/2010/10/02/how-to-get-your-professors%E2...) because I noticed that some students systematically make mistakes they may not be aware of when it comes to seeking mentors or advice.

cek · on Aug 28, 2011

   Be socratic.
   Listen too.

In my mind these two are basically the same and I'd summarize them as "Use the 70/30 rule. Listen 70% of the time and talk only 30%".

   Expect nothing in return (you’ll be delighted with what you do get back).

To me this is what differentiates great mentors from others more than anything.

nl · on Aug 29, 2011

Be socratic

This specifically refers to the idea of questioning in order to find the underlying truth: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socratic_method

That is different to just listening, or even the 70/30 rule. Being Socratic means actively questioning the assumptions and model of the mentee, rather than trying to build on their assumptions with your ideas.

cek · on Aug 29, 2011

I totally understand that. I was implying that to be Socratic you need to listen a lot more than you talk. Ask a question and then listen.

hollerith · on Aug 28, 2011

>I’ve been running TechStars for six years now. . . . we’ve seen those companies go on to raise about $100M in funding (averaging about $1M each post TechStars)

I would have been more interested to read about valuations than about amounts raised.

champion · on Aug 29, 2011

TechStars gathers some info on their results to date: http://www.techstars.org/results/

chrismanfrank · on Aug 28, 2011

me too. but it's possible a lot of these startups raised with convertible notes, and so would not have valuations yet.

matusz13 · on Aug 29, 2011

while they haven't gone through the trouble of posting valuations (I agree, it would be nice to see) they do have a results page http://www.techstars.org/results/