4 ms·

One word: Security. When you get married and have kids, you'll see how much more important that word becomes.

ph0rque 18y ago
What makes you think that I'm not married and without kids? In fact, I value my free time more knowing I can spend it with my wife and daughter.
- run4yourlives 18y ago
  Fair enough, but many people value their next paycheck more than the free time. You asked why we should toil away as an employee for someone else, and that's the answer. Being an entrepreneur is risky business.
  - vlad 18y ago
    In the long term, working on your own projects using the latest technologies and latest editions of popular languages, and having projects to show for it, will give you much more experience and credibility than working at a company for the same amount of time. Over the years, I'm sure early adapters of Java, .Net, Ajax, Rails, Django, and Objective C did not have a hard time finding jobs. Companies typically try to convert existing developers to use new languages, and an employee hired for this knowledge will be an expert. A startup using the latest technologies will want to hire employees who already possess this knowledge. Finally, a user experimenting with new technologies might decide that he or she is so far ahead of companies who are still using old technology that he or she should start a business.
    - run4yourlives 18y ago
      >In the long term, it's less risky than working Bullshit. For every single Paul Graham there are hundreds of entrepreneurs living in abject poverty, wondering how they'll feed their kids or where they get the money to pay the mortgage. You're taking a very small subset of extremely bright, assertive go getters and insinuating that this is the norm. It is not, and statistics show this.
      - vlad 18y ago
        Thanks for your reply. You will note that I was specifically writing about software entrepreneurs who learn and prove knowledge of the latest technologies and latest languages. They will never have a tough time finding a job if they needed to. Even before I edited and added onto my post, I mentioned that. In my opinion, if they're broke, assuming they are software developers who use the latest technologies to create live projects they can demonstrate (and not some other kind of entrepreneur), then maybe they should "cash in" on their earned skills and work for a while. Also, having lots of obligations requiring a steady income are needs that should be taken care of first. Everybody is in a different financial situation short term, but the fact is that if you give a startup a go, and use the latest technologies, you won't have a problem finding a job if you need to. As to at what point a software entrepreneur should put off their ambitions and work at a related company instead for a while, that will depend on the startup and personal circumstances, so it is out of scope for my posts.
        run4yourlives 18y ago
        They will never have a tough time finding a job if they needed to Talk to someone who went through the dot bomb. There was a while there where good programmers were having difficulty. Software entrepreneurs can fail just as hard as any other entrepreneur can. It's hard work running your own business, even in software. This gets even harder and harder as you get older. Even PG says to start young, when you don't have any massive responsibilities. The older you get, the higher your "minimum income" level goes.
        vlad 18y ago
        Thanks for the clarification. It sounds like your example is somebody who is older, with family and kids to support, a mortgage or other startup debt to pay off, and going through the dot com bomb, as a counterpoint to my statement. Again, it does not disprove that in the long term, somebody who is a software entrepreneur who learns the latest technologies and has visible projects they've completed, will not have a difficult time finding a job. I am not saying the salary will be huge or that you won't need to relocate, or that there won't be a bad time in the short term. But in the long term, somebody who is competent will learn way more than they would have during the same time they would at a job, and if they have projects they can show off, they will not have trouble finding a job to pay the bills--that's the entire scope of my post. Would it be correct to say that how entrepreneurs handle their personal and company funds are out of scope for what I said? In the long term, you will learn more from working on your own projects, and if you can demonstrate your projects, will have no problem finding a job (no more than any other person competing for the same job.) Therefore, when competing for a job, somebody who has put to use new technologies that companies want to incorporate, and can demonstrate this, will likely do very well in the hiring process. Also, when companies lay people off in a bad economy, it doesn't always mean that they can't afford to have that many people. They may actually want to hire experts (at a reasonable price), knowing that during a bad economy, there might be some looking for a job.
nostrademons 18y ago
There's much less security in working for a big company than most people think there is. Just ask any of the 760,000 people laid off so far this year.
- run4yourlives 18y ago
  And that's certainly the way the younger generations see it - so why not do your own thing? (Hey, I agree) But given that most businesses require more work and eventually fail, taking a job is still much more secure. Perhaps this will change in the coming years, but not yet.
  - time_management 18y ago
    About 55% of startups fail within five years. Ok, so there's obviously some risk in starting a company. How likely is a 22-year-old to find a job, even at a stable company, where there's a 45% or better chance that it's still worth going to work in 5 years? Not very. Most people get pigeonholed or down-tracked; not everyone can be "protege". I'm 25 and on my fourth "career". I recognize that no single effort or job is going to deliver better than a 50% chance of liberation and success, but I have a hell of a lot of chances, and I've learned a lot and made great friends in each of my three cycles. I don't fear losing a job-- done that, bounced back-- but stagnation is terrifying.
tdavis 18y ago
You treat it like a foregone conclusion that sooner or later we'll all be married with children. I personally cannot think of a single logical reason for bringing another human being into this world. Sounds like an easy way to ruin a perfectly fun life.
- run4yourlives 18y ago
  I didn't think so either in my early to mid twenties. I'm not saying that everyone will have kids, but this whole discussion is about generalities, and the consensus is that most people will have kids. It doesn't get any wilder than the boomers, and more of them had kids than any other generation previously.
  - smanek 18y ago
    You should look into the Bulverism Fallacy.
    - run4yourlives 18y ago
      You'd need to see negative TFR's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_fertility_rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_fertility_rate)(http://indexmundi.com/united_states/birth_rate.html http://indexmundi.com/united_states/birth_rate.html) to even suggest that most people aren't having kids. Sometimes, the obvious is exactly that.
    - 13ren 18y ago
      I jumped into the middle of this discussion, so I'm not commenting on whether the Bulverism is applicable here. But I really wanted to thank you for pointing it out. I've recently become more aware of how easily my own thinking can get knotted up in opinions, and get distracted from the facts or the actual problem. I have a limited short-term memory, and the issue itself can get pushed out - temporarily or permanently - without me realizing it (especially when emotions engage). Scary. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulverism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulverism
- time_management 18y ago
jimmo 18y ago
then what to do when your "secure" job is downsized because company can't get money because greedy criminals broke stock market and now you can't pay for your mortgage so those same people kick you out of house?

What makes you think that I'm not married and without kids? In fact, I value my free time more knowing I can spend it with my wife and daughter.

run4yourlives 18y ago
Fair enough, but many people value their next paycheck more than the free time. You asked why we should toil away as an employee for someone else, and that's the answer. Being an entrepreneur is risky business.
- vlad 18y ago
  In the long term, working on your own projects using the latest technologies and latest editions of popular languages, and having projects to show for it, will give you much more experience and credibility than working at a company for the same amount of time. Over the years, I'm sure early adapters of Java, .Net, Ajax, Rails, Django, and Objective C did not have a hard time finding jobs. Companies typically try to convert existing developers to use new languages, and an employee hired for this knowledge will be an expert. A startup using the latest technologies will want to hire employees who already possess this knowledge. Finally, a user experimenting with new technologies might decide that he or she is so far ahead of companies who are still using old technology that he or she should start a business.
  - run4yourlives 18y ago
    >In the long term, it's less risky than working Bullshit. For every single Paul Graham there are hundreds of entrepreneurs living in abject poverty, wondering how they'll feed their kids or where they get the money to pay the mortgage. You're taking a very small subset of extremely bright, assertive go getters and insinuating that this is the norm. It is not, and statistics show this.
    - vlad 18y ago
      Thanks for your reply. You will note that I was specifically writing about software entrepreneurs who learn and prove knowledge of the latest technologies and latest languages. They will never have a tough time finding a job if they needed to. Even before I edited and added onto my post, I mentioned that. In my opinion, if they're broke, assuming they are software developers who use the latest technologies to create live projects they can demonstrate (and not some other kind of entrepreneur), then maybe they should "cash in" on their earned skills and work for a while. Also, having lots of obligations requiring a steady income are needs that should be taken care of first. Everybody is in a different financial situation short term, but the fact is that if you give a startup a go, and use the latest technologies, you won't have a problem finding a job if you need to. As to at what point a software entrepreneur should put off their ambitions and work at a related company instead for a while, that will depend on the startup and personal circumstances, so it is out of scope for my posts.
      - run4yourlives 18y ago
        They will never have a tough time finding a job if they needed to Talk to someone who went through the dot bomb. There was a while there where good programmers were having difficulty. Software entrepreneurs can fail just as hard as any other entrepreneur can. It's hard work running your own business, even in software. This gets even harder and harder as you get older. Even PG says to start young, when you don't have any massive responsibilities. The older you get, the higher your "minimum income" level goes.
        vlad 18y ago
        Thanks for the clarification. It sounds like your example is somebody who is older, with family and kids to support, a mortgage or other startup debt to pay off, and going through the dot com bomb, as a counterpoint to my statement. Again, it does not disprove that in the long term, somebody who is a software entrepreneur who learns the latest technologies and has visible projects they've completed, will not have a difficult time finding a job. I am not saying the salary will be huge or that you won't need to relocate, or that there won't be a bad time in the short term. But in the long term, somebody who is competent will learn way more than they would have during the same time they would at a job, and if they have projects they can show off, they will not have trouble finding a job to pay the bills--that's the entire scope of my post. Would it be correct to say that how entrepreneurs handle their personal and company funds are out of scope for what I said? In the long term, you will learn more from working on your own projects, and if you can demonstrate your projects, will have no problem finding a job (no more than any other person competing for the same job.) Therefore, when competing for a job, somebody who has put to use new technologies that companies want to incorporate, and can demonstrate this, will likely do very well in the hiring process. Also, when companies lay people off in a bad economy, it doesn't always mean that they can't afford to have that many people. They may actually want to hire experts (at a reasonable price), knowing that during a bad economy, there might be some looking for a job.

nostrademons 18y ago

There's much less security in working for a big company than most people think there is. Just ask any of the 760,000 people laid off so far this year.

run4yourlives 18y ago
And that's certainly the way the younger generations see it - so why not do your own thing? (Hey, I agree) But given that most businesses require more work and eventually fail, taking a job is still much more secure. Perhaps this will change in the coming years, but not yet.
- time_management 18y ago
  About 55% of startups fail within five years. Ok, so there's obviously some risk in starting a company. How likely is a 22-year-old to find a job, even at a stable company, where there's a 45% or better chance that it's still worth going to work in 5 years? Not very. Most people get pigeonholed or down-tracked; not everyone can be "protege". I'm 25 and on my fourth "career". I recognize that no single effort or job is going to deliver better than a 50% chance of liberation and success, but I have a hell of a lot of chances, and I've learned a lot and made great friends in each of my three cycles. I don't fear losing a job-- done that, bounced back-- but stagnation is terrifying.

tdavis 18y ago

You treat it like a foregone conclusion that sooner or later we'll all be married with children. I personally cannot think of a single logical reason for bringing another human being into this world. Sounds like an easy way to ruin a perfectly fun life.

run4yourlives 18y ago
I didn't think so either in my early to mid twenties. I'm not saying that everyone will have kids, but this whole discussion is about generalities, and the consensus is that most people will have kids. It doesn't get any wilder than the boomers, and more of them had kids than any other generation previously.
- smanek 18y ago
  You should look into the Bulverism Fallacy.
  - run4yourlives 18y ago
    You'd need to see negative TFR's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_fertility_rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_fertility_rate)(http://indexmundi.com/united_states/birth_rate.html http://indexmundi.com/united_states/birth_rate.html) to even suggest that most people aren't having kids. Sometimes, the obvious is exactly that.
  - 13ren 18y ago
    I jumped into the middle of this discussion, so I'm not commenting on whether the Bulverism is applicable here. But I really wanted to thank you for pointing it out. I've recently become more aware of how easily my own thinking can get knotted up in opinions, and get distracted from the facts or the actual problem. I have a limited short-term memory, and the issue itself can get pushed out - temporarily or permanently - without me realizing it (especially when emotions engage). Scary. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulverism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulverism
time_management 18y ago

jimmo 18y ago

then what to do when your "secure" job is downsized because company can't get money because greedy criminals broke stock market and now you can't pay for your mortgage so those same people kick you out of house?