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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?

#391

Post by SamWhited »

shaman1 wrote: post #386
gavinray wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you going to lose your house? You bought it while you had tech money and the bicycle mechanic money can't pay for it now? Have you considered doing some consulting or something on the side? So sorry to hear this.

Have you considered cashing out? Meaning selling the house so you get you equity back. Maybe you can use that to move somewhere more affordable and start over.

I've thought about it, but I don't think that's actually an option. Renting is just going back to throwing money into some asshole landlord making profit off of other people not wanting to be houseless, and everywhere else where I'd have any possible desire to live is getting more and more expensive too, so even though I'm lucky in that my house has gone up a lot it doesn't actually do me any good if I want to buy again and I'd just be wasting that equity slowly by renting (and then be back in the same position in a few years having burnt all that equity up). Might as well try and figure out a way to stay instead; if I fail and lose it I'll just be in the same position I otherwise would be in, just a few years earlier.

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

#392

Post by withinboredom »

In 2007, I was done. I joined the military and went to Interrogation School. Those four years were some of the most insane years of my life. I wouldn’t do it again, I’m not even sure if I would recommend it.

I still “did tech” while in the military though. I bought a satellite dish in a war zone, and sold internet to my colleagues. I learned so much about networking, proxies, dealing with fair use problems, … it was kinda fun sometimes. Except when I just wanted to go to sleep.

Then this one time, I made some prank calling websites (using Skype under the hood, of all things. Twilio really made life easy!) and that shit got me in so much trouble. I was glad to shut it down.

Eventually, I bought a sailboat and worked at startups for a couple of years before meeting my wife. But man, than 5-6 year break was great for me. I highly recommend some kind of break if you think you need a break. As they say in sailing, “if you think you might need X, you do need X. Don’t wait until it’s too late.”

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

#393

Post by mrsofty »

adamsmith143 wrote: post #368
mrsofty wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope options allow you to choose your probability so it's NOT 50/50. We tend to sell premium with prob of profit of 80 - 90% it's less premium YOU are mistaken.

Lol ok this guy thinks he stumbled upon a free money machine where can make money on 90% of trades. Day Traders are among the most delusional people on the planet.

you REALLY don't understand this do you. The entire options market is based on this principal. I have NO idea where you get the idea we day trade. I will try again as it seems that serious investors are reading this thread.

Our approach is to pick a underlying which has an attractive premium for our risk tolerance. To do so we normally look for something whose price is > $50, has high liquidity and has a implied volatility which is attractive to us. We also consider the historical volatility trend for 20 10 5 days and compare it to the 30d implied vol to get a feel for it's cheapness. THEN we look at the 45 day option and SELL premium against that. We tend to look for a probability of profit of 70 -80% and that defines the premium.

In short it's NOT day trading, it's NOT a magic formula and it's NOT a scam. Should anyone wish to listen to ACTUAL serious traders working everyday to help retail investors then look at tastylive.com. Again, I am NOT being paid for this. I just am answering the OP's question regarding what we did post 5 startups to keep us busy. Our approach allows us to risk 25 % of our capital ( just in case it goes wrong we don't lose everything) we get about 10 - 30% return on 100% of our capex. we use the kelly criterion to define our thinking regarding when to get out when we get it wrong. We mostly use naked puts but in the current environment we consider back ratios or spreads. Does ANY of this sound like day trading or some magic formula. I don't really care about your opinion but I wanted to ensure that anyone reading this thread could have something to reality check against other than your "comments"

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

#394

Post by mrsofty »

selimthegrim wrote: post #380
mrsofty wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was in Silicon valley for most of my time, lucky to have Tom Perkins as our Chairman and Ceo for our first startup as he taught us how to ignore the "shiny" tech. Our experience with Julia has led us to believe that it's a language with a great future behind it. We're going to work with the Carbon guys to highlight lessons learnt.

I look forward to any blogs or publications you have forthcoming.

sorry, not sure why we would post a blog or write anything on this topic. It's just our practical experience based on trying to use julia. What I can say is that we were VERY impressed with DataFrames.jl and Pluto.jl the people on discourse were excellent. In fact the community was top notch but there were too many red flags for us. I think the Carbon people seem to be taking an interesting route and we will discuss our issues with Julia with them when we meet up. This could be a case where late moving advantage pays off. Sorry to have given you the impression we would write anything.

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

#395

Post by otikik »

throwaway665654 wrote: post #107
walledstance wrote: post #24

Teaching. I moved from a big tech company to teaching. Teaching is the hardest job I’ve ever done, and requires entire new skills. Teacher pay, depending on where you are, can be real low compared to FAANG money, but damn do I sleep well at night knowing that I help people. There is nothing like watching someone struggle and then suddenly understanding the subject. But seriously, it is a hard job. You learn quickly t…

I did the other way around. Went from teaching (university level) to FAANG. I could discuss for hours about the pros and cons of each job, but the bottom line is that I can't afford not earning that money. I'll save every single dollar I can from my SWE job and think about something else when I'm laid off, but I'm not leaving on my own.

You sound like a prisoner. No disrespect intended. It really sounds like you would be happier somewhere else. I wish you that you find that place soon.

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

#396

Post by emmelaich »

detourdog wrote: post #215
bityard wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 bui…

That looks like an excellent place for a small company offsite weekend. Or week.

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

#397

Post by SavageBeast »

KyeRussell wrote: post #226
causi wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially if you've done it your whole professional life. The type of people who see a major tech company charging for lunches in the company cafeteria and then write articles about them trying to starve their employees would curl up and die the first time a customer screamed at them because their pizza had black olives on 60% of it instead of half.

I work in tech, but not for a big tech company or a hip funded startup, and this weird “unionist language bastardised by the developer on $300k/yr not getting his (yes, his) butter chicken paid for” stuff is just endlessly cringey to me. Whilst I wouldn’t be seen dead working in a place like that, y’all really don’t know how good you’ve got it.

YUP! Came here looking to see if anyone called this out and you did. If you didn't I was going to.

I don't love working in tech the way I used to but I do still love cashing those paychecks! You can do what you love sure... or you can make the money you want. Almost nobody can do both.

As for me - I know theres bullshit every where you go and all jobs have sucky parts and I prefer this devil because I in fact do get paid enough to put up with this shit.

How about compartmentalizing your job and being happy after putting in 8h of work? Also, reading HN kinda bums me out on tech too at times. The Instagram Effect where you feel like everyone besides you is doing something cooler than fixing bugs in the CRUD application your company sells.

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

#398

Post by quickthrower2 »

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #116
artagnon wrote: post #66

I used to work as a compiler engineer in the US for several years, before deciding to try starting over at the age of 30, in pure mathematics. I moved from the US to Paris in pursuit of an affordable mathematics education, and spent two years in a Masters program. I did have a considerable amount of savings, but it was very risky nevertheless: if it didn't work out, I'd be out-of-touch with compilers, and it would be…

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"

Interviewer: we got 3 great candidates to the final stage we need to pick one. This chap is strong but he will need 3 months to get up to speed after the hiatus. Let’s go with the others.

Depends alot on the supply and demand of compiler engineers though.

Could be interviewer: finally a competent compiler engineer! Handcuff him to that gold bar!

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

#399

Post by subpixel »

fsloth wrote: post #174
elteto wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you talking about college? Having kids in general is very, very expensive. More so if you want to provide them with opportunities and activities as they grow up.

Having kids is not terribly expensive everywhere. Not all need to have super expensive hobbies either. I guess there is a huge regional difference - starting from cost daycare.

Good preschool is $10k+. In large swaths of the country decent schools only exist where housing is prohibitively expensive. The combination of camp and afternoon care in the summer is thousands of dollars a month.

It all adds up and while you can get clothes at goodwill there are some expenses that are unavoidable and scale linearly with quality.

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

#400

Post by 000ooo000 »

sleton38234234 wrote: post #270
ewhanley wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like a total win. You studied what you wanted, didn't completely wipe out your finances, and successfully re-opened a door you thought may have been permanently closed. I view self actualization as a far more important component of a life well-lived than your savings balance.

but he's back to where he started in the beginning. I didn't sound like there was any more self actualization, after he went back.

Probably not a fair judgement to make based on 4-5 short paragraphs in a HN comment.
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