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It is easier to start your own business than to get a job for a certain class of people in our industry. There is just not enough supply of jobs for people who

by ipnon 11mo ago

It is easier to start your own business than to get a job for a certain class of people in our industry. There is just not enough supply of jobs for people who “did everything right.” It’s a painful economic signal that US economy has run out of cushy Big Tech jobs and now needs an influx of innovative firms. This is difficult to explain to your relatives over Thanksgiving turkey but it is nonetheless the truth in my experience. If I could go back in time I would have gone to an Ivy League, gotten the proper internships, moved straight to the Bay during ZIRP, but alas I don’t have a Time Machine.

kenjackson 11mo ago
Starting a business is easy. Making enough money to live a similar lifestyle from said business is usually not so easy.
- ipnon 11mo ago
  The level of effort is becoming comparable: It's not unfathomable to send 1,000 applications to get a new job. Think of all the emails, coding evaluations, high-pressure interviews, LeetCode grinding, multi-round interviews, HR back-and-forths, and inevitable let downs or ghostings you have to endure just to get one measly job. Compare this to making a product that 1,000 people will subscribe to for $10/month, except you own it all forever. The skillsets are vastly different, and starting a business is much less rote and industrialized, but I don't think the level of effort is an order of magnitude greater. All of the experience I have gathered with my own business has paid dividends but the experience of looking for yet another job in yet another downturn seems to mostly have been wasteful in the long-term.
  - coolThingsFirst 11mo ago
    This is my conclusion as well, I'm building a few MVPs and the time spent building the MVP was orders of magnitude more productive than sending in 100s of job applications and preparing the STAR method and witnessing my mental health tank rejection after rejection. Tech careers are no longer careers they are gigs. You get in you are lucky but Elon can tweet something and you can be out in a whim. Now it's for geniuses, turbo slaves willing to work 70 hours a week and that's unsustainable for more than 6 months. Keep in mind this is in Europe as well, we don't make the crazy salaries Americans make with stocks. Basically 40-50K salary if you're lucky and that kind of money doesn't warrant the effort required for it.
    - ipnon 11mo ago
      Good luck, one thing I can tell you is I don’t regret making the jump in the slightest, even though it has its own ups and downs.
kjkjadksj 11mo ago
Just start a business? Now you need to find money and clients. That could be harder than the job search.

by ipnon 11mo ago

kenjackson 11mo ago

Starting a business is easy. Making enough money to live a similar lifestyle from said business is usually not so easy.

ipnon 11mo ago
The level of effort is becoming comparable: It's not unfathomable to send 1,000 applications to get a new job. Think of all the emails, coding evaluations, high-pressure interviews, LeetCode grinding, multi-round interviews, HR back-and-forths, and inevitable let downs or ghostings you have to endure just to get one measly job. Compare this to making a product that 1,000 people will subscribe to for $10/month, except you own it all forever. The skillsets are vastly different, and starting a business is much less rote and industrialized, but I don't think the level of effort is an order of magnitude greater. All of the experience I have gathered with my own business has paid dividends but the experience of looking for yet another job in yet another downturn seems to mostly have been wasteful in the long-term.
- coolThingsFirst 11mo ago
  This is my conclusion as well, I'm building a few MVPs and the time spent building the MVP was orders of magnitude more productive than sending in 100s of job applications and preparing the STAR method and witnessing my mental health tank rejection after rejection. Tech careers are no longer careers they are gigs. You get in you are lucky but Elon can tweet something and you can be out in a whim. Now it's for geniuses, turbo slaves willing to work 70 hours a week and that's unsustainable for more than 6 months. Keep in mind this is in Europe as well, we don't make the crazy salaries Americans make with stocks. Basically 40-50K salary if you're lucky and that kind of money doesn't warrant the effort required for it.
  - ipnon 11mo ago
    Good luck, one thing I can tell you is I don’t regret making the jump in the slightest, even though it has its own ups and downs.

kjkjadksj 11mo ago

Just start a business? Now you need to find money and clients. That could be harder than the job search.