
Ask HN: PhD, Startup, or Career?  - student
I'm nearing the end of my undergraduate Computer Science degree and I've been presented with the opportunity to read/study for a PhD fully funded by my University. The trouble is, I also hold job offers with two of the most prominent software vendors in the world. I'm at a cross roads as to which route to take at this point.<p>To add further confusion to my life, I've also been given a great idea for a startup and have the chance of working with a really cool co-founder. I really don't know which way to go with this one, any ideas?<p>I'll give a short description of the startup just in case you are wondering. My friend did a year long industrial work placement at a finance company while at University. He worked in the anti money laundering division. While he was there he had to use some god awful enterprise software that made use of some pretty bad pattern matching algorithms. Basically, he wants to do a startup with me where we would develop a SaaS based application to do pattern matching against bank transaction records to spot fraud, this is a big market with a few well established players. There is no doubt that we can make better software with better pattern matching algorithms, our problem is getting clients (same with everything I guess).
The software is commonly refered to as AML software in case you wanted to do a small amount of background reading on it. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-money_laundering_software)
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menloparkbum
Do the PhD and work out your AML software company idea while you are doing the
PhD. You can drop out when you're ready to run with your startup. I personally
know about 8 people who have become software millionaires this way. It's also
how places like Google and Yahoo! got started.

The "Real World" is totally overrated. Entry level software jobs generally
suck donkey balls, even if they sound like they won't.

However, it is very particular to your situation. If your job offer is to work
on Photosynth at Microsoft Research, turn down the full ride to Toledo State
U. However, if you're funded at Stanford or MIT, turn down the entry level
code monkey job at Amazon or Yahoo!

~~~
zitterbewegung
Thats what I am doing except I am doing research right now on computation as
an undergrad and I am auditing classes to get the information to complete the
research. Its fun when you can pass out of classes to simplify your course
load (self study).

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physcab
Well first, be thankful that you have incredible options. To be fully funded
for a PhD is not unusual, especially for engineering/science fields, but in
this economic climate there are far more people applying for fewer positions.
The same goes for the job offers.

That being said, what do you really want to do? What are you good at?

I've written a bit about PhD life in another post
(<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=445082>) and of course you are welcome
to contact me if you are being pulled this way. Bottom line is that I think
you should do the PhD if you are completely ready. Putting off a PhD will only
make coming back to do it much more difficult, especially when bills start to
pile on. Getting a PhD is not setting your life in stone, rather it will open
up MANY MORE doors for you in the future.

The start-up sounds enticing. If you two agree about how much work needs to be
done and this is an area that you are truly passionate about...just go for it!
However, know that good ideas are not finite. There will always be time.

As for the job offers... Well, I tend to hate the corporate environment so I
couldn't give you unbiased feedback. If you feel you can create value, and
feel like your skills are valued, then perhaps its a good match.

With any of these, I would encourage you to talk with the people you would be
working with. Your community will make a HUGE difference POST-college, because
life after undergrad is shockingly different.

~~~
mian2zi3
Why will putting off a PhD make it more difficult? I had lots of options like
the poster, and dropped out to do the startup. Ten years later I went back to
finish my undergrad and get my PhD, this time in math.

~~~
ovi256
> Putting off a PhD will only make coming back to do it much more difficult,
> especially when bills start to pile on.

It would not make the PhD itself more difficult, but rather starting it - you
are likely to have more and more responsabilities and burdens as time goes on.

~~~
physcab
This is what I meant. There isn't anything concrete that holds an older PhD
back. I doubt there will be any age discrimination either on re-applying.

However, if you have a family, a mortgage, a car, and a life outside of school
that is time-consuming, getting the PhD will not be a top priority. This makes
it difficult to do all the logistical things of getting a PhD too--it's not
all about research. You have core classes to complete, many tests and defenses
to pass, and conferences to attend. Although it's entirely possible for
someone to do this, I cannot imagine it would be easy or good for your
studies/other obligations.

------
mmc
Some good points - I agree with hs saying 'do the scariest thing'. While
you're young. I think this means either the startup or the PhD. But you sound
more interested in the startup - you didn't even mention your intended
research area!

A PhD is lots of really hard and thankless work, and if you're not really
excited about it at the beginning, you won't finish, and that's the worst
thing you can do.

So - unless you're hiding your passion for research in your post, I recommend
the startup.

I'm sure you know about them, but just in case: the AML field as represented
in the Wikipedia article (and the sales report PDF it linked to) missed one
company I know of who's been doing AML services 'since 1993', called Logica:
<http://www.logica.com/risk+and+compliance/350234053>

~~~
wallflower
You could make the argument that PayPal with its fraud detection backend is
primarily AML.

------
jeeringmole
I went straight to graduate school, heeding advice that it would be difficult
to give up the comfort of a real salary for a grad student stipend if I went
and worked first. I observed in grad school that the students who had done
that knew why they were there and what they wanted far better than I did.

Fundamentally, you will only know in retrospect whether or not you made the
right decision. On the other hand, the stakes are not as large as they seem: 5
years is 125% of your time as an undergraduate, but only 12.5% of your career.
(In other words, you have time to switch courses later, though it may appear
now that you don't.)

Finally, the advice I always repeat to people facing difficult decisions.
(Anyone who knows where this came from is welcome to tell me. I would
attribute it if I knew the source.) .... When you have a difficult and
important decision to make, flip a coin. Not because flipping a coin is a good
way to make important decisions, but because in the moments while it is
spinning in the air you will know which way you want it to land.

Trust yourself, good luck, and congratulations on earning such a plethora of
attractive options.

------
abyssknight
I'm just going to take a devil's advocate role here and say get a job.

A start up is nothing without capital, and until you get funded that capital
is you and your cofounder. Your savings, your time. A job means you can't put
all your time into your startup, but it also means you can eat.

Having coworkers to bounce things off of, learn from and both see and make
mistakes is invaluable. You can learn how to start your start up from working
at your day job. You might even meet driven, hard working people who can help.

As far as continuing your education, that's awesome. Do it, but get someone
else to pay for it. If you work at a big corporation they'll usually offset
the cost or even give you a free ride.

That said, do what fuels you. If you like to code, get the job. If you like
the theory, keep on with schooling. If you're into the startup thing, just do
it. If you want it all, do it all. Just remember to eat.

------
CyberED
Get some "real world" experience first. I got bummed out doing a Masters many
years ago - got distracted by money making ops. So 20 years later I'm back
doing a PhD. The topic is more practical and yet breaking some new ground from
the academic perspective.

Don't let money dictate your decisions. Seek to optimise your experiences and
that goes for life outside of IT & work. The startup option will teach you the
most. Just don't count on getting rich. It so spoils the experience.

------
hs
you live only once, do the scariest/craziest thing

~~~
amichail
A word of warning about web startups: what you find interesting is not
necessarily what the average web surfer would find interesting.

In fact, it's even worse than that: what you find interesting is not
necessarily something that the average web surfer could even understand.

Of course, academia has its own problems (e.g., your peers don't really care
much about your success and have their own agendas, which causes problems with
peer review). Also, publishing stuff isn't really anywhere near as rewarding
as having a successful web startup.

~~~
eru
Why _web_ startup? Just because he'll be selling 'Softwar as a Service'?

~~~
wheels
I think all of the money is in hardwar.

~~~
eru
Why? And which kind of hardware? You don't want to be commoditized.

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gcheong
1\. Start-up

2\. PhD

3\. Corporate job

Order is from "earlier the better" to "later is better" order.

I would also suggest you read this: [http://www.amazon.com/Smart-Choices-
Practical-Making-Decisio...](http://www.amazon.com/Smart-Choices-Practical-
Making-Decisions/dp/0767908864/)

------
Mystalic
I jumped into a startup at the end of my college career, but didn't have the
burn capital to do it boostrapping. You may be better off acccumulating a bit
of capital before throwing yourself into the start-up (the most rewarding, for
most of us).

Remember, you can always change your mind and any software company you join
does NOT have to be a career - you can quit and start your own start-up at any
time if you have the courage.

------
jules
What do you mean by SaaS? Banks have to upload transaction records to your
servers? Do they want to do that?

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webwright
Do you have a sense of which one you'd regret punting MOST? I can't imagine
not getting a PhD gnawing at you for the rest of your life unless you love
deep academia.

I can't imagine regretting punting a job offer from BigCo, but people are
different.

The startup idea sounds cool, but making a better (or at least decent)
mousetrap is really just an entry fee for attacking the sales/distribution
problems associated with enterprise software. Hopefully you or your partner
are good at sales and eager to do it.

I think most people are likelier to regret punting on a risky choice than the
safe choice.

------
kin
You should ask yourself what you are really passionate about. I'm currently
going through similar options and here's what I have to say.

If you can do PhD later, then do it later. If it's an opportunity that you
must act upon immediately, then do so. You'll double-triple your salary when
you re-enter the corporate job market. However, keep in mind the being a
graduate student is being an adult with no money. You'll have to tough it out
for a few years.

The same situation lies with your start-up. You've already let out your idea,
therefore you must invest a large amount of time and effort (money) to release
before any competition gets there first. At that point, what are the odds of
your success?

To be really cautious, I would personally go with the PhD and tough it out. If
you're confident enough in your talent, you can develop for your start-up on
the side. If, for some reason you fail at either or both, when you re-enter
the job market, you'll still be worth gold.

------
bluelu
My former employer also had an AML solution. You entered the name of the
person as starting point, and the solution tried to fetch all related persons
from the web by analyzing the name where the person was matched. These names
were then associated with different keywords to create a ranking for each
person and for the original person itself.

One problem will be getting the contacts. Also different banks have different
systems. Maybe you can work something out with avaloq (their system is used
more and more in different banks). Banks will never transmit data outside of
their servers, and even people working there will not access any web service
at all, if their computers are connected to customer data. So you have to sell
the hardware as well. I think the biggest problem will be to integrate into
the existing system.

------
alain94040
Congratulations on lining up all the top options. This may as well be a
rethorical question since it covers all the possibilities!

Normally, based on my background I'd recommend the startup as #1, the job at
Microsoft as #2 and the Ph.D last.

But I must say I'm not crazy about the startup you describe. Would I really
advise you to join a startup I don't believe in?

Failure is a great learning experience. Looking for paying customers is a
lesson that neither Microsoft nor a Ph.D will ever teach you. But isn't it a
little bit early? My preference is to become an expert first and then start
something. You must do your own soul searching. Are you satisfied that you are
"great enough" in your field yet?

For some, it takes a few years of a regular day job. For others, they are
great by the time they get their bachelor degree.

------
huhtenberg
As others said - don't do PhD right away. Take a break from the school and
have a closer look at other options first.

For one you may discover that you can do cooler stuff in less time and to more
satisfaction. For two you may notice that not all PhDs are created equal.

I had a choice of doing PhD when I was graduating (that was in Eastern Europe
and it required getting an approval, a recommendation and god knows what else,
so it was more of a privilege than an opportunity) and decided not to. Now,
looking back, I'm pretty sure the stuff I worked on in a past 10 years would
easily get me a PhD or two. It also earned me enough money so I can actually
go back to school and do that PhD ... only if I wanted to :)

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seshagiric
You can narrow down the choices to two:

1\. Take the startup job. In the worst case it will fail. If so you would have
gained so much valuable experience in programming + project management +
finance + HR. With that experience you will easily get a Senior level job in
any company. And that is the worst case. If it succeeds the returns will
simply be atleast 10 times more than that of a career life.

2\. Given the market situation do your PHD, perhaps working on algorithms for
detect money launder. The idea is by the time you complete your PHD (3 yrs?)
the markets would have turned around surely.

And if the PHD is not in one of the top 10 universities, ditch the idea and go
for the startup.

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puzzle-out
Just one point about the phd, I noticed that some students who stayed at the
same uni for postgrad grew REALLY bored with the place after being there
countless years.

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noodle
i'd suggest you sit down and take stock of what you _need_ , first. if your
situation requires you to follow a specific path, do that.

after that, figure out what you want, and follow that. you have time and
little obligations (i'm assuming), so even if following what you want to do
leads to a dead end, you have time and flexibility to get past that that you
won't later in life.

------
transburgh
There are few times better in your life to start a company than in or right
after college. Obviously you have made a positive impression on your uni and
future employers, so work in the future wout be that hard to get.

I would say go for the startup idea since you see a need that could be better
filled.

------
iuguy
Go to the big vendor, try it out there. In the meantime learn how to launch,
promote, grow a solution with a safety net. You'll have other ideas. When you
do you'll be able to do them on their own and use all the advantages of what
you've learned to push it through.

~~~
seshagiric
That's a nice idea but the problem is it is difficult to get such chance in
big company.

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randomtask
Can you defer the Phd? If so then you can choose to give the startup a go for
a while and see how that works out without closing the door on the Phd.
Personally I wouldn't give preference to the industry jobs unless they're
really very good.

------
sweis
I think you can build a broader network of colleagues and will be exposed to a
wider range of ideas while pursing a PhD.

That being said, a PhD is a long haul and a lot of work. The good news is that
you can always leave after getting a masters.

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braindead_in
General rule of thumb is, recession is the best time for academics. But since
you already have job offers, I guess it would not apply to you. But if you are
in doubt, always refer to the first rule -- you do not talk about...

------
abl
This question reminds me of Howard Rourke's (Fountainhead)advice to Peter
Keating when Peter is presented with a similar choice after graduating from
Stanton. Rourke ranks them as 1.startup 2.corp 3.continued study

------
wesleyd
I'd say do the startup. It'll be the one you'll most regret not doing. Whether
you fail or succeed, you'll be ten times more able to tackle whatever you
choose to do after.

------
RK
How about work for a year, save as much money as possible while working on
your idea. Then quit to start your startup. If that tanks, go for the PhD.

------
jonursenbach
Life is all about taking chances. Do what you think is best to further your
career.

------
brentr
If I had a cofounder with an interest in finance, I would choose the startup
path.

------
zackola
PhD or Startup

------
rubing
startup would be best, but most risky. job will be good if they let you
innovate and reward you for it. phd is good if you like to be tortured.

~~~
mechanical_fish
Let me underline this part: Do not do your Ph.D. now. There is no rush.

At best, you would be wasting the extremely valuable "get out of industry
free" card that an as-yet-unearned graduate degree represents. If you find
yourself two years from now, trapped in an industry job which you hate, or in
the aftermath of a failed startup, or -- worst of all -- laid off in a really
down economy, you can go back to school then, reinvent your resume, revisit
academic fields that have made progress in your absence, and meet an entirely
new set of fellow students/potential co-founders.

At worst, if you go to grad school without sampling the actual world you could
spend another half decade or more getting an advanced degree in a field that,
once you graduate and the rubber meets the road, you might discover that you
hate working in. Academic computer science and the software industry are
rather different things. Being a grad student and being a professor are rather
different things. Shop around a bit before committing yourself too hard to any
of these paths.

~~~
physcab
We all have different perspectives depending on the school, the subject, the
adviser, the project, and how many years you're currently at in your PhD
career.

To speak purely from experience, I would have to say that I had similar
choices coming out of my undergrad. I went directly into a PhD program. The
first two years I hated my life, and I would have agreed with you then. Now,
my life has completely changed.

First of all, it takes a while to build a new community. Grad school (and just
life after college) is just different. You are no longer a part of the same
social groups. You also have to find a project you are passionate about. For
the first two years I was working on something I hated. I made a critical
decision to switch and I haven't looked back.

Second, coming back to do PhD is not easy. As more time passes from undergrad,
the more bills you have to pay, the harder it is to get recommendations, and
the higher expectations will be. Passing your qualifying exam may be tougher.

Third, a PhD does not rail you to anywhere. It OPENS doors. American students
do not fully comprehend this fact, and as such, American PhD students are the
minority in most PhD programs.

~~~
timr
_"Third, a PhD does not rail you to anywhere. It OPENS doors. American
students do not fully comprehend this fact, and as such, American PhD students
are the minority in most PhD programs."_

American students are a minority in PhD programs because the risk/reward is
traditionally awful, relative to the other options available to US citizens.
The calculation is different for foreign students (particularly those from
emerging economies), which is why you see more of them in graduate schools.

~~~
mechanical_fish
_the risk/reward is traditionally awful, relative to the other options
available to US citizens_

Mind you, this is not true for every US citizen, and it could change. If you
can't get a job, getting a graduate degree is a lot better than taking to
drink. (Unless your graduate degree drives you to drink, which I have seen
happen. Try to remember that doppelbock is not a food group!)

But the original submitter is fortunate enough to have _three_ job
opportunities, at least, so that doesn't seem to apply in this case.

------
vidioradeo
Considering you have a masters or at least an undergrad, you could probably
ride the recession out inside a classroom.

A startup seems like a relatively quick return but its a gamble.

As for a career, both other options constitute as elements of one. If you mean
striving to have some polished, dignified social timeline in your field, I say
screw it, live for now.

------
TweedHeads
Go for a PhD, the older you get the harder it is to pick up the books again.
You know, family, kids, and once you taste money you will want more and more,
spending less time in other activities.

If you don't do it now, you will never do it.

