[sthatipamala]

Startups have become something of a career path or lifestyle. It has developed into a scene, with its own media coverage and drama. I see a lot of clueless college students wanting to "do startups" as if it were any old job.

My perspective is this: Found or join a startup if have a specific product/service you want to build at a large scale. You'll earn your wealth through the equivalent amount of pain (http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html).

But coming to SF and floundering around is no better than aimlessly moving to LA to become a movie star. There are a lot better ways to spend your youth.

Edit to address my last point: Sure, there are many benefits to coming out here. But there's no benefit in coming here to just be a "scenester."

[Zimahl]

But coming to SF and floundering around is no better than aimlessly moving to LA to become a movie star.

Not to be nit-picky but getting start-up experience isn't quite the same as going to casting calls while working at Olive Garden to make ends meet.

[sliverstorm]

What about when you work at a no-name software shop to make ends meet while you pitch to VCs to get your own startup off the ground?

The analogy may be more apt than it first seems! ;)

[integraton]

Except that working at a no-name software shop will pay significantly better, and then you can take your SF developer experience to middle America and get decent paying corporate job and a McMansion.

[johnjlocke]

Except that all the money you earn goes to paying the rent on your $2000 studio apartment.

[nostrademons]

I think you underestimate the amount of money that Bay Area developers make. $2k/month is $24K/year, which is a relatively small fraction of your after-tax income when you're making $150K/year.

One thing people don't take into account when figuring out cost-of-living adjustments: while expenses like rent, taxes, and meals out are typically a percentage of income, expenses like durable consumer goods and savings are measured in absolute dollars, and are fungible between locations. So while it sucks that cost-of-living might still eat up 80% of your income, the remaining 20% is a measly $8k/year at a $40K/year middle-America programmer job, but $30K/year at a $150K/year Bay Area tech job.

And the difference gets even more stark with added income - if you make $300K/year (quite doable as a senior engineer at a major tech company in the Bay Area), your taxes go up, but every other expense category remains the same, and so you end up banking about $100K/year. It's not unreasonable for a programmer in the Bay Area to save up half a million over a 4-5 year stint at a company; ask someone in Kansas or Ohio how long they think they'll have to work to save up half a million.

[sliverstorm]

Since when does your average kid fresh out of college make $150k/year in the Bay?

[bubbleRefuge]

300K for a senior engineer? Maybe a few people at Google. I've heard of some 200K jobs at Apple for low level systems programming people that are hard to find.

[doktrin]

Well, not really. It's possible to get valuable, career-relevant experience at just about any software shop, name or no. With the exception of some people skills, that's not usually the case when waiting tables.

[ritchiea]

This kind of comment makes me wonder what percentage of HN has zero idea of what's it's like to be legitimately broke/poor. Even if you're joking, since you include the winky face, what about actual poor uneducated people who will never have a chance to work in a no-name software shop?

[sliverstorm]

What does that have to do with anything? I'm just bemusedly thinking of the parallels between the kid who moves from Small Town, USA to be a star in Hollywood, and the kid who moves from Small Town, USA to make it big with his own startup in SV.

"No-name software shop" was probably the wrong choice; a closer tech analogue to waiting tables to fund that acting dream would probably be working IT/helpdesk.

[pharrington]

There is nothing in the corporate tech world that's analogous to trying to live off tips.

[malebolgia]

Counterpoint: salespeople.

[johnjlocke]

99.8%

[larrys]

"But coming to SF and floundering around"

Depends on the alternatives though. Much better to be "floundering around" and amongst a group of people with similar goals then trying to do the same in Topeka Kansas (arbitrary nothing against that city.) To start you could end up meeting people who do something that will give you opportunity. Environments like this are rich in contacts as well that you can make. (Not a reason to drop out of something that you are on a path to but if you can't find that path it certainly will give you a leg up.)

[caycep]

Actually, now that there is a "Silicon Beach" centered around southern Santa Monica and Venice, I suppose some people flounder around in a startup WHILE trying to become a movie star. Best of both worlds!

[Chronic24]

I'll make a startup and an app for that.

[chao-]

There will always be people who want something because of what other people will think of them for it. Among my cohort growing up this has often manifested as becoming one of the big three: Doctor, Lawyer or Engineer (very much in that order). I have seen this shift toward adding "entrepreneur" to the list, and its impact on younger members of the same peer group. Make no mistake, these are not "scenesters", but the type of people who aggressively overachieve in things, even if they do not possess a purity of intent.

I would rather see a glut of entrepreneurs who don't know why they want to be one, over a glut of lawyers who don't know why they want to be one.