Why I Quit My Job to Start a Tech Company • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I Quit My Job to Start a Tech Company

#61

Post by acangiano » Wed, Aug 03, 2011, 8:41 PM UTC

kevinskii wrote: post #59

idlewords wrote: post #48

Privileged person decides to try hand at entrepreneurship, congratulates self for courage. Reading these is the textual equivalent of watching someone jerk off.

A person who spends his childhood as a poor immigrant and then goes on to achieve considerable financial success through hard work and merit is "accomplished," not "privileged." That he would be willing to risk everything on a startup is indeed courageous.

It's such a sad spectacle to see petty jealousy (or at least lack of empathy) by commenters here. As someone who grew up in a poor family and is now an immigrant, I can confirm that anything you achieve is earned and accomplished. There is no privilege, just because one manages to make 6 figures a year through hard work. OP has balls, big ones, to give up such a good job to try his hand at a startup.

Re: Why I Quit My Job to Start a Tech Company

#62

Post by ca136 » Wed, Aug 03, 2011, 8:58 PM UTC

kevinskii wrote: post #59

idlewords wrote: post #48

Privileged person decides to try hand at entrepreneurship, congratulates self for courage. Reading these is the textual equivalent of watching someone jerk off.

A person who spends his childhood as a poor immigrant and then goes on to achieve considerable financial success through hard work and merit is "accomplished," not "privileged." That he would be willing to risk everything on a startup is indeed courageous.

As other people have mentioned, it's a lot easier to try a startup when you've had a chance to save money from a $250,000 salary. Plus, you have the experience working for a big PE firm so you know you can always find another great job. I love hearing these stories, but his 'risk' wasn't really as great as someone who quits an $80,000 job with $10,000 in savings. I know that story too well :)

Re: Why I Quit My Job to Start a Tech Company

#63

Post by bigsassy » Wed, Aug 03, 2011, 8:58 PM UTC

idlewords wrote: post #48

Privileged person decides to try hand at entrepreneurship, congratulates self for courage. Reading these is the textual equivalent of watching someone jerk off.

Man, I am getting tired of people shitting all over an article and getting rewarded with top comment status. Note, I didn't say "giving a critical critique". That's fine and should be encouraged. But this is just slinging mud for the sake of it.

Comments like this offer no value. Maybe it doesn't deserve a downvote, but it certainly shouldn't be #1.

EDIT - Just realized this post may technically not have the most votes, but since I can't see the score I have no way of knowing. I still stand by everything I said otherwise.

Re: Why I Quit My Job to Start a Tech Company

#64

Post by lclaude01 » Wed, Aug 03, 2011, 9:54 PM UTC

I have been drinking HN's kool-aid way too long.../// don't be anyone bitch ! (quote by F. Wilson)

Re: Why I Quit My Job to Start a Tech Company

#65

Post by akat » Wed, Aug 03, 2011, 9:58 PM UTC

idlewords wrote: post #48

Privileged person decides to try hand at entrepreneurship, congratulates self for courage. Reading these is the textual equivalent of watching someone jerk off.

I don't have down vote privileges, but you just lived up to your handle. Idle words indeed. -1

Re: Why I Quit My Job to Start a Tech Company

#66

Post by AltIvan » Wed, Aug 03, 2011, 10:37 PM UTC

idlewords wrote: post #48

Privileged person decides to try hand at entrepreneurship, congratulates self for courage. Reading these is the textual equivalent of watching someone jerk off.

No straight male gets sexually exited when they watch other male jerking off. But many people dreaming about starting their own company will find this really exiting and inspiring.

And seriously, i can't believe that this (probably) is the most upvoted comment in this article.

Re: Why I Quit My Job to Start a Tech Company

#67

Post by reinhardt » Wed, Aug 03, 2011, 10:53 PM UTC

yoshyosh wrote: post #40

rdouble wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like a baller gig like that would make it _easier_ to quit and start something up. You'd be able to save so much more money, than say, someone who took a typical Silicon Valley entry level programming job. If he had chosen to work at Google, he'd have been lucky to make 1/2 that.

If you were guaranteed $250k a year with potential to receive more every 5 years or so, were able to buy a house, nice car, and support a family without worrying about any financial hardships, you think it would be _easier_ to quit? To go to what, the potential for no salary, constant paranoia of whether you made the right decision or not, and get into a field you know relatively nothing about? It's a pity that these…

I can think of at least two opposite mindsets:

A. On the one end, one optimizes for overall expected yield. There's no finite target, the goal is "as much as possible". With this objective, walking away from a lot of low-risk money for much less and high-risk is much harder. Similarly, the lower the starting point, the more open you are to take up risk because you don't have much to lose anyway.

B. On the other end, one has specific targets. Once these targets are met, money ceases to be a decision criterion. With this frame, it is actually easier to walk away from a lot of money after you have achieved X, Y and Z.

These are simplified extremes of course, in reality it's a mix of both and shifts over time, but it goes to show that there's no single "correct" answer.

Re: Why I Quit My Job to Start a Tech Company

#68

Post by derefr » Thu, Aug 04, 2011, 1:48 AM UTC

bigsassy wrote: post #63

idlewords wrote: post #48

Privileged person decides to try hand at entrepreneurship, congratulates self for courage. Reading these is the textual equivalent of watching someone jerk off.

Man, I am getting tired of people shitting all over an article and getting rewarded with top comment status. Note, I didn't say "giving a critical critique". That's fine and should be encouraged. But this is just slinging mud for the sake of it. Comments like this offer no value. Maybe it doesn't deserve a downvote, but it certainly shouldn't be #1. EDIT - Just realized this post may technically not have the most vot…

Some people just want to downvote the article itself, but there's no option to do that here—so when they see a comment expressing the semantic equivalent of "shit sux", they upvote that instead, for the same feeling of justice.

Re: Why I Quit My Job to Start a Tech Company

#69

Post by pyoung » Thu, Aug 04, 2011, 2:04 AM UTC

jjtheblunt wrote: post #50

One observation: the slight against Warren Buffett is unmerited and undeserved. He is at least as good an example as this person of not living lavishly even with adequate money to do so.

I totally agree. Buffett is extremely frugal and philanthropic. I think he is driven more by the thrill of business and deal making, rather than the pursuit of money.

Re: Why I Quit My Job to Start a Tech Company

#70

Post by jhen095 » Thu, Aug 04, 2011, 4:17 AM UTC

jjtheblunt wrote: post #50

One observation: the slight against Warren Buffett is unmerited and undeserved. He is at least as good an example as this person of not living lavishly even with adequate money to do so.

My interpretation of this "slight" is that Warren Buffett uses money as a measure of success. It does not imply any sort of lifestyle just that he strives to be more successful and that means having more dollars. After having read a biography on Mr. Buffett I agree with OP on this and disagree that it is "unmerited and undeserved"