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I quit Google to work for myself (2018)

mtlynch.io

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Re: I quit Google to work for myself (2018)

#81

Post by ljm »

phyzix5761 wrote: post #64

I think you learned the most important lesson of any career: the customer is not your customer. The person/people who control your raise, bonus, and promotion are your real customers. Think about it like this. A customer is the entity that exchanges money for something they value; like a good or service. That's usually your manager. Or in the case of OP the promotion committee. (Many times it's both your manager and…

What you are describing is contracting, self-employment, consultancy, and those are orthogonal to having a career.

Re: I quit Google to work for myself (2018)

#82

Post by hinkley »

phyzix5761 wrote: post #64

I think you learned the most important lesson of any career: the customer is not your customer. The person/people who control your raise, bonus, and promotion are your real customers. Think about it like this. A customer is the entity that exchanges money for something they value; like a good or service. That's usually your manager. Or in the case of OP the promotion committee. (Many times it's both your manager and…

And the user may also not be the customer. Which is why UX and DevEx are so much more difficult. If you’re a person making a piece on commission, what the buyer wants and needs can be different and you can get to the end and they are still unhappy.

But if you’re working for a boss, they can get in the way. It’s not enough that you do what the customer wants, you have to do it my way, even if that prevents the customer from getting what they want.

And if the “customer” is buying the item for someone else, that indirection can result in failure as well. Which often happens when you make custom software for businesses. Their boss wants what he wants, and that’s not what his employees want.

Re: I quit Google to work for myself (2018)

#83

Post by bluesnews »

herval wrote: post #44
cdrini wrote: post #18

I'm not sure I agree with this. The breaking projects before completion is very annoying, but also the author seems like they were only there for a promotion? I mean a promotion is nice, but it was never really explained why that was such a dealbreaker. If the only thing keeping you at your job is the prospect of a better title, that's probably a bad sign. They then made a lifetime's worth of money at Google in four…

> the author seems like they were only there for a promotion? Based on Blind and personal experience, the vast majority of people in big tech are literally doing that. It’s probably the most used carrot used by management in those companies too, so hard to blame them

[dead]

Re: I quit Google to work for myself (2018)

#84

Post by WalterBright »

Etheryte wrote: post #8
shoo wrote: post #5

the same author has also published an interesting series of "annual review" blog posts summarising his progress trying to get different software businesses off the ground -- including being quite open about the finances. If you're interested in boostrapping a software business, and haven't seen them, they're well worth reading: https://mtlynch.io/tags/annual-review/ https://mtlynch.io/i-sold-tinypilot/

A good highlight of what quitting your job can look like: > Six years ago, I quit my job as a developer at Google to create my own bootstrapped software company. For the first few years, all of my businesses flopped. The best of them earned a few hundred dollars per month in revenue, but none were profitable. We often hear about the successes, and it is easy to be loud with success, but it's important to keep in mind…

It's a lot harder to found a business successfully than most people imagine.

Re: I quit Google to work for myself (2018)

#85

Post by WalterBright »

nostrademons wrote: post #11
Etheryte wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good highlight of what quitting your job can look like: > Six years ago, I quit my job as a developer at Google to create my own bootstrapped software company. For the first few years, all of my businesses flopped. The best of them earned a few hundred dollars per month in revenue, but none were profitable. We often hear about the successes, and it is easy to be loud with success, but it's important to keep in mind…

It's an interesting reality check that in 2023, six years into his journey as a bootstrapped founder, Tiny Pilot made $225K in profit on ~$1M on revenue. For 2021 and 2022, it made roughly a $5K profit; the rest was all losses. He quit Google because he couldn't get a promotion presumably from L4 to L5, but $225K is less than what an L4 makes. This might also be a microcosm of why the working class is pissed off in A…

At one point Musk was within $100,000 of personal and business bankruptcy when Tesla ran short of funds.

Re: I quit Google to work for myself (2018)

#86

Post by cromagnum »

steelframe wrote: post #69
mtlynch wrote: post #14

Author here. Cool to see this pop up again! Happy to answer any questions about this post.

Forgive me if I seem presumptuous in my advice here. You've done things in your career that I can only dream of doing. What I can say is that I've somehow managed to survive a quarter-century in a string of Big Tech companies without dropping out (yet). It sounds like you may have been looking at the currents and picking the one that seemed best one to swim in. I found there's often -- but not always -- another optio…

Can you explain how this doesn’t amount to saying “You seem like you’re brave. There’s another option: be a coward.”

You don’t seem to be proposing an alternative strategy with equivalent risk/reward dynamics, rather, it seems like what amounts to anathema to entrepreneurship.

Re: I quit Google to work for myself (2018)

#87

Post by cromagnum »

WalterBright wrote: post #84
Etheryte wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good highlight of what quitting your job can look like: > Six years ago, I quit my job as a developer at Google to create my own bootstrapped software company. For the first few years, all of my businesses flopped. The best of them earned a few hundred dollars per month in revenue, but none were profitable. We often hear about the successes, and it is easy to be loud with success, but it's important to keep in mind…

It's a lot harder to found a business successfully than most people imagine.

Incorrect. In fact YC’s (i.e. the website you’re on) whole thesis is that it’s a lot easier to found a business successfully than most people imagine. Yeah, they’ve drifted from their roots a little but I think it’s been proved out.

The irony is killing me.

Re: I quit Google to work for myself (2018)

#88

Post by rockemsockem »

skirmish wrote: post #77
rockemsockem wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was senior (L5) that you were expected to reach, not staff. It was revised down to L4. For reference almost all SWE hires start at L3.

> For reference almost all SWE hires start at L3. Straight out of school, yes. With a few years of outside experience and an advanced degree, it is easy to join at L5. Which I think is ideal, no promotion headaches, just focus on interesting work (L6 already starts to be management heavy, so not that attractive).

Yes, good point I should have clarified that.

Re: I quit Google to work for myself (2018)

#89

Post by skulk »

cromagnum wrote: post #86
steelframe wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forgive me if I seem presumptuous in my advice here. You've done things in your career that I can only dream of doing. What I can say is that I've somehow managed to survive a quarter-century in a string of Big Tech companies without dropping out (yet). It sounds like you may have been looking at the currents and picking the one that seemed best one to swim in. I found there's often -- but not always -- another optio…

Can you explain how this doesn’t amount to saying “You seem like you’re brave. There’s another option: be a coward.” You don’t seem to be proposing an alternative strategy with equivalent risk/reward dynamics, rather, it seems like what amounts to anathema to entrepreneurship.

some people would rather be well paid, secure cowards than scrappy risk-taking heroes.

Re: I quit Google to work for myself (2018)

#90

Post by skulk »

mtlynch wrote: post #20
belval wrote: post #9

I'll play devils advocate because it's more fun but this: > The pipeline didn’t record many metrics. The ones it did have made it look like things had gotten worse. My bug discoveries caused the overall bug count to increase. The pipeline’s failures increased because I made it fail fast on anomalies instead of silently passing along bad data. I understand why the author might think this is better, but all software ha…

Hi, I'm "the guy." Thanks for reading! I largely agree with you. I didn't mean to argue that the work I was doing for the first two years merited a promotion. My point was more that I felt frustrated that I was doing what my manager and team asked of me, told consistently that I did the work well, and then later found out that it was all worthless for career advancement. I think there are competing interests at a lar…

> My point was more that I felt frustrated that I was doing what my manager and team asked of me, told consistently that I did the work well, and then later found out that it was all worthless for career advancement.

oh wow. Reading this made me realize why (in the context of a big tech career) it's such a good idea to have a mentor whose reasonably far away from your team. They could have probably pointed this out to you early.

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