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Why I quit a $500K job at Amazon to work for myself
- mprev 8y agoThe tl;dr is that when someone is paying you $500k a year then the work itself might not be all that motivating. However, within time, the money isn't enough to motivate you either. You gotta wonder, though, what the rest of the world would think if they stumbled across this kind of blog post.
- DVassallo 8y agoAuthor here. Agree. But I bet most of the audience here is already earning enough. Once you cover the basics, the returns of additional income diminish quickly. I chose to say how much I was earning just to emphasize that everything was really going well at my job, including compensation.
- nodesocket 8y agoNot to mention paying 37% taxes, plus whatever state tax quickly turns $500k a year into around $300k take home.
- kookoopuffs 8y agoHave you ever thought that the amount of motivation for money is the issue? In other words, what if the main factor that motivated you to work hard was not money? What if you kept the job but you shifted your motivation on producing impact for other people instead of yourself? To add to your point, even if you do build a successful business, you'll get to a place where you will have this same problem correct of diminishing motivation correct? In summary, I think it is necessary for us to sit down and ask ourselves what are living for?
- DVassallo 8y agoWhat I found is that there are some motivators that don't diminish. I'm pursing earning a living fueled by those intrinsic motivators instead of by money, fame, promotions, etc.
- NKosmatos 8y agoNo offense, but there are people all over the world reading HN. We’re not all living in a country that can pay SW engineers such large salaries. Good for you and all the best, but please try to think of us living with 15k€ per year. The reason you’re getting a lot of negativity and envy is because we’re living in different environments and we can’t relate to what you’re describing. Anyhow, I hope your decision plays out and you finally find what you’re looking for, even if I don’t agree with you.
- DVassallo 8y agoNone taken. I grew up and worked in Europe in a country with a median household income of $20K. I understand and been through different circumstances. However this happened to be my situation and I’m describing it as it happened. I think my general point still stands though, that motivation through rewards wears off quickly after clearing a certain level of necessities.
- wrestlerman 8y agoYea, probably a lot of people would ... for that kind of money. I guess it really depends on the person. Some crave money even if they are super rich. Some just want to have a happy life (no matter what money) - whatever that means for a person - focusing on a hobby, helping others, reading, etc.
- jmkd 8y agoIn addition, the problems he now chooses to work on may not prove to be so important, as the very same motivation he lost at Amazon will remain missing until near the end of his runway. Thus I can foresee an abstract quality to problem-selection, rather than a "damn this needs to be fixed as it's bringing me down on a daily basis" drive to build great things. I hope to be wrong of course, good for him.
- DVassallo 8y agoI hate seeing negative numbers accumulate in my bank account. I hope that will be enough extrinsic motivation to get me to do something profitable ASAP :)
- debt 8y agoI do think this is stupid on the surface, but better overall for the economy. If people have the ability to make things themselves and build a business, then should pursue this under the banner of providing greater choice to consumers. Particularly if the entire industry is bifurcating between a few enormous, ossifying tech conglomerates.
- hprotagonist 8y agoI’m going all in on independence, and I’m going to try to make a living with my own bare hands starting from nothing. 500k/year in your last year is "nothing", huh? It really undercuts the entire thrust of the post, because you're starting with a nice big war chest and a hell of a safety net, not "nothing".
- drugme 8y agoYeah - if anything it's another indication of the huge bubble many of us in the tech community live in.
- max_ 8y agoSounds very "American" if you ask me
- DVassallo 8y agoYes, I saved a lot. About $1M in liquid assets. But I meant that I'll start with no income, no product, no business. I'll write another post about how I set up my safety net.
- Dayshine 8y agoYou don't need income with $1M. If you chuck that into an index tracker you can safely withdraw $40k a year...
- ataturk 8y agoWhich isn't enough for a family of four, especially with health insurance. Ask me how I know. I'm hoping $2M will do it for me.
- cm2012 8y agoSomeone used to spending ~500k a year is not going to want the quality of life change of moving to 40k a year income. Their family would also not appreciate it.
- Dayshine 8y ago> When I first hit $100K income, I would take a peek at my W2 for a few days admiring the six digits, but then it wore off. When I hit $200K, $300K, $400K, and $500K, it was the same thing. I would be delusional to think that earning $1M, or $10M would suddenly make it different. >What is out there that I could do that would make me excited waking up every day for the next 45 years that could also earn me enough money to cover my expenses? At $500k, with UK tax rates (probably higher than US), you'd have $275k net. If you remove generous expenses, you have $200k a year in savings. Five years working would get you $1M. With $1M, you would probably never have to work again (~$40k in safe withdrawal per year). Then you'd have the ability to pick any job, irrespective of pay. Go help charities, help with research, spend all your time on open source projects, whatever you want.
- SlowRobotAhead 8y agoLots of people used to taking home 275k aren't going to transition well to 40k which depending on where you live could feel like you are only slightly above poverty level.
- shados 8y agoyeah, going up is obviously fine, but it quickly becomes your new normal. Going back down is...painful. Even for simple things. I grew up without A/C in an apartment with leaky windows that would get way too cold at night. Never bothered me. I was used to sweating a lot in summer and using a lot of blankets or standing by the oven while we were making dinner in winter. Today? The moment the temperature is a little off I WANT TO DIE. I can't get any work (or anything really) done, and I'm likely to get sick. Im a wuss now. Central air/heat (or heated floors if we're gonna get fancy) or I'm sad. My young self from 30 years ago would laugh his ass off at how useless my current self is. Wealth can spoil you really quickly.
- cpursley 8y agoI get that everyone's priorities are different, but I'm always amazed that ultra high income earners don't do this (this being live well below means, invest the rest in index funds then go work on passion projects, hobbies, focus on family). Lifestyle inflation and projecting status is a pricey hedonistic treadmill that is ultimately unrewarding.
- wrestlerman 8y agoTL;DR OP liked his job, but his motivation was decreasing. Could be possible earning much more in the next few years. Gonna build his own things from now on. Long story short money is not everything. I understand it. I'm currently unemployed working on my own things and I pretty like it. Although I don't have that much money saved and probably I'm gonna find work soon, I've found out that I'm that kind of person, who wants to explore the world by myself and on my own terms.
- TheShrug 8y agoThis might just be envy speaking, but I don't feel like this was a very tough decision (not that it needs to be!). Either way, congrats on the early retirement!
- olliej 8y agoI’m going to suggest earning 500k in the previous year opens up this as an option
- halfnibble 8y agoI've heard of Amazon paying between $200 and $300K for software engineers, but this is the first time I've heard of them paying $500K! Goodness, I don't have any work/life balance now, so it really makes me wonder if I shouldn't start applying at Amazon.
- JohnJamesRambo 8y agoIt may be time for me to start listening to the people saying a bear market is coming.
- cowsandmilk 8y agothe 500k is due to Amazon's stock value going up. The amount of stock you'll be receiving is set several years out and is frequently a major portion of your salary. Amazon's stock tripling has put many people at high salaries. OP is an SDE3, which levels.fyi puts at $154,259 base, $150,648 stock, $19,227 bonus. The stock goes up 3x in the years between the grant and when you vest, you are making tons of money. Most people don't expect Amazon's stock to triple again in the next few years.
- halfnibble 8y agoThank you for clarifying!
- yazaddaruvala 8y agoFrom the description in the blog post, the author was a high performing L6 SDE[0] getting paid the rates of an L7 SDE[0] because he was about to get promoted. Amazon has very few L7+ SDEs (~1% of SDEs). So when you read that salary, you have to remember the author is relatively rare even within Amazon. [0] https://www.levels.fyi/SE/Amazon/Facebook/Google https://www.levels.fyi/SE/Amazon/Facebook/Google
- DVassallo 8y agoYes, I was told to not expect another big increase after the L7 promotion.
- tyler- 8y agoWhat kind of companies pay software engineers 300k+? Is it realistic to make 500k-1 million+ at these companies as a developer? What sort of title/level are these developers at? How much is it in stocks/rsus vs salary at that point? Can someone lay out a traditional example at this level? What skillsets do these people have?
- crescentfresh 8y agoAlso, this was in Seattle location, can anyone shed some light on cost-of-living there compared to say Bay Area developers?
- akhilcacharya 8y agoI don't work in Seattle but I was about to, it's 10% cheaper off the bat because of WA's lack of income tax (of course, Amazon also increases base salary in SFBA by about the same amount so it's a wash). Luxury apartments are much cheaper than SF and South Bay in my experience, and I wouldn't have needed a car. Weather isn't as nice as SFBA probably, but I enjoy the weather around there. Commuting is also pretty straightforward into the suburbs.
- TACIXAT 8y ago300k+ is senior. The higher ranges would be principal / individual contributor. This is a pretty common pay scale in the Bay Area. https://levels.fyi https://levels.fyi
- tyler- 8y agoThanks! Roughly, what does is the difference between a senior and principle engineer? How common is it to reach senior for a normal dev vs principle?
- grigory 8y agoSenior at a lot of the larger companies I've interacted with is often a kind of a "terminal level", meaning that you're not expected to rise above it, and can comfortably spend most of your career at that level. Staff, sr staff, principle and other monikers are usually about affecting change at the scale larger than your team, operating at larger scope, and growing people around you.
- LeifCarrotson 8y ago> I made $75K in my first year and that gradually grew to $511K by my last year. Wow, I'm envious of this rate of internal raises. Is this consistent within Amazon's culture, or other SV companies? I've found (in the small-town Midwestern shops I frequent, not in the FAANG bubble) that I have to change employers to do better than a token 3-5% annual raise, even if my value to the company is increasing much more quickly. I've even been heartily congratulated and thanked at my annual review for completing successful, profitable projects in my first year at one job, and offered a reward of a $1/hour raise. I was a bit shocked, as that represented a pay cut when you factored in inflation. They 'capitulated' to an increase of $1.50/hour, which was just about keeping up...had to go look elsewhere to do better.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- DVassallo 8y agoAuthor here. I got a big bump from $230K to $396K in 2016 when I got a competing offer and Amazon matched it so that I wouldn't leave. From then on, the growth from $400K to $500K happened because the AMZN stock nearly tripled in that time frame.
- blunte 8y agoWell, this just illustrated why a company shouldn't play the matching game. What did Amazon get for matching the offer? They got to keep you for a couple more years at a premium. I'm sure you did some good things in those two years, but the accounting side would probably have a difficult time assessing the real value of those two years.
- lowercased 8y agomight have been just to avoid letting that particular skill set and experience go to a competitor. the value of that competitor getting that person was more valuable than amazon keeping him/her.
- 8y ago
- nodesocket 8y agoThis is a very common theme. Once you reach a certain threshold of income (not everybody though) you start valuing freedom, flexibility, traveling and start looking beyond work. This is primarily because money has lost its forcing function. Even if you have the best setup in terms of work, compensation, co-workers, you lose motivation and drift away. This isn't true of everybody though, most successful entrepreneurs despite earning massive amounts of money, are still as hungry, motivated, and dedicated to their work as the first day.
- mixmastamyk 8y agoThe idea of "enough" in the book by Joe Dominguez.
- jayonsoftware 8y agoHow do you make 500K at Amazon, is that 200K base, 50K bonus and 250K in stock ?
- cablexl 8y agoLikely he was just receiving X years of stock grants every year, which at some point start overlapping + stock market gains = 500k a year.
- DVassallo 8y agoMy base was $160K for a long time. I think it's the max at Amazon. The rest was stock. I got lucky that AMZN stock grew a lot in the last few years. Without the growth it would have been about $380K/year (i.e. that's what I was granted originally before the stock grew).
- meritt 8y agoI'm not following how $380k is the baseline. Were the grants based in dollars or in AMZN shares? I assume it was based in shares and if the stock had fallen you'd have made less?
- DVassallo 8y agoThe grants were based in AMZN shares. Yes, if the stock had fallen I would have make less. If it falls significantly (happened only once in 2014-2015 when I was there) the company typically tops you up with the difference (or part of it).
- josefresco 8y ago> The last couple of years, however, were quite different. I was leading the most important project in the history of my department, with many stakeholders and complex goals. Well yeah dude - you started at 75K and now you make 500K - bigger salary = bigger obligations.
- justboxing 8y agoHere we go. Another humblebrag.
- ar_lan 8y agoWhat, you also don't casually make half a million a year and think that's peasant salary?
- antisthenes 8y ago"How I plan to survive for a couple of years with $1 million in savings while I rediscover my creativity - AMA" Amazing.
- manishsharan 8y ago.... to get some sweet sweet HN Karma points ?
- tw1010 8y agoNow the hard part will be finding a way to be disruptive/innovative after so many years of monotonous work and so much time being brainwashed by the solopreneur propaganda/filter bubble.
- DVassallo 8y agoYou’re right. I don’t need to be disruptive though. I just need to earn enough to cover my expenses. It can even take a couple of years until I break even.
- emilfihlman 8y agoMost of the comments seem to not understand that he wasn't developing per se anymore. He was managing, which explains the larger payout. In addition, I greatly dislike how the top post is negative on the story: it disregards the idea behind the post and instead replicates the typical "you have things good so fuck you" response.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- dsfyu404ed 8y agoI shouldn't have to run JS from both your site and a 3rd party just to view a text blog post.
- DVassallo 8y agoI agree. Just started with Wordpress and I'm still figuring out how to get rid of all the unnecessary stuff. I made sure I didn't have any creepy analytics though. The third-party JS is just fonts from Adobe.
- bquinlan 8y agoThe declining motivation with increasing scope really resonates with me. I often feel the same. And I feel that his career trajectory is pretty typical - you start building cool stuff in a small team and you end up trying to coordinate large groups of people (who a typically the managers of the people who will build the cool stuff).
- whalesalad 8y agoWell I sure hope going off on your own helps you gain some humility. This whole post just reeks of first world problems™ Yes you can still be miserable with a ton of cash but I'd rather cry in a Corvette than on a bus. Hoping to see a follow up post from OP after they've gained some perspective. My spidey sense tells me the op just needed a reality check, a long vacation and some introspection.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- iradik 8y agoIs 500k due to stock appreciation?
- DVassallo 8y agoYes, about $100K of it was.
- jpeg_hero 8y agoEveryone here is bent by the $500k, but nobody is mentioning working for yourself can lead to less autonomy as you have to take on lame projects just to pay the bills, or the product your customers actually will pay for is not he one you want to build. Ideal autonomy is getting corporate patronage to mange your open source project.
- jressey 8y agoUntil you're bored of it. It's the same kind of handcuffs as freelancing.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- fma 8y agoLooks like lots of comments here are negative. I hope it doesn't deter you or get you down. It's tough to leave a high paying job to pursue something different and I wish you all the best. It's interesting timing to quit now. If you have 45 years to work, why not work a few more years to have a much longer runway? Safe withdrawal rate now is $40k...if you did 3 more years to and saved $2 mill, that's a double of your safe withdrawal rate to $80k. You're doing 40 hours a week on a good team... Also I saw you put your health insurance is $1.2k per month...Amazon's health insurance../sucks?
- DVassallo 8y ago> why not work a few more years to have a much longer runway? Because I didn't want to keep postponing. There will always be something that I could be waiting for. PS. Regarding health insurance. No $1.2K/month is from the ACA marketplace. I could have continued Amazon's through cobra for 1 year, but it was about $1.5K. When I was with Amazon, I think I only paid $300/month.
- jordache 8y agoDo you support a wealth tax?
- anaolykarpov 8y agoWould you, if you were him? How much would you consider it to be your "fair share" out of those money?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- DVassallo 8y agoI do.
- icedchai 8y agoWhy not stay there and milk it for a few years? Once you have that safety net built up, there is little reason to care. So do as little as possible... Come in late, leave early. Do this a little bit at a time. With your good reputation, you can probably get another mil out of them.
- justicezyx 8y agoNot the author. One issue I see is that you'll always face this same question again and again, as risks are way less quantifiable than one expected. I was at multiple occasions that I made up my mind to move on, but at the juncture of making decision, the previous thought process just fell apart for no reason; because when risks become more realistic, its mental pressure is way heavier than the expectation.
- icedchai 8y agoI have personally had this happen, also. The "inertia" of the current situation is almost always underestimated. Kudos to the author and his ability to move on...
- ryanSrich 8y agoYeah. Or like why not build something on the side first? If he was in fact only working 40 hours (which is mind blowing, but I guess there’s no reason to lie), he could have easily bootstrapped an idea to revenue in 6-12 months all while making that insane amazon money.
- mrep 8y agoAmazon has a policy that they own all the code you write unless you get it signed off by them as a project that is not related to ANY of their businesses. With Amazon being in so many businesses, they will almost certainly deny whatever idea you want to work on because they have something they claim is related. He could still do it but that is risky as he could get sued later and I have even heard that it can block any future sale until it gets ironed out.
- 8y ago
- otabdeveloper2 8y ago> Why I quit a $500K job at Amazon to work for myself Presumably, the answer is "because I already earned all the money I wanted to earn".
- T3RMINATED 8y ago500k job lol your such a liar... more like 50k.
- maxxxxx 8y agoAs someone who did something similar and blew through a lot of money I would now recommend to milk this for a few years until you are truly financially independent. If your business doesn't go well it may be hard to jump back on the gravy train.
- mrbonner 8y ago500K/Year is a good enough motivation for me, Jesus! And only 8 years at AWS? I'm probably working for the wrong team.
- humbleMouse 8y agoThis is one of the most yikes worthy posts I've ever seen on hacker news. I wonder what OP's wife thinks.
- DVassallo 8y agoI promised my family that our lifestyle won’t change. If I don’t make this work, I’ll go back on the job market.
- solarkraft 8y agoInteresting read, I think you'll make a great open source developer! > Now that I can use Twitter without being subject to Amazon’s social media policy What is their policy?
- towaway1138 8y agoOP is getting crapped on a bit here, but I think he's doing the right thing for himself. I've not done as well, but well enough to realize that past a certain point, money just isn't worth as much as a lot of other things in life. And if having money doesn't buy you the freedom to take some risks or time off, it might be worth even less than we think. It's worth asking yourself regularly not only "Am I being paid enough?" but also "Am I being paid too much?".
- jiveturkey 8y ago"because i like hearing the sound of my own voice when i repeatedly reread my blog, even though, you know, i have nothing insightful to say really"
- anaolykarpov 8y agoI love these kind of articles where people are transparent about their salaries. I don't quite understand the envy and the backlash the author receives. With such a negative reaction, I doubt we'll see too many articles like this in the future (who needs all the negativity?). I'm a software developer myself for +10 years and haven't made $500k in my whole career and for some reason I don't feel any envy for him. On the contrary, I am glad that we're in an industry where people can earn this big.
- davidscolgan 8y agoThe golden handcuffs are real. From my own experience feeling trapped in a job that makes significantly less than $500k, and those of several friends, sure it may be a privileged position to be in, but the human mind doesn't care whether it should be feeling a huge mental burden. Taking the leap and giving up a well paying but soul crushing job is hard. And it can feel really isolating and guilt inducing, when you certainly can't talk about it to your friend who is barely making ends meet and yet has a job seemingly less soul crushing. I'm sure they would tell you to go cry in your pile of money. But work is most of life and I basically see finding work you like as a primary means to happiness. I've been scoping out interest for a coaching business around this topic lately and it seems that a lot of people have this problem. Heck, the "is freelancing the best thing ever or your worst nightmare" posts seem to come up every other day. I'm glad we are taking about it.
- DVassallo 8y agoThat's true. Just for the record though, I wasn't in a soul crushing position. Things were good, but I'm vastly more excited about the new path I'm about to take. About the handcuffs, tbh it's not just the money. There's also other intangibles. I had built a lot of connections and a good reputation inside the company, and by leaving I've lost access to that. I could reason about the money in a spreadsheet, but the other things were harder to value.
- thorwasdfasdf 8y agoThat's great if you can earn a lot of money and save up for early retirement. But, that's not what's happening here. It looks like by his own admission of "running out", that he really hasn't been saving aggressively and will be back in the job market in a few years, possibly with a rude awakening. I see these types all the time: making a ton a money thinking they're on top of the world, the same ones saying how they don't mind higher taxes. I don't know how long the good times will last, but I don't think we can just count on super high demand for developers forever. There will come a day when the market balances out the supply and demand in favor of employers and when that happens people like this guy are going to really regret their earlier choices.
- humbleMouse 8y agoOP - what does your wife think of this decision?
- DVassallo 8y agoNeutral. I promised my family that our lifestyle won’t change. If I don’t make this work, I’ll go back on the job market. If we end up spending our savings we can consider it an advance from retirement and I’ll make up for it later. I got insurance to cover for catastrophic situations.
- catacombs 8y ago> I joined Amazon as an entry level developer. Within 3.5 years I had been promoted twice to a senior engineer, and I was practically guaranteed another promotion to principal engineer this year if I had stayed. > My potential at the company was high, I was told. > My esteem within the company grew along the years and I was regarded an expert and a leader in my field. > People looked up to me and respected me. > I made $75K in my first year and that gradually grew to $511K by my last year. > I could have made another $1M if I stayed another couple of years. > My work–life balance was good too, despite Amazon’s reputation. > I didn’t need to prove myself anymore, and I could get everything done in 40 hours a week. > My team worked from home one day a week, and I rarely opened my laptop at night or weekends. > Also, the people I worked with were exceptional. I had three managers in total, and all were generous people with lots of empathy. I can't fathom the number of people who would kill to have 1/3 of this list, myself included. I'm sure leaving all this behind is good for now, but, as someone else said, you're in for a rude awakening when you're back on the job market and you're grinding like the rest of us. Enjoy the vacation while it lasts.
- thorwasdfasdf 8y agoHe thinks all these things are attributable to his own performance, and that all he has to do is get hired by another FAANG and things will be just the same. Later, he may well be hirable but this type of advancement doesn't happen without a serious amount of timing/Luck and those stock market gains aren't typical either. I guess you could look at it as an act of generosity. the more people quit from those jobs, the more there is for everyone else. :)
- DVassallo 8y agoI'm totally fine not getting back the same compensation, level, company, etc, if I had to get a job again. I'm relying on being able to find a job that covers my expenses though, which I'm reasonably confident in.
- DVassallo 8y agoI don't need all those things anymore (and never did). I've visualized not being able to pull this off. That was very important for me to take the plunge.
- mindcrime 8y agoHoly fuck, the cynicism and negativity here is totally out of control. What started as a very interesting post on the merits of extrinsic motivation vs intrinsic motivation has turned into "let's shit on somebody for pursuing their dream". This is pathetic.
- dennisgorelik 8y ago> doing things that I’d rather not do What were these things? Do you think you would be able to avoid these things at your new business?
- DVassallo 8y agoI had to disagree and commit sometimes or commit to a compromise that I didn't like. I didn't mean anything nefarious. Just the usual stuff that happens when doing something with a group of people and many stakeholders. I plan to avoid this by being in charge :) ... If in the future I hire employees or get a partner, some of this might still happen obviously. But I still expect it to be significantly less than at a corporate job.
- jacknews 8y ago"My target is to cover my family’s expenses before I run out of savings" On the one hand I applaud people chasing their dreams, taking risks to start something new etc, but on the other hand, it seems like he's putting a lot of risk on the family and even seems a bit selfish to me. Wouldn't he be better off starting a fulfilling hobby, or trying to negotiate a 3 or 4-day work-week and starting a side business, etc?
- DVassallo 8y agoI couldn't do a side business while working from Amazon. My employment contract prevented it. But even if I was allowed, I probably still would have left first. It's hard working full-time, raising kids, and doing a side-business. If the circumstances were drastically different I could have done that, but I didn't need to. About risk to the family: If I don't manage to pull this off for whatever reason (run out of money, get bored, find it too hard, etc), I'll just go back on the job market. I promised my family that our lifestyle won't change, and if our savings drop below a certain threshold I'll get a job and make sure our expenses are covered. For catastrophic stuff I got abundant insurance (life, disability, health) to protect the family. If we end up spending all our savings, we can consider it an advance from retirement and I’ll make up for it later.
- strikelaserclaw 8y agoTime and dreams are more important than money, if you are smart enough to make 500k, i'm sure even in the worst case scenario, you will do OK. Solider on brother.
- sytelus 8y agoSeems like classic case of lack of empowerment. If you find most of your energy getting spent in convincing “stockholders” all the time that you are doing the right thing then your org has much bigger issue.
- x15 8y agoI'm currently working alone making less than 10K per year. My networking is not great and I wasn't able to land a job in many smaller than Amazon companies. I wouldn't leave even a 50K job, let alone an order of magnitude of that. It's his life and his choices, but many of us have it quite hard.
- kamaal 8y agoIf you are making $500K an year. By many a definition, you are already on a way to NOT needing to work ever in a few years, than even working for yourself. Why would you throwaway an opportunity to amass like $5 million in 10 years, and then put it in a retirement fund and just retire. Instead of throwing it all away and starting all over again on something that is known to work in only exceptional cases(start up lottery). Looks good on paper and all. But not a smart move.
- DVassallo 8y agoI have no interest in retiring. I like working, and I would miss it if I stopped. And I’m not a believer of the traditional deferred life plan. I prefer doing it now rather than in 10 years.
- sherlock_h 8y agoWhat are your plans now? How are you going to get started? Any direction you want to take or will you first take a few weeks/months off to re-direct?
- DVassallo 8y agoI will spend a couple of months exploring some idea. Then will test something in the market and iterate/change based on market feedback.
- czechdeveloper 8y agoWe have saying in Czechia along the lines "he is dissatisfied because he has it too good". I've had friend of a friend like this who ended up in suicide, because he was unable to replicate his success in big company. I wish him luck regardless.
- DVassallo 8y agoThat sucks. I'm okay if I never reach the same income as I had though.