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Have you read about other famous startup founders that left high-paying jobs? Examples: - Jeff Bezos quits prestigious job at David Shaw hedge fund to start A
by jasode 5y ago
Have you read about other famous startup founders that left high-paying jobs? Examples:
- Jeff Bezos quits prestigious job at David Shaw hedge fund to start Amazon
- Jensen Huang at age 30 quits his director job at LSI Logic to start NVIDIA
- Eric Yuan quits his VP of Engineering job at Cisco to start Zoom
Is your conviction for "building something of my own" as compelling as theirs? Is your software idea so motivational that you're also willing to work 90-hour weeks including weekends every week to help get the business going?
At the risk of an HN forum like this doing armchair psychology on your level of commitment... the following quote from your other reply is a red flag: "My biggest dilemma is financial outcomes. With my job, I have a guaranteed path for good financial outcomes..."
For many successful founders, their biggest dilemma was not starting the business to build their idea instead of worrying about a comfortable salaried job paying better in the future. In other words, a startup founder is a little it irrational in choosing to build a startup because statistically, the expected financial outcome is likely failure and bankruptcy. The irrational startup founder doesn't care because must build his software idea to see if it works.
- erellsworth 5y agoAlways remember survivor bias. For every Jeff Bezos there are untold masses of people who quit their high paying job and ended up in financial ruin, but you are never going to see those people on the cover of Forbes. Also consider how much financial cushion you have. Bezos had his parents invest something like a quarter million dollars to keep his business afloat in the early years. If you don't have that kind of safety net, your risk of financial ruin is much higher. Just something to consider.