
What I’ve Been Doing Since Quitting My Job - TonnyGaric
https://mtlynch.io/since-quitting/
======
greggman
I glad it worked out for the author but so far it hasn't worked out for me.
It's been 5 years which wasn't my plan. I thought it would be 6 months until I
figured out what I want to do. Things that happened.

Travelled: found it mostly extremely lonely to travel alone. Got sick of
seeing the same things (this place's contemporary art museum, that place's
famous church). Of course I saw some amazing things but I now think I agree
with some happiness researcher who claims travel is best in short < 1 week
bursts every few months.

Worked on personal projects. I do get some feeling of accomplishment but
mostly I just feel lonely and isolated. At good jobs I had the camaraderie of
close co-workers who became close friends and we really collaborated. I tried
hanging out at cafes and coffee shops and that's better than staying home but
not all that less isolating. The random people that show up are not people I
talk to or become close to.

I don't feel "free" at all. I'm sure it's partly in my mind. I might also be
age differences. I'm older and need to think about retirement I realize I
can't just make any random decision because there isn't time to correct. I
tell myself I don't feel free because I don't have enough money to never work
again. I do have to do something that earns significant income (enough to
retire in 10-12 years). If I did have enough to retire maybe I'd still not
feel free like not having enough to do X where X is whatever (fund that
project, whatever...) though maybe I'd feel free to do things and never worry
about income (volunteer for various things?). Now I don't volunteer because
that's not going to help me earn money to retire. I'm not sure I'd volunteer
or not.

I'm pretty much completely lost at this point. No idea what I want to do
anymore. I waste my days reading HN and browsing the net and working on
personal projects that have no future prospects and answering questions on SO.
I go to a meet up or 2 a week and that's about it.

~~~
rejectedalot
It seems like you get a lot of your feeling of meaning and contentedness from
social interaction. From what you’re saying about how travel, projects, etc
don’t seem as fulfilling anymore, it really seems to me like you have some
depressive tendencies.

I’m not a doctor, but just as a friend, I think you should really try to think
of dealing with that existential sadness as a priority - not as an annoyance.
Spending real time and energy towards improving your mental health could have
real impact on every other aspect of your life.

~~~
hedvig
2 books I recently read that point to social connection as essential to
meaning and well-being are Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of
Depression – and the Unexpected Solutions by Johann Hari, and Tribe: On
Homecoming and Belonging by Sebastian Junger.

------
blunte
Once you finally break free of the office/corporate mentality, suddenly the
world opens up. The possibilities are so vast (but not all possibilities mean
income).

Breaking free from the golden handcuffs (or in my case, aluminum handcuffs),
you start to realize that high income and lots of stuff really doesn't matter
as much as experiences. And then you might even consider doing work that
doesn't leverage your brain and career experience. That's actually freeing,
because it means you're allowed to go do a manual labor job for a week if you
want to. You stop comparing effective hourly rates (which usually suck you
back into a corporate or consulting world).

I envy the people who are born into entrepreneurial families. They may or may
not go to college, but they usually do not start with the idea of "I go learn
X in school so I can get a high paying job doing X". Instead, they seem more
likely to seize opportunities with an expectation of success rather than a
pessimistic view of cost/benefit. They will surely have more thin times, but
they also have much greater chance of both hitting it big (selling a company)
as well as actually filling their years with interesting experiences.

~~~
matte_black
Once you finally break free of the startup/entrepreneurial mentality, suddenly
the world opens up. The possibilities are so vast (but not all possibilities
mean freedom).

Breaking free from the gold rush (or in my case, app rush), you start to
realize that huge exits and lots of users really doesn't matter as much as
comfort and stability. And then you might even consider doing work that
doesn't give you equity or has potential for huge payoffs. That's actually
freeing, because it means you're allowed to do your job, then go home and
relax. You stop thinking about how much work you could get done if you weren’t
relaxing (which usually sucks you back to a computer to chip away at a never
ending todo list).

I envy the people who are simply happy in serving others. They may or may not
become super wealthy or travel as much, but they usually do not start with the
idea of “the only work worth doing is for a company I own”. Instead, they seem
more likely to take jobs with an expectation of being useful rather than an
egotistical view of time/benefit. They will surely have more boring times, but
they also have much greater chance of both being happy (living a normal life)
as well as actually filling their years with meaningful accomplishments.

~~~
willbw
Is it just me or is this style of comment, where you replicate someone else's
comment and change some words to make them appear foolish, tremendously
irritating and not conducive to good discussion?

Imagine having a conversation in person where someone parrots back your
phrases changing a few nouns. Would you do that?

It is also such a derivative style of commenting, I've seen it many times on
HN and I wish people would not recycle it any further.

~~~
matte_black
You need to use the right commenting style for the right situations.

This particular style of comment is best used when you want to emphasize that
what a person just said is only one perspective and that there exists an
equally valid opposing perspective. It works even better if the original post
was written with a tone of superiority, though it’s not required. It wouldn’t
be surprising to find it commonly used on HN.

~~~
blunte
It is quite possible that one may judge a statement as being superior when in
fact it was not written as such. In that case, the reader could perhaps have
some other emotion (inferiority?) coloring their perception.

Who is to say how the echo style of reply is generally seen, but I find it
snarky. It seems less like saying, "I have a quite alternate point of view"
and more like saying, "the originally presented view is backwards - here let
me show you".

But this is all meta, and HN isn't a forum for us to be debating communication
skills. Doing so is more futile amongst a group often known for lacking in
communication skills in inverse proportion to their intellectual skills.

~~~
mercutio2
Complete tangent:

Most studies I’m familiar with find that intellectual skills and
communications skills are very correlated (highly g-loaded) in the general
population.

Your phrasing using “lacking” and “inverse proportion” could actually be
interpreted as agreeing with that in a circuitous fashion, but the rest of the
tone makes me think your “lacking” was an editing mistake, you meant the two
skills are inversely correlated (apologies if I misunderstood your intent).

But you may be right that HN appeals to the outliers whose communication
skills/maturity/desire for internet points don’t match the general population.

------
mitko
Kudos to Michael for keeping busy with projects.

I quit my job 6 months ago. Gave myself 6 months to see if I would descend
into complacent procrastination, and if so - I'd find another job. Having no
job, but enough saving to rely on, has been a blessing. I've learned so many
things from creative writing to deep learning, wrote a lot of personal essays,
biked for 500miles, and did some side projects. Having one unsuccessful
attempt at a startup convinced me that this is a much preferable route to
getting back to salaried employment. The learning is a lot more, and there is
a higher potential for payoff.

~~~
mtlynch
Thanks for reading!

It sounds like we had similar experiences. I agree that the biggest benefit
has been the freedom to explore my interests. At Google, I always wanted to
get deeper into machine learning, but I felt pressure to lean into my
strengths so that I could deliver something and get promoted rather than slow
down and learn something new.

Now that I'm on my own, I do still feel pressure to release something, but
it's also a lot easier for me to control the pace and devote more time to
learning because I'm on my own roadmap.

~~~
dwoot
Hey Michael - if you don't mind sharing, which team did you work on and why
did you feel the pressure to lean into strengths instead of learning something
new? Could it be that this was just your perspective on it at the moment? The
alternate perspective that I see is that learning something new pays off into
the future even though it may not feel like you're moving somewhere at the
moment. Did existing responsibilities require too much bandwidth that it made
attempts at fitting in any learning a daunting endeavor?

Additionally, did you feel that you had the freedom to learn and apply ML?

~~~
mtlynch
Most of my time was on Google Maps.

The reason it was hard to slow down and learn was that promotions were so
difficult to get. You can only apply every six months, and so many stars have
to align in your favor to get promoted and so many things can derail it. Your
project can get cancelled. Your project can flop even if you personally did
everything right. One of your senior teammates (whose word carries a lot of
weight with the promotion committee) can leave the company.

It was so hard to get promoted when I was _trying_ to get promoted that I felt
like if I wasn't focused on promotion, I'd just never get a promotion.

I wrote a longer post about this a few months ago:

[https://mtlynch.io/why-i-quit-google/](https://mtlynch.io/why-i-quit-google/)

>Additionally, did you feel that you had the freedom to learn and apply ML?

I theoretically had freedom to learn and apply ML, but it would have been at
the expense of my career. For example, my last major project was to launch a
new ML pipeline in six months (it sounds like a long time, but it's really
hard to do this with all of Google's bleeding edge infrastructure and
bureaucracy). I was leading a team with two other developers, both of whom had
graduate degrees in ML-focused subjects. I could theoretically have assigned
myself more of the ML work, but the most likely way for us to meet our
deadline was to let my teammates handle the deep ML work while I did more
infrastructure work.

------
dopeboy
I did this five years ago. The point that most resonated with me is control
over one's time which leads to true agency.

------
acconrad
The hardest thing is just finding routine. Freedom via constraints is a great
thing. Once I started to plan out my entire day (and then week), my
productivity skyrocketed.

~~~
ak39
Agreed. For me it’s been forcing myself to the habit of getting stuff done
from 8 am to 12 pm. After that it’s anyrhing else but serious deep work. I’m
ok with 4 hours.

------
ironjunkie
I liked reading this blog post and found it interesting as this is something
I'm looking to do eventually.

Also, is it only me that have such a boring life? or normal people don't have
that issue to have too many emails/notifications to respond to? How many
people contact you, seriously?

But I have a mini-rant about all those blog-posts with subjects such as "Why I
decided to quit Google", or "Why I'm leaving for a startup after being a boss
at Facebook for X years".

Those blog post usually always reiterate that the "Smartest people in the
world" work at those companies and that it is the "Best job in the world".
Sometimes a little bit less arrogance and namedropping would be a good thing.

------
carlmcqueen
Knew I recognized this guy from the greenPi post he made. I'm a sucker for
posts about raspberry pi task automation.

If anything he is extremely good at getting some buzz around things he is
working on and deriving value from having worked at Google.

~~~
rashomon
I followed him down the Sia rabbit hole and found he was the only person this
side of the hemisphere to get a Sia node running off a Synology NAS (and who
could explain it in Layman's terms).

One of the smarter ones out there.

------
mtlynch
Author here. Happy to answer any questions about this post.

~~~
deft
Thanks, I liked your post but couldn't help but feel a bit jealous. I've seen
a few of your other blog posts before and really liked them. Have you still
been working with Sia? What are your thoughts on Filecoin or other
alternatives? You're one of the few people with any understanding of this,
what are the barriers preventing adoption and even lower prices? Have you read
or contributed to the source code?

Was that too many questions?

~~~
mtlynch
Thanks for reading!

>Have you still been working with Sia?

Not really anymore. It's hard to walk away because I have so much fun
experimenting with Sia, but I don't think I can really make a living doing
anything with Sia. My Sia blog had a dedicated, enthusiastic following, but
the niche is so small that the following was like 50 people.

>What are your thoughts on Filecoin or other alternatives?

I haven't looked too deeply into Filecoin. I read their whitepaper, but I feel
like it's hard to really grasp before I have software I can actually run. They
still haven't published any code, just some whitepapers.

Filecoin has so much money and so many employees that it's plausible that
they're working on something in secret that's going to blow everyone else away
once it's released. But it's also possible that they've got nothing and
they're going to release a $250M dud.

I think Storj is a trainwreck with almost zero chance of coming out of the
decentralized storage game on top. They're not even really a decentralized
storage project. They're an open source project that tells people they're
decentralized to cash in on the trend towards decentralization.

>You're one of the few people with any understanding of this, what are the
barriers preventing adoption and even lower prices?

The biggest barrier right now is how difficult it is for customers to store
data on Sia.

I can sign up for AWS/GCP/Azure and have data in their clouds in ~15 minutes.
With Sia, there are SO many steps just to start uploading data and the process
is not documented well. Not only that, there are huge waits between steps. So
it's like start Sia, wait 36 hours for the blockchain to sync, create a
wallet, wait an hour for the wallet to initialize, unlock the wallet, wait 10
mins for wallet to unlock, and on and on.

Even after Sia is totally initialized and ready for use, it's still much
harder than anything else to use. They don't yet support backup and recovery,
so you're stuck uploading an additional copy of all your data to another cloud
provider anyway. And then even in the remaining scenarios, there are no client
libraries for using Sia, so you have to write a ton of boilerplate code to
wrap HTTP calls to their API.

>Have you read or contributed to the source code?

I've read a lot of Sia's source code. I'm the #9 top contributor to their core
codebase. Relative to other cryptocurrency projects, their code is good, but
that's kind of a low bar. I think their code has been degrading over time.
Their functions are getting much longer, more complicated, and depend on
increasingly complex lock synchronization behavior. Their builds are broken
about 50% of the time just due to flaky tests.

>Was that too many questions?

I'm ready for more!

------
quickthrower2
This guy seems to have a lot of freedom to experiment. I am considering doing
the same, but knuckle down on a single idea, born from identifying a real
problem people are willing to pay for (enough to make a living).

------
m1n1
how does he pay the bills? and how about health insurance?

~~~
p1esk
He worked at Google for four years.

~~~
mywittyname
Yeah, I bet he has at least $1MM in liquid assets banked on top of what income
he earns through his projects.

~~~
imbusy111
I assume you are being sarcastic. How do you put off $1M in assets with a
$200k median salary in four years? $200k x 4 x 65% is just $520k without even
any expenses paid such as the ~$72k you would have paid for a room in a shared
apartment.

~~~
throwawayok
Well, in addition to salary, he would have also gotten a bonus and stock. The
bonus might be $50K/year, and then maybe another $100K/year in stock. The
number of shares in the stock grant would have been computed at the date he
started -- 5 years ago, GOOG was around $440/share, so at today's price, the
shares would be worth $245K/year, assuming he held onto them as they vested.

So, that adds up to around $495K/year, or maybe $300K after tax. With
$50K/year in expenses, you're left with $250K/year, or $1M over 4 years.

~~~
mercutio2
You lose your unvested RSUs when you leave (so divide your RSU calculations by
2 to start with), and the later grants would be at higher prices and thus have
experienced less growth, so your envelope math is off by enough to not be good
envelope math.

On the other hand, $100k is by no means the largest RSU grant you can get, so,
basically, we have no damn idea. Overall it’s pretty silly to speculate about
someone’s net worth unless they’re excited to talk about it.

But the larger point that high performing senior engineers at megacorps can
make way more than people outside the megacorp world imagine is true and
surprisingly contoversial on HN.

~~~
monktastic1
The grant is normally over 4 years, so it would all have vested. And there's
only one grant in question, so no higher prices to account for.

------
adamnemecek
I quit my job like two years ago to work in a project. There were bumps but
overall really loving it and would recommend it to anyone.

------
mnort
enjoyed this a lot. the revelation moment was described in the kind of manner
that brings a smile to your face.

~~~
mtlynch
Thanks for reading! Glad you liked it.

------
hajderr
I'm so happy for you and glad you've made the choice to go indie. I usually
find it difficult to prioritize amongst all the inspiring things!

~~~
mtlynch
Thank you! And thanks for reading!

------
megamindbrian2
I did see your other post and I appreciate this. I quit too and wrote about
some stuff. Thank you for this.

------
nunez
Not a single mention of money, which means that this author has it (or plenty
of it).

But big-ups to using a Surface!

~~~
mtlynch
Nice catch on the Surface! I was trying to figure out how you knew I use one,
then I remembered the cartoon.

It's actually a coincidence because I asked my cartoonist to draw a non-Apple
laptop, though I didn't specifically say Surface. But she drew a Surface, and
that is indeed what I use.

