Advice for finalists

Fri Jun 13 2025

Advice often sucks! It encodes the advice-giver's biases, and it's never tailored for the individual. You may want to consider reversing any advice you read here. The golden mean applies.

Don't stress too much about finals

It doesn't matter as much as you think. Really. No one at my job even knows (and they certainly don't care) what university I went to or what modules I studied. Your work will speak for itself.

Your agency, your work ethic, and your ability to learn and grow from here on out will make much more of a difference going forward.

Beware the prestige premium

The more legible and "prestigious" something is, the more overrated it tends to be.

By legible, I mean anything with a highly formalised and competitive application process, anything with spring/summer internship, anything with a fresh grad intake, etc. The gobs of money you can make as a barrister, consultant, banker are highly legible, but I promise there are gobs of money to be made all over the world in domains you wouldn't and can't imagine.

If you can find a field that none of your peers are going into, you'll stand out a lot. Even better if you can find a highly unpopular field people actively denigrate. These fields also select for iconoclasts, whom I always find more interesting.

Your option set is a lot larger than you think

Your option set is circumscribed by your beliefs and by the people around you. In the army I somehow thought that the best thing I should do is apply for an Air Force scholarship. And in Oxford I considered doing a Masters' because everyone else seemed to be doing it.

We put up a lot of self-imposed barriers on what we think our options are. Oxford is a very academic place; it's hard not to consider academia when all your friends, professors etc. are doing it. And if you see your forebears doing finance, law, consulting, engineering, medicine, it's easy to follow in their footsteps, too. Don't forget the world is big, you have only seen a very small part of it.

Good people are always in demand

If you are good, there will always be a place for you. From what I've seen, good people never need to look for jobs; the moment they quit, there are a string of offers for them, they just pick their favourite one. (Of course, it helps to put yourself out there: see "Just ask for things".)

I joined a startup incubator program last year. Most of the companies failed, but pretty much everyone got snapped up by other companies, because they were good.

How to be good? Work on stuff you genuinely think is important and interesting, not what society tells you is lucrative or prestigious. This will let you surpass everyone effortlessly; a genuine interest in something gives you the superpower of being able to work all the time, without it feeling like work.

Don't conflate looking good with being good. Some founders post on Twitter about how hard they work, they'll focus on vanity metrics so they can raise bigger and bigger funding rounds, they'll go to lots of events and podcasts, they'll be Forbes 30 under 30... but none of this matters because they can't actually build. Resist the urge to play status games; just focus on being good instead.

Learn to build

The vast majority of legible, prestigious jobs seem not to be about building at all, but about managing, allocating, optimising.

Learn to build, not allocate capital.

Building is a lot more fun and a lot more fulfilling. Building is imposing your will on the world; it is drawing order out of chaos. Compared to a capital allocator, you have maximum agency. Would you rather watch porn or have sex?

If you learn to build, you can make things happen, and making things happen is a rare superpower. Having lots of money is great, but even people with money need good builders to make things happen.

Just ask for things

The rules of the game are a lot more malleable than you think. A lot of the time you can just ask for stuff and you might just get it!

There used to be a rule in PPE (maybe there still is) that if you wanted to do a Thesis in Politics, you had to do three other politics modules. But I didn't want to do three other politics modules. I thought it was set in stone (I mean, it's very explicitly written in the Students' Handbook), but I thought I'd punt anyway. So I emailed the Academic Registrar if I could do it. After a bit of back-and-forth (and with Bassel and Tia putting in a good word), it was approved???

Most jobs, internships etc., are not advertised. If you admire someone and their work, tell them so, and ask if you can work with them; I promise they'll be flattered. I've done this a few times already, and had many fruitful collaborations.

The trick to asking for things is not to get too attached to the outcome. Don't take "no" too personally -- it may not be about you. (And sometimes it is, but you're always growing, right?)

Treat the people whom you ask things from with the utmost respect and kindness. It's hard to say no, so make it as easy as you can for the other person. If you ask to work with someone, and they say no, maybe they don't have a vacancy, maybe you're not skilled enough yet, no worries, thank you for considering me in any case. If you ask someone out and they say no, okay that sucks, but hey, absolutely no worries at all, totally understand, respect your decision. And then tell yourself: it was a long shot anyway, I'm glad I asked!

Minimise regret

A lot of the time we don't regret doing things; we regret not having done things.

When I was in college there was a gorgeous girl called Rosanna. I had a big crush on her and we got along quite well, but I never asked her out, because the last guy she dated was a really tall, handsome, and posh guy who went to Eton, and I didn't think she'd deign to date a short Asian guy who went to Bukit Panjang Primary School. It turned out her last boyfriend was half-Asian and shorter than her, so I had ruled myself out for no reason. I still think about that sometimes. Don't let that be you!

Our fears, insecurities, and anxieties often paralyse us. Force yourself to bias towards action to counteract this natural tendency. When you do something, you may succeed (great). And if you fuck up, you will learn, and that's a great outcome too. When you choose inaction, there is no chance of succeeding, plus you have learned nothing. You miss 100% of the shots you don't take.

Lean into discomfort

Actively do stuff that makes you uncomfortable.

If addiction is the progressive narrowing of the set of things that give you pleasure, growth is the progressive widening of the set of situations you can be comfortable in.

The more you do stuff that makes you uncomfortable, the less uncomfortable those situations will become. Titrate slowly, take baby steps; you will make a lot of progress very quickly.

Body affects mind; mind affects body

I always thought of my brain as a Platonic-ideal thinking machine, with no relation to my body, always able to find some clever solution to intractable problems.

My startup was gearing up for a big public launch. I'd been working 7 day weeks for 3 weeks straight, with pretty much no sleep. I'd try to get to bed, but I'd find myself waking up in the middle of the night, heart racing, or have my mind spin in circles due to all the stuff we'd still need to do.

There was a lot of pushback on the launch due to some decisions we'd made, and after yet another all-nighter, I'd written a draft announcement reversing some of the more controversial decisions. I thought it was good work; an excellent way to thread the needle.

I sent the draft over to our launch partner for final comments. The founder of that partner company called me and said: under no circumstances should you send this out, you will completely destroy your reputation.

I am so glad I listened to him; he saved me from self-destructing my company.

My mentor once told me: when your judgement is affected, the first thing to go is the ability to judge that your judgement is affected. Learn to listen to your body, because it really, really affects the mind.

Take care of yourself!

Be kind to yourself and others

High-achiever types are often very harsh with themselves. I think it stems from some deep-seated insecurity of not being good enough.

I often find myself lying in bed reliving every single one of my mistakes; "I should have said this, I should have done that, if only..."

You are not perfect; you will fuck up, but you will improve. Be kind to, and patient with, yourself.

My self-talk is oftentimes very harsh. When I catch myself doing so, I say to myself: would I say this to a stranger or a friend? And the answer often is no.

Give yourself the space to celebrate your good work, don't keep rushing to the next thing.

If you admire someone for something, tell them about it! You will make their day.

Be humble

Growing up we're all taught to do the thing where we all glaze the guy who does well ("wah you damn upz sia") and the guy has to deflect everything ("no la no la lucky only"). This isn't actually humility; this is performative, this is wayang show.

Humility is not performative modesty. Humility is being rightfully proud of what you've achieved, and simultaneously recognising that you still have a long way to go and a lot to learn.

It really is about the friends you make along the way

There is no need for everyone to like you, you don't have to be friends with everyone. Polite, cordial, certainly; but some people are just not your tribe, and that's fine. Try your best to find your tribe: the people who share your same values, who match your freak. Then hold onto them and don't let go.

Some of your friends you'll admire because of their competence, others you will love because of their kind heart. You should try to find the thing you love in every one of your friends.

Be a good person

As you focus on being a good builder and executor, don't forget to be a good person, too. Are you loyal to your friends? Are you true to your word? Are you generous? Respectful? Kind? Compassionate? Are you doing any 亏心事?

As with anything else, being a good person is a learning process, too. I am selfish, judgmental, lazy, dishonest, impatient, rude, and a hundred other things, but I will always strive to be better. In the short time we are here on this earth, we should try to be like shooting stars -- lighting up the lives of those we pass by.