TLDR: How to angle yourself admist the automation revolution to achieve ungodly levels of TC. I'm a junior in university. As I search for next year opportunities I often wonder how much I can actually capitalize on such opportunities, and to what extent depending on what roles I can position myself in this wave. I see a clear path to senior eng at FAANG, or I can go into top tier hedge funds (think 2S, JSC, Citadel) which will also pay handsomely, but I wonder, what if I take a risk and optimize for the potential upside by going the startup route? I've always believed that the way to maximize income was to ride the prevailing trends of the industry that are set to create new markets and new business opportunities. The push into an unsaturated space naturally allows you to rise as more pour into the space. In this case I believe that self driving(merely as an example) is well on its way to redefined the economy and create / destroy many business opportunities. The way I see it, there are multiple ways we can integreate ourselves into this wave. Investments - VC. Not realistic for most people. Engineering - focused on making the platforms that enables the technology deployment at scale Research - developing the core technology (SLAM, CV, ML, ...), either through a partnership, or as an research employee Management - project managegment and shaping the vision and business of the product. Provided that we can pick up the skills in the aforementioned department with proficiency, and that we don't have money to play VC, which angle will provide the most leverage in translating business success to personal financial success? I currently believe that making yourself indispensible in the operations of the product, along with some clever politics, can launch you into a position of power. This translates to A research role with a management edge. Ideally you'd be able to intuit a timeline for R/D of a technology, and know when it will be market ready, its drawback and limitations, and thus the right time and audience to deploy to. However, I do not possess the insight and the experience into the valley as you guys do, and would like to start some discussion around it.
Pretty impressive line of thinking for a junior in college
Good on you for thinking about this at your age. When I was in your position in college, I was far more concerned with partying and bullshitting. Here's my recommendation: 1) find people you want to work with 2) start formally working on concrete problems for them (internships, consulting) 3) learn how to solve and enjoy solving problems effectively The rest will follow. To answer your question earnestly, I want you to think about the biological reality of where you are at right. You are young, and your brain is elastic. If you start trying to do anything and you keep at it, you can very quickly become not just competent at it but world-class. You have the cheat code to evade path dependency, and that is youth. But what you don't have is the experience to be able to accurately project into the future and accurately assess whether you would like the reality of a particular role or career path without getting that experience. You need to start trying things out until you experience the validation of doing something where you like the reality of doing it just as much as thinking about it. I enjoyed my time in the startup world because it allowed me to be a generalist and try out a little bit of everything. I spent a lot of time building and problem-solving. I eventually realized I was pretty good at doing that not just with scaling codebases, but organizations and revenue models as well. I tried the BigCo life for a while. There were a lot of useful things I got out of it, but I realized I like the startup world more. So, I'm returning to it. Do I regret my time at a BigCo? Not a bit. I thought that after the tumult and general liquidity challenged nature of startups that I would enjoy being at the more reputable BigCo with more resources. But then I realized that just as with startups, it all comes down to the team I work with anyways. A bad team with untrustworthy managers and apathetic colleagues will make me mentally atrophy and become unfulfilled no matter how much money I'm getting paid. It's so crucial to try things out. It's so easy to get an idea in your head of a direction your career could take vastly out of line with reality. Only experimental validation can protect you from this. So, I suggest trying to redirect emphasis from achieving a "position of power." to getting good at the things that earn you that. It is a primary, uneventful milestone of human development to seek social status and material accumulation. You want to start proving to society what you can do to earn that with results. A position of power is the result of (and not the cause of) a significant amount of very unsexy and repetitive work, gradually building your pattern recognition and problem-solving skills in every sphere of your work life. Technical skills, operational skills, communication skills, empathy skills -- if you focus too much on any local maxima of "a position of power," you'll get distracted from always discovering and solving the most significant problem at hand that you can see. Focus on the latter, and try to work with people who reward that. Remain opportunistic and make decisions with your career where you think the benefits outweigh the risks. If you plan it out any further than that, you risk overthinking the future instead of managing and incrementally developing the present.
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Wtf is ungodly levels of FIRE? Do you realize FIRE is all about living as frugally as possible and expanding your real estate portfolio?
FIRE is about making vastly more than what your standard of living demands. Living frugally is just a plus.
Not really. Its about saving as much as possible with your given income, by not buying a car, staying home for all meals, being conservative with all spendings, so that you save enough to start buying houses or invest in other conservative portfolio