Risk It All Or Go The Safe Route? Are Startups Good For Junior Devs?

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all right it is Wednesday Wednesday evening it is just before 600 leaving the office here uh got a good topic I like this one thank you for submitting this in the comments we're going to be talking about taking risks early in your career um I think this is a super cool one uh we'll dive into that in just a moment I I'm still stuck in this courtesy shuttle it's not a shuttle I guess it's a courtesy vehicle there we go it sucks uh been super swamped at work this entire week but they did just call me so I'm hoping they have an update and I can go swap the vehicle and actually get the SUV back which would be nice um and then we'll be back in style and not not this X1 anyway that's coming uh I had a funny exchange with my my

skip level manager uh he's an awesome guy uh he very down to earth which is great and he's making a joke about uh said something about my podcast so I was saying oh no like my live streams are on on Monday cuz he's actually shown up on one of the live streams that I've done uh which is super cool and uh he said no like the the commute one so I guess he's seen me post about uh code commute which you're watching right now so I thought that was pretty funny um so I've been at the office every day this week and I said yeah I'm getting a lot of a lot of code commute episodes in so I'll be back in tomorrow so a lot more content um so reminder to folks if you want topics and stuff cover just add them in the

comments uh happy to try and go over them uh if people are asking stuff that I've already made content about I'm going to start just trying to link it um but over time like there's probably going to be some repeat I'll try to give a fresh perspective and stuff like that so uh if you wanted to be anonymous please just find me on social media Dev leader uh that's my my primary sort of Channel and personal brand uh just send me a message say hey I'd love if you could talk about this and keep it anonymous and the more detail that you can provide the better and helps me you know provide more targeted kind of feedback and perspective on things so with that said let's get into the topic because apparently people don't like that I ramble even though I'm going to be sitting

in traffic for 51 minutes buckle up friends okay so let's talk about taking risks earlier in your career I think this is uh to start things off something that's going to be be very different for every individual uh and the reason I say that is because everyone has a different risk tolerance okay um I'm going to be eating at the same time so um too bad I'm hungry and I'm in at the office all day so um everyone's going to have different risk tolerance so for me to describe a scenario and say oh like this is a good of risk or whatever you might absolutely disagree with that that might make you feel super uncomfortable and you might hear things I'm saying that I'm like oh that's risky and you're like what the hell are you talking about man like that's not risky at all

it's going to be different for everyone I regret biting into this thing because now it's super chewy so some framing for this that I think is interesting is actually Finance related and if you are someone that's looked at investing and whatever else like there's an interesting perspective around this where if you are younger you have more opportunity to take risks especially with like Investments and stuff because if something doesn't pan out so you put money in into something and doesn't pan out um I'm got to do this man sorry this intersections super crappy if you put money into something when you're young and it doesn't pan out the reality is like you have many years ahead of you to try and compensate for that right and it could be just a drop in the bucket so just to give you an example when you're younger

so you had $1,000 and you were like man like I've been saving up I got $1,000 I'm going to put all that into whatever and it's like kind of a risky move but it might have like potentially High upside $11,000 when you're a lot younger might seem like a lot but like when you're older and whatever you might say well that that's actually nothing and I don't mean to minimize that I'm just giving you an example right you might say yeah if I today and it's been 30 years like if I were to do the same thing with $1,000 do like sure it would suck to lose $ thousand doll but you might not miss it so if you're able to take risks earlier they might have a higher upside because they're riskier and the if if if they go south then it's not going

to be like devastating right you got lots of time to recoup so I think we can maybe take a similar approach or similar perspective when it comes to um careers potentially again this is going to depend on you and your risk tolerance but I think there's an opportunity to think about it this way and they're throttling the highway so that's a good sign uh for the record on any code commute video that I've done on the way home this highway has never been throttled to get onto which means it's about to be some some coming up so I'm probably going to get pissed off um so one of the comments regarding this when it was submitted was around like hey like I have an opportunity or opportunities at you know larger companies which is great like so congrats to this person that's awesome to hear

and they're kind of noodling around this idea of like should I go with that because it seems like it's D this guy's a jerk um because it seems like a safe kind of thing to do right larger company probably lower risk of like the company not panning out or whatever um so should I just go do that right like this feels like a pretty stable path or they said like I have a friend that wants to try doing a startup and for you this might look different right you might say like should I be applying to big companies versus not like kind of just like weighing out these different possibilities where generally speaking a startup is probably riskier than a larger company that's more established just inherently um there's always someone who's going to listen to what I'm saying and they're like no like you're

not safe at a big company they'll lay you off and like okay sure um the point is that the likelihood of a big company at least being able to survive versus a startup that's very it doesn't even have like an established product or something that's probably statistically going to be riskier that's all I'm saying so do you entertain this do you go the route of the risky startup or you go for the cushy job now I think it's very interesting because I think I know I was saying it's going to be highly dependent from person to person in terms of risk tolerance but I also think it's going to depend on you as an individual and what you can get out of these so to give you an example cuz I think the the risk tolerance thing is probably obvious I hope I hope it's

obvious to people but um if you're the kind of person who needs a lot of structure and having routine and structure and I don't know um just a lot more order in what's going on like slower moving order this kind of stuff you might find that like being at a larger company feels like you can be more effective and it feels that way because it's very much aligned with like how you approach going about things and that's not good or bad or anything it's just like if that's how you align with things that might be a good fit for you and to start your career off that way setting yourself up in an environment like that you might say this is actually great and I can grow and uh be successful and do well at this because I have this environment that's very conducive to

how I approach things now let's take the exact opposite um and actually I think that I am this other category which is like the a bit more chaos bit more chaos a bit more uncertainty um I am I feel like when I am given um ownership autonomy and a good problem to solve like I will I will work my butt off and it's not because someone's making me do it it's like that's like what I need to to thrive but I know that about myself like I I don't like being under pressure but apparently apparently I am very motivated by by that kind of situation so um these are things like you learn about yourself right you might know this already um for yourself and man this is a disaster come on buddy get in here you can't see the lanes but if you're familiar

well I never know I don't know if you guys can see understand where I am and on my drive home but this is one of the spots where it's like two lanes on the right merging with the left but it's also an exit and I have to line up in this exit so I'm merging right when I have two lanes on the right merging left and my exit's backed up this is going to be hell um so I very much do better under all sorts of stress and Chaos I'm not saying that I like that feeling because I don't like being stressed out my wife would probably say that I she disagrees that I do I must like being stressed out because I do it to myself but I seem to be more effective not only in terms of productivity when I have all sorts

of stuff going on but like something about it is like a forcing function that I need to start structuring things and that allows me to be effective now that's something I wanted to get out of the way first of all because as we're talking about taking risks and stuff like that something to think about with approaching a startup versus a bigger company I think you want to think through this now you could be at a big company in a team that operates very much like a startup and it's a little bit more chaotic and then maybe you have a really good mix between to right you get some of that safety net from the big company right and then you're in a small team so it's kind of Scrappy and kind of chaotic and um so that could be cool right so there's no right

or wrong answer here this is just something to think about um and if you've done some introspection you might know this about yourself if you don't know this about yourself yet like as you go forward say you haven't got a job yet you're watching this and you're like hey like this is helpful cuz I'm trying to think where I want to go how I want to approach it this might be something you learn about yourself and if you like you know get it wrong the first time and you're like oh man like I went into a startup and it's too chaotic I wish I had structure like great you just started your career at least you learned this about yourself so I think that that's a helpful thing even if it feels like you made a mistake or it's suboptimal if you have awareness around

this can be great Okay so one of the things that I think is interesting is that when we think about startups versus a big company if we go back to the finance side of things um and this is again it's not a rule um it's just like a generalization here at especially at Big tech companies generally people get attracted to the idea of a big tech company because they'll see the salaries published they like oh like the software developers make that much like oh I want that because you know if I go there like I'll be set and like things are going to be great um and I mean there's other companies that still pay plenty um so it's not like you have to be at Big tech for for a crazy salary or something like that but it generally seems like people look at

big Tech and they go oh or or sorry larger companies and they go great okay more stable and I have this like potential for a consistently pretty high salary like that's a good spot to be right it's comfortable the situation is comfortable now when you look at a startup it might look very much the inverse of that where you're like I think I think the example from the comments was sort of like and I might have this wrong so I apologize if I I read your comment before I started blabbing here um but it could be like yeah like this startup that I'm going to go do with my friend like yeah I might not get paid I might not have an income from it but like the upside this is where it's interesting right the upside could be wild it's super high risk and

I don't mean that because like I think this person's incapable or something just statistically starting a a tech company starting any company has a lot of risk associated with it and if you've never done it before the risk is even higher right A lot of people that have had successful companies have failed many times but people only ever see the success at the end right so this person might be taking a huge risk but if it does succeed pardon me I have to cough um if it does succeed then the upside is huge now when we think about a a big tech company or a larger company unless you're Nvidia like the yes there's upside like you know for example since I've joined Microsoft a few years back like yes the stock price has gone up and it's done very well that's that's great but

it didn't 10x it didn't 100x it didn't like go to the Moon kind of thing and to give you an example when I was at a startup before Microsoft I left before they ipoed this guy's an absolute jackass like who do you think you are bypassing all this traffic what a schmuck anyway I left before they ipoed like um I I wouldn't have to work again in my life if I had been there and uh and exited like when the stars aligned right so um the opportunity for upside can be imense at a larger company because you're the likelihood of having like this um ridiculous growth where it's like you know orders of magnitude like multiplier kind of thing going on it's a lower likelihood but the good news is it's probably for the most part going to do pretty well it's probably going to

continue to grow so it's like it's a good spot to be it's comfortable so these are things to consider if you are younger the reason I wanted to bring up the finance thing is like if you're younger if you go to this if you try doing this startup and it fails after a year I mean like financially speaking so what right and I don't mean to minimize like hey you're going to need to find a way to like pay for food and like to stay alive but like if you could live at your parents house and you can save money doing whatever and then you can be putting your effort into doing a startup like that could be a super cool opportunity and if it fails after a year after two years and you're like okay like didn't work we got to go back to

the drawing board maybe you go get jobs at companies maybe you try another startup the point is like if that fails financially speaking I would think that that should not be something that derails your life uh financially maybe emotionally um I'm just kidding but the experience because this is the segue I want to get into the experience at these things is something else that I really want you to think about now again this is a huge sweeping generalization I've talked about this kind of stuff before um my own experience so this is my bias here my experience has led me to kind of have this observation that at Big Tech or larger companies you have this opportunity to be surrounded by uh people that are experts in their domain okay so um you will have people that are like very senior level Architects they've been

programming for a thousand years they built all sorts of crazy stuff like the opportunity to be around very very smart successful people and I'm using the word successful Asing like successful in their career not like they you know they they won the lottery and they have some like so much money I just mean like in their craft they they've done very well there are more people so there is more likelihood for you to be around people that are very exceptional so again if we think about you as an individual if you're around these people is that some type of opportunity that you would take to like to try and learn from them to try and see like can I get time from them can I like I have you almost have more access to them because you work at the same place now I'm not

saying you go join a company and then you just go you know message every single person that's more senior than you and whatever uh I'm just saying like the the proximity of these people is something that you might be able to leverage and and kind of uh help you learn and grow which is really cool there's a lot of really cool opportunity for that now conversely at a startup and like let's at this is going to sound terrible so I don't mean I'm not trying to be rude here but if we take this individual's example it's like yeah my buddy wants me wants to go start a startup with me and we have an idea and we can go build this like the again I'm looking for a nice way to say this the footprint of Highly exceptional people is probably significantly smaller not to

say that your friend is not exceptional but I just mean like if they're also new to this like in contrast to what I was just saying you have a much smaller footprint so um it's it's not that there's anything wrong with that okay so being at a larger company May position you to be around more exceptional people being at a startup may still position you to be around successful people but uh the footprint of the number of people is smaller now that can play into your favor okay so I want to give you a counter example to my trying to pick on the person in the comments I'm sorry but a counter example I had an internship and the internship uh was really cool for me I got to go to San Jose so I'm originally from around like the Toronto area Toronto area can't

speak Toronto area in Canada and um so I went to San Jose for this internship which was super cool and I worked at this company as a startup and uh Founders are basically like serial entrepreneurs they had worked uh oh man I'm just piecing this together I am pretty sure they were at Nvidia before which is hilarious now that I'm thinking about that so sure they they've done uh even more well than I originally uh thought anyway um brilliant people absolutely brilliant so very small footprint but the percentage of like very brilliant people was super high um this person's not letting me zipper merge what a schmuck it goes to one lane buddy really you absolute imbecile no problem we'll just pull up people don't understand how zipper merging works I have the camera off me so you can watch see this vehicle coming up

okay lady you're going to get home quicker okay there you go dummy hope you're happy okay um this is my least favorite part of the Highway by the way and how much time we got left only 47 minutes now ah this has been a it's been a week man so I was at this company that had very intelligent people awesome mentors um just like again like saturated with like Excellence which is super cool so the opportunities are there right so this this idea of going to a start could allow you to be around really really awesome people but you know your mileage may vary I want to get away from this stupid Range Rover pissing me off oh we're getting there oh come on one more Lane oh Freedom with all two cylinders of this X1 we're free in the fast lane I can't tell

you how good this feels okay back on track so when you're thinking about this decision right you may want to make a decision to prioritize being at a larger company because you're like in terms of a growth perspective you you feel and it's not right or wrong right you feel that if you can be around uh statistically more people that maybe um you know operating at a higher level and you feel that you can achieve that at a larger company because there's more people therefore um more individuals that are going to be operating at a higher level that might be a a decision you make right now it's just something that you have to like feel out I think and every one of these situations is going to be so different so like it almost feels like as I'm talking about this I I don't

I don't want it to come across at all like you pick one of these and this is the the expectation that you should have right um aside from saying something like startups are statistically much more risk like I think that's a fair statement but I'm not trying to say like you're not going to have awesome people at a startup I'm just trying to say that if you had 100 people or 200 people or 500 people the number of people that could be really amazing there's a higher likelihood that there will be more of them just because there's more people that's all I'm saying so something to think about okay um from a growth perspective um a couple things to think about at large companies you will have a couple things going on to consider um you may have uh this I don't know how a

good way to put it like there's going to be generally like more established career progression okay so like at Microsoft there's a very well put together like leveling system right Amazon Facebook like and and then companies that aren't that scale but still big they have established leveling systems right you'll hear like oh a staff engineer a principal engineer senior like there's these different levels that you can grow in your career and if you're thinking about your career being something where like I do plan on working for different companies over time and I want to you know be able to experience different places then having something like established levels could be very helpful and that's more again like there's some comfort in knowing if I go to a company that has a leveling system like that I can at least start to establish a baseline of

My Level Within in the software engineering industry now again I'm saying a baseline you might say well Nick it's different everywhere I totally get it but if you're you know moving up to like say you're like a staff or principal level engineer somewhere it's very unlikely that some other place is going to say n like you're only Junior here um there's some there's some wiggle room in the middle of these levels for sure so don't get me wrong but at least you have some opportunity for for a bit of level setting now with startups so to give you an example where I used to work um we were years into it before we started introducing even like senior and by the time I left it was only like developer or senior for the for the engineers right that's what existed there was no you know

level 1 2 3 4 or whatever just that's all you had um even for myself I talked about this in the video earlier today or recently that like there was no um I was a technical manager and they didn't have a like we had not created a director level position that was technical so my peers that were managers like me except I was a air quotes technical manager my peers that were managers could get promoted into director level roles because the career path existed at the company there was no career path above a technical manager so I could not receive a different title now to be very transparent I did not care about the title I did not care because I knew that the work I was doing at this company like this isn't like bragging or boasting this is just kind of of it's

like it's factual like I was spending a lot of my time going between teams because I was a resource that they could leverage between these teams to be helpful so I was I was a very useful person but um the title like doesn't really matter to me it call me whatever you want because I know that I'm doing good work like if you're going to compensate me and I'm doing good work and you're giving me that you know autonomy to do good stuff call me call me anything you want I don't don't care but this kind of changed for me right because by having this philosophy where I'm like I just don't care what the title is what does that mean when I go to apply to somewhere else right what does that mean so to give you an example like I had full so

I I actually started off as a team lead because we didn't have a manager title but I was managing between 13 people I think up to 17 at one point very early on uh and for a brief amount of time and I had comp few and I was doing one-on ones I was like I had a manager role but we just didn't have the title I'm like I don't care and at one point they switched and they said we're going to we're going to make you a manager and I said oh what does that change and they said just the title I remember it because uh the way it was presented to me was like like uh it's kind of kind of funny actually it was like you're getting promoted oh so compensation change no no compensation change oh so my responsibilities change no oh

okay you we're changing your title it's now a technical manager man these people drive me nuts moving into the lane that's going to end so they can move ahead of few cars like oh oh my God just get a grip get a grip at least I will let them zipper merge because I don't drive a oh that's not how you zipper merge that's not how you do it I'll let you in because I'm not like the lady in the Range Rover or better than that I will let you in but don't be stupid next time that's what stupid people do so the title thing might be something you want to factor in um I never cared until I went outside of this company right so going to apply into big Tech positions I was I just remember thinking like I had aha moment where I

was like oh man like that's why people care about titles because if I have a title and I'm trying to go somewhere else I can now say like this is what my title was there right like it becomes a and don't get me wrong I'm not saying that just because you make up a title means you have whatever experience but it certainly does help at least at a bare minimum will help you on your application to be able to say look I had this title someone's going to say oh well that sounds again on the surface we haven't done the interview that sounds like it's impressive so um It's Tricky like imagine just to give you an example if uh the company I was up before if they would have had the director level position and I had been given that if I said I'm

a director at this company that has 250 people I can assure you that looks better than just saying I'm a technical manager and you know what would have happened if they would have given me the title if we had it my my responsibilities wouldn't have changed right so this is why I never cared because I'm like I'm doing good work things are good it's just like it's just a title so I do recommend that people think about this because I feel kind of silly that I never really got it but that might be something if you're like we're I'm going to go start a startup okay so if that startup fails and again I'm not trying to curse your startup I actually do hope you tons of success I hope anyone who's listening to this or watching this like like OB like I want you

to be successful obviously okay so please don't get that the wrong way I want everyone to be successful um even the stupid lady in the Range Rover that can't zipper merge I want people to be success uccessful um but the likelihood of failing a startup is very high so if you go one year and your startup doesn't succeed okay so now you've gone from finishing school cuz I believe this person said that they were in school and finishing you finish school one year um what's your job title right like you don't you don't have the the title from the company because it was a startup and you know that wasn't a thing and then if you try it again now it's 2 years in you don't have sort of the formal title so again I'm not saying I'm not saying that this is something where

I'm like oh you need to go get the title I'm just telling you to think about this because I never cared and I never thought about it so other people who are working at these other companies where there is a leveling system they may be able to show after some period of time hey like my level went from X to Y demonstrated growth now they have some title that they can kind of bring around with them on their resume to say hey look see and you may not have that if you go into a either starting your own company or a startup where they're like we just need people to work hard and that's like where I was we just need people to work hard what does the title really matter okay so something to think about um I think we still got tons of

time cuz this is probably going to be one of the longest drives I've ever had on code commute after a long day I still have to work when I get home too which is why I'm like I'm just not not happy um it's just been a long week um what's the next thing I wanted to talk about here um oh so I wanted I was hoping that like I'd be further along and be closer to home and kind of wrap things up because I think that it was either this person who commented I think so or someone else but someone was saying like could you you could even talk about like your own journey and why you decided to like make certain decisions so I wanted to talk about that um so I I wanted to give you a bunch of General stuff up front

to think about and now I wanted to talk through like what my lens was going through it and if there's still time I will kind of talk about like as a retrospective like looking back what I change things um and we'll see um I've kind of done this before like this reflection but code comm's always fun because I'm just rambling and kind of uh saying exactly what I'm thinking as it's happening so we'll see what happens so when I was in university I I had six internships I went to the University of waterl it has a co-op program so every 4 months you go between school and work um so for me I am pretty conservative when it comes to taking risks and to start things off I said I'm going to be a software engineer and in Canada and this is this is just

my personal opinion about my Approach here in Canada at least in Ontario to be a professional soft engineer I've talked about this a bunch before you need to go to an accredited degree program you need to have uh I think it's 4 years of work experience under an like a professional engineer that signs off on them you need to do an ethics test so for me I'm saying I want to get into software engineering and I'm going to be an engineer like I'm going to solidify what I'm doing here to minimize risk okay so that was one thing I wanted to do so go University it's a co-op program and my thought process was that because I have six internships and every one of them is four months my my thought was like I want to make sure that I'm working at places where I

feel like I'm having a like my work means something and I wasn't thinking like an impact on the world I mean like if I'm making something I don't just want to be like the intern locked in a closet that no one talks to and then like I leave after 4 months and like you know what the heck happened I'd like to be like I don't know like demonstrating that I'm doing a good job like I want to feel that way and to me it felt like at a startup or a small company that I would have a better likelihood of success with that so my very first uh internship I think I thought I was applying to a startup a very small company I thought it was a startup it's not really a startup it was just a small consulting company um for I don't

know like for comparison though like I mean it really did just operate like a startup so very similar um so that was cool um in terms of like reflection on that I thought that was a great like I still think it's a it was such a good learning opportunity it was great um again then uh got very lucky with being around someone who was like an absolute amazing software engineer actually this guy was a professional engineer as well um so truly amazing software engineer great mentor very smart very very good with people like everything about you know working for for this individual is great I went back there a second time so um you know I thought that was a in still in hindsight a great first move um I went to another company after so and this this individual by the way recommended he

said I would love if you came back for a third internship but he's like but he's like I don't but I also don't want you to and he said not because I would like say no based on your performance but he's like he went to the University of water as well he said I want you to try and make sure that you have an opportunity at other places and so that was like a really good like reminder that like I should try out other things so I did mention being like sort of conservative in terms of my risk-taking and for me this was drisking if I try other things out cuz he said when else in your career are you going to be able to go four months at one place to test it out right like when when will this happen it's not so

he's like you should do this you should test things out and see like what you like so I was like that's a that's a brilliant idea so um I had gone to a different company after I think that I thought that it was a larger company like hey I'm trying something else out and um it ended up not being like I was the only developer and uh I know I joked about not being locked in a closet as an only developer that's what I was doing um but what was really cool about this experience was was like because I was the solo Dev uh I felt like I could drive a lot of progress um I actually went back there a second time and they had moved offices and it was truly like a startup so it was really cool uh that was fun to

be at and then I went then I was like okay I really do have to try out a larger company it wasn't like not like Microsoft or anything like that it's a few hundred people and and um so I got a feel for that and then my last internship was the one I talked about uh going to San hose 4 so that was a startup and something that like I felt like from doing all of that was that I was right that going to small for me at least going to startups or small companies was a really good way to to have this work experience where I'm like people are seeing the work I'm doing I'm connected with you know the people that are are managing me like it's just a good experience overall for delivering value and getting better so I like that a

lot um so I was pretty sold on the idea of being at a startup outside like when I had graduated um I kind of mentioned earlier that like startups are risky right like there's this inherent risk that they could fail and when I had joined the startup after work it's called magnet forensics by the way so if you're curious if I haven't said it before um it's called magnet forensics had a different name when we started there um so I remember uh going for the interview talking with the founder about it but something that really stood out to me was that he said we're profitable with customers and we don't have any investors so remember what I said about drisking right so for me personally I was like okay so there's a startup where what's the upside we don't know potentially pretty big that's pretty

cool that's pretty exciting what do startups usually have well a ton of risk because like they're going to be uh you know have investor money we're going to burn through it we're going to we don't have customers yet like we don't even know what we're building but that wasn't the case here it was like we're already profitable you don't have to worry about getting your next paycheck and not from investors right like we don't need investors we're we're doing good so I was like okay like that that actually feels pretty interesting right got this lower risk startup so low risk potentially very high upside or nothing right like we don't know but let if it fails so I'm like this is a pretty cool opportunity so I stayed there and um yeah the the reality is my experience at that company as it was growing

was incredible um I worked a ton no one made me but I worked a ton but I learned so much so when I think about being at that company as a startup as it grew into a small medium-sized business versus sort of the pace and the focus and stuff that I have at Microsoft I personally and this is just how I am I kind of talked about this already if I would have joined Microsoft so say Microsoft hired me at of University I don't think I think I would have stalled in my career earlier truthfully um because I don't think that the environment and not a of Microsoft just that it's different I don't think the environment at Microsoft would have been conducive to like my sort of what I need for growth especially at that time because I was thriving on the chaos and

just like shit's got to get done so let's get it done we'll find a way to do it um that's just it's just how I roll and like I needed that I didn't know I needed that so I got I was very lucky I didn't know I needed that but I kind of learned that about myself so being at Microsoft now I'm I'm older right um as a manager at Microsoft and not a technical manager at Magnet forensics I don't code at work anymore so like my responsibilities look different like everything about it is just different it's not is there chaos sure like this week for example has been a little bit of chaos but you know what interesting as like stressed out as I am about the chaos it's like I know I know this about myself because I lived and breathed chaos for

eight years straight I do well in chaos so like this is an interesting time for me because I'm kind of entering this chaotic period And I actually think that will help me so when I reflect on like was it a good decision to do startups and stuff yeah um I wouldn't go back and change any of that for me that might not be a good fit for you but for me I think I I'm very happy with the decisions I made kind of on that path timing wise missing an IPO missing them get bought back to private for $2 billion um that one's probably going to sting for uh the rest of my life unfortunately like a lot um yeah it's it's bad um but real real istically like I don't know that uh that shaped those 8 years like shaped who I am uh

almost like as a person but like certainly as a how I approach development right um from all angles like as a manager I had so much autonomy to be able to kind of find my way as a manager um to kind of learn like just how to get stuff done like it sounds kind of silly but like we had to we had to get stuff done to survive and we always found ways so um there's a lot of those experiences that uh you know I I wouldn't trade for anything so I I wouldn't go back and change like where I started or you know should I have gone to should I try to apply for like Microsoft Apple fa like no um I I like Microsoft I'm not saying like anything else so don't interpret that the wrong way but like in terms of what

I needed for growth um definitely the path I took worked out really well and clearly even though I sort of uh missed the opportunity the um the opportunity for upside was there so so now that I'm about to pull in to get home here um the takeaway is honestly I think you need to kind of think about uh your risk tolerance like I said at the beginning yours will be different than other people so listen to yourself uh I will remind you that if you're young you got lots of time you got lots of time so listen to your own risk tolerance for your own happiness levels but like the reality is if you mess up you have lots of time to to make it right so let's back in to this spot here and we'll wrap things up so as I'm backing in just

a reminder if you like me rambling about stuff if you want me to ramble about a topic just add it in the comments um or message me on social media it'll be Dev leader I hope you thought that was helpful in some capacity and I'll see you next time take care