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I always wonder if people like this guy have some resources like family money in the background that can rescue them if things go wrong. I could imagine myself

I always wonder if people like this guy have some resources like family money in the background that can rescue them if things go wrong. I could imagine myself dropping out and living a simple life but I have no safety net in the background so I would fear problems if there are serious problems like health. And the older you get the more difficult it is to turn things around on your own. I think this very similar to risk taking as entrepreneur. It's much easier to do if you know that in case everything goes to hell there is a backup plan. You may never use it but it relieves a lot of *justified) anxiety.

kilpikaarna 5y ago
It's all documented on his blog/website, but basically yes. A few years after writing this, he received an inheritance that allowed him to buy a subutban house and stash away enough to secure his (still very frugal) lifestyle. I'm sure a financially stable family made it easier even before then. He caught quite a lot of flack from some former followers when the windfall happened. But he has always maintained that his goal isn't ideological purity pr proscribing something anyone can follow, but maximizing his own free time using whatever reaources he can. Btw Hi Ran, I know you read HN!
- spaetzleesser 5y ago
  I assume the windfall didn’t come as total surprise but he knew that it would be coming one day. He should have named his article not “how to drop out” but “how I dropped out” and also disclosed the full picture.
nickjj 5y ago
Yeah for sure. > I think this very similar to risk taking as entrepreneur. It's much easier to do if you know that in case everything goes to hell there is a backup plan. It's really hard to get past the idea of a safety net, but I think that net is mostly an illusion -- although a very helpful one which also has real world non-illusion benefits but those benefits end up being for things that are outside of our direct control. For example: Person A has 3 million in the bank that's tucked away in case disaster strikes, how it got there isn't important but it's there. They decide to quit their job that provides income to work on a "passion project business" where the goal is to do what they like while also making money (ignoring the advice in the author's drop out article). They don't make anything substantial for 1 year but eventually and gradually turn it into a $500,000 / year business over the next 3 years. You could read that and be like "wow it's so easy for them, with FU money sitting in the bank they could tolerate the risk and even if they failed it's not a problem at all" and I think to a high degree that's right. If you do the same thing but as Person B and have $100,000 in the bank this changes everything. Technically you could live on that for a few years ($30k / year is very achievable if you're single while still living comfortably in most places in the US) but there's this idea that if your business fails that 100k is gone and now you have $0 savings where as if Person A failed they probably made more than 100k in interest off that 3 million in the worst case scenario. So where does that leave us? There's no doubt that Person A is in a better position, but I think if you decouple the safety net from any decision making around running your business for those 3-4 years and both people executed on their idea as if they had 3 million in the bank then maybe the outcome would be the same which means the safety net never gets used in which case it's an illusion. I think folks without the safety net might make hasty decisions or give up sooner because their decisions are tied into money instead of letting things unwind on their own terms, they never get to mentally free themselves of obligations because they're still always on the clock. This gets further amplified if we introduce Person C who has $0 savings and instead takes out a business loan from the government or a bank, they are geared up for failure because they have to pay that loan back or face serious consequences where as Person B "only" drained their savings. I would love to hear some stories of folks being successful in this case. To wrap things up, I understand that it's much more than an illusion because there's definitely not a 100% success rate here, Person A could have just as easily tanked that business and they're in a much better spot than the person with 100k, but what this really boils down to is having more chances to try. Since success isn't guaranteed in either case (big safety net vs not so big safety net) and independent businesses can either succeed or fail on their own I think our only choice is to accept reality for what it is and roll the dice.
- spaetzleesser 5y ago
  I think the conclusion is that having some resources to fall back on makes it easier to take risks and recover from failure.

kilpikaarna 5y ago

It's all documented on his blog/website, but basically yes. A few years after writing this, he received an inheritance that allowed him to buy a subutban house and stash away enough to secure his (still very frugal) lifestyle. I'm sure a financially stable family made it easier even before then. He caught quite a lot of flack from some former followers when the windfall happened. But he has always maintained that his goal isn't ideological purity pr proscribing something anyone can follow, but maximizing his own free time using whatever reaources he can. Btw Hi Ran, I know you read HN!

spaetzleesser 5y ago
I assume the windfall didn’t come as total surprise but he knew that it would be coming one day. He should have named his article not “how to drop out” but “how I dropped out” and also disclosed the full picture.

nickjj 5y ago

Yeah for sure. > I think this very similar to risk taking as entrepreneur. It's much easier to do if you know that in case everything goes to hell there is a backup plan. It's really hard to get past the idea of a safety net, but I think that net is mostly an illusion -- although a very helpful one which also has real world non-illusion benefits but those benefits end up being for things that are outside of our direct control. For example: Person A has 3 million in the bank that's tucked away in case disaster strikes, how it got there isn't important but it's there. They decide to quit their job that provides income to work on a "passion project business" where the goal is to do what they like while also making money (ignoring the advice in the author's drop out article). They don't make anything substantial for 1 year but eventually and gradually turn it into a $500,000 / year business over the next 3 years. You could read that and be like "wow it's so easy for them, with FU money sitting in the bank they could tolerate the risk and even if they failed it's not a problem at all" and I think to a high degree that's right. If you do the same thing but as Person B and have $100,000 in the bank this changes everything. Technically you could live on that for a few years ($30k / year is very achievable if you're single while still living comfortably in most places in the US) but there's this idea that if your business fails that 100k is gone and now you have $0 savings where as if Person A failed they probably made more than 100k in interest off that 3 million in the worst case scenario. So where does that leave us? There's no doubt that Person A is in a better position, but I think if you decouple the safety net from any decision making around running your business for those 3-4 years and both people executed on their idea as if they had 3 million in the bank then maybe the outcome would be the same which means the safety net never gets used in which case it's an illusion. I think folks without the safety net might make hasty decisions or give up sooner because their decisions are tied into money instead of letting things unwind on their own terms, they never get to mentally free themselves of obligations because they're still always on the clock. This gets further amplified if we introduce Person C who has $0 savings and instead takes out a business loan from the government or a bank, they are geared up for failure because they have to pay that loan back or face serious consequences where as Person B "only" drained their savings. I would love to hear some stories of folks being successful in this case. To wrap things up, I understand that it's much more than an illusion because there's definitely not a 100% success rate here, Person A could have just as easily tanked that business and they're in a much better spot than the person with 100k, but what this really boils down to is having more chances to try. Since success isn't guaranteed in either case (big safety net vs not so big safety net) and independent businesses can either succeed or fail on their own I think our only choice is to accept reality for what it is and roll the dice.

spaetzleesser 5y ago
I think the conclusion is that having some resources to fall back on makes it easier to take risks and recover from failure.