Slow Computer Startup Problems

Many people have decent machines that startup quick when they first buy it. However after several of months they may notice the performance of their computer slowing down and not understand why. They may first think they need to do some type of PC upgrade because of the performance. These types of problems are often not because of the actual hardware but because of normal use. The computer isn’t getting old it just needs some routine maintenance to get it performing like you want it to. There are several things you can do to boost the startup speed of your computer as well as the overall performance of it.

After you’ve owned a computer for a few months you’ve probably installed several programs on the computer. The programs in most cases will automatically create various shortcuts on your desktop and start menu. While these shortcuts are very handy they also cause your computer to take forever to start up. Many people also tend to clutter their desktop with other types of shortcuts or files. It’s a very common case that not many people recognize. You should start by taking all of the shortcuts on the desktop and putting them in a folder named shortcuts. By doing this you’ll still have access to all of the programs that you want.

Next you will want to take any of the programs off of the start menu that you have already put into the shortcut folder. If there are some shortcuts on the start menu that aren’t in the shortcut folder then you can simply add them to the folder and delete the rest of the file off of the start menu. By cleaning up all of the extra shortcuts off of the start menu you will not only speed up the startup of the computer but the overall performance. This is because the computer memory or RAM doesn’t have to load all of the duplicate shortcuts and try to arrange them where you had them. Also when you try clicking on the start menu there will be a lot less for the computer to have to load.

Finally you will want to do a disk cleanup and defragmentation from time to time. You can actually set the computer up to do this automatically. You should plan to have it do it once every other month at the latest. It’s best to defragment every few weeks or after installing several programs. This is because the files get shifted around a lot and the computer will have to search to find them. It’s comparable to having an office full of filing cabinets that are never organized. You’ll never find what you’re looking for. However if you have them all organized you know right where to find them. The same is true for a computer. Defragmenting will increase the speed of your computer and it’s startup by leaps and bounds if you’ve never done it before. These few simple steps can help improve the performance of your computer and make it feel like a new machine.

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Wealthfronts Startup Equity Calculator

Wealthfront has a great startup equity calculator post on their blog thats worth reading for every engineer who intends to work at a startup.

It has a few interesting data points, one of which is that Hardware Engineers tend to get more equity on average than software engineers. This could be because on average, companies that require hardware engineers tend to go for experienced hardware engineers, while its not unusual for startups to hire new grads for software engineering work.

Rachleff also makes the point that it makes much more sense to manage your career than to manage your wealth. Thats true for new graduates. Its definitely not true for people at the mid-point of their careers, which in Silicon Valley is a much younger age than anyone outside the Valley would believe. I think Rachleff understates how important proper handling of your finances are. After I left Google, I had the privilege of speaking to many people about wealth management. There were a surprising number of people who had more stock than I did with worse financial outcomes almost a decade later. The difference between having a good financial plan and trying to time the markets or relying on a crooked financial advisor are enormous!

In any case, a number of my clients implicitly understand this --- some of them have explicitly turned down multi-million dollar retention packages at big companies (or in some cases refused to even start negotiating for those) in favor of unknown outcomes at startups. Even if those startups do not succeed, the skills they learn and exposure to an environment that requires all their talents, rather than a subset of them, will eventually lead to far more success.

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