Paul Graham wrote a prophetic essay in May 2005 that should be revisited by any 22 year old out there. It’s called Hiring is Obsolete. In the essay, he had this gem for all of us twentysomethings:
Your early twenties are exactly the time to take insane career risks.
The reason risk is always proportionate to reward is that market forces make it so. People will pay extra for stability. So if you choose stability– by buying bonds, or by going to work for a big company– it’s going to cost you.
Riskier career moves pay better on average, because there is less demand for them. Extreme choices like starting a startup are so frightening that most people won’t even try. So you don’t end up having as much competition as you might expect, considering the prizes at stake.
The math is brutal. While perhaps 9 out of 10 startups fail, the one that succeeds will pay the founders more than 10 times what they would have made in an ordinary job. [3] That’s the sense in which startups pay better “on average.”
Remember that. If you start a startup, you’ll probably fail. Most startups fail. It’s the nature of the business. But it’s not necessarily a mistake to try something that has a 90% chance of failing, if you can afford the risk. Failing at 40, when you have a family to support, could be serious. But if you fail at 22, so what? If you try to start a startup right out of college and it tanks, you’ll end up at 23 broke and a lot smarter. Which, if you think about it, is roughly what you hope to get from a graduate program.
If you really believe in yourself, and you have minimal financial commitments, now is the time. Of course, Luc and I are a little older, but we have some advantages in turn. We have graduate degrees which grant us a little more credibility and a few more skills. If we fail… well we won’t think about that right now.
In any case, Paul Graham’s logic made sense to us. So we’re here!
