From my answer on Quora (http://www.quora.com/What-made-you-quit-your-comfortable-salaried-job-and-start-a-company http://www.quora.com/What-made-you-quit-your-

From my answer on Quora (http://www.quora.com/What-made-you-quit-your-comfortable-salaried-job-and-start-a-company http://www.quora.com/What-made-you-quit-your-comfortable-sal...) Jeff Bezos' Regret Minimization Framework: "...it really was a decision that I had to make for myself, and the framework I found which made the decision incredibly easy was what I called -- which only a nerd would call -- a "regret minimization framework." So, I wanted to project myself forward to age 80 and say, "Okay, now I'm looking back on my life. I want to have minimized the number of regrets I have." I knew that when I was 80 I was not going to regret having tried this. I was not going to regret trying to participate in this thing called the Internet that I thought was going to be a really big deal. I knew that if I failed I wouldn't regret that, but I knew the one thing I might regret is not ever having tried. I knew that that would haunt me every day, and so, when I thought about it that way it was an incredibly easy decision. And, I think that's very good. If you can project yourself out to age 80 and sort of think, "What will I think at that time?" it gets you away from some of the daily pieces of confusion. You know, I left this Wall Street firm in the middle of the year. When you do that, you walk away from your annual bonus. That's the kind of thing that in the short-term can confuse you, but if you think about the long-term then you can really make good life decisions that you won't regret later." See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwG_qR6XmDQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwG_qR6XmDQ A big payout is definitely a large factor in jumping ship if you're arrogant enough to believe that you can attain such a thing. If you just want to "work at a startup" without having much of an idea about which startup and no intention of starting one yourself, then frankly in my opinion, jumping ship isn't for you. If you're this concerned about your financial status today, at a company you don't drive the vision for you're going to find it harder to drum up the ambition and drive it takes to get through times where a huge financial payout is not as certain.