from Hacker News

New college grads: Don’t sell your time for a living

by andrew_null on 6/3/13, 6:19 PM with 44 comments

• by 7Figures2Commas on 6/3/13, 7:05 PM

  Yes, new college graduates, please do not be seduced by the idea that you can be employed by a company that will pay you to learn how to do something of value.

  Instead, take everything you have (inexperience, limited funds, lack of domain expertise, etc.) and invest it in making "something."

  If all else fails, which it most likely will, join a startup, ideally one filled with a bunch of other young people trying to learn how to make "something" too.

• by rayiner on 6/3/13, 6:39 PM

  What a bunch of fluff. Most jobs involve "making things" it's just that the opportunities for leverage are low. Being an employee versus an entrepreneur isn't "selling your time" versus "making things" it's about how much leverage you can utilize in the things you make.

• by JDGM on 6/3/13, 7:42 PM

  There is a reason people sell their time: they need money to live. Advising new graduates (most of whom will have student debt) to eschew a "job" and go it alone "making something" is dubious advice.

  A professional-level graduate career gives a ground to hit running after college, and in terms of steps in the direction of one day managing one's own affairs it provides experience, connections, and a chance to build up savings.

  Going straight from school to no job and making "an app, blog, table, YouTube channel, or video tutorial" is very unlikely to lead to equivalent success, and don't let survivorship bias trick you otherwise.

  The people I admire are those who have worked professionally but even in cases of soul-destroying office politics, bureaucracy, and mismanagement, have never given up on their "plan", slowly moving in the direction they want and eventually being in a position (e.g. financially, domain-experience, network) to break free and do it their way.

  In the case of many HNers, I observe a movement from salaried employee to consultant with the freedom to work on their own stuff to...well a tonne of interesting things. I think that kind of approach is much more likely to succeed than the extremism and anti-"job" mentality of the submitted article.

• by minimaxir on 6/3/13, 6:54 PM

  As a recent college grad (Carnegie Mellon University Class of 2012), I take issue with the "working on a startup is more meaningful than working a 9-5 corp job" stance. It's not about skills, it's about security and certainty, especially in this job market (which still isn't great), even if you have the technical skills and education to do basically whatever you want.

  There's no harm for a college grad to wait a few years before doing a startup once they've built up savings and a positive reputation.

  It's worth noting that very few Computer Science students my year created a startup relative to the amount of CS students who instead decided to work for a large startup/Microsoft/Google/Amazon.

  http://www.cmu.edu/career/salaries-and-destinations/2012-sur...

• by rm999 on 6/3/13, 7:00 PM

  I know I'm taking this article out of context... so who is it targeted towards? Some background would likely help this article tremendously because as-is it's obviously ridiculous.

  Most people out of college are not in a position to forego a job to vaguely "build something". The issues are numerous: money, knowledge, ability, a realistic world-view, etc. I'd suggest the opposite to most smart engineering grads: sell your time (i.e. get a 9 to 5 job) and invest the money, knowledge, and free time you get into learning how to build things.

• by cuttooth on 6/3/13, 6:54 PM

  "At least the traditional version of a job, in which you do something you sorta hate, from 9-5p, and are paid for your time to just grit your teeth and do it. Let’s call this the “sell your time” version of a personal business model: You sell your time to an employer, and they pay you for that time."

  This is called being an adult and getting a job, much like the other 99% of the adult population. Some of us just end up being happier with what we do than others. Some people don't care about what they do at all as long as their non-work life makes them happy.

• by jarrett on 6/3/13, 7:24 PM

  Whenever I hear this, I think: Is this just meant to be advice for the elite, gifted few? Or does the author mean that nearly everyone should eschew wage labor? If the latter, then who will do all the only-mildly-interesting things in our world? There is a need for people who are willing to get work done. And by work, I mean stuff that's not fun or glamorous, but still important. Yes, you can hand-wave all that away with some vague claims about technology making drudge work obsolete. Except it hasn't yet, and we don't know if it ever will.

  Besides that, not everyone has the right attributes for self-employment. I suspect that much of what makes traditional employment painful is bad coworkers/bosses. Do we expect these same people to be successful running their own enterprises?

• by adamio on 6/3/13, 6:46 PM

  Better advice would be to know what you're time is worth, and don't sell it for less - even to yourself.

• by volandovengo on 6/3/13, 6:57 PM

  Could somebody please explain what andrew chen does? Is he an entrepreneur?

• by gordaco on 6/4/13, 7:41 AM

  If working has taught me something, it's that every job is "selling your time for a living", including entrepreneurship of any kind (selling your time to your clients, not your boss, but it's not different), and unfortunately that's a necessary evil if you want luxuries like a steady amount of food, clothing or shelter. Also, that every job is a day job, or becomes such after not many months. If you don't think so, you're either deluding yourself, a very boring person without a life, or extremely lucky (and remember, no matter how much do you believe this last option represents you, it's still extremely unlikely).

  Also: don't fall into the "be passionate" trap. Be passionate about your life, and don't conflate your work with your life. Keep your job out of your life, and if possible, consider yourself unemployed from 5pm to 9am.

• by qdpb on 6/3/13, 6:52 PM

  Don’t sell your time for a living. Starve.

• by drfurly on 6/3/13, 6:52 PM

  I'm graduating college with a BS is software eng next year so this grabs my attention. Programmers of the real world: Is it this bad? I can't imagine that it can be. I enjoy what I do. I even often enjoy frustrating programming assignments. Can a job really be that bad? I'm inclined to say that this attitude that we (programmers) are better than regularly jobs is a little too forward thinking.

• by adamz123 on 6/3/13, 7:22 PM

  I think the "don't work, but start a business" mantra is overdone. Starting a business IS working -- probably much harder than you'd ever work at a 9-5 if you plan to be successful. Even people that are passionate about what they do can burn out. There is no "quick fix" to having a job and it certainly isn't "just follow your passion and start a company."

• by darrellsilver on 6/3/13, 7:17 PM

  After 10 years in the workforce it seems to me the most important thing to focus on is getting a job that'll give them exposure to new things.

  Our students at http://www.thinkful.com often find themselves a couple years out of school, languishing in their 1st jobs since college, wishing and yearning for more.

  Unfortunately, incredibly talented people take the safest job they're offered because they have crazy college debt. A couple years later they're totally unfulfilled and want more.

  Planning how to "not sell your time for a living" while in college (or before) is just as important as not being compelled into a "steady" job at the point in your life when you should be exploring new things.

• by aridiculous on 6/3/13, 6:49 PM

  One's life != a business

• by macspoofing on 6/3/13, 7:19 PM

  Some people don't view work as an end goal of their life.

• by hkmurakami on 6/3/13, 8:37 PM

  do what you're interested in. don't do boring things for the money, provided you have alternatives that let you live comfortably and afford interesting opportunities.

  it took getting hit by a car going 50mph for me to really have this sink in. We shouldn't need a potential near death experience to convince us to abandon our vanity and achievement chasing and do what we really want to do.

• by derrida on 6/3/13, 7:16 PM

  TL;DR: Jobs bad. 1. Make things. 2. Make sure people want it. 3. Keep trying this for a long time.

• by romeonova on 6/3/13, 6:33 PM

  Good use of Onion News article.