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Comment by chatmasta | Hacker News Reader

Four years out of college: Some combination of working at Google, Facebook, $BIGBANK, or going to law/med school.

The smartest all jumped on career ladders because of the head start from their degrees and grades. The non-technical went to banks because what other profession pays $100k a year for a liberal arts degree? The technical went to the most recognizable companies that would take them and pay them a lot of money.

The entrepreneurs are a much more interesting bunch; most are technical, some never had a corporate job, some did YC, some left their corporate job and are mindlessly trying to be entrepreneurs, lots have raised funding, and a very select few have exited or hit Series C.

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> some left their corporate job and are mindlessly trying to be entrepreneurs

"mindlessly"?

What are they missing? I'm curious, because this is a path that has always appealed to me, but that I didn't take in my twenties or early thirties. I hope to be in a position to be able to do it in my late thirties, but am not committed to the idea.

To be clear, I don’t mean to apply that sentiment to every ex-BigCo entrepreneur. Of course many are successful.

However, in my experience the skillset that makes a good $BigCo employee is often distinct from, or even mutually incompatible with, the skillset that makes a good entrepreneur.

Since ex-BigCo employees are likely to get funding even with very little traction (because VCs like to invest in ex-BigCo teams), those entrepreneurs are more likely to found a business that is well-funded but fundamentally doomed to fail. The founders want to feel like they’re running a business, and they go through the motions of it, despite little substance or strategy behind the product. I believe Paul Graham calls it “playing house.”

This resonated with me because I was a corporate drone that left to "mindlessly" become an entrepreneur. More charitably, I believe it's being in love with the idea of being an entrepreneur but pursuing that path based on pop-culture information (think Entrepreneur magazine articles) and less on direct experience.

Nonetheless, even though my business ultimately failed, I thank my lucky stars I'm not working in the cube farm anymore. On to business #2!

>Nonetheless, even though my business ultimately failed, I thank my lucky stars I'm not working in the cube farm anymore. On to business #2!

Mind sharing the story of your first business and what you're working on now?

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