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Ask HN: What you up to? (Who doesn't want to be hired?)
441–450 of 874 posts
Re: Ask HN: What you up to? (Who doesn't want to be hired?)
#442I won the IPO lottery and I’m in the middle ground between rich enough to never work again but not quite rich enough for the yachts/mansions/private jets lifestyle. I haven’t worked in 6 months and I’m struggling to find a larger meaning to my life beyond getting yet another tech job. I’ve considered going to college for a math degree, moving to my parents home country, and joining the military (among many other opti…
What were the events leading up to getting such a big equity pay out? What # employee were you? Was it options/RSUs? What % of the company do you have? How long did you work there? I ask because I am at a series B, and I'm very optimistic for our future. But I am only employee #100 or so and don't see a big payout for me barring a multi billion dollar exit (a little too far fetched). I'm just curious how it all goes…
I think you are in the sweet spot. Equity compensation drops fast for early employees. Roughly, the first employee might get 1-2%, but by employee #10 it is down to 0.25-0.1%. At that level, you would still need a billion dollar exit to get into FU money territory.
And keep in mind, at the early stage startups salaries are often lower and the startup is likely pre product market fit. So it is much more risky. Employee #100 feels like the sweet spot because it likely means the startup has found product market fit and is hitting the accelerator re growth, but you still get a taste of early employee equity.
Of course this is just in terms of maximizing "IPO lottery" potential. If you are trying to maximize probable net worth, FAANG probably wins due to higher compensation.
Re: Ask HN: What you up to? (Who doesn't want to be hired?)
#443Re: Ask HN: What you up to? (Who doesn't want to be hired?)
#444I won the IPO lottery and I’m in the middle ground between rich enough to never work again but not quite rich enough for the yachts/mansions/private jets lifestyle. I haven’t worked in 6 months and I’m struggling to find a larger meaning to my life beyond getting yet another tech job. I’ve considered going to college for a math degree, moving to my parents home country, and joining the military (among many other opti…
Happy Birthday!
Re: Ask HN: What you up to? (Who doesn't want to be hired?)
#445I won the IPO lottery and I’m in the middle ground between rich enough to never work again but not quite rich enough for the yachts/mansions/private jets lifestyle. I haven’t worked in 6 months and I’m struggling to find a larger meaning to my life beyond getting yet another tech job. I’ve considered going to college for a math degree, moving to my parents home country, and joining the military (among many other opti…
Recommend reading "Four Thousand Weeks" by Oliver Burkeman. It's about time management, but not the traditional "how to get everything done" sense. He talks about what a normal person can do with their "4000 weeks", or, roughly speaking, their life. If you do decide to go back to work, I'm sure you'll approach it in a very different way. I'm a lot older than you, but I'm also 6 months off work on a break. I'm doing a lot of non-tech stuff (DIY, cycling, running, reading, adopting two greyhounds). But I am planning on heading back to work soon. I didn't win the IPO lottery, but my house is paid off and I live frugally. I could probably do nothing for another year, but it's time I went back to work. I'm just going to approach it very differently this time around. My father is very old, and I lost my sister three years ago. People matter.
Re: Ask HN: What you up to? (Who doesn't want to be hired?)
#446Quit a job 5 months ago. Working as a crypto engineer, have made a couple years salary in the last year, so I could afford to take a couple months off. Spent the intervening time with my partners, and doing personal writing. A lot of the reason I was building or learning felt driven by insecurity about what my peers were doing, and I was just going through the motions at work, and not feeling emotionally in control.
Taking time off put me emotionally back in the driver's seat. I don't build stuff because I'm keeping up with imaginary peers anymore, and my relationships have improved dramatically. I know what my values are again.
Also, I configured emacs.
Re: Ask HN: What you up to? (Who doesn't want to be hired?)
#447I won the IPO lottery and I’m in the middle ground between rich enough to never work again but not quite rich enough for the yachts/mansions/private jets lifestyle. I haven’t worked in 6 months and I’m struggling to find a larger meaning to my life beyond getting yet another tech job. I’ve considered going to college for a math degree, moving to my parents home country, and joining the military (among many other opti…
1. Take up and learn about investing. Managing large amounts of money can be a part-to-full time job, and not knowing key mechanics will cause you to get screwed or be at the mercy of others.
2. Find love but keep your wealth a secret until you're sure they are the One and financially responsible. Love comes undone fast over money, and you'll probably need a pre-nup to avoid getting cut in half if things go south. Easier if your partner is also a professional and has assets which goes back to them being financially responsible.
3. Establish a relationship with a law firm. You never know when you're going to need them.
4. Build those software projects you've always wanted to.
Re: Ask HN: What you up to? (Who doesn't want to be hired?)
#448I needed a camera slider that was not thousands of dollars and did not require someone else to operate. So I designed, printed, built, and programmed my own to use AI/face/object tracking to follow me around.
Video overview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLo_nu0BSLk
Thingiverse files: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4982093
I also have been spending more time actually creating video content. I used to do a bunch in the early YouTube days, but I hit a decade long bit of depression.
Re: Ask HN: What you up to? (Who doesn't want to be hired?)
#449Had been feeling quite frustrated with work lately. Corporate inertia at the same time as "move fast" in a DS/Eng setup combined with a re-org going on. Add zero devops + an "incident" as cherry on top. I'd been stretching myself thin trying to do "everything", and do "everything right". To the point that it started impacting my personal life.
Took a vacation to Rome and Venice, and just 5 days away from home were enough to decompress. Feeling really good now.
Wish I had more time for open source contributions, but marriage + work are almost leaving no time at all. Got something going but the big tasks require a lot more dedicated effort.
Now thinking of new places to go on vacation in Southern Europe to escape from the cold :)
Re: Ask HN: What you up to? (Who doesn't want to be hired?)
#450Over the years I've had a lot of inconsistent experiences with commercial lactase enzyme supplements for dairy intolerance. I've decided to embark on a hobby project (OpenLactase) to produce my own digestive enzyme supplements from scratch using Aspergillus oryzae fungi.
I'm currently working on designing an open source stirred tank bioreactor (Open Scale-up) for fungi cultivation. Bench-top at first but the design is intended to be suitable for scale-up.
Very different from the day job as cloud infrastructure engineer.