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Comment by JaDogg | Hacker News Reader

I assume majority of the hacker news readers, no matter how good their job is want to quit and do their own thing.. do you think my assumption is correct? is that the norm? or am I just abnormal ?(wanting to do my own thing)

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That's only true until you've quit and done your own thing for a while. There are benefits and drawbacks, it's not for everyone.

I for one prefer focusing on engineering and team building over sales and marketing, which means that to "do my own thing" I end up spending half or more of my time doing things I don't enjoy, which is just not worth the headache.

If I had a significant cash reserve I would probably have a lot of fun building a product in the context where you didn't have to grind for every dollar... but that's also just known as a hobby I think.

Freedom to pick a job with work that you love can be much better than doing your own thing. I am a scientist working at a biotech startup. I "hired" a CEO and a few other folks to run the business so that I can do the science. I didn't even have to front my own money.

Problem with startups is that it can be great like this or worse than any normal job (60+ hour work weeks). Also the potential of failure is there.

Getting a good gig like this is like winning a lottery.

I'd love to do my own thing IF I was independently wealthy. I could just do cool shit and see what sticks.

Doing that while also worrying about how I'm going to pay the mortgage and get food on the table for next month? No thank you.

I'm perfectly happy being a well-paid problem-solver in Someone Else's Company. I won't get filthy rich, but I have close to zero work-related stress and I live comfortably.

I think you're very wrong. I think if most of us could even find a good job then we would stick with it. The problem is that a good job is extremely hard to find and a good job is a moving target. What is a good job five years ago for us might not be a good job anymore. Compensation, what you're working on, technologies used, the coworkers you have, the progression you want from your career, etc.

I think the reason some people on HN want to do their own thing is because the jobs we have suck so much and they feel that by doing their own thing they will take back control and be able to have the life they want.

I think it's somewhat delusional. Founding your own company, finding a great revenue stream, and getting adequate compensation with it is incredibly challenging and not a common route at all. If I want to make $500k+/yr, I am much better off joining a big public tech company.

Money is the wrong excuse to do your own thing. Ideally you have something you really enjoy doing or something that fascinates you endlessly then find an angle to do it for a living. It doesn't really matter if you succeed. If your thing is [say] fitness and you get to fool around in your own gym for a few years you've done well. You wanted to DJ and started your own club. You enjoy bowling and got to own your own bowling alley - for a while. Go do those things you wanted to do when you had all that money?

It's not a realistic approach to life. Homes cost money. Children cost money. Wives cost money.

You can't just go pursue whatever passion you have unless you are willing to say give up having children, a wife, and/or a home. Especially true when you live in a place like silicon valley like so many readers on HN do. Homes are now $2-3m. If you're married - your wife isn't gonna be happy with the massive downgrade in lifestyle either. You just can't do these things, unfortunately.

I agree with Homes and Children cost money.

Wives cost money - this depend on the wife/partner you have. I'm teaching my wife computer science, when she have a job I can reduce my work hours to do my own thing. Might have to downgrade (move out from greater london). But would be worth it.

In my case I just want to work on open source projects and make some money to live from that.

This just reads weird with the “wives cost money” and “your wife isn’t gonna be happy with the massive downgrade” angle. You understand why that’s poorly phrased, right?

Is it actually inaccurate though? Try to tell me a wife who wants to live in SV in her typical $2-3m home is going to be okay with moving to BFE and giving it all up including the nice private schools for her kids.

I mean, this is predicated on so many out-of-touch aspects it seems like it is written by someone in a bubble or on the far reaches of an antisocial spectrum.

1) not everyone needs or wants to live in SV

2) there are plenty of people who manage to “survive” on a home worth less than $2M-$3M

3) public schools are a thing

4) not everyone views the primary goal of a relationship as a transaction for a certain quality of life. “For richer or poorer” and all of that.

It reads like those op-eds during hard times when relatively well-off people lament about how the economy is battering them too, because after the Lexus payments, and private school, and SAT prep courses, they are forced to scale back on things like their annual Aspen vacation. That can all be very true, but also completely disjointed from the experience of most people that it lands flat.

You’re not abnormal, many people would love to do their own thing in an ideal world. There are various reason (cost of living, family, location, responsibilities, capabilities…) most of us stay in our current positions and don’t move out of our comfort zones.

IMHO each one of us needs to ask/answer the reason for wanting to do something on its own. Is it for the money? Is it out of love for a specific activity? Is it out of need for success? Is it because of a need for a different lifestyle?

This is why we need to transition to a post-scarcity world and eliminate the need for finance and economy.

I'm not advocating for communism (as it doesn't work when money is involved), it merely allows certain people to accumulate power while everyone else works for free. Capitalism is better because it offers the opportunity to climb the ladder, but it still leaves poor people suffering. More people might find happiness under capitalism compared to communism.

Universal Basic Income (UBI) will not work, as it is still similar to printing money, and poor people might end up worse off in the long run due to UBI-powered inflation.

In any case, I do not know if we can achieve a post-scarcity world. Will it lead to corruption and accumulation of power, similar to communism? I do not know. However, we can at least try to educate people more so that we can aim for a post-scarcity future in the next generation.

Not at all for me. I want other people to deal with "the rest of it" so I can do something cool with computers instead of running a business. HN has both types here, which is great for someone like me.

At the place I'm at now the founders hired a CEO and associated folks to run the business after it got to a certain size so one could focus on running sales and the other could focus on doing engineering.

It depends on how realistic one is being. In a perfect world? Maybe. In the actual world? I think a lot of people get to a point in their career where they want a solid, steady paycheck with minimal drama. There are also a lot of “deep tech” areas where it makes more sense to be in a larger firm than to be out on your own trying to do a startup or whatever.

> I assume majority of the hacker news readers

Why would this be limited to HN readers? A lot of people would rather be independently wealthy. A lot of people play the lottery. The more interesting question is after the boring things with the lottery winnings - cocaine, strippers, cars, houses; what is "your own thing"? Open source contributions? Software consulting? HN commenting? Something not having anything to do with computers?

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