I quit the tech industry • Hacker News Board

Re: I quit the tech industry

#521

Post by kelnos » Wed, Jun 10, 2015, 11:50 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #414

nostrademons wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So go get it. A number of growth businesses - Uber, AirBnB, Stripe, Lyft, Zenefits, Slack - are hiring aggressively. Join one of them and in 4-5 years of slaving away at the computer you'll probably have the cash (and desire) to throw this kind of tantrum.

Too late. Each of your example companies are beyond the point where becoming the next employee has a high likelihood of returning a windfall in 4 years. Life-changing equity tends to go to early (single digit) employees.

If you're a fairly experienced developer or manager, you can join a company 18 months or so prior to an IPO and make out like a bandit. There's still plenty of money to be made by joining most of the companies the grandparent mentions.

Single-digit employees more often than not get screwed when considering the greater risk they take (risk not too much lower than the founders, who usually keep several tens of percent ownership). 1% of a company post-seed dilutes a lot after a few VC rounds, so you end up with a great strike price, but not much more %-wise (what really matters) compared to later hires.

Also I think you (as many do, and as I used to) vastly overestimate what retirement money is. In general you can take your yearly expenses (not income), multiply that by around 25, and that's all you really need to retire on, and keep the same lifestyle. (Sure, if you want to increase the cost of your lifestyle, add a couple kids, etc., you need to take that into account.)

Re: I quit the tech industry

#522

Post by kelnos » Wed, Jun 10, 2015, 11:57 PM UTC

moskie wrote: post #518

zxcvvcxz wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The notion that one should consider pharmaceuticals as a solution to not deriving happiness from a desk job really is outrageous. And that's just from a statistical standpoint. It's very unlikely to be the "right" solution for that person. Same goes for ADHD medication for boys (yes, predominantly boys) in grade school because they can't sit still and concentrate as they're expected at such a young age. I find it abs…

The issue is that this post screams clinical depression to me. Yes, he's also describing a shitty job, one that he will probably benefit from quitting. But it is also common for the feelings he's having to be the result of more than just a shitty job. Also, people in healthy mental states prevent these situations before they get to the breaking point. There's so many factors to consider, and none of us have all the i…

I don't see it that way at all, and I'd like to suggest that attempting to diagnose clinical depression from a blog post seems a bit ridiculous. She doesn't sound depressed; she sounds like someone happy to be mostly financially independent and able to pursue whatever projects she wants, not something someone else is telling her to do.

I've felt very similarly over the past few years, and I'm working to build enough of a war chest to make it a reality. I'm not depressed, I'm not burned out (at least not in a general sense; I do occasionally burn out on specific aspects and feel the need to pull back)... I just don't derive too much pleasure building the same things over and over for other people who don't actually understand technology work and have different priorities than I do. I've been much luckier at my current job, but I still feel that way occasionally.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#523

Post by bcheung » Thu, Jun 11, 2015, 12:02 AM UTC

tmorton wrote: post #495

bcheung wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a fan of Dave Ramsey. He's great if you don't know finance but his advice is geared towards people in the poor and lower middle class brackets that want to stay there. Same with Suze Orman. Get an overfunded whole life policy and put the extra money into that. Google "Infinite Banking" or "Cash Flow Banking" to understand how it works. Current guaranteed rates are 4.5% with dividends it comes out to around 5.5% (…

Whole life policies are pretty terrible, because they're high-fee and opaque. It's very difficult to compare them like-to-like, and that's on purpose - each insurance company wants to sell a slightly different set of guarantees, risks, benefits and fees. Term life insurance is what you need to protect your family. 401ks, IRAs, then simple index funds are superior investment vehicles. Here's the really short guide to…

If you are going to have life insurance until you die, then whole life insurance is cheaper. 95% of term life insurance policies expire and are not renewed. The reason is because term insurance gets extremely expensive as you get older. WL is the same cost every year until you die. Include the cost of term insurance for a person who is 99 years old and term life is extremely expensive. It doesn't make sense to me to have insurance when there is close to 0% chance of you dying and to have no insurance when there is near 100% chance of you dying.

Plus there are the tax and loan benefits of WL. They are inferior with 401k and IRA plans. You can't take out a loan whenever you want. You can only take out a certain amount (usually up to 50%) and only under very strict circumstances. There are maximum contributions with 401k. No so with WL. 401k's are taxed as ordinary income. There are more fees over the longer run with 401ks (2-3% every year vs just high front load with WL). You can't withdraw before 59.5 without penalties (except for 72t). There are strict provisions on when you have to pay the loan back.

With WL you can take out your money whenever you want with no penalties. You can take out loans whenever you want and pay them back whenever you want or just not pay them back at all. Most smart people will just take out loans against their policy and effectively access their money tax free. You can't get that with 401k and IRAs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZSwnPApNWs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GP2d3BhzWB0

Re: I quit the tech industry

#524

Post by steve-howard » Thu, Jun 11, 2015, 12:07 AM UTC

tsotha wrote: post #474

cmdrfred wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stealing credit for other peoples work aside. The hacker mindset to me is to do things in the simplest way possible. Programmer: "I managed to migrate the database with the program I wrote over the past two months" Hacker: "I migrated the database with 3 lines of code"

Programmer: "But you didn't account for all the edge cases. Your solution seems to work at first glance, but now someone else is going to have to redo what you've done and fix the data problems that resulted from the half-assed job you did."

In my experience, a careless engineer will create something brittle and unwieldy that works at first glance, declare success, and move on, leaving others to deal with a painful mess. A thoughtful engineer will think hard about design, comment where there be dragons, and often get rewarded by being reassigned to one of the aforementioned messes.

The enduring tension of this line of work, in my opinion, is how to balance my desire to take pride in my work with my desire not to be a thankless janitor for the chronically cavalier. Not to mention that there's value in a product that gets out the door while the competitors are still trying to make things perfect.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#525

Post by peu4000 » Thu, Jun 11, 2015, 12:11 AM UTC

kelnos wrote: post #522

moskie wrote: post #518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is that this post screams clinical depression to me. Yes, he's also describing a shitty job, one that he will probably benefit from quitting. But it is also common for the feelings he's having to be the result of more than just a shitty job. Also, people in healthy mental states prevent these situations before they get to the breaking point. There's so many factors to consider, and none of us have all the i…

I don't see it that way at all, and I'd like to suggest that attempting to diagnose clinical depression from a blog post seems a bit ridiculous. She doesn't sound depressed; she sounds like someone happy to be mostly financially independent and able to pursue whatever projects she wants, not something someone else is telling her to do. I've felt very similarly over the past few years, and I'm working to build enough…

> who don't actually understand technology work and have different priorities than I do

I'm no expert or anything, but I expect this is pretty much the same in any industry. People really don't care about your work until they need something or you're blocking them.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#526

Post by mark-r » Thu, Jun 11, 2015, 12:30 AM UTC

bcheung wrote: post #519

mark-r wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your math is wrong. The loan balance isn't reduced by the entire payment, the interest is subtracted first. And it's on the beginning balance, not the end balance. At one time there were progressive payment loans where the balance actually went up the first few years, because the payment didn't cover the entire interest. Year 1 - Make a $1000 payment, lose $500 interest for a $9500 balance. Your investment yields $50…

You can apply the interest before or after the payment, it doesn't really make that much difference, especially when you pay monthly and it compounds daily. The more often it compounds the less of a difference it makes between interest computed before or after the payment. It's simpler and more accurate to say that the interest is added to the loan balance and then payments are subtracted. They don't subtract interes…

OK, have it your way. Here's a spreadsheet to compare a loan+investment with simply saving the payments. I changed the payment from a nice round $1000 to $1010.24 so that the loan would be paid off in exactly 14 periods. On the left, you see the investment grow while the loan is paid down. On the right, you see an account grow as you add $1010.24 to it each time and collect 5% interest on the balance. They reach the same value at the end.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12NGCBeup3rCygMsSbcOn...

As for the origin of mortgage money, you're forgetting about the secondary market. Lots of loans originated by banks get bundled up and sold off. That's a very lucrative business for some banks, because they can collect fees for the origination and get their money back right away with no risk.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#527

Post by peu4000 » Thu, Jun 11, 2015, 12:30 AM UTC

eevee wrote: post #336

ZanyProgrammer wrote: post #267

"I don’t know how to turn this into dollars yet. Hopefully I’ll figure that out." This just oozes privilege and naivete. If only most people scraping along had this kind of safety net.

I am definitely hecka privileged. What would you have me do? Keep working a job I don't enjoy, out of guilt that other people have to do the same?

You should definitely do what makes you happy.

However, the blog post seems a bit braggy. A lot of us experience the same things, but we don't have a safety net(other than the gubmit I guess), it breeds jealousy. If I were in the same situation I would have left off the part about cashing out and paying the mortgage and not created a patreon without something to back it up immediately.

It would have been better if it just listed the reasons you're leaving and maybe some insight into how you might fix some problems.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#528

Post by ZanyProgrammer » Thu, Jun 11, 2015, 12:33 AM UTC

peu4000 wrote: post #527

eevee wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am definitely hecka privileged. What would you have me do? Keep working a job I don't enjoy, out of guilt that other people have to do the same?

You should definitely do what makes you happy. However, the blog post seems a bit braggy. A lot of us experience the same things, but we don't have a safety net(other than the gubmit I guess), it breeds jealousy. If I were in the same situation I would have left off the part about cashing out and paying the mortgage and not created a patreon without something to back it up immediately. It would have been better if it…

Well said.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#529

Post by artmageddon » Thu, Jun 11, 2015, 12:44 AM UTC

chrismarlow9 wrote: post #447

JDiculous wrote: post #159

The author's rant is not specific to the tech industry at all, it's the case for practically all full-time jobs. Full-time jobs generally suck. Spending the bulk of every weekday in an office doing what you're told is not fun. If it was, then people would do it for free. Day to day work is generally unglamorous and boring. I think part of the blame is that tech employers permeate this notion that one must "love" thei…

This. I waste 2 hours a day commuting. 10 hours a week I'm sitting in the car doing nothing, for no real reason other than some company culture nonsense.

I've been there before; I have a 2 hour commute door to door from central NJ to NYC, and back, each day. I don't know how viable it is for you, but do whatever it takes to make the change, assuming you're not tied to a mortgage and there just aren't any jobs nearby. After doing it for 6.5 years I was finally able to get it down from 120mins each way to 20mins each way, and it made such a huge difference in quality of life.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#530

Post by Devthrowaway80 » Thu, Jun 11, 2015, 12:48 AM UTC

nomel wrote: post #497

lighthawk wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's likely the author brought it on themselves by pushing too hard. Don't fall into the trap of thinking this. It is the case some of the time, but not all of the time. When I first started working in tech in the mid-90s, it was only a year or two before I was considering going back to school in music or to get an MBA. Since about 2004, I've known that I would like to abandon the tech industry. It is now 2015. I h…

> * Talk to a psychiatrist and get some meds. Do you have experience with this? I'm afraid if I'm on meds, I'll end up neglecting my life even more, rather than taking these strong hints from my mind and body that this isn't the way it should be. I would absolutely love to hear any perspective on this from anyone.

I'm currently on an antidepressant and antipsychotic for a variant of depression called major depression with psychotic effects - basically, if depression gets bad enough you can start to lose touch with reality.

I was afraid to go on meds, but I'm very glad that I did. I have stopped neglecting my life, because I am able to go about my day without that 1000 pound rock on my back. It makes life much, much easier.

They are not "happy pills" in the sense that they make you relentlessly optimistic, but they take away the incredible pessimism and irrational despair that characterizes depression. I still have good and bad days, but they are related to actual events and not just relentlessly bad for no reason.

They are not without side effects (which thankfully for me have been very mild and have gone away after a few months - mild nausea if I take them on an empty stomach, some sexual stuff for a few months) but on the balance it's been incredibly positive.

You might hear some doubts about their efficacy, but from what I've read it's proportional to how badly off you are - the worse you're feeling, the more likely it is due to a chemical problem rather than just everyday sadness.