Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

blog.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 632 posts

Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#101

Post by dceddia »

reuven wrote: post #91

How about freelancing? I've been doing that since 1995 -- and my income and happiness have never been higher. Pros: - Work on what you like, with the people you like - Potentially very high salary, definitely more than you would get as an employee - Want to work on side projects (e.g., software, books, and courses)? Go for it, and benefit from multiple income streams. Cons: - You're running a business. That requires…

This seems like a better option to me than the "founder" role in the article.

How did you find your first clients? You mention you're traveling the world teaching Python (which sounds awesome!) -- do you consider that "freelancing" or are you taking client work in addition to the teaching?

Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#102

Post by sidlls »

ryandrake wrote: post #7

> Often times there are hard barriers preventing people from starting a company. In these cases my best advice is to move to a tech hub (preferably the Bay Area) and work for a tech company until you can save the money I had to laugh there. Moving to the Bay Area will reduce your ability to save money, not increase it. I was probably saving 40-50% of my salary when I worked in Nowhereville, Florida. With the housing…

On the other hand I was only saving around 10% of my income in. Nowhereville, Midwest (similar cost of living to Nowhereville, FL). I moved to the Bay Area. I'm still saving about the same rate, but it's a percentage of more than double the income.

I doubt 40% of Nowhereville, FL salary is as much as 20% of Bay Area salary for a large number of cases. Developer compensation in Nowhereville caps out much lower than it does in the Bay Area (I'm talking base salary): figure in RSUs and other benefits (e.g. job abundance) and it's almost a no-brainer that a move to the Bay Area is better.

Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#103

Post by sagarm »

autotune wrote: post #71
alexandercrohde wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just for comparison, I lived in SF for about 4 years. I saved a huge amount of money. I lived with 3 roommates to save money, I sold my car, you won't get stabbed anywhere in SF (so live in the sketchy area it'll get nicer each year). My rent was $1,200 a month, a lucky find. Now don't get me wrong I hated living there, no girls, homelessness everywhere smelled like garbage, and a self-obsession that pretended to be…

Roommate rant: I started out with trying the roommate situation for $1500 a month or less usually; all I ask out of roommates are that we all stick to a schedule for chores and peace and quiet at night. Every single roommate situation either had somebody who couldn't abide by the 10 PM quiet rule (we're talking watching tv at all hours of the night, having sex with their girlfriend until the AM, or having a very audi…

IMO a cleaning service makes living with roommates a much better experience, and given that the costs are split N-ways adds relatively little to the cost.

Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#104

Post by slewis »

ryandrake wrote: post #7

> Often times there are hard barriers preventing people from starting a company. In these cases my best advice is to move to a tech hub (preferably the Bay Area) and work for a tech company until you can save the money I had to laugh there. Moving to the Bay Area will reduce your ability to save money, not increase it. I was probably saving 40-50% of my salary when I worked in Nowhereville, Florida. With the housing…

Here's my counter-anecdote. I hesitate to do this but I think it's nice for aspiring software engineers to have details.

I moved to San Francisco in 2006 straight out of college to work at Google as a SWE. I was $27k in debt (student loan + credit card). My rent was $1450 at the time (2 bedroom with a roommate in a nice part of town), and I took out a $26k loan to buy a car. I'm not particularly frugal.

I did well at Google, left in 2010 with >$200k saved, and used that to fund my entrepreneurial adventures from then til now.

I was very fortunate to land that job, YMMV.

Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#105

Post by Radim »

reuven wrote: post #91

How about freelancing? I've been doing that since 1995 -- and my income and happiness have never been higher. Pros: - Work on what you like, with the people you like - Potentially very high salary, definitely more than you would get as an employee - Want to work on side projects (e.g., software, books, and courses)? Go for it, and benefit from multiple income streams. Cons: - You're running a business. That requires…

    Plenty of successful freelancers make good money just by themselves (or maybe 1-2 junior people).
Great point. The underappreciated thing is how much stress bringing a few other people to your freelancing brings. Suddenly, you realize that all these things that are obvious to you (when you "flow" working alone) need explanations and coordination and planning and checking and ...

You may find yourself at a substantially reduced income (because you have to pay these extra people), but without the increased productivity / revenue to show for it. There's like this uncanny valley between freelancing and having a stable team / process structure (aka company).

For me, building a proper consulting company around machine learning / Python services took the better part of 4 years. Along with considerable stress & hair pulling. Sometimes I long for the solo freelancing days...

Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#106

Post by derefr »

alexandercrohde wrote: post #36
autotune wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> fancy apartment Being a 400 sq. ft. studio that you pay $3k per month for to live in an area where you won't get stabbed when you go out at night and is close enough to work where you don't need a car.

Just for comparison, I lived in SF for about 4 years. I saved a huge amount of money. I lived with 3 roommates to save money, I sold my car, you won't get stabbed anywhere in SF (so live in the sketchy area it'll get nicer each year). My rent was $1,200 a month, a lucky find. Now don't get me wrong I hated living there, no girls, homelessness everywhere smelled like garbage, and a self-obsession that pretended to be…

> no girls

Now consider: what would you do if you were already married and wanted to do this? (Meaning, move to the Bay with your SO, not leave them behind.)

Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#107

Post by pcsanwald »

yesimahuman wrote: post #76
ryandrake wrote: post #7

> Often times there are hard barriers preventing people from starting a company. In these cases my best advice is to move to a tech hub (preferably the Bay Area) and work for a tech company until you can save the money I had to laugh there. Moving to the Bay Area will reduce your ability to save money, not increase it. I was probably saving 40-50% of my salary when I worked in Nowhereville, Florida. With the housing…

Yea the adage that you should move to the bay area to start a startup feels increasingly outdated. I couldn't have gone full time on my (now VC-backed startup) back when we were bootstrapping and living on $2k a month from early customer credit card swipes (one of the absolute best feelings in the world) if we had living costs like that in SF/bay area. Once we did find traction and raise we still didn't move. Times a…

Did you find it harder to raise VC outside the bay area? We definitely did when we were raising for our Baltimore based company.

Whereas now that I live in the bay area, I see companies get funded all the time and think to myself they would never get funded if they were HQ'd elsewhere.

Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#108

Post by falsedan »

ryandrake wrote: post #7

> Often times there are hard barriers preventing people from starting a company. In these cases my best advice is to move to a tech hub (preferably the Bay Area) and work for a tech company until you can save the money I had to laugh there. Moving to the Bay Area will reduce your ability to save money, not increase it. I was probably saving 40-50% of my salary when I worked in Nowhereville, Florida. With the housing…

40% of $45k is 12% of $150k, and that doesn't value in the experience and networking opportunities of working in the Bay Area

Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#109

Post by melq »

autotune wrote: post #71
alexandercrohde wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just for comparison, I lived in SF for about 4 years. I saved a huge amount of money. I lived with 3 roommates to save money, I sold my car, you won't get stabbed anywhere in SF (so live in the sketchy area it'll get nicer each year). My rent was $1,200 a month, a lucky find. Now don't get me wrong I hated living there, no girls, homelessness everywhere smelled like garbage, and a self-obsession that pretended to be…

Roommate rant: I started out with trying the roommate situation for $1500 a month or less usually; all I ask out of roommates are that we all stick to a schedule for chores and peace and quiet at night. Every single roommate situation either had somebody who couldn't abide by the 10 PM quiet rule (we're talking watching tv at all hours of the night, having sex with their girlfriend until the AM, or having a very audi…

You mean people aren't champing at the bit to spend $1500/month and adhere to your 10pm bedtime!?

Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#110

Post by robertlagrant »

segmondy wrote: post #50
cachemiss wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are bootstrapping, and you are starting a company in an area that does not need the top tier of engineers (which is most of them, regardless of how they talk about hiring the best), I'd consider starting someplace low cost. I think college towns in the midwest / rust belt are untapped resources, or areas that used to have strong technically focused companies that moved away. I've personally seen founders boots…

But I thought the internet removed all boundaries? Why do we need to be in the Bay area to have access to top tier of engineers? They are also everywhere else and let's say they are in the Bay area, that's what remote is for right?

"But I thought the internet removed all boundaries?"

And yet inexplicably I still can't walk through walls.

Post reply on HN