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If you were guaranteed $250k a year with potential to receive more every 5 years or so, were able to buy a house, nice car, and support a family without worryin

If you were guaranteed $250k a year with potential to receive more every 5 years or so, were able to buy a house, nice car, and support a family without worrying about any financial hardships, you think it would be _easier_ to quit? To go to what, the potential for no salary, constant paranoia of whether you made the right decision or not, and get into a field you know relatively nothing about? It's a pity that these tremendous acts of courage are often overlooked because its _easier_ to walk away from a lot of money.

wdrury 15y ago
Starting anything and seeing it through takes courage. However, it doesn't seem more courageous to me to start a company with, say, $200k in the bank than to start with no money. Runway matters.
rdouble 15y ago
If you were guaranteed $250k a year with potential to receive more every 5 years or so, were able to buy a house, nice car, and support a family without worrying about any financial hardships, you think it would be _easier_ to quit? Yes. If he was being paid $250K/yr, that means he did a great job while he was there. It would not be that difficult for him to return to finance. I've quit my job a couple times to travel and when I returned to the workforce my new position paid more than I made previously...
reinhardt 15y ago
I can think of at least two opposite mindsets: A. On the one end, one optimizes for overall expected yield. There's no finite target, the goal is "as much as possible". With this objective, walking away from a lot of low-risk money for much less and high-risk is much harder. Similarly, the lower the starting point, the more open you are to take up risk because you don't have much to lose anyway. B. On the other end, one has specific targets. Once these targets are met, money ceases to be a decision criterion. With this frame, it is actually easier to walk away from a lot of money after you have achieved X, Y and Z. These are simplified extremes of course, in reality it's a mix of both and shifts over time, but it goes to show that there's no single "correct" answer.

wdrury 15y ago

Starting anything and seeing it through takes courage. However, it doesn't seem more courageous to me to start a company with, say, $200k in the bank than to start with no money. Runway matters.

rdouble 15y ago

If you were guaranteed $250k a year with potential to receive more every 5 years or so, were able to buy a house, nice car, and support a family without worrying about any financial hardships, you think it would be _easier_ to quit? Yes. If he was being paid $250K/yr, that means he did a great job while he was there. It would not be that difficult for him to return to finance. I've quit my job a couple times to travel and when I returned to the workforce my new position paid more than I made previously...

reinhardt 15y ago

I can think of at least two opposite mindsets: A. On the one end, one optimizes for overall expected yield. There's no finite target, the goal is "as much as possible". With this objective, walking away from a lot of low-risk money for much less and high-risk is much harder. Similarly, the lower the starting point, the more open you are to take up risk because you don't have much to lose anyway. B. On the other end, one has specific targets. Once these targets are met, money ceases to be a decision criterion. With this frame, it is actually easier to walk away from a lot of money after you have achieved X, Y and Z. These are simplified extremes of course, in reality it's a mix of both and shifts over time, but it goes to show that there's no single "correct" answer.