5 ms·

The problem with the "try a lot of projects, see what works" is that you lose out on exponential growth every time a project fails. A lot of people would be be

The problem with the "try a lot of projects, see what works" is that you lose out on exponential growth every time a project fails. A lot of people would be better off doing "intra-preneurship", meaning trying to innovate and strategize within their current company to make the job more fun, gain more autonomy, and advance their career prospects.

ghaff 2y ago
At the end of the day, it's a bet. You'll probably make zero (or negative after expenses). You may make some passable income. You might make a lot. Whereas working for a big company, you have a fairly reliable shot at bringing in a decent income with some stability. Nothing is guaranteed of course.
fellowmartian 2y ago
I’m sorry, but what exponential growth are you talking about? No company will ever pay you that much as a regular salaried employee.
- itake 2y ago
  Career growth. This includes job title, responsibilities, and compensation. Companies can promote you every 1-2 years, but you need to start that clock.
  - fellowmartian 2y ago
    It’s not exponential though, at most you’re looking at 2-3 orders of magnitude growth unless you’re a founder.
    - mattmanser 2y ago
      Not sure you understand what orders of magnitude means. 3 orders of magnitude is 1,000 times larger, so $100,000 salary would become $100,000,000. Never going to happen.
      - fellowmartian 2y ago
        I perfectly understand what orders of magnitude means. The growth you’ve described does happen, eg if you start at $65000 as junior eng and end up in dozens of millions a year as a SVP or CTO at FAANG-level company. My point is that even that is not exponential yearly, unless you mean “exponential” in the narrow sense of “compound returns”, by that is available to everyone with a brokerage account.
        itake 2y ago
        “Compound returns” are exponential returns. Is there another definition of exponential that im not away of?
        buzzerbetrayed 2y ago
        I think you’re the one that has an abnormal definition exponential growth
    - itake 2y ago
      My RSUs and total compensation has grown by 20-30% the last 3 years, despite my base salary only increasing 1-2%. If that isn't exponential growth, idk what is. RSU values compound.
      - fellowmartian 2y ago
        Refreshers aren’t priced at the price of the date of hire, that would be crazy. It’s not more exponential than holding S&P 500.
        itake 2y ago
        Refreshers are priced at when they were granted and compound 4 years. So you have 4 years of compounding growth. Refreshers also stack, creating more compounding. Once they vest, you can sell them to match snp500 past the 4 years.
  - coldtea 2y ago
    That's not exponential growth. It's not even linear-with-good-slope. And it's not even "give 1x work -same as before- and take x1.5 money" but more like "give 1.5x work and take x1.5 money" at best (and usually less): more responsibilities, more stress, and more work time.
    - itake 2y ago
      > "give 1x work -same as before- and take x1.5 money" This is exactly my case. Here are my w2 compensation (salary+bonus+rsu) changes YoY working at $Yelp and $Grab: 2025 35.96% (projected) 2024 20.77% (projected) 2023 30.39% 2022 -0.65% <- promotion 2021 34.25% 2020 65.06% <- job change (December 2020; 2020 had a big jump due to unemployment in 2019) I don't think my work hours, responsibilities, or work stress has any connection to my compensation or career growth, primarily due to the "work smart, not hard" thinking. Even if you have zero promotions or changes in responsibility, RSU grants compound, even if your salary increase by only 1-6% (like mine did)
      - oblio 2y ago
        I don't know how old you are but you are likely to hit a compensation ceiling as an individual contributor at some point. Or you manage to move into those staff/post-staff positions but those are very few, hyper competitive and during rounds a layoffs you have a huge target on your back.
        nickjj 2y ago
        > I don't know how old you are but you are likely to hit a compensation ceiling as an individual contributor at some point. Realistically it's not a bad problem to have. I'm no where near making a capped IC amount but if someone were in this position you really only need ~5-8 years of working to pretty much set yourself up for life financially if you keep your living expenses reasonable.
        itake 2y ago
        I’m 35. I survived 80% layoffs because I’m one of the lowest paid people in my grade and office. Im still earning way less than what I see reported on Blind and what my coworkers make.
itake 2y ago
Fair, but the exponential growth function can be much more aggressive for a side project than your career. In a career, you max raises at 20% per year over a 5 year period? But side projects can have revenue increase 20% MRR. Also, within companies, you need everyone’s unanimous permission to do anything.. if a problem is big enough, the team would do it themselves. If the problem is too small, the team won’t integrate.
- moooo99 2y ago
  > But side projects can have revenue increase 20% MRR. Also, within companies, you Or, more likely, 0%
  - itake 2y ago
    Not really? You can mitigate this risk by purchasing an existing company with revenue.
coldtea 2y ago
>meaning trying to innovate and strategize within their current company to make the job more fun, gain more autonomy, and advance their career prospects Assuming that's in an environment where it's possible (no shitty office politics, etc), the monetary returns from that ain't gonna be competing to a succesful project. Nor is the freedom and satisfaction ever going to be the same. And of course all progress in that front, is a round of layoffs or a change in management away from being nulled. So, it's a safer path (as much as being an employee is safe these days), but not achieving the same thing.
asdev 2y ago
this is literally impossible at most companies due to politics, incentive alignments, OKRs etc
- EasyMark 2y ago
  Right, most companies just want you cranking out the code their marketing department has determined as necessary, they don’t care if you grow, prosper, are happy, or any of those things.
  - theflyinghorse 2y ago
    Im not sure why there is even a single downvote, the comment is absolutely right on the money.
  - zeroCalories 2y ago
    Innovating is all of those, and many managers will be open to cool new ideas and let you try stuff out if there's real promise. You might need to only spend a fraction of your time on it, or do it after hours. The problem is that many developers have bad ideas, or they can't market those ideas effectively. Remember that they will be able to claim a part of any success you find.
- vineyardmike 2y ago
  You probably won’t launch an entire product line out of your own sheer will, but you can totally push for smaller scale work. Push for creating a tool to improve your team’s processes, or push for a few feature within an existing product. Focus less on the “entrepreneur” aspect and more on the “build fun and autonomy into your work” aspect. If you’re trusted and respected within your organization, you’ll probably be able to push through ever-larger projects (assuming they’re not net-negative). This probably isn’t a working strategy if you’re within your first year, but if you’re a respected senior engineer who wants to scratch an itch, you’ll probably have much more success. Or, if you work at Google, push for a new chat app. It’ll probably be approved.
  - htrp 2y ago
SkyPuncher 2y ago
I’ve had extreme control over my role over the past decade (leadership in startups) and I couldn’t even do what you suggest. I’m not sure how you think the average person could
consf 2y ago
[dead]
FredPret 2y ago
You only need exponential growth to work once
- aorloff 2y ago
  But you have to be able to execute when it arrives
j45 2y ago
Exponential growth means getting the timing, positioning and right amount of execution just right. Also feels like chasing a lottery win. Some folks might be chasing a financial safety net first that is smaller, because the variables and formula of everyone's life in what they have to take care of is valid. I'm very happy for people who are able to swing for the fences, and also happy for the people working on getting more hits to bigger hits to swing for the fench. I know the latter is a much more sure way to get an outcome to have time freedom to really swing fences. Everyone does what they best can do, if there's not an option in front of them at work, some people have to try to create the option themselves if it's not geographically accessible.

ghaff 2y ago

At the end of the day, it's a bet. You'll probably make zero (or negative after expenses). You may make some passable income. You might make a lot. Whereas working for a big company, you have a fairly reliable shot at bringing in a decent income with some stability. Nothing is guaranteed of course.

fellowmartian 2y ago

I’m sorry, but what exponential growth are you talking about? No company will ever pay you that much as a regular salaried employee.

itake 2y ago
Career growth. This includes job title, responsibilities, and compensation. Companies can promote you every 1-2 years, but you need to start that clock.
- fellowmartian 2y ago
  It’s not exponential though, at most you’re looking at 2-3 orders of magnitude growth unless you’re a founder.
  - mattmanser 2y ago
    Not sure you understand what orders of magnitude means. 3 orders of magnitude is 1,000 times larger, so $100,000 salary would become $100,000,000. Never going to happen.
    - fellowmartian 2y ago
      I perfectly understand what orders of magnitude means. The growth you’ve described does happen, eg if you start at $65000 as junior eng and end up in dozens of millions a year as a SVP or CTO at FAANG-level company. My point is that even that is not exponential yearly, unless you mean “exponential” in the narrow sense of “compound returns”, by that is available to everyone with a brokerage account.
      - itake 2y ago
        “Compound returns” are exponential returns. Is there another definition of exponential that im not away of?
      - buzzerbetrayed 2y ago
        I think you’re the one that has an abnormal definition exponential growth
  - itake 2y ago
    My RSUs and total compensation has grown by 20-30% the last 3 years, despite my base salary only increasing 1-2%. If that isn't exponential growth, idk what is. RSU values compound.
    - fellowmartian 2y ago
      Refreshers aren’t priced at the price of the date of hire, that would be crazy. It’s not more exponential than holding S&P 500.
      - itake 2y ago
        Refreshers are priced at when they were granted and compound 4 years. So you have 4 years of compounding growth. Refreshers also stack, creating more compounding. Once they vest, you can sell them to match snp500 past the 4 years.
- coldtea 2y ago
  That's not exponential growth. It's not even linear-with-good-slope. And it's not even "give 1x work -same as before- and take x1.5 money" but more like "give 1.5x work and take x1.5 money" at best (and usually less): more responsibilities, more stress, and more work time.
  - itake 2y ago
    > "give 1x work -same as before- and take x1.5 money" This is exactly my case. Here are my w2 compensation (salary+bonus+rsu) changes YoY working at $Yelp and $Grab: 2025 35.96% (projected) 2024 20.77% (projected) 2023 30.39% 2022 -0.65% <- promotion 2021 34.25% 2020 65.06% <- job change (December 2020; 2020 had a big jump due to unemployment in 2019) I don't think my work hours, responsibilities, or work stress has any connection to my compensation or career growth, primarily due to the "work smart, not hard" thinking. Even if you have zero promotions or changes in responsibility, RSU grants compound, even if your salary increase by only 1-6% (like mine did)
    - oblio 2y ago
      I don't know how old you are but you are likely to hit a compensation ceiling as an individual contributor at some point. Or you manage to move into those staff/post-staff positions but those are very few, hyper competitive and during rounds a layoffs you have a huge target on your back.
      - nickjj 2y ago
        > I don't know how old you are but you are likely to hit a compensation ceiling as an individual contributor at some point. Realistically it's not a bad problem to have. I'm no where near making a capped IC amount but if someone were in this position you really only need ~5-8 years of working to pretty much set yourself up for life financially if you keep your living expenses reasonable.
      - itake 2y ago
        I’m 35. I survived 80% layoffs because I’m one of the lowest paid people in my grade and office. Im still earning way less than what I see reported on Blind and what my coworkers make.

itake 2y ago

Fair, but the exponential growth function can be much more aggressive for a side project than your career. In a career, you max raises at 20% per year over a 5 year period? But side projects can have revenue increase 20% MRR. Also, within companies, you need everyone’s unanimous permission to do anything.. if a problem is big enough, the team would do it themselves. If the problem is too small, the team won’t integrate.

moooo99 2y ago
> But side projects can have revenue increase 20% MRR. Also, within companies, you Or, more likely, 0%
- itake 2y ago
  Not really? You can mitigate this risk by purchasing an existing company with revenue.

coldtea 2y ago

>meaning trying to innovate and strategize within their current company to make the job more fun, gain more autonomy, and advance their career prospects Assuming that's in an environment where it's possible (no shitty office politics, etc), the monetary returns from that ain't gonna be competing to a succesful project. Nor is the freedom and satisfaction ever going to be the same. And of course all progress in that front, is a round of layoffs or a change in management away from being nulled. So, it's a safer path (as much as being an employee is safe these days), but not achieving the same thing.

asdev 2y ago

this is literally impossible at most companies due to politics, incentive alignments, OKRs etc

EasyMark 2y ago
Right, most companies just want you cranking out the code their marketing department has determined as necessary, they don’t care if you grow, prosper, are happy, or any of those things.
- theflyinghorse 2y ago
  Im not sure why there is even a single downvote, the comment is absolutely right on the money.
- zeroCalories 2y ago
  Innovating is all of those, and many managers will be open to cool new ideas and let you try stuff out if there's real promise. You might need to only spend a fraction of your time on it, or do it after hours. The problem is that many developers have bad ideas, or they can't market those ideas effectively. Remember that they will be able to claim a part of any success you find.
vineyardmike 2y ago
You probably won’t launch an entire product line out of your own sheer will, but you can totally push for smaller scale work. Push for creating a tool to improve your team’s processes, or push for a few feature within an existing product. Focus less on the “entrepreneur” aspect and more on the “build fun and autonomy into your work” aspect. If you’re trusted and respected within your organization, you’ll probably be able to push through ever-larger projects (assuming they’re not net-negative). This probably isn’t a working strategy if you’re within your first year, but if you’re a respected senior engineer who wants to scratch an itch, you’ll probably have much more success. Or, if you work at Google, push for a new chat app. It’ll probably be approved.
- htrp 2y ago

SkyPuncher 2y ago

I’ve had extreme control over my role over the past decade (leadership in startups) and I couldn’t even do what you suggest. I’m not sure how you think the average person could

consf 2y ago

[dead]

FredPret 2y ago

You only need exponential growth to work once

aorloff 2y ago
But you have to be able to execute when it arrives

j45 2y ago

Exponential growth means getting the timing, positioning and right amount of execution just right. Also feels like chasing a lottery win. Some folks might be chasing a financial safety net first that is smaller, because the variables and formula of everyone's life in what they have to take care of is valid. I'm very happy for people who are able to swing for the fences, and also happy for the people working on getting more hits to bigger hits to swing for the fench. I know the latter is a much more sure way to get an outcome to have time freedom to really swing fences. Everyone does what they best can do, if there's not an option in front of them at work, some people have to try to create the option themselves if it's not geographically accessible.