Really, then, a technical person with some valuable technical work should just start their own business.
Precisely. You've correctly identified the irrational non-technical prejudice the financial industry may have towards someone such as yourself. The only solution is to become their competitor. You'd be surprised how easy it is to beat incompetent corporations at their own game. If it can be done with multi-stage rockets, it can be done with hedge funds.
Hence why we're all united here as fans of PG's essays on HN. Welcome aboard, and god speed in your entrepreneurial ventures.
For me, it has been some fun math
and software. I'm gathering some
initial data and should go live
soon. Then if people like the work,
I'll be in good shape.
Just checked with my ISP: Can
upgrade to 25 Mbps upload speed
with a static IP address for
$89 a month. That 25 Mbps is
a lot: If users really like my
work, enough to half fill that
24 x 7, it adds up to millions
a year in revenue. Less expensive
to start than a pizza carryout,
and makes money even when
I'm asleep.
I'm borrowing at least two of
PG's points: (1) At first
don't try to please 1 million
users only a little but
try to please 100 users a lot.
Then they will tell others and
will have 1000 users and 10,000
users. Then expand to another
100 users .... (2) Initially,
don't be afraid to do work that
does not scale. So, I'm following that:
For the data, the 'business model'
has that gathered, in a way that
will scale, automatically
as a by-product of the usage, but
that will work well only with a lot
of usage. In the meanwhile, I will
will just insert good data by hand!
From the lectures in Sam Altman's
course at Stanford, just completed,
what I'm doing looks fine except
I'm a solo founder, who's done all
the work, thus, knows all the work,
has no co-founder disputes,
owns 100% of the business, and has
meager burn rate. The burn rate
is so low that by the time the business
qualifies for equity funding, it will
likely also be profitable enough
for me to buy lots more servers,
in a spare bedroom, upgrade my
house circuit breaker to 200 A,
put in a window A/C, get some
UPS units, put my emergency
electric generator on a pad in
a small shack just out back
and have it kick off when the
UPS says so, get a new SUV
and Corvette, and keep growing.
Outsource bookkeeping, accounting,
taxes, and legal, and grow.
Maybe be like the Canadian
romantic matchmaking service
Plenty of Fish, long just
one guy, two old Dell servers,
ads just from Google, and
$10 million a year in revenue.
Sure, if we were four co-founders,
all married, with all four
wives pregnant and wanting
a new, two bath, three bedroom
house, with a nice backyard,
in a nice neighborhood, and
a new SUV, for her, with
a baby car seat, a play pen,
a bassinet, a crib, a stroller,
two washing machines, help
with the housework, a GYN,
OB, pediatrician, GP, dentist,
dermatologist, optometrist,
swimming instructor, etc.,
then, sure, we'd be desperate
for equity funding! But,
not me!
Looks fine so far.
$10 million a year is a lot
for a mathematician on Wall Street.
Precisely. You've correctly identified the irrational non-technical prejudice the financial industry may have towards someone such as yourself. The only solution is to become their competitor. You'd be surprised how easy it is to beat incompetent corporations at their own game. If it can be done with multi-stage rockets, it can be done with hedge funds.
Hence why we're all united here as fans of PG's essays on HN. Welcome aboard, and god speed in your entrepreneurial ventures.