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> Older people tend to hang on to the past Maybe I’m not yet old enough to be like this but I honestly don’t think it’s the case. Instead - I think about how

> Older people tend to hang on to the past Maybe I’m not yet old enough to be like this but I honestly don’t think it’s the case. Instead - I think about how whatever I do in the next ten years is it. This is my last productive decade. I can’t risk wasting my time. I need to work on low risk projects with short payoff times. I’ve got half a dozen products and projects that I could launch, some of which I think could really make a difference… but I’m going to take a job in an industry I like and get a steady income, instead. There is enormous risk in innovation and that was great for the first ¾ of my working life - not so great for the last ¼. My wife and kids don’t want to eat ramen and live in share houses for 2 years while I hustle and grind until I get PMF or die trying.

aleph_minus_one 3y ago
> Instead - I think about how whatever I do in the next ten years is it. This is my last productive decade. > I can’t risk wasting my time. I need to work on low risk projects with short payoff times. Perhaps I am too young, but I rather imagine myself to be completely different when I become old: the older I get, the more risk-affine I'll become since if something goes insanely wrong, I will have less years in which I have to bear the bad consequences. To the present day, this describes my life quite well: the older I got, the more risk-affine I became.
- doctor_eval 3y ago
  To be clear I'm specifically talking about income earning risks, rather than say physical risks. In those terms, if you're young and you do something high risk, and you lose all your money (or just spend 5 years not making money), you still have plenty of time to recover and make enough money to be comfortable when you're older. But, by definition, that's not true when you're older.
  - aleph_minus_one 3y ago
    > In those terms, if you're young and you do something high risk, and you lose all your money (or just spend 5 years not making money), you still have plenty of time to recover and make enough money to be comfortable when you're older. The counterargument to this was exactly a point of my reply: if you are not able to recover, there exist less years in which you have to live poorly when you are older. A little bit macabre, but true.
    - doctor_eval 3y ago
      In my case it’s not just me who will suffer, but also my family. I’m just not wired to make a risky decision for them.

aleph_minus_one 3y ago

> Instead - I think about how whatever I do in the next ten years is it. This is my last productive decade. > I can’t risk wasting my time. I need to work on low risk projects with short payoff times. Perhaps I am too young, but I rather imagine myself to be completely different when I become old: the older I get, the more risk-affine I'll become since if something goes insanely wrong, I will have less years in which I have to bear the bad consequences. To the present day, this describes my life quite well: the older I got, the more risk-affine I became.

doctor_eval 3y ago
To be clear I'm specifically talking about income earning risks, rather than say physical risks. In those terms, if you're young and you do something high risk, and you lose all your money (or just spend 5 years not making money), you still have plenty of time to recover and make enough money to be comfortable when you're older. But, by definition, that's not true when you're older.
- aleph_minus_one 3y ago
  > In those terms, if you're young and you do something high risk, and you lose all your money (or just spend 5 years not making money), you still have plenty of time to recover and make enough money to be comfortable when you're older. The counterargument to this was exactly a point of my reply: if you are not able to recover, there exist less years in which you have to live poorly when you are older. A little bit macabre, but true.
  - doctor_eval 3y ago
    In my case it’s not just me who will suffer, but also my family. I’m just not wired to make a risky decision for them.