Aditya Kothadiya’s Blog

I read interesting thoughts by Paul  Buchheit on why to join a startup Vs why not to work for a big company in his recent post Is there more to life than money? Here is excerpt from that post –

There is plenty of evidence that happiness is only loosely correlated
with wealth. People seem to derive a much greater sense of satisfaction
from good relationships, and having a sense of purpose and meaning in
their life. Money matters too, but not as much once the basic need for
food and shelter are addressed, and those aren’t big issues for most
people deciding between joining a startup or a big company.

Furthermore,
most people who do join startups will never experience a huge payday.
Google distributed billions of dollars to thousands of employees, but
that was truly exceptional. Even moderately successful startups that
eventually sell for $50 million dollars or so will only make a couple
of people rich.

If all you care about is money, I doubt that
joining a startup is the right way to go. You’ll probably make a lot
more at a hedge fund, or by becoming a lawyer, or something like that.

Maybe
it now seems like I’m defending the boring 9-5 job, but it’s actually
just the opposite. Those 8 hours/day are a huge chunk of of your waking
life, and don’t forget that you’ll probably also spend a few hours
preparing, commuting, and "unwinding". Even worse, bad or boring jobs
can sap our energy, so that at the end of the day all we feel like
doing is sitting in front of the tv.

That’s no way to live, if
you can help it. Why surrender such a huge chunk of your life just to
get some money? For some people, that’s the only option, but for those
fortunate enough to be smart and educated, there’s a better way.

Instead
of throwing away your "working hours", why not make every minute count?
Why not find work that you can actually enjoy, work that’s fun and
meaningful?

…

the structure and systems in big companies tend to make work
meaningless and life unpleasant, at least for me. Of course smaller
companies can be awful too, but they have a greater potential to be
good.

If your job isn’t working for you, if it isn’t making you
happy and energized, then why are you still there? I can’t guarantee
that you’ll find something better, but perhaps you should at least try
something new. Don’t just give up on life.

I truly enjoy writing
code. I love creating new products and features. I like getting
feedback from users and finding ways to solve their problems. I like
the game of business. I like helping people. Of course there is always
some amount of unpleasant work that must be done, but that can be
contained (my rule is that work should be no more than 10% awful).

That’s why, even though I don’t financially need to work, I choose to work (and end up staying up until 4am pushing new code).

On the same line, I have written why entrepreneurship is a great career path. Here is excerpt from that post - 

The Experience Unlimited

Starting your own company and
managing it to grow is an incredible way to gain experience and grow as
a person. I think, in the early stage of your corporate career, it is
very untypical that you will get very challenging and the cutting-edge
work if you are working with big companies. Sure, some people do get
challenging stuff, but I’m talking about generic pattern here. It’s
also very unlikely that you will learn numerous other things, which are
essential to develop your personality as a whole than your routine job
skills.

On the other side, entrepreneurship
is a combination of all the disciplines like technology,
administration, human resource, legal, and business management. It’s
about passion, confidence, learning, growing, and achieving. You can
learn all these things by staying in the corporate world as well, but
the core advantage of entrepreneurship is the rate at which you will
acquire this knowledge and experience will be incredible.

I think learning lot of stuff and
growing as a person at a rocket speed is a strong reason to seek
entrepreneurship as a career option.

After discussing with many entrepreneurs, one common characteristic I strongly noticed that the main driving force behind their entrepreneurial mind was – their passion. Whatever is the reason to start a startup, eventually it boils down to passion.

It was the passion to innovate the next remarkable product or service, the passion to add value to the customers, the passion to become rich out of the business, the passion to empower the people through generating more employment opportunities, and the passion to change the world!

Their passion is a force, sometimes an uncontrollable force that infuses their life with meaning and joy. It is that incredibly compelling emotion that enables them to go places others are afraid to go, to try things others are afraid to do and to be the kind of people others are afraid to be! It creates the energy and drive required to do what others think is impossible.

At the end, I wouldn’t say, starting or joining a startup is a good thing and joining a big company is a bad thing. Whatever you choose to do, if you are passionate enough in whatever you are doing, then you are doing the right thing. But IMHO, starting a startup can be the most passionate thing.

Have a passionate week ahead!