
I Quit a $500K job at Amazon to work for myself - wslh
https://medium.com/@dvassallo/only-intrinsic-motivation-lasts-92c0497cf97c
======
munchbunny
This story template increasingly raises conflicting and mostly negative
reactions from me. It wasn't always this way.

To the author's credit, $500k in comp as an engineer is not easy. Kudos to
anyone who pulls that off.

The reason for my reaction is this: the title can be interpreted two ways:

"I had a great setup but I'm giving it up to take a risk."

"I want to feel motivated again and I'm willing to give up a lot of money to
do so."

But I increasingly dislike these posts because (1) we know there's a strong
correlation between having a lot of money and success in entrepreneurship.
Starting out with a safety net is the best way to derisk! In that sense, this
post is just saying "I'm taking a risk after I've derisked it!" And (2)
talking about how much money you'd give up to feel motivated is pretty
explicitly signalling success to other people in the "I earn enough to be able
to talk about it like this" group. That's just upper-middle class signalling.

The author's other posts also don't really address the elephant in the room.
He was pulling in $500k. If he fails, and even if he wipes out his savings,
he's going back to pulling in more than enough money to live very comfortably
while still saving enough for kids and retirement. That may feel like more
risk than he's comfortable with, but that means he's about as derisked as it
gets at a personal level. His explanation in the post titled "How I set myself
up financially before I took the plunge." has to do with allocating his
savings to make sure he and his family are taken care of, but it doesn't
really talk about the point that he at any point can choose to go back to
earning more than enough money. That's a privilege that very few people have.
He certainly earned that privilege, but how many entrepreneurs can say "I'm
setting aside $1m of my liquid money to bootstrap a startup"?

If the author had left the money out, it would have been a great post about
searching for motivation, which we all struggle with, but I think the money
aspect undermines the point.

~~~
DVassallo
Author here. The reason I call out the money is to emphasize that everything
was going great with my career. And despite that, I realized that a career as
an employee wasn’t the ideal one for me.

I’m very risk averse, but not in the traditional sense where I’m paranoid
about losing _anything_. I protect the (few) important things aggressively and
then I feel free to speculate with the rest (savings, time, reputation, etc).

~~~
abc_lisper
Why am I seeing this post again? I remember seeing this or something very
similar a few months ago. To me this feels like a humble brag than anything.
Its great you were able to pull 500k but it isn't very useful to read an
article like this. Most of us aren't making 500kpa, and we are not you, thus
most of your thought process doesn't apply to us, so why should we care? Now,
if you did do something cool technically (or) served users, we are all ears.

~~~
DVassallo
Someone else posted it here. I noticed it because someone told me about it on
Twitter.

I realized that climbing the career ladder wasn’t my ideal career, despite
everything going very well by most traditional metrics. What I hope readers
can take away from the story is that succeeding as an employee is not
necessarily the most satisfying career path. It can be, but it wasn’t for me.

------
kradroy
The title is "Only Intrinsic Motivation Lasts"

This needs to be "Only Intrinsic Motivation Lasts if You're Not Expecting a
Reward"[1]. His career at Amazon demonstrated that. Like another commenter
stated: "His earnings peaked." He stopped getting rewarded, so his motivation
went down.

A better solution: Keep your job, but stop caring about being rewarded at
work. Get your rewards from your personal life (marriage, children, social
groups, hobbies, etc).

[1] [https://www.spring.org.uk/2009/10/how-rewards-can-
backfire-a...](https://www.spring.org.uk/2009/10/how-rewards-can-backfire-and-
reduce-motivation.php)

~~~
DVassallo
Author here. Maybe my earnings at Amazon had peaked (unlikely but possible). I
realized that rewards hurt my long-term motivation rather than help. My income
right now is about $0, and I’m not aiming at getting back to the same income
level (if it happens, good, but I can have a good satisfied life with much
less). This change had nothing to do with income maximization. I prefer taking
more control over my lifestyle instead.

~~~
kradroy
"But what I was looking for was something that I could do for a living that
was also driven by this type of motivation: the intrinsic kind."

Read the study I linked in my other response. Doing something "for a living"
means you expect to be rewarded for it. According to the study, if you do
something that intrinsically rewards you, you will eventually lose motivation
to do it when you expect to be rewarded for it. You're setting yourself up for
failure.

I experienced this same phenomena almost 15 years ago. About 2-3 years after I
started programming professionally I hated it. I kept at it for 10 years,
being miserable most of that time, then I changed to a management track.

I fucking hate management. It's a mix of babysitting adults and coping with
regular disappointment. Nevertheless my life overall is much better. Don't,
however, misconstrue my hatred of management to mean that I do my job poorly.
The hatred actually makes me reflect on myself and my skills, and I constantly
seek to improve them. Hatred is also a source of passion. Use it wisely.

I have zero expectations of my work and there is no reward that would make
this work meaningful. I have removed my career's power to bring me into
existential crisis. My advice: _don 't_ do something you love for a living,
and/or learn to remove your occupation's ability to contribute to your self-
worth.

~~~
DVassallo
I’m very familiar with that research. I read “Punished by Rewards” by Alfie
Kohn and “Drive” by Dan Pink, and they both cite the same studies and make the
same arguments.

I was already operating like you are when I was an employee. (I wrote another
blog post about it.) I had already mentally ignored all rewards and extrinsic
motivators and just focused on doing the best work I can (something fully in
my control).

I believe there is a nuance you’re not seeing when you say “... doing
something for a living means you expect to be rewarded for it. According to
the study, if you do something that intrinsically rewards you, you will
eventually lose motivation to do it when you expect to be rewarded for it.”
The intent is what matters. You lose intrinsic motivation if you do something
for the reward. But you don’t lose it if you do it for its own sake. Running &
growing a business is something that I believe I’m intrinsically motivated to
do. The money from that activity is not the same type of reward (dangling of a
carrot) that the research you cited talks about. The books I mentioned talk
about why that happens: the carrot & stick approach feel manipulative to
whoever is subject to then, which in turn cause loss of interest and lack of
cooperation. When working for myself I won’t be subjected to any of that.

------
HillaryBriss
every time I read a story like this I think the author's earnings have just
peaked but they don't realize it

~~~
algaeontoast
What would your recommended best course of action to someone in this position
be? Say you've worked 8 years and went from $75k to $550k pre-tax total comp -
would you recommend that they continue slogging for another 2-3 years or?

I'm personally planning on working for large companies the first 3-4 years of
my career (out of college) saving ~50% of my earnings post tax then giving
some early stage companies another go (whether it be joining in early growth
stages or as a founder).

I find it hard to believe that more than say the top 10% of engineering or
management talent in tech is making $500k+ total comp in 2019. But I'm open to
being corrected.

~~~
screye
If you are still college, you might not want to strictly plan too far forward.
People, priorities and goals change drastically over a span of 3-5 years.

The top 10% of all reported employees at Google are predicted to make ~$300k a
year. This is after selecting every variable in your favor. I preselected for
the highest paying big company, most paying country, chose stats from Paysa
(anecdotally they inflate numbers the most) and judged all TC as cash. Even
levels.fyi (more reliable) and blind put a Google L7 at 550k.

Most optimistic guesses put 5% of people at Google at L7 and above.

So even in the most optimistic case it isn't 10%. If, I had to guess I would
say the top 0.05% make 500k or more. At best.

~~~
gowld
Levels.fyi says Google L5 engineer averages $300K. That's top 30-40%, not 10%

------
chriselles
Wow!

Compensation has changed dramatically since I worked at Amazon, although I
worked in non technical Operations Management.

I can relate to leaving a LOT of money on the table(back in the days of BiG
AMZN stock options and SMALL salaries).

Orgs and their cultures change, people and their motivations change.

We only get one life.

So best to be happy and/or challenged.

I wish the author well and will try to follow his updates.

------
SumYungGuy19
To the folks claiming he's not taking a risk, he's taking more of a risk than
most similar articles.

He's got two kids and a mortgage to worry about and he's assuming whatever he
cooks up will be able to add $250/month in value in perpetuity while he has no
PoC implemented.

His monthly budget and insurance setup were particularly fascinating.

[https://danielvassallo.com/from-employee-to-
bootstrapper/](https://danielvassallo.com/from-employee-to-bootstrapper/)

~~~
DVassallo
Actually it depends on what risk it is. Sure, I’m risking a lot of money (my
savings), time, and career growth opportunities. But I actually don’t think
I’m risking anything consequential. If this doesn’t work out for whatever
reason, I can always go get a job again that makes ends meet. It doesn’t have
to be the same job with the same income. My family’s standard of living is not
really at risk with this experiment I’m doing with my career. I’m quite risk
averse, but I’m careful to separate what is really worth protecting
aggressively from what I can be free to speculate with.

------
TheLuddite
This is really irresponsible thing to do.

~~~
kradroy
It could be, but here we only see a fragment of this person's life. I've often
found that people who do this type of thing come from well-heeled families.
And they conveniently leave out the details.

"I quit my $500k/year job to paint because mom and dad said I could convert
the estate's 2500 sq ft carriage house into an in-law unit in case I don't
become the next Andy Warhol" doesn't really sound inspirational and
compelling.

What type of person throws his non-trivial money in his audience's face and
gives an "Eat, Pray, Love" lecture? A clueless dolt. At least go the "Gospel
of Wealth" route and tell us to found libraries and coding academies.

~~~
DVassallo
I described my finances in great detail in another blog post. I don’t think
I’m risking anything consequential, because I can always go get a job again if
this doesn’t work out for any reason. I definitely don’t think I’m doing
anything irresponsible.

~~~
user123456789a
... another smart decision:-) The only person to talk about your finances is
your accountant. Definitely not public forums on internet

~~~
DVassallo
Why?

