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Comment by eclectic29 | Hacker News Reader

How does one keep going so long with the same passion, energy and excitement? Is it because of working in academia? Corporate life with its politics has exhausted me and sucked all the passion out of work. My cognitive abilities are declining due to the constant pressure to show (fake) impact and tout my own horn to move up.

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A tenured professor pursuing their scientific passion vs. a cog at a for-profit corporation who's mission is to serve shareholders, in an industry that had over 150k layoffs in the last year, where you have no freedom over your work, have to play politics and constantly justify your value and why they shouldn't fire you, you're easily replaceable, and little of your work is particularly meaningful or benefits society.

Not really a mystery why one of these entails passion, energy, and excitement at age 100 while the other doesn't.

You don’t need to do any of that when you’re on top, either as an entrepreneur or head scientist with tenure.

By definiton, there's very few people on top. Way fewer than people attempting to climb there.

Not really. There's a long tail of self-employed people in various capacities, who are happy with the freedom that comes with being a contractor, sole proprietor, or fiscally responsible low expense individual. The petit bourgeoisie were a thing long before tech startups.

That's not the top though, that's just a relatively comfortable niche somewhere in the middle of the ladder.

Every context is different. You can’t measure yourself against someone in a totally different context. I doubt the professor has been fighting the same battles as you. Talking about his love of puzzles and games, I suspect his work is more flow state than yours.

So you can accept your current burn rate or change to a context that burns you out less. Personally I’m in corporate job (senior eng at sp500 company) and I also don’t have the same fights you do. I have a lot of flexibility and zone time and no politics.

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