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Comment by bradlys | Hacker News Reader

I think you're very wrong. I think if most of us could even find a good job then we would stick with it. The problem is that a good job is extremely hard to find and a good job is a moving target. What is a good job five years ago for us might not be a good job anymore. Compensation, what you're working on, technologies used, the coworkers you have, the progression you want from your career, etc.

I think the reason some people on HN want to do their own thing is because the jobs we have suck so much and they feel that by doing their own thing they will take back control and be able to have the life they want.

I think it's somewhat delusional. Founding your own company, finding a great revenue stream, and getting adequate compensation with it is incredibly challenging and not a common route at all. If I want to make $500k+/yr, I am much better off joining a big public tech company.

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Money is the wrong excuse to do your own thing. Ideally you have something you really enjoy doing or something that fascinates you endlessly then find an angle to do it for a living. It doesn't really matter if you succeed. If your thing is [say] fitness and you get to fool around in your own gym for a few years you've done well. You wanted to DJ and started your own club. You enjoy bowling and got to own your own bowling alley - for a while. Go do those things you wanted to do when you had all that money?

It's not a realistic approach to life. Homes cost money. Children cost money. Wives cost money.

You can't just go pursue whatever passion you have unless you are willing to say give up having children, a wife, and/or a home. Especially true when you live in a place like silicon valley like so many readers on HN do. Homes are now $2-3m. If you're married - your wife isn't gonna be happy with the massive downgrade in lifestyle either. You just can't do these things, unfortunately.

I agree with Homes and Children cost money.

Wives cost money - this depend on the wife/partner you have. I'm teaching my wife computer science, when she have a job I can reduce my work hours to do my own thing. Might have to downgrade (move out from greater london). But would be worth it.

In my case I just want to work on open source projects and make some money to live from that.

This just reads weird with the “wives cost money” and “your wife isn’t gonna be happy with the massive downgrade” angle. You understand why that’s poorly phrased, right?

Is it actually inaccurate though? Try to tell me a wife who wants to live in SV in her typical $2-3m home is going to be okay with moving to BFE and giving it all up including the nice private schools for her kids.

I mean, this is predicated on so many out-of-touch aspects it seems like it is written by someone in a bubble or on the far reaches of an antisocial spectrum.

1) not everyone needs or wants to live in SV

2) there are plenty of people who manage to “survive” on a home worth less than $2M-$3M

3) public schools are a thing

4) not everyone views the primary goal of a relationship as a transaction for a certain quality of life. “For richer or poorer” and all of that.

It reads like those op-eds during hard times when relatively well-off people lament about how the economy is battering them too, because after the Lexus payments, and private school, and SAT prep courses, they are forced to scale back on things like their annual Aspen vacation. That can all be very true, but also completely disjointed from the experience of most people that it lands flat.

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