[_57jb]

I think you are using satire to make a point although you may be serious.

To play devils advocate to my own point:

There are some jobs that between those hours of 9-5 it is a dream come true. I ran an R&D team, we could buy any technology, kick off any project, success wasn't "Making a unicorn" but merely understanding something and providing guidance/insight to our executives.

It went well for several years...the party ended after leadership changed and they had new opinions on what R&D meant.

It was my dream and theirs for a period of time...then it was no longer my dream, just theirs.

I left to find my dream....I now make 5x as much doing something I love.

[scarface74]

I’m very serious. It has never been my desire to start my own business. I go home and sleep well at night not worrying about customers, investors, funding.

It went well for several years...the party ended after leadership changed and they had new opinions on what R&D meant. It was my dream and theirs for a period of time...then it was no longer my dream, just theirs.

And when that happens, I email recruiters and get another job usually paying more within a few weeks. The shortest time from looking for a job to having an offer is 4 days. The longest is about 7 weeks. But I only applied for one job. The process just takes a while for $BigTech.

Which brings up an even better example. The company I work for announced an across the board pay cut because our customers were losing money because of Covid. The company is having to cut prices, come up with payment arrangements, get money from the government, etc. I bet the owners aren’t sleeping well at night.

The next day after they announced the pay cut, a recruiter from $BigTech reached out to me about a remote role. I applied for the job, got it, with a 50% pay bump and I still sleep well.

I left to find my dream....I now make 5x as much doing something I love.

Survivorship bias. Statistically how will most software developers make more money over a lifetime - starting their own company or in the immortal words of r/cscareerquestions, “learn leetCode and work for a FAANG”?[1] Or depending on where you are living, just bring your run of the mill “Enterprise Developer” in any major city in the US that’s not on the west coast.

[1] Not that I went down that road to “work for a FAANG”. I took another route that pays as well to get into $BigTech.

[_57jb]

Yeah, I actually was going a slightly different route.

I got into generating passive income. I am now in a position where I can maintain a lifestyle I enjoy and homeschool my small children.

I could pay for the best schools and keep track but I love education...I love passing that on. If I built a company it would be around that. I would not like the money struggles that you talk about so I would probably aim for something non/not for profit assuming it would lessen that burden.

I don't know that I care so much about money but before when I struggled, it was my singular focus.

It may seem like a silly question but if you had all the money in the world would you show up to work? If the answer is yes I hope you have that job for a lifetime, if the answer is no I hope you have all the money you need for a lifetime.

Edit: As a side note...perhaps because of the R&D nature of my previous role I had an advantage in the low barrier to entry of this. I saw a lot of acquisitions. Companies that were startups, bought, cannibalized, and then repurposed as a product. Sometimes these products internally thought up by us or other LoB's. They were all rough, prototypical in nature... Realizing that millions was "exploratory money" whether internally developed or purchased to have a product that looks and feels like something became a realization that you can profit on ideas...not full blown products bulletproof and cemented into history.

There are many that are not in it to make a legacy, just to get the thing airborne and sell.

The first time I saw a group spin up ten webpages of fake products to market test a brainstorming session was a lightbulb on what is happening under the surface in many areas.

[scarface74]

If I had made $better_life_decisions when I was younger and/or graduated in the era of $BigTech instead of the mid 90s, I could definitely have lived frugally, made $BigTech money, saved and invested in stocks, moved to a low cost of living area and done contracts every now and then just to refill the coffers.

As it is now, why wouldn’t I enjoy my job? I get to work remotely in a relatively low cost of living area making $BigTech money.

Will I be where I am for the rest of my life? Statistically, probably not. I can’t see that far ahead for a change. But 3 of the 5 biggest technology companies offer similar roles and if the local economy ever recovers there will be local companies.