Start-up vs consulting vs corporate vs all three | Hacker News Reader

Start-up vs consulting vs corporate vs all three

swombat.com

12 pointstomh-7 comments

I don't think it's necessarily 'going too far in any direction is wrong', so much as 'always remember you have these options'.

For some people, full blown corporate is everything they want and need. As long as they keep making that choice - as opposed to staying where they are out of routine - they can be happy. I'm doing the consultant thing, and always weighing this up versus the startup thing - happy with my choices to date, and those include regularly reaffirming that corporate isn't for me...right now.

One day, that all may change.

What I mean by going too far is when you start believing that your way is the one true way for everyone. I like to call this effect "Born Again Entrepreneurs" - where a newly entrepreneurial escapee becomes literally evangelical about the benefits of running your own business vs working in a corporation.

Different people have different life choices, and climbing up the ladder in MegaCorp Inc is not intrinsically worse or better than running a consultancy or startup. It may be worse for me at this point, but for others it's exactly the right choice.

Then we agree. I've met plenty of entrepreneurs who know they can't work for MegaCorp, and therefore assume that nobody sensible could ever work for a big company.

You can guess how their recruitment strategies work out as the business grows.

From the closing piece of advice:

No matter where you are, make sure you're always growing on a personal level. Never sacrifice your personal growth for some "I'll make it if I only throw everything into it" martyrdom delusion. Successful people start successful businesses, and successful people are always growing.

As someone who is nearly 30, and still ridiculously confused about what I want out of life - does the above hold even if you abandon one form of personal growth for another?

I am 30, and still fairly confused about what I want out of life. This advice is not prescriptive about what kind of growth you need. The point is, if you're not growing in some way, you're less likely to be successful. It's easy to fall into the fallacy of thinking that you can put your personal growth on hold to meet objective X, but objective X always takes 3x longer than you think, and if you put your life on hold for it, you probably won't meet objective X anyway.

A saying comes to mind:

Live as if you were going to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were going to live forever.

I hope you're coming to the London HN meetup - would love to discuss this further!

I believe I am!

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