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It's not that you don't like to code, or need money to be happy. It's just the weird economic structure of startups and the software industry kinda lends itself
by maxawaytoolong 16y ago
It's not that you don't like to code, or need money to be happy. It's just the weird economic structure of startups and the software industry kinda lends itself to "missed opportunity" depression.
Look at it like professional athletes. Many guys just like to play basketball. But, I'm going to bet guys who were close to playing in the NBA and just didn't make it, are probably at least kinda depressed about it, whether or not they still like playing pickup games.
- _delirium 16y agoI wasn't around back then, but from what I've read, it feels this used to be somewhat different: the people at Bell Labs, or the old MIT AI lab, and similar places, genuinely thought they had the best jobs in the world, at least for them. I'm sure occasionally some of them wondered about what it would've been like to found Intel or AMD or Apple, but for the most part they seem to have been happy to have a job where the business side was someone else's job, and they got paid to just work on interesting technical problems all day. I don't get the feeling that someone like Ken Thompson ever was particularly regretful that he spent his career at Bell Labs rather than founding a startup, because he was doing exactly what he wanted to do. Perhaps the technical freedom some of those research labs offered is part of it? I can imagine there being more regret if you missed money-making opportunities and didn't have a great deal of freedom to choose your own technical problems.