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Glad to see @patio11 thinks the same way. Look at his answer to this: Q: Why are you bothering with BCC when consulting is so much more lucrative? (I can think

by hsribei 10y ago

Glad to see @patio11 thinks the same way. Look at his answer to this: Q: Why are you bothering with BCC when consulting is so much more lucrative? (I can think of a few good reasons, but I'd like to hear what your reasons are.) A: I really enjoy being a product guy. BCC has a very desirable property in that it mostly works in my sleep. Consulting is quite lucrative and intellectually engaging, but it often disrupts my life in ways that BCC does not: for example, flying off to $BIG_CITY_ACROSS_OCEAN for a few weeks is wonderful once or twice a year but would get tiresome if I were doing it every month. I very rarely get tired of BCC, and with the exception of a trivial amount of support all of my work for it is at my absolute discretion to schedule. I mean, my little brother is graduating college this spring and, without even looking at the calendar, I can say "Sure, no problem, I'll be there. Tell me the day sometime." Money is also not a huge motivator for me. I like it, don't get me wrong, but after I've got the rent and necessities covered (oh look, bingo) money generally has to be the icing on the cake to motivate me to do something. (Shh, no telling the consulting clients.) Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2018936 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2018936

patio11 10y ago
Worth mentioning: my desires on what to optimize for have waxed and waned over the years.
- hsribei 10y ago
  If it's not too personal, I'd love to know how your, er, personal philosophy has changed over the years. Is it work that got more interesting, so you don't mind doing more of it, or you found new uses for money you didn't think were important before, or something else entirely? (Feel free to ignore.)
  - patio11 10y ago
    A combination of things: I had a conversation with Joel Spolsky which convinced me that people with the opportunity to contribute a lot to the world have an obligation to do so. (He grounded this in a Talmudic understanding but it largely comports with me as a Catholic, FWIW.) I've found myself vastly more interested in doing work when work impacts meaningful problems that I care about, like e.g. changing hiring in the tech industry or making entrepreneurship a transformatively better experience worldwide. I have at times had some not-so-happy health issues to deal with and when not dealing with them my tolerance for a more traditional workweek is rather higher. As I get increasingly far from my salaryman days, my raw distaste for things-that-feel-like-work declines. I wouldn't primarily credit attitudes about or desires for money with any of this, though my personal burn rate is much higher now than it was in 2010. (I got married, had two kids, and moved to Tokyo; this makes ~$10k spend like ~$2k used to.)

by hsribei 10y ago

patio11 10y ago

Worth mentioning: my desires on what to optimize for have waxed and waned over the years.

hsribei 10y ago
If it's not too personal, I'd love to know how your, er, personal philosophy has changed over the years. Is it work that got more interesting, so you don't mind doing more of it, or you found new uses for money you didn't think were important before, or something else entirely? (Feel free to ignore.)
- patio11 10y ago
  A combination of things: I had a conversation with Joel Spolsky which convinced me that people with the opportunity to contribute a lot to the world have an obligation to do so. (He grounded this in a Talmudic understanding but it largely comports with me as a Catholic, FWIW.) I've found myself vastly more interested in doing work when work impacts meaningful problems that I care about, like e.g. changing hiring in the tech industry or making entrepreneurship a transformatively better experience worldwide. I have at times had some not-so-happy health issues to deal with and when not dealing with them my tolerance for a more traditional workweek is rather higher. As I get increasingly far from my salaryman days, my raw distaste for things-that-feel-like-work declines. I wouldn't primarily credit attitudes about or desires for money with any of this, though my personal burn rate is much higher now than it was in 2010. (I got married, had two kids, and moved to Tokyo; this makes ~$10k spend like ~$2k used to.)