One day you realize that you only have x days on this earth and y of them are already gone.
You don't want to waste any more of your remaining (x-y) days refactoring the same poorly written crap for the eighth time, answering the same 84 inane emails, drinking the same lousy coffee, looking at your watch through another pointless walk-through meeting, and listening to the idiotic pontifications of a boss who you would never talk to in a million years if you weren't here.
You know you can do better. You know you have it in you. You know you can make a difference. Then you know you have to. So you get out your calculator, work your finances, and when you have it all figured out, you turn in your notice and enjoy the best day of your life.
The part where you spend two years on your magnum opus, your hit the end of your runway, your company goes out of business, and your IP becomes the property of investors who will never (a) use it in any way or (b) allow you to use it in any way.
We only talk about the most successful startups. Most companies --- most of the 1 in 8 YC companies that get A-rounds, even --- fail. We don't talk about them.
No, I'm saying that when you leave the job you hate, you should consider options other than the one least likely to succeed. And I'm saying "consider", not "do", and I consider that an antidote to your flowery evangelism --- no offense intended, the world needs both flowery evangelists and cynical assholes.
I've been accused of many things, but "flowery evangelism"? lol More data to support the argument that creativity can come from misery. I was using language to try to convey the level of misery I have endured in "cushy" jobs.
You are absolutely right about the odds. But I don't care. I am aware of them, but at a certain point, I just put them in the back of my mind and plow on. In my case, keeping those odds in background just makes me work that much harder.
The world also needs both illogical achievers and comfortable conformists.
Hey, I hear you; I'm 3 years into the last company I founded, and the only BigCo I've ever worked for bought the 10 person startup I had been working at. I see the attraction. But startup life has also kicked the shit out of me for almost 15 years.
People are not logic-driven automatons. We do things because feel it "from the gut" or simply because we like the sound of something. We don't make all of our decisions in a calculated, mathematical way.
Humanity would not be as advanced as it is if people worked in the way you suggest. We wouldn't have landed on the moon, made it to the South Pole and, I suspect, have barely made it out of the cave..
I was talking, like you, about personal decisions. Admittedly I should probably have used "thought" rather than "worked" in my last line, as it perhaps implied working in a corporation limits risk, which isn't true.
You said "I'm saying that when you leave the job you hate, you should consider options other than the one least likely to succeed."
You are talking about a personal decision. My comment was about why people do not rely entirely on logic for personal decisions (and why they shouldn't), not about the contribution of corporations to society.
refactoring the same poorly written crap for the eighth time
Which part of this is different in a startup? The refactoring, or the quality of the code?
It seems to me that while working at a startup is a good way to guarantee that you'll never have time to refactor your code, it does nothing to ensure that your code -- or that of your cow-orkers -- will be any good.
Even if you don't get paid, look at the grandparent/aunt/uncles' position: have some fun with the baby, change some yucky diapers (ok not so fun), but in a short time you will be handing responsibility back to the parents, who will have to wake up in the middle of the night, night after night...
As both a repeat startup founder and a repeat parent of infants, I'll attest: the diaper-changing aspects are similar. You're doing it for love, not money or enjoyment. =)
Not too far off the mark. Once you get your head on straight, you can exploit any salaried job of at least some intrinsic worth as your own tool for business experimentation and even peripheral market research/experience.
So you're obviously not a parent, since you're not understanding that every parent sees your comment, agrees and thinks: Yeah, but I'd rather be a parent. :-)
Actually, I am a parent and both of us, while we love our children and love to see them grow, are still tickled to be done with diapers. And when I hear a kid whine or a baby cry (out in public), it is music to my ears; That is not my kid crying, I don't have to do anything about it. A bit selfish yes, but an honest and natural feeling.
I've always approached those stressed out midnight feedings and diaper changes with enthusiasm though. Every time I take a look at my crying son I think: these are the times I'm going to remember when he graduates, gets married and has a family of his own.
If you really get stressed out with the crying and sleeplessness, just take some video or pictures being "cranky". That's what I did. It became a significant stress reliever.
In my case, you missed the part where my employer's stock value dropped to $2 and the whole company was sold at wholesale to a group across the street.
If I gotta be connected to those kinds of risks, I want more control and more freedom.
And then you missed the part where your years of career development enabled you to walk the other direction down the street and pick up a job almost immediately making approximately the same amount of money, continuing to contribute to your IRAs.
BigCo's fail too, but no amount of dissembling is going to make BigCo tech careers as risky as startup tech careers.
The job market here in NYC for financial techies is not as you described. You clearly believe too much in startup tech centers because the risks involved with finance are as risky as start up tech careers. Riskier in some. Not as risky in others.
Why do you think Bernanke and Paulson had to get involved when Bear collapsed..?
I'm going to respond to this by pointing out that my company's offices are at 44 Wall and in the Loop in Chicago. I'm not a financial techie; I just get paid by them.
Fair enough. The job market is really screwy right now for financial techies. I'm on linkedin and my phone rang like crazy the day Bear collapsed. It's been ringing with people from UBS looking for staff. I've been told people are running out of UBS like crazy. The computer security market will probably get a boost from this actually. JPM's security has been boosted as they take over Bear's stuff and attrition potential isn't clear.
Come to think of it... you might want to cold-call JPM and see if they need help!
I'm sorry for being snarky about the NY-FI market. I can see why it's scary right now. I was reacting to the "irrational faith in startup tech centers". Startup tech centers are a scam. It's 2008! You're building web technology! You really think your location matters?! UR DOIN IT WRONG.
From one new yorker to another, you've got that right! I live here because I love the city. I work in financial tech because I like the excitement of working as fast as possible to solve problems. I also dig the bonuses. :)
You don't want to waste any more of your remaining (x-y) days refactoring the same poorly written crap for the eighth time, answering the same 84 inane emails, drinking the same lousy coffee, looking at your watch through another pointless walk-through meeting, and listening to the idiotic pontifications of a boss who you would never talk to in a million years if you weren't here.
You know you can do better. You know you have it in you. You know you can make a difference. Then you know you have to. So you get out your calculator, work your finances, and when you have it all figured out, you turn in your notice and enjoy the best day of your life.
Did I miss anything?