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Ask HN: Has anyone started over outside of tech?

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Re: Ask HN: Has anyone started over outside of tech?

#211

Post by adamsmith143 »

cosgrove wrote: post #93
mrsofty wrote: post #38

yep my wife and I. we retired from tech ( startups) at 50. In order to keep out minds working AND make a buck we decided to both trade options. Luckily for us we have chums who own a trading environment that teaches people, like us, how to do this effectively and so we set off on our adventure. Very quickly into this I decided to code up a trading analysis dashboard which gave us guidance as to the REALITY of our app…

What is your general approach? Selling premium? Earnings announcements? Do you frequent any online communities of professionals, or is it just you, your spouse, and your mentors? Beyond wanting to learn alternative approaches myself, I help moderate a local trading group. We are always looking for presenters in our monthly meetings.

Please don't do this. Virtually all day traders lose money and the ones that don't are almost certainly running on luck. If you really had an edge in the market you would open a hedge fund and rake in billions. Everyone else is just playing the law of large numbers and the winners happened to flip 50 tails in a row.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone started over outside of tech?

#212

Post by kevviiinn »

bilsbie wrote: post #127
MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I follow. Me, an interviewer: "so you know compilers, great start on monday" Also me: "so you know compilers and have studied math on top, sorry son thats a no from me"

Tech interviews expect esoteric minutia to be on the top of your mind and easily recallable. You also must be able to talk about past projects in great detail as if you worked on them yesterday. If you take more than a few months off interviews become insanely hard.

Frankly that's an insane expectation. I've done a ton of stuff and don't remember all the details of projects that I've worked on

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone started over outside of tech?

#213

Post by tristor »

This is basically my FIRE plan. I want to be a mechanic on high end cars / folk’s toys. I made an attempt, but I had to relocate which stopped this plan from succeeding, and I now need a lot more capital to FIRE.

I look forward to wrenching instead of sitting all day. Which I know is ironic because I know a lot of mechanics who feel exactly the opposite.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone started over outside of tech?

#214

Post by mbustamanter »

lettergram wrote: post #132

I’m still in tech and absolutely still love AI / ML research. That said, I’ve started a farm. Mostly because: (a) I enjoy being independent and growing the majority of my own food enables that (b) its very satisfying to provide for yourself and family (C) there’s a very real possibility that AGI takes away many jobs; having land, your own resources, etc is real wealth (D) I can work 100% remote and hire someone where…

Thank you for sharing your experience, I'm really interested in this! I daydream daily of going rural while still building technology, also I agree with you that real wealth like land is essential for the future given current trends for jobs (Adam Smith spoke in his time about the real wealth of owning land), I suspect but not sure completely that starting a family in a farm will be advantageous since most education could potentially be descentralized. Also interested in different economic communities for different scales (co-ops and such), I happen to have read several localist advocates.

That being said, do you have any resource material or references on this? I'm on the verge on making the move and I will be starting soon.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone started over outside of tech?

#215

Post by detourdog »

bityard wrote: post #199
detourdog wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work as a janitor in the building I own and I love it. The problems people bring to me are so realistic and easy to solve. The worse thing that could happen is I have to call a tradesmen. I have about 24 bills to pay a year. The real world happens at such a manageable scale compared to technology. The stress of being a System Administrator was such a low-level hum I didn't know it was there.

Wow! I've been dabbling in real estate investment as a potential escape hatch from tech and I'd love to hear more about this!

What can I say. I bought an old school house around 2 miles from my house spent a fortune turning into a mixed use building. Each classroom is a studio apartment. I had a fiber line installed. I guess the only thing I can say is that 8 units was a magic number for me. The idea is that if one should pay about 25% as rent. 8 units represent 200% of the average income of my town. The downside is that all the serious building code laws start above 5 units. This means I must comply with ADA, Fire protection, and many others. I don't resent this. They all seem like fair if costly rules. I prefer a single building to multiple smaller units. A single building helps me focus and I only have one location to be at besides home.

view.cogs.com

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone started over outside of tech?

#216

Post by d0m »

Personally, I used to be very passionate about coding. but over time I've realized that I'm more excited about products/design and working with great people. I know that going into management is often frowned upon among engineers, but I personally love it because I can continue to work on products without constantly banging my head about compiler errors or annoying bugs. Basically, what I'm trying to say is that it's possible to be passionate about building products without having to sit and code all day.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone started over outside of tech?

#217

Post by kevviiinn »

plonk wrote: post #208
LanceH wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're saying to put the saws on the vehicles...

Requiring a driver's license for power tools isn't that bad an idea. That would probably be as popular as banning kitchen knives though.

Wait till you hear about gun injuries in the US

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone started over outside of tech?

#218

Post by Eumenes »

0xDEF wrote: post #37

You can learn programming and get a lucrative career without a CS degree. Are there other fields where that is possible?

Sales (can easily pull 200k OTE with 3-5 years of exp), tech recruiting (easily make 150k with ~ 5 years of experience if you focus on SWE/tech), design (companies are dying for product designers right now)

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone started over outside of tech?

#219

Post by mauvehaus »

OliverGuy wrote: post #177
mauvehaus wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's me! It also generated a rather large discussion here and if you want to read how things were going up to that point, I posted a lengthy comment there: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24541964 How am I doing now? Still good, still grateful to be married to somebody who gets good health insurance through their job. Still need to update my website a bit (is that work ever really done?). Still working on the…

Do you still have all your fingers?

Sure do!

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone started over outside of tech?

#220

Post by pickledish »

brookst wrote: post #157
User23 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the opportunity to remove my finger with a table saw This is a solved problem. SawStop will reduce the injury from amputation to somewhere between laceration and a pinch.

I think they were using it as shorthand for all of the physical risks that physical fabricators have, rather than saying circular saws are the one single risk and there is no mitigation.

People might find it fun to know there is a literary term for this -- synecdoche!

> a figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the whole or vice versa, as in Cleveland won by six runs (meaning “Cleveland's baseball team”)

(in this case, "circular saws" representing the whole class of dangerous power tools)

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