How much risk have you taken? | Hacker News Reader

How much risk have you taken?

7 pointsRuchitGarg14 comments

A bachelor friend of mine, who comes from affluent background left his job at Microsoft and joined another established start-up(which was about to get acquired) and his facebook wall reads "It was a very tough decision".

I thought "Really"?

Entrepreneurs take much bigger risks when they leave their full time corporate job to chase start-up dream and plunges into unknown with the hope that he would be able to raise money in next 3 months and everyone would be fine, including wife and kids (who would no longer have best medical coverage) and are not going for vaccation this year..and not sure when they would next. Maybe they would have to leave the country if nothing works out...

Whats your story? Want to share how much risk have you taken and what was the lowest point from which you came back?

View on HN

I served around Northern Iraqi region as a infantry squad leader. Our primary mission was looking for road side bombs and securing routes for military convoys. Other squads had some casualties due to ambushes or IEDs. I survived, as all my men.

By the way this was obligatory service, we didn't ask for it.

The risk you took makes everything else seem very mundane in comparison.

Hello,

18 months back I quit the job second time to take a shot again at entrepreneurship.

I failed fist time 4 years back.

In my last organisation I was leading a national team of more than 400 persons. Almost got my promotion letter (If I hadn't quit for 2 more weeks).

Have almost lost my immediate family due to this decision of mine.

18 months and I have still not given up.

Its a bitch. :) Hang in there.

I went to college for CS, but quickly switched to biology. I worked in a neuroscience lab for three years as an undergrad and was a co-author on a Human Molecular Genetics paper.

Post-graduation, I worked at MIT in another neuroscience lab for 1.5 years. I'm co-author on another paper which is going out for review soon.

Despite my nearly six years in research, I've decided getting a PhD in biology is a fool's game - I'm quitting in two weeks to become a freelance developer. I've squirreled away $7k in savings (~20% of my yearly salary) which should give me about a 6-8 month runway to get this freelance thing off the ground.

Doesn't seem that risky to me, but everyone thinks I'm goddamned crazy for doing it.

$7K is not much. You'll find it burns up way faster than you think. I would definitely save up more before going fulltime. Get another higher paying job. Eg: tutoring kids. You can make a lot of money that way. $100 per hour easily.

(I'm now an entrepreneur after quitting my job 6 months ago.)

Tutoring is a good idea, thanks for the tip. I live in Boston, so there is bound to be plenty of parents or college kids around needing tutoring.

Worst comes to worst, I'm prepared to work at a coffee shop or some other part time job as well. Just need to get out of my current soul-crushing position! :)

I know the feeling but it's not the smartest idea - unfortunate as it sounds. Look at your present job as funding for your future life. Do everything you can to get your next life going without losing the money from your present job.

If you dislike your present job then more the reason that you optimize fir your next job and let your boss worry when to stop your "funding". :) ... Seriously look at your present job as funding for as long as you can.

I've been doing that, to some degree, for the last six months. When I decided I needed to get out, I started diverting as much money as possible to savings (~30% of my monthly, basically everything that isn't food/rent/utilities).

The real problem with my current job is that it's both time intensive (50-60 hours/week) and pays next to nothing ($32k pre-tax, living in Boston). I should probably be working in the evenings to save more money, but I'm trying to work on my coding skills so I can actually make the transition.

The job originally made perfect sense if I wanted to stay in academic biology, since I would now have a killer recommendation from MIT. Hell, the salary is better than grad students! But since I want to change careers, it is a complete dead end that I need to get out of.

Your doing the right thing. LEarning to code. But I would try to get two or three projects and at least 1 paid project under your belt before you quit.

Once you dont have money coming in on a regular basis you have to deal with all the psychology that goes with it. Its hard - really hard.

Also cut back to 40 hours a week in your day job ... I mean you dont care right? Use that time to start doing coding work. But get to paid work first and get bunch of clients.

If you cant then I would say at the very least go stay with your parents or anyone who would have you. $7K is really not enough.

I stuck it out 1 year extra when I hated my position. And I'm very very happy I did that.

With a CS degree and a bunch of work I could show off, I don't really consider anything I do a risk. Even if I completely utterly fail at growing my own business, I'm still better off than so many who could be fired at any time and have a much tougher job search than I expect. My mother's sending out resumes every day and never hearing back while recruiters are calling me, and any other competent developer with a resume on the net, all the time.

I borrowed many dozens of thousands in student loans. I did not graduate, and on top of that, let my skills deteriorate.

The come back is something of a work in progress. I think it's in that "getting worse before it gets better" phase of the film. I hope.

I share not because it's an insane story, but because I'd love to hear others' answers.

may be you can share sometime. Keep the faith, I am also struggling to keep my faith at present.

I work at home doing freelance work full time for the last 5 years. Everyday is a risk as I don't have a stable income. I have a family to feed too. I guess am an optimist that's why I can live like this.

The good news is that I am able to build my own side-project which I hope will gain traction in the near future.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com