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Yeah. The alternative is to chill out at your current job and be able to pay your mortgage, and then start a startup when money is raining from the sky like it

Yeah. The alternative is to chill out at your current job and be able to pay your mortgage, and then start a startup when money is raining from the sky like it was in 2021. It's cyclical. Tech isn't dead forever, and what's a good idea today will still be a good idea in a couple years. You'll also be a couple years wiser, which is never bad.

volkk 4y ago
or, someone will simply start your idea (assuming it's original and good) and be first to market. lots more nuances around first to market, but PG has a point. there's no right answer and it's all personal, but if you do have an awesome idea, and it makes sense financially for you, then there's no point in waiting X years. you're just throwing those years out. worst case, what, you get rejected from funding because of a grim financial future? it's still extremely valuable spending that time building your project and getting that awesome experience of pitching/getting rejected. there's always an optimistic take to everything and a pessimistic one. if you're always taking the wait and see approach, chances are you're not going to do anything later, either. be somebody who does things and doesn't just sit around dreaming and waiting (like me)
- TruthShare 4y ago
  [dead]
  - aerosmile 4y ago
    Any startup that will hire someone focused on resting and vesting hasn't figured out their hiring, which is a 100% indication that the vesting is not going to be valuable.
    - birdyrooster 4y ago
      Any startup that has a business model which cannot accommodate the incumbent work culture hasn't figured out their business model, which is 100% indication that the vesting is not going to be valuable.
    - awill88 4y ago
      Or maybe they wouldn’t know if they did? Are we pretending we’re all mind readers?
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
- mrbgty 4y ago
  eh, even original and good ideas aren't that valuable. Sometimes an individual can get lucky with a gimmick but a sustainable business is usually successful when a team of great people are both having and executing on good ideas on a daily basis - and still needs luck.
  - volkk 4y ago
    yep. further proving my point that building such a team equals time. and you need to start asap to do something like that, not just sit around wasting valuable years of your life
aerosmile 4y ago
I can't figure out if you're being sarcastic, because if so, you're nailing it. If not, literally every single argument you brought up is against the consensus in the YC community, which doesn't mean you're wrong, but it still stands out as a massively contrarian position on this site.
- Apocryphon 4y ago
  The current fiscal environment is against the consensus in the YC community. The times they are a-changin'.
- jrockway 4y ago
  I'm not being sarcastic. I get that people are concerned about their ideas being stolen, but honestly, you can probably come up with another idea. I think what most people who have their ideas stolen find is that it turned out to not be a good business, and someone else invested 2 years of their life on a painful slog to discover that. On to the next idea!
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
itake 4y ago
The advice could be for people that were laid off and face months of unemployment. Quitting your job now to start a startup might make less sense. But also, quitting your job now and getting a grant when stocks are undervalued, could be a good move too.
cableshaft 4y ago
Also can also hack up an proof of concept or MVP during that time as well, a few hours a week at a time. Even if you don't complete it, you'll have that much more progress towards it when you decide to take the plunge later.
AussieWog93 4y ago
> Tech isn't dead forever, and what's a good idea today will still be a good idea in a couple years. Just as a couple of concrete examples: A paid-for app was a great idea in 2009, but a bad idea in 2013. A dedicated handheld PlayStation was a great idea in 2005 but an awful idea in 2012. Self-driving car companies were a great idea in 2017, but a bad idea in 2020. I think the point is that technology changes and sometimes you need to strike whole the iron's hot.
- jrockway 4y ago
  Aren't you just seeing your failed business without actually having to fail? You have some idea to change the world, someone copies it, they failed miserably; how do you lose there? There are so many things that were "before their time" and failed, like garbage-collected programming languages. C beat Lisp, because GC was too slow. Then Java beat C, because manual memory management was too dangerous. Being too early is almost scarier than being too late.

volkk 4y ago

or, someone will simply start your idea (assuming it's original and good) and be first to market. lots more nuances around first to market, but PG has a point. there's no right answer and it's all personal, but if you do have an awesome idea, and it makes sense financially for you, then there's no point in waiting X years. you're just throwing those years out. worst case, what, you get rejected from funding because of a grim financial future? it's still extremely valuable spending that time building your project and getting that awesome experience of pitching/getting rejected. there's always an optimistic take to everything and a pessimistic one. if you're always taking the wait and see approach, chances are you're not going to do anything later, either. be somebody who does things and doesn't just sit around dreaming and waiting (like me)

TruthShare 4y ago
[dead]
- aerosmile 4y ago
  Any startup that will hire someone focused on resting and vesting hasn't figured out their hiring, which is a 100% indication that the vesting is not going to be valuable.
  - birdyrooster 4y ago
    Any startup that has a business model which cannot accommodate the incumbent work culture hasn't figured out their business model, which is 100% indication that the vesting is not going to be valuable.
  - awill88 4y ago
    Or maybe they wouldn’t know if they did? Are we pretending we’re all mind readers?
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
mrbgty 4y ago
eh, even original and good ideas aren't that valuable. Sometimes an individual can get lucky with a gimmick but a sustainable business is usually successful when a team of great people are both having and executing on good ideas on a daily basis - and still needs luck.
- volkk 4y ago
  yep. further proving my point that building such a team equals time. and you need to start asap to do something like that, not just sit around wasting valuable years of your life

aerosmile 4y ago

I can't figure out if you're being sarcastic, because if so, you're nailing it. If not, literally every single argument you brought up is against the consensus in the YC community, which doesn't mean you're wrong, but it still stands out as a massively contrarian position on this site.

Apocryphon 4y ago
The current fiscal environment is against the consensus in the YC community. The times they are a-changin'.
jrockway 4y ago
I'm not being sarcastic. I get that people are concerned about their ideas being stolen, but honestly, you can probably come up with another idea. I think what most people who have their ideas stolen find is that it turned out to not be a good business, and someone else invested 2 years of their life on a painful slog to discover that. On to the next idea!

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

itake 4y ago

The advice could be for people that were laid off and face months of unemployment. Quitting your job now to start a startup might make less sense. But also, quitting your job now and getting a grant when stocks are undervalued, could be a good move too.

cableshaft 4y ago

Also can also hack up an proof of concept or MVP during that time as well, a few hours a week at a time. Even if you don't complete it, you'll have that much more progress towards it when you decide to take the plunge later.

AussieWog93 4y ago

> Tech isn't dead forever, and what's a good idea today will still be a good idea in a couple years. Just as a couple of concrete examples: A paid-for app was a great idea in 2009, but a bad idea in 2013. A dedicated handheld PlayStation was a great idea in 2005 but an awful idea in 2012. Self-driving car companies were a great idea in 2017, but a bad idea in 2020. I think the point is that technology changes and sometimes you need to strike whole the iron's hot.

jrockway 4y ago
Aren't you just seeing your failed business without actually having to fail? You have some idea to change the world, someone copies it, they failed miserably; how do you lose there? There are so many things that were "before their time" and failed, like garbage-collected programming languages. C beat Lisp, because GC was too slow. Then Java beat C, because manual memory management was too dangerous. Being too early is almost scarier than being too late.