that is only the 'easy way' if you are already through one of the best schools in the country. just to be considered by a law firm, I'd have to go to school f

that is only the 'easy way' if you are already through one of the best schools in the country. just to be considered by a law firm, I'd have to go to school for 6 years; that is enough time to start and fail one or two companies. also, if I wanted to get into a law firm that would pay what we're talking about, that school had better be Harvard or something else that is expensive and difficult to get in to. I know several newly minted lawyers from reasonable but not top tier schools who are trying to find work. (unfortunately in fields I don't know and don't care much about, like family law, otherwise I'd find something for them to do.) as for investment banking, the competition, I hear, is absolutely fierce. I'm a pretty bright kid for a biz guy, but your average quantz is going to eat me alive. Working for other people is really only easier if you are the sort of person who is good at playing the organizational game. My impression is that if you start a company in an area where you have some experience, your chances of success are way better than 1%. Is it better than your chances of making a lot of money working for other people? my experience has been that building a business that pays bay area sysadmin wages is a /whole lot/ harder than getting a bay area sysadmin job. But my theory is that multiplying that bay area sysadmin money by five or ten is going to be easier to do with this business than it would be going back to school and attempting to learn a trade that would pay that much natively. but yeah; most people who run businesses for the long term do it because they enjoy the freedom. My company is paying me about 1/3rd a bay area sysadmin wage right now, and I'm a /whole lot/ happier than I was being a sysadmin for someone else.