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Comment by stared | Hacker News Reader

With startups, you can pivot (with academia you can too, but it's rather 3-5 years).

With startups, you can fail (and try again); in academia, if you fail, you fail.

In short: with startups, if something is not working (or you totally lost belief in it), you can quit a project without quitting startups for good. In academia, if you want to stay, you often need to stay in a miserable conditions 1-3 more years (e.g. to finish PhD, postdoc, etc), just not to get kicked out for good.

Moreover, with startups, you can start your group being 20, without anyone's blessing.

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I have several friends who have successfully navigated switching research groups and even departments in the middle of their PhD work. I also know a few who didn't manage such a graceful transition, but it's definitely possible to pivot during the PhD without giving up on the degree and research career.

Perhaps it's possible under some circumstances. But I spent 3 years more than I wished to (as I see it now, I should have quitted, but by that time I thought that academia was the only intellectually stimulating option).

Change universities (Europe) would cost me at least a year, plus scrapping all previous progress. Plus, with getting a poor recommendation letter (more than likely when resigning) I would need to go a tier down.

I envied software engineers, who (if things do not work) could change their place in mater of weeks... and have money to support them for much longer, if there were need.

I know people who change, but it was never a trivial thing. (Maybe except when within a department.)

Now (living as a freelancer) I lover the freedom and flexibility. And, curiously enough, I get more of intellectual inspiration.

Not my opinion, but what I think lukasm was getting at is that a majority of players in the startup game aren't VCs or founders, but suckers taking low wages and/or options and/or insane hours on the promise of a big future payout that never comes.

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