Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Working for someone vs. doing your own thing

tik.dev

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 233 posts

Re: Working for someone vs. doing your own thing

#41

Post by hanniabu »

mc3 wrote: post #26

A day job doesn't have to be your side project's enemy. If you do web dev at work you get paid to do something that makes you efficient at web dev. Then you go home and work on your side project and you don't need to spend hours struggling with webpack or why str=((num || fallback) + '') works, so your side project is done more productively too.

Come home at ~6pm, make/have dinner ~7pm, exercise ~8pm, get home and shower ~9pm. At this point there's not much time to do work, especially if you have to go grocery shopping, do laundry, clean, have a family, or any number of other misc things like get a haircut or have clothes dry cleaned.

Re: Working for someone vs. doing your own thing

#42

Post by opportune »

Funny they compare working at a big tech company vs starting a business as dichotomies. I actually think there is a lot to be said about saving up a lot of liquid investments at big tech cos, then using that as personal runway/seed capital for your startup. That is my plan, anyway.

Having a project that already has ARR is a massive headstart over most people too. Especially if you are close to ramen-profitable, then quitting to run it full time only requires sacrificing relatively assured opportunity cost.

I don’t know how it works when you’re on a visa but since I’m not, I know I would probably just quit as soon as I had enough liquidity. You don’t have to be married to your first business for life. It’s an amazing opportunity, not only necessarily financially, but also in terms of learning potential.

Re: Working for someone vs. doing your own thing

#43

Post by gketuma »

Thorentis wrote: post #33
tempsy wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is your definition of prohibitively expensive? I've bought a gold plan off the exchange in California for Kaiser and it's $530/mo with no deductible. That's lower than I expected.

> $530/mo Wow. Just wow. As an Australian, I cannot fathom having to include $530 into my monthly budget just to ensure I don't end up homeless (or heavily in debt) if I get really sick. I'm not a socialist (I'm quite a centrist when it comes to economic policies), but something about the US system absolutely must change.

That’s actually on the cheap side. If you have say a wife and 2 kids, you pay around $1500 a month on the health exchange.

Re: Working for someone vs. doing your own thing

#44

Post by toasterlovin »

Thorentis wrote: post #33
tempsy wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is your definition of prohibitively expensive? I've bought a gold plan off the exchange in California for Kaiser and it's $530/mo with no deductible. That's lower than I expected.

> $530/mo Wow. Just wow. As an Australian, I cannot fathom having to include $530 into my monthly budget just to ensure I don't end up homeless (or heavily in debt) if I get really sick. I'm not a socialist (I'm quite a centrist when it comes to economic policies), but something about the US system absolutely must change.

Medicare and Medicaid provide free healthcare to many Americans. Obamacare subsidizes health insurance for many additional Americans. For the most part, you only pay full cost for insurance if you can afford it.

Re: Working for someone vs. doing your own thing

#45

Post by toohotatopic »

hanniabu wrote: post #38
daxfohl wrote: post #4

There's a pretty high correlation between parental wealth and success as a startup founder. I assume it's because of the safety net. My friends who have been successful (and who had blue-collar upbringings like me, and all in mid-40's now) all worked full time jobs until their side projects were self-sustaining. None of them hit unicorn status, but I think all of them have lived healthy, fruitful lives. Also note by…

I wonder networking has to do with any of it. If you're poor you'd be very lucky to have connections that matter, whereas if you're born into a wealthy family there's likely to be somebody of value either of themselves or somebody they know and can introduce you to.

I would say it is not so much the connections you have but the connections that you can make. Growing up wealthy gives you the background to connect with unknown wealthy people easily. There is no need to be introduced because you can be familiar immediately.

Re: Working for someone vs. doing your own thing

#46

Post by mc3 »

opportune wrote: post #36
moretai wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally just get so drained after a day of work, on top of exercising, and some sort of recreational activity would be nice. The work isn't hard. It's the thinking that goes around the work that is the draining part. Especially if you want to keep a job. Others can perhaps compartmentalize a bit better than I can.

It depends on what you do at work a lot I think. Working on greenfield projects is so much less mentally draining than working on some old thing with only 10% of its functionality encoded in tribal knowledge that interacts with like a 100 different services that you need to constantly be learning about.

Definitely. Greenfield is rare in my experience though. And there is greenfield solo (awesome) and greenfield team of 20 all chucking code in (instant legacy!)

Re: Working for someone vs. doing your own thing

#47

Post by BlameKaneda »

daxfohl wrote: post #4

There's a pretty high correlation between parental wealth and success as a startup founder. I assume it's because of the safety net. My friends who have been successful (and who had blue-collar upbringings like me, and all in mid-40's now) all worked full time jobs until their side projects were self-sustaining. None of them hit unicorn status, but I think all of them have lived healthy, fruitful lives. Also note by…

I know someone who fits this bill. They grew up in a well-to-do household and quit their high-paying job to travel and build a startup. They had enough money to quit, but even if they didn't they'd still live comfortably.

They're also at a big advantage because they used to work in Silicon Valley and have a lot of connections in the industry.

Re: Working for someone vs. doing your own thing

#48

Post by tempsy »

Thorentis wrote: post #33
tempsy wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is your definition of prohibitively expensive? I've bought a gold plan off the exchange in California for Kaiser and it's $530/mo with no deductible. That's lower than I expected.

> $530/mo Wow. Just wow. As an Australian, I cannot fathom having to include $530 into my monthly budget just to ensure I don't end up homeless (or heavily in debt) if I get really sick. I'm not a socialist (I'm quite a centrist when it comes to economic policies), but something about the US system absolutely must change.

the difference is probably negligible when you sum up taxes

and like others said you would qualify for either free or subsidized insurance if you were low income

Re: Working for someone vs. doing your own thing

#49

Post by ForHackernews »

toasterlovin wrote: post #40
daxfohl wrote: post #4

There's a pretty high correlation between parental wealth and success as a startup founder. I assume it's because of the safety net. My friends who have been successful (and who had blue-collar upbringings like me, and all in mid-40's now) all worked full time jobs until their side projects were self-sustaining. None of them hit unicorn status, but I think all of them have lived healthy, fruitful lives. Also note by…

> There's a pretty high correlation between parental wealth and success as a startup founder. I assume it's because of the safety net. Could also be genetic. You'd have to design an experiment (or, more likely, find a natural experiment) that controls for genetics to know.

Are children adopted into wealthy families disproportionately start-up founders? I'd probably guess so, relative to the overall population.

Re: Working for someone vs. doing your own thing

#50

Post by dkersten »

tempsy wrote: post #28
overcast wrote: post #5

Probably the biggest hurdle is dealing with healthcare on your own, it's just prohibitively expensive to deal with alone in the US. Multiple incomes is where it's at, at least until one of the projects takes off to cover cost of living and healthcare nonsense.

What is your definition of prohibitively expensive? I've bought a gold plan off the exchange in California for Kaiser and it's $530/mo with no deductible. That's lower than I expected.

$530/month sounds insanely expensive to me as someone outside of the US. My private health insurance costs me approx $100/month. 530 is over half my rent (outside of a major city though, in the major cities rent is much higher)
Post reply on HN