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If you’re looking for an excuse to not start a business, you can’t get better than this. The game is rigged. Thus you would be a fool to try. Problem solved.

If you’re looking for an excuse to not start a business, you can’t get better than this. The game is rigged. Thus you would be a fool to try. Problem solved. If, however, you kinda like the idea of running your own business, it’s worth knowing that you do not in fact need rich parents or any of the other prerequisites that non-entrepreneurs think are required. Ask around here and you’ll find plenty of us. (And, of course, if you’re looking, I’m sure you’ll also be able to disqualify all of us individually based on some form of invented privilege).

71a54xd 5y ago
I think the bigger numbers game is guessing when you'll be both experienced enough and risk tolerant enough to make the leap. At 23 I sure as hell didn't know enough to start a company, led alone code a product end to end. At 27 sure I know a lot more, but the idea of steady income is pretty freaking great - reaching a point where "more money" ever month is sort of a diminishing return. Tbh, I think the people with the most leverage are either just a) really smart, b) started programming when they were 14 or c) have incredible social / networking ability. This is based on my set of friends in college I worked with.
- jasonkester 5y ago
  For me, it was having that first $10k in the bank. That, combined with knowing I could pick up another dev gig quickly if needed, was my safety net, used in lieu of inherited wealth or whatever else. But you’re right, it takes a few years to get to that point. I was happy ditching work for a year at a time to travel by my late 20s, but I didn’t commit to relying on the product stuff to live on until most of the way through my 30s. It seems a lot easier to pull off today, in a world with google/Facebook total comp packages for those first few learning years while building up the net.
  - 71a54xd 5y ago
    Agreed, I'm a solidly above average engineer. However, even as interview loops have been easier I still worry that for my age / YOE I'd be leaving valuable money on the table to go and try to start a business that at best would break even. Thinking about a 2-3 month interview loop is pretty dreadful. At some level I'd need quite a bit of confidence in my idea and more than decent seed funding to leave my job. Basically, being very honest about how good I think I am vs what I could actually deliver. As I get older, playing the "beg rich people for money game" is getting less and less appealing. Of course, many would describe this as just working or "wage c*cking" but IMO the latter is far more degenerate since by feeling you can only drive value by starting something you inevitably become more of a slave and create worse odds to a) enjoying life or b) being reasonably financially stable
    - jasonkester 5y ago
      Yeah, I did it by working short contracts to sock away personal runway, then using that to sprint on product stuff for a while. (Which was an easy transition since I was already doing the same thing, just using the downtime to climb rocks in Thailand). I never fully stepped away from “work” to do a startup. I just built SaaS stuff while still keeping one foot in the corporate world. There’s no rule that says you can’t come back, by the way. I took a 30hr/week contract for five years when my first kid was born to stash away an extra house and college education while the business ran itself in the background. You can keep that brass ring within reach, and even give it the occasional tug if you want. All the best!
lamontcg 5y ago
There has to be a name for this fallacy. The fact that applying it to any one individual is the wrong mentality doesn't mean that at the level of broader society it isn't entirely correct. Its the difference between sociological statistics and life advice.
- notacoward 5y ago
  > There has to be a name for this fallacy. It looks like plain old cherry picking to me. "Ask around here" ... well, no, this is just about the worst possible place to get a significant or even interesting sample. "Some do succeed" is just anecdata, no substitute for statistical reality. Secondarily, we have a strawman. "If you’re looking for an excuse" ... you who? Anyone here? Nobody that I'm aware of has said it's not even worth trying. It's entirely possible to be aware of poor odds and still be willing to try. Some who do will even beat the odds, but that doesn't affect the overall reality. It doesn't mean privilege doesn't exist. Whether it exists for GP is irrelevant, but the level of preemptive defensiveness exhibited at the very idea has the counterproductive effect of putting the idea in people's minds.
  - lamontcg 5y ago
    I read too much Asimov as a kid, though, and the thing that really sets me off every time I read that argument is that it tickles the "psychohistory cannot be applied to the actions of individuals" neurons in my brain. Happens all the time when I want to talk about the statistical mechanics of a large gas of people and conservatives/republicans/right-wingers always want to argue that any given particle can do whatever it wants and I'm just disincentivizing it.

71a54xd 5y ago

I think the bigger numbers game is guessing when you'll be both experienced enough and risk tolerant enough to make the leap. At 23 I sure as hell didn't know enough to start a company, led alone code a product end to end. At 27 sure I know a lot more, but the idea of steady income is pretty freaking great - reaching a point where "more money" ever month is sort of a diminishing return. Tbh, I think the people with the most leverage are either just a) really smart, b) started programming when they were 14 or c) have incredible social / networking ability. This is based on my set of friends in college I worked with.

jasonkester 5y ago
For me, it was having that first $10k in the bank. That, combined with knowing I could pick up another dev gig quickly if needed, was my safety net, used in lieu of inherited wealth or whatever else. But you’re right, it takes a few years to get to that point. I was happy ditching work for a year at a time to travel by my late 20s, but I didn’t commit to relying on the product stuff to live on until most of the way through my 30s. It seems a lot easier to pull off today, in a world with google/Facebook total comp packages for those first few learning years while building up the net.
- 71a54xd 5y ago
  Agreed, I'm a solidly above average engineer. However, even as interview loops have been easier I still worry that for my age / YOE I'd be leaving valuable money on the table to go and try to start a business that at best would break even. Thinking about a 2-3 month interview loop is pretty dreadful. At some level I'd need quite a bit of confidence in my idea and more than decent seed funding to leave my job. Basically, being very honest about how good I think I am vs what I could actually deliver. As I get older, playing the "beg rich people for money game" is getting less and less appealing. Of course, many would describe this as just working or "wage c*cking" but IMO the latter is far more degenerate since by feeling you can only drive value by starting something you inevitably become more of a slave and create worse odds to a) enjoying life or b) being reasonably financially stable
  - jasonkester 5y ago
    Yeah, I did it by working short contracts to sock away personal runway, then using that to sprint on product stuff for a while. (Which was an easy transition since I was already doing the same thing, just using the downtime to climb rocks in Thailand). I never fully stepped away from “work” to do a startup. I just built SaaS stuff while still keeping one foot in the corporate world. There’s no rule that says you can’t come back, by the way. I took a 30hr/week contract for five years when my first kid was born to stash away an extra house and college education while the business ran itself in the background. You can keep that brass ring within reach, and even give it the occasional tug if you want. All the best!

lamontcg 5y ago

There has to be a name for this fallacy. The fact that applying it to any one individual is the wrong mentality doesn't mean that at the level of broader society it isn't entirely correct. Its the difference between sociological statistics and life advice.

notacoward 5y ago
> There has to be a name for this fallacy. It looks like plain old cherry picking to me. "Ask around here" ... well, no, this is just about the worst possible place to get a significant or even interesting sample. "Some do succeed" is just anecdata, no substitute for statistical reality. Secondarily, we have a strawman. "If you’re looking for an excuse" ... you who? Anyone here? Nobody that I'm aware of has said it's not even worth trying. It's entirely possible to be aware of poor odds and still be willing to try. Some who do will even beat the odds, but that doesn't affect the overall reality. It doesn't mean privilege doesn't exist. Whether it exists for GP is irrelevant, but the level of preemptive defensiveness exhibited at the very idea has the counterproductive effect of putting the idea in people's minds.
- lamontcg 5y ago
  I read too much Asimov as a kid, though, and the thing that really sets me off every time I read that argument is that it tickles the "psychohistory cannot be applied to the actions of individuals" neurons in my brain. Happens all the time when I want to talk about the statistical mechanics of a large gas of people and conservatives/republicans/right-wingers always want to argue that any given particle can do whatever it wants and I'm just disincentivizing it.