[guylhem]

It is both funny and sad to read.

So you decided to shed away your chances of success and the financial capacity to back up the projects you believe in +5 years, +10 years, +15 years from now (etc.) for the time preference of working right now on a project - because there is a water problem in this world.

Tell me, what are you going to do about hunger?

If you really cared about the water problem, couldn't you have donated part of your (steady) income for that?

If you prefer to fix the problem yourself, what are your special skills or experience regarding water?

What are you going to do if your project is deemed "interesting" but not worth investing on - especially now that you won't be able to finance it yourself?

You must certainly place a lot of trust in the goodwill of the future investors, but basically, here you showed that you didn't care about what you were doing, so why should I or anyone else take your word that you won't drop your next project just as quickly as this one?

Unless there is some missing information (ex: you have a 10 years lifespan due to some disease), it doesn't look like refusing the deferred life, but more like taking unneeded risk to get social status (saying you presented at this "Solve for X" conference) under a bleeding heart pretense. Sorry if that's hard - that's just the way I see it.

Anyway, it really seems like a bad decision indeed. If you really hated the job so much, it then begs the question - why did you started it in the first place?

I really hope you can turn around successfully, and find more meaning in your projects.

EDIT: it is good for him, and he will be more happy, but it's not logical. Something sounds out of place in the original post. While he will be more happy, using a charity purpose as the excuse and justification, while it is unlikely to be the best outcome for society, seems phony. Say that you want some fun or social status, that I can believe in. If you really care about solving a problem, who solves it (yourself or someone else) is irrelevant. How it is solved is irrelevant. You just want that fixed. Caring about not getting rich is just as pointless as caring about getting rich. It is a byproduct. You should want to solve the f problem, not want or look for ways to spend your life working on it.

[7Figures2Commas]

> If you really cared about the water problem, couldn't you have donated part of your (steady) income for that?

This.

There are tons of great organizations (non-profits, etc.) that are already doing wonderful things in a variety of areas. Even the ones with considerable human resources, knowledge, relationships, infrastructure and donor bases usually typically have a need for more support. What these organizations need less of: duplicative efforts that produce fragmentation and are likely to see good ideas die quietly because those trying to do their own thing couldn't obtain the resources to execute.

It's sad that so many well-intentioned, idealistic people apparently fail to recognize or refuse to believe that minute for minute and dollar for dollar, their time and money will almost always produce a far greater ROI when invested in existing efforts.

[gruseom]

I strongly disagree. People ought not to let themselves be talked out of unreasonable dreams of greatness. Your comment reads to me like depression distilled into words.

[7Figures2Commas]

This isn't about being talked out of trying to do good. It's about finding the best way to actually do good.

Most organizations rely on outsiders who contribute their time, money, expertise and ideas, and they gladly welcome such contributions. By getting involved with an established organization, individuals can often take advantage of its existing resources, increasing the likelihood that whatever is contributed will produce an ROI.

Obviously there's no absolute guarantee of this, and I wouldn't suggest that there's no room for new organizations, but new non-profits are a lot like new businesses: most do not "succeed", and a lot of the ones that don't fail outright plod along and never achieve what was hoped for. It doesn't take more than a quick read of a few random Form 990 filings to see this.

So to put it simply: you do not need to start your own thing to help solve big problems. People who have the itch to save the world would be wise to consider that they are far more likely to make a bigger impact by channeling their time, money, passion and ideas to organizations that have been saving the world for years.

[owyn]

Yep. I think individuals can choose to work directly or indirectly on a problem and both are worthy. But Buffet didn't start his own foundation, he gave a bunch of money to Gates because duplicating all that infrastructure would be wasteful. I really respected that...

[unclebucknasty]

This is akin to advising would-be entrepreneurs to instead invest their time and money into existing companies because it's more efficient.

[gruseom]

My jaw dropped when I read this, and then I felt sick. It's so dismaying to check in on HN threads and encounter this degree of nastiness and self-parody.

Good for you, Weston. I look forward to hearing about your dragon-slaying adventures.

[ChuckMcM]

One of the things I try to do is learn from my experience, even when its a crappy experience I try to take something away that gives me a bit of meaning to that time I'll never get back. But that is not the way with everyone.

Some people believe very strongly that collecting the most revenue in the time you have available on the earth is the best possible pursuit a person can have. They do not understand anyone who doesn't share their passion to achieve the highest number of dollars or yuan or yen or rupees.

The real test of belief comes at the end of your life, but during the middle part you believe what you believe.

Consequently any story of following one's passion rather than money will be discounted by folks who don't share that belief, and any story of finding ways to get richer and richer will be discounted by folks who don't share that belief. When you are friends with folks who have one view or the other, and your friendship spans decades, you get a chance to see if you or your friends change views over time.

For a long time I internally beat myself up for not taking Bill Gates up on a job offer in 1978 (chances are if I had stuck with the company I'd be very wealthy now), but as I got older and perhaps more importantly had people I had known well die, I came to appreciate the choices I've made on passions vs money. Not everyone does of course.

[xijuan]

I totally agree with you. Some people really see making money as the number one goal of life. I found it very frustrating to interact with such people. They calibrate everything with money. If you ask them whether it is a good idea to learn or study something, they will immediately ask you if learning it would help you make money afterwards. They would treat you nice if they believe you are rich or you will make money in the future..They will abandon you after they find out that you can't make too much money..

[Mz]

Money can come or go. But you only live once.

Congrats.

[kamaal]

>>Money can come or go

Except that money doesn't just magically come and go.

>>But you only live once.

Try living in poverty. Trust me you will see all happiness in money.

[Mz]

I am currently homeless, which is certainly annoying as hell. But I have been through far worse things. You are barking up the wrong tree. I know firsthand that money problems are not the worst thing in the world, though poverty is also not as simple as lack of money.

[nhangen]

I suppose that depends on what you believe ;)

[kumarski]

I've learned that being negative or spiteful toward people who are actively building things isn't helpful.

Keep on slaying dragons Weston. Even when I'm not passionate about what someone's building, I'm always supportive of people executing. Keep going Weston.

[nmridul]

>> Tell me, what are you going to do about hunger?

>> If you really cared about the water problem, couldn't you have donated part of your (steady) income for that?

Lets look at this way - Regarding donating (or paying some one to do what you wanted to do) - Just look around and you will see serial entrepreneurs building their next company bootstrapping from their previous savings. They could well have paid some one to do it (coding, managing etc). Still you will see then right in the middle of the action. The simple reason is, most people love it.

Now regarding if you can't solve all the issues, then you should not solve anything (what are you going to do about hunger,,,) . So I want to solve the issues with payment processing and I plan to start a Paypal alternative. Here comes some one asking me "what about all these issues with banking " what about "all the other 1000s of problems with the financial sector" ? Can you solve everything ? If not, you should are you trying to just solve a Paypal issue ?

[lmm]

>Lets look at this way - Regarding donating (or paying some one to do what you wanted to do) - Just look around and you will see serial entrepreneurs building their next company bootstrapping from their previous savings. They could well have paid some one to do it (coding, managing etc). Still you will see then right in the middle of the action. The simple reason is, most people love it.

Sure. If you want to do this yourself because you love it, great. But don't pretend it's because you can't stand the thought of some people being without water - if that was really the issue, you'd care about the most efficient way to solve this rather than doing it yourself.

[xtracto]

>If you really cared about the water problem, couldn't you have donated part of your (steady) income for that?

There's lot of scientists whose life objective is to solve a variety of world's problems and they don't want to become rich.

The point is, this guy did not want to be in a startup, he wanted to work directly on doing something to solve the World's water prblem. That's good for him, and IMO it does not make his decision worse than staying doing something that did not fully satisfied him anymore.