[BaseballPhysics]

Honestly, I do feel for you, if only because I was fortunate enough, when I was young and in a similar position, to have a mentor I could talk to who took me through some of the important concepts. As a result, I understood the gamble I was taking and could make the decision with reasonably complete information.

One thing I will say: if you get the chance, be that mentor to someone else in the future. You may be stuck learning an expensive lesson, but hopefully you can prevent someone else from doing the same some day.

[stock-throwaway]

A different topic entirely but: how did you find a mentor / someone to mentor? That relationship has always been curious and elusive to me

[BaseballPhysics]

Alas, I wish I had good advice here, but honestly, I just got extremely lucky.

When I first got hired (at a very small startup) the hiring manager was an utterly brilliant former Bell Labs guy who'd made his way through a couple of prior startups, and he served as a mentor of mine for many many years after.