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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

#211

Post by DVassallo »

catacombs wrote: post #190

> I joined Amazon as an entry level developer. Within 3.5 years I had been promoted twice to a senior engineer, and I was practically guaranteed another promotion to principal engineer this year if I had stayed. > My potential at the company was high, I was told. > My esteem within the company grew along the years and I was regarded an expert and a leader in my field. > People looked up to me and respected me. > I ma…

I don't need all those things anymore (and never did). I've visualized not being able to pull this off. That was very important for me to take the plunge.

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

#212

Post by DVassallo »

thorwasdfasdf wrote: post #191
catacombs wrote: post #190

> I joined Amazon as an entry level developer. Within 3.5 years I had been promoted twice to a senior engineer, and I was practically guaranteed another promotion to principal engineer this year if I had stayed. > My potential at the company was high, I was told. > My esteem within the company grew along the years and I was regarded an expert and a leader in my field. > People looked up to me and respected me. > I ma…

He thinks all these things are attributable to his own performance, and that all he has to do is get hired by another FAANG and things will be just the same. Later, he may well be hirable but this type of advancement doesn't happen without a serious amount of timing/Luck and those stock market gains aren't typical either. I guess you could look at it as an act of generosity. the more people quit from those jobs, the…

I'm totally fine not getting back the same compensation, level, company, etc, if I had to get a job again. I'm relying on being able to find a job that covers my expenses though, which I'm reasonably confident in.

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

#213

Post by DVassallo »

jacknews wrote: post #210

"My target is to cover my family’s expenses before I run out of savings" On the one hand I applaud people chasing their dreams, taking risks to start something new etc, but on the other hand, it seems like he's putting a lot of risk on the family and even seems a bit selfish to me. Wouldn't he be better off starting a fulfilling hobby, or trying to negotiate a 3 or 4-day work-week and starting a side business, etc?

I couldn't do a side business while working from Amazon. My employment contract prevented it.

But even if I was allowed, I probably still would have left first. It's hard working full-time, raising kids, and doing a side-business. If the circumstances were drastically different I could have done that, but I didn't need to.

About risk to the family: If I don't manage to pull this off for whatever reason (run out of money, get bored, find it too hard, etc), I'll just go back on the job market. I promised my family that our lifestyle won't change, and if our savings drop below a certain threshold I'll get a job and make sure our expenses are covered. For catastrophic stuff I got abundant insurance (life, disability, health) to protect the family. If we end up spending all our savings, we can consider it an advance from retirement and I’ll make up for it later.

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

#214

Post by DVassallo »

ryanSrich wrote: post #154
icedchai wrote: post #110

Why not stay there and milk it for a few years? Once you have that safety net built up, there is little reason to care. So do as little as possible... Come in late, leave early. Do this a little bit at a time. With your good reputation, you can probably get another mil out of them.

Yeah. Or like why not build something on the side first? If he was in fact only working 40 hours (which is mind blowing, but I guess there’s no reason to lie), he could have easily bootstrapped an idea to revenue in 6-12 months all while making that insane amazon money.

My employment contract prevented any kind of outside work so that wasn't an option. Even if I could, it would still have been hard. I'm making this change to improve my lifestyle, and working nights and weekends in addition to a full-time job and raising young 2 kids doesn't sound like an improvement. Maybe if I was desperate I would have, but it wasn't the case.

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

#215

Post by DVassallo »

dennisgorelik wrote: post #202

> doing things that I’d rather not do What were these things? Do you think you would be able to avoid these things at your new business?

I had to disagree and commit sometimes or commit to a compromise that I didn't like. I didn't mean anything nefarious. Just the usual stuff that happens when doing something with a group of people and many stakeholders.

I plan to avoid this by being in charge :) ... If in the future I hire employees or get a partner, some of this might still happen obviously. But I still expect it to be significantly less than at a corporate job.

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

#217

Post by x15 »

I'm currently working alone making less than 10K per year. My networking is not great and I wasn't able to land a job in many smaller than Amazon companies. I wouldn't leave even a 50K job, let alone an order of magnitude of that.

It's his life and his choices, but many of us have it quite hard.

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

#218

Post by kamaal »

If you are making $500K an year. By many a definition, you are already on a way to NOT needing to work ever in a few years, than even working for yourself.

Why would you throwaway an opportunity to amass like $5 million in 10 years, and then put it in a retirement fund and just retire. Instead of throwing it all away and starting all over again on something that is known to work in only exceptional cases(start up lottery).

Looks good on paper and all. But not a smart move.

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

#219

Post by DougN7 »

olavgg wrote: post #85
DougN7 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 yours…

That’s awesome - congratulations! I’m glad it worked for you.

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

#220

Post by kamaal »

catacombs wrote: post #190

> I joined Amazon as an entry level developer. Within 3.5 years I had been promoted twice to a senior engineer, and I was practically guaranteed another promotion to principal engineer this year if I had stayed. > My potential at the company was high, I was told. > My esteem within the company grew along the years and I was regarded an expert and a leader in my field. > People looked up to me and respected me. > I ma…

Not being rude to the author, but I wonder how much of this is naiveté of young age.

He definitely had early career success. Like most people in his situation it can be very hard to understand how hard life can be at the opposite end. When you are young, and have this kind of success without prior equivalent failure it can be hard to grasp how much you'd have to work to make that much on pure hard work and merit. It's easy to spend and throw it away, or even not respect the uniqueness and blessed situation you have now.

Then you reach some thing like 35-40, and realize you have no luck going for yourself anymore. The best years are behind you. And you have to put in life devastating hours only to fail. And there is nothing you can do but suffer through it.

Back from where I come we have a proverb in Dakhni Urdu which goes like this: People make the worst possible decisions of their lives when their stomach is full.

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