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Oops, I forgot the biggest reason: grad school. I want to become a professor so I'm paid to indulge my curiosity, teach, and write interesting books into my ol
by bkovitz 17y ago
Oops, I forgot the biggest reason: grad school.
I want to become a professor so I'm paid to indulge my curiosity, teach, and write interesting books into my old age. I imagine that as a professor, as I age into my 50s and 60s and 70s, I would be an appreciated contributor in a loving community, and I imagine that as a start-up founder, I would be cast aside in my old age the way they do in Ik society.
I am now at the age when there's not much time left to go down the professor track and be successful.
If I wasn't trying to become a professor, I would do a start-up without hesitation. The above four reasons wouldn't stop me.
My first year as a grad student was so miserable, I am now reassessing.
- aditya 17y agoWhy was it miserable? and, why do you think that as an entrepreneur you won't still be building businesses well into your 50s 60s and 70s with teams of ambitious and motivated people?
- bkovitz 17y agoReally good questions. 1. Grad school was miserable because of time-fragmentation. Four simultaneous projects (classes) => couldn't focus on any of them. 2. I think that by nature, I am not really an entrepreneur. I'm a curious person, a tinkerer, someone who mostly enjoys coming up with a really good theory to explain some facts and open up new lines of thought and research. I've met people with a genuinely entrepreneurial mentality: they can't help but see how to negotiate a better deal, broker solutions to practical problems, pounce on opportunities before the crowd values them correctly, surprise their competitors with something unexpected. I admire those qualities, but that sort of thing wears me out fast. Theorizing and seeding other people with cool ideas, though—I never tire of those.