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Why I quit a $500K job at Amazon to work for myself

danielvassallo.com

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Re: Why I quit a $500K job at Amazon to work for myself

#81

Post by jpeg_hero »

TheShrug wrote: post #47
DVassallo wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I saved a lot. About $1M in liquid assets. But I meant that I'll start with no income, no product, no business. I'll write another post about how I set up my safety net.

I know you're looking for attention or validation, but I have a feeling you'll probably get more negative attention than positive when you seem to be equating having $1M in liquid assets to "starting with no income, no product, no business".

> "starting with no income, no product, no business".

Getting a sustainable business is not easy. Lots of groups don’t get there with $10’s of millions in venture capital. So from a business prospective he is starting with nothing but does have a personal safety cushion.

Re: Why I quit a $500K job at Amazon to work for myself

#82

Post by sergiotapia »

hprotagonist wrote: post #3

I’m going all in on independence, and I’m going to try to make a living with my own bare hands starting from nothing. 500k/year in your last year is "nothing", huh? It really undercuts the entire thrust of the post, because you're starting with a nice big war chest and a hell of a safety net, not "nothing".

Gentlemen, when I first started Reynholm Industries I just had two things in my possession. A dream, and six million pounds.

Re: Why I quit a $500K job at Amazon to work for myself

#83

Post by hinkley »

TheShrug wrote: post #47
DVassallo wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I saved a lot. About $1M in liquid assets. But I meant that I'll start with no income, no product, no business. I'll write another post about how I set up my safety net.

I know you're looking for attention or validation, but I have a feeling you'll probably get more negative attention than positive when you seem to be equating having $1M in liquid assets to "starting with no income, no product, no business".

$20k a year in interest after taxes if he’s not a complete moron. I could survive on around $45k a year (including health insurance) so I could putter for a long time before I had to deliver something.

But domain knowledge and contacts will probably be the biggest assets OP turns out to possess. Don’t undersell those.

Re: Why I quit a $500K job at Amazon to work for myself

#84

Post by DVassallo »

pkaye wrote: post #70
DVassallo wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Author here. My expenses are more like $150K a year, so my runway is only a few years. I have a family, two small kids (4 and 2), and live a comfortable life in Seattle. I could obviously adjust my standard of living, move somewhere cheaper, etc, but I didn't want my family to have to change anything from this experiment I'm doing with my life.

I hope you still have good health/life insurance. Maybe you are young but life changing events can happen to anyone as it did to me.

I do. Got a $5M life insurance, and disability insurance that pays $10K/month if I can't do my work anymore. Got a high deductible health insurance through the ACA exchange. Life and disability insurance were quite cheap actually: about $3K/year in total (age 35 and good health). Health insurance is obviously expensive. The cheapest is about $14K/year here in WA for a family of four (which is what I got). Deductible is about $7/$14K IIRC.

Re: Why I quit a $500K job at Amazon to work for myself

#85

Post by olavgg »

DougN7 wrote: post #60
DVassallo wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I saved a lot. About $1M in liquid assets. But I meant that I'll start with no income, no product, no business. I'll write another post about how I set up my safety net.

Good luck. Cautionary tale: I have a buddy that was in a similar situation (more than $1M actually). He started a business, was careful, and after a few years went bankrupt because the business never gained traction. He sure wishes he hadn’t gone down that path. He’ll probably never get back to where he was. Just a regular developer now. If you ask him if the experience was worth it, he’d tell you no. So be careful.

I did something similar 4 years ago. It was the best decision I have ever made. I did consultancy, sold myself cheap compared to the big consulting companies and helped several startups becoming real businesses. I loved it, every day was awesome!

Even though I sold myself cheap, I still made more money that the salary I would get if I had worked for the big consulting companies. The biggest challenge is selling yourself, and I am not very good at it. Still it worked out great for 2 years until I joined a startup as the first employee which has gone from 3 to 100 employees in just 2 years.

If I was employed at a regular company, I would never have gotten the chance to join that startup.

Re: Why I quit a $500K job at Amazon to work for myself

#86

Post by taurath »

cpursley wrote: post #58
blaisio wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$1m is not enough for most people in the US to never work again, unless they are quite frugal. It's barely enough to retire with.

What bubble/ivory tower part of the country are you in? $1m is enough. Especially with a paid-off mortgage. Most people get by for way, way less than that.

If at any point in ones life you’ve made over $300k, I doubt $40k a year would feel like anything other than relative poverty - not that that’s a terrible thing. It’s plenty of money except if you’re used to vacations to Europe in 4 star hotels, nice gym and golf memberships, cars, etc.

Re: Why I quit a $500K job at Amazon to work for myself

#87

Post by Dayshine »

blaisio wrote: post #45
Dayshine wrote: post #6

> When I first hit $100K income, I would take a peek at my W2 for a few days admiring the six digits, but then it wore off. When I hit $200K, $300K, $400K, and $500K, it was the same thing. I would be delusional to think that earning $1M, or $10M would suddenly make it different. >What is out there that I could do that would make me excited waking up every day for the next 45 years that could also earn me enough mone…

$1m is not enough for most people in the US to never work again, unless they are quite frugal. It's barely enough to retire with.

Median household income is $60k in the US. So, $40k for 1 person is probably enough.

Re: Why I quit a $500K job at Amazon to work for myself

#88

Post by lowercased »

DVassallo wrote: post #63
TheShrug wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know you're looking for attention or validation, but I have a feeling you'll probably get more negative attention than positive when you seem to be equating having $1M in liquid assets to "starting with no income, no product, no business".

Those two things are not equivalent to me. Yes I have savings, but I also have no income right now.

Unless that $1M is stuffed under your mattress, you likely have some income from is. Even sitting in a CD at 2% you'll be pulling in $20k/year - that's not "no income".

What I think you mean is you don't have steady W2 income from an employer.

Re: Why I quit a $500K job at Amazon to work for myself

#89

Post by DVassallo »

Someone1234 wrote: post #35
Dayshine wrote: post #6

> When I first hit $100K income, I would take a peek at my W2 for a few days admiring the six digits, but then it wore off. When I hit $200K, $300K, $400K, and $500K, it was the same thing. I would be delusional to think that earning $1M, or $10M would suddenly make it different. >What is out there that I could do that would make me excited waking up every day for the next 45 years that could also earn me enough mone…

> you'd have $275k net. If you remove generous expenses, you have $200k a year in savings. In Seattle Washington? You'd have an extremely hard time making ends meet on $75K, it certainly isn't "generous." For example median home value in Seattle is $725K.

My expenses are about $150K a year.

Fixed costs per month:

* $5K mortgage

* $1.2K health insurance

* $300 life and disability insurance

* $800 utilities

* $2K home services: nanny, sitter, cleaner

* $800 school / preschool and kids activities

* $2K groceries, essentials, etc

I have a family, two small kids (4 and 2), and live a comfortable life in Seattle. I could obviously adjust my standard of living, move somewhere cheaper, etc, but I didn't want my family to have to change anything from this experiment I'm doing with my life.

Re: Why I quit a $500K job at Amazon to work for myself

#90

Post by jressey »

jpeg_hero wrote: post #69

Everyone here is bent by the $500k, but nobody is mentioning working for yourself can lead to less autonomy as you have to take on lame projects just to pay the bills, or the product your customers actually will pay for is not he one you want to build. Ideal autonomy is getting corporate patronage to mange your open source project.

Until you're bored of it. It's the same kind of handcuffs as freelancing.
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