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Comment by tasogare | Hacker News Reader

I’m 6 months in and already became a bit too cynical for my own good. Your last paragraph exactly describes a feeling I have been for months. Having a paper written in 10 days accepted in the best conference of the field increased both my imposter syndrome, and the feeling that we are writing useless crap.

So, in this end what did you do? Are you able to build product you care about now?

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My experiences were a while back (I was in academic research from '89 to '95) - I left to co-found a startup in '95 and did OK.

I've never regretted leaving academia for a single moment - that's not to say I don't have fond memories and I learned a lot there but ultimately I have always liked building stuff and ultimately that's only worth it if people get value from what you build. I knew a lot of great people in academia - but I was conscious that there was very much a game to be played (as is the case everywhere) and the game from what I could see wasn't one that interested me.

> Having a paper written in 10 days accepted in the best conference of the field increased both my imposter syndrome, and the feeling that we are writing useless crap.

Are you sure you are not harsh on yourself? :) Maybe it was a good paper. If you are so worried, you can always ask the conference reviewers for comments; maybe they thought it was excellent.

> useless crap

You get enough "useless crap" down as knowledge and, who knows, one day you get to flying cars or the proof of Goldbach's conjecture.

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