Life is a race

Came across a piece of writing today – a post on LinkedIn that talked about how quitting big tech jobs for startups is the biggest financial risk people in the 20s can take.

The writer seemed to be a credentialed founder who has done his own time in big tech companies before starting up. The summary of his write-up was that even though most of his friends who never quit the big tech jobs they joined early on in their careers are bored out of their minds at this point, they are financially sorted for life; meanwhile a lot of other friends who worked at small companies have lost out on a lot of money.

"Lost out on a lot of money". He uses possible medical emergencies coupled with rising costs that come with growing older to drive home the importance of money; why its vital to stay the course at larger companies at least till you've built a sizeable ESOP corpus in five years and only then even beginning to entertain the idea of joining startups. The caveat being that joining a startup that does exceedingly well is a super-rare event, akin to a royal flush in a poker game.

I agree with him, partially. Money is important; financial planning is vital; contingencies can cause great stress if not prepared for in advance.

Where I disagree: people are built differently. I'm not ascribing generalisation to him - he's speaking of his experience, but I thought it was worth responding from the perspective of those he marginalises as people who "lost out on a lot of money".

I never sat for placement positions in college. I was intent on working for companies I felt were doing meaningful work; I had found one and planned on joining them full-time. As part of my search for meaning, I had planned a few attempts at the civil service exam as well.

The pandemic occurred; plans were disrupted - a ton of learning happened in a very small period of time. I found meaning in volunteering, and meaningful work in open-source technology. In all of this, my decisions remained guided by doing what I thought was right.

From his perspective, I seemed to have "lost out on a lot of money". In a few years, a lot of my friends are also probably going to be worth "early seven figures".

Here's the catch though: I'm okay with that. In fact, some of them already are worth that much, and I love it for them.

Some people are okay seeing their friends have a lot more money than them. For some, money isn't a means to the fulfilment of a lifestyle standard they dreamt of as kids; its simply numbers on a screen. For some, money is merely a need, and as long as what they have – and will have – is enough for what will happen – and might conceivably happen – they're okay letting other things guide their imagination on the daily.

One of the greatest joys in life I experience comes from doing things that make me feel like myself: letting numbers on a screen guide the decisions of my life is not a part of that, it never will be. I don't mean to minimise the value of money - it's very valuable advice to remember that you need to optimise for having enough money; at the same time, there is a real cost to seeing your self evaporate away during the best years of life in chasing security against increasingly ambiguous risk.

Life isn't quantifiable: humans attempt to answer intractable questions by replacing the question itself; so we tend to use money to answer "How much of life do I have?".

Money does have "life value", and to its great credit, it compounds fantastically well in a largely predictable fashion. At the same time, I think it's wise to remember that not following your own idea of how life should be lived has an insidious effect on your self-esteem; and the more you do it, the more that too compounds.

Doing what you think should be done will naturally not work out always in life. There will be more failures than successes, but there will be successes. The failures will bring doubt, but the successes will add more and more self-belief.

Most importantly, both add to a strong sense of contentment with the course of your life. I'm the sailor of my own ship, and I'm satisfied with how I've managed to steer it.

Who do you want to be: someone who frets over not having as much money as their peers, or someone who's okay with what they have?

To someone who feels the itch to be the latter, and not see themselves shrivel away in the competing cacophony of office politics, prestige races, and social signalling: I'd say, do it. You're not alone.