The post resonated with me a lot. It is good that you had this realization rather than later.
One day, we'll all die. When we are on our deathbeds, I wonder, will we have regrets? Will we have family surrounding us? Or will we die alone?
Nobody wants to die alone. So we all make families. It is also best to die without regrets. Given these things and my nihilistic view of the world, I do wonder: what is worth my limited time on this planet?
The answer is different for everyone. Takes a lot of thinking and time to figure out what it is. I've arrived at mine after 5 years:
- I want to take care of my family (parents and find a life partner to start one)
- I want to be connected to my friends and be involved in their lives.
- I want to enjoy nature.
- I want to invest in my health
These things take precedence over everything else. Often in the earlier part of my career, I sacrificed a lot to accomplish something. I found myself often thinking about these things and explained away my thoughts thinking that "oh the promotion you got was worth it" or "you learnt something new" or "you worked with an incredible smart group of people and accomplished something together". I eventually realized, all these things were not what would give me the most satisfaction.
Since then, I've been living my second life. No one is going to remember my code. No one is going to remember an OKR I crushed. But I hope, my friends and family remember the beautiful moments shared with them to remember me after I'm gone. I hope they drink over my casket and share fun stories from my youth.
Working more means less time spent towards these activities. So, I'd rather optimize now for a regret-less death :)
Of course, the only reason I'm able to even think about this is because I am in a position of privilege (engineering job, parents paid for college). None of this would be possible if not for the great help I've had in my life to get me to this point. But.... why waste this opportunity. Most people on earth don't get to have the freedom to choose their life. They simply don't get as lucky as us.
I have listened to quite many episodes of your podcast and they were great. In fact after listening one about Rust I decided to invest time in learning and I am trying to use it to build a software product and I am looking for a co-founder:)
Let me tell you a bit about me. I started learning to code at 36 and I got my first job at 38. I am about to turn 41. I have a family so it is hard to find time to work on side hustles.
Sometimes I regret not coding earlier when I was younger. You can look back and regret things or you can be proud of how far you have travelled.
All I want to say is that be proud. You have nothing to regret!
Your wish to "scale business" and become independent of the Software Daily podcast in 5 years and the fact it generates you $1.6m yearly raises the following question: where do you invest money additionally to your business?
Here's the math. $500k with 12% yearly dividends will give you $5k per month. I'm sure you're able and actually saving $500k per year already. So in five years it may become $25k per month without compound interest (!). And 12% yearly interest with dividends and reinvestment is easy.
Great write-up Jeff. I’m an avid listener of the podcast, and I can tell you this much: your podcast is world class. I don’t know much about your other projects, but I really like that you are building stuff, I think it shows in your approach to SEDaily, the questions you ask, the guests you have on.
I’ve been trying todo something similar, a newsletter and building projects, so far it’s been very difficult, but I remain optimistic.
Sounds to me like you are well positioned for whatever comes next. I was a tech journalist for 20 years, then worked in the tech industry, now independent. The media business is constantly changing; your starts & stops are not unusual. And there's value in your many ideas, entrepreneurial approach, content skills, and community experience. You might do well to a) partner with other like-minded people so you are not trying to do everything yourself (podcast or whatever), or b) take your skills to the corporate world, which values storytellers, content creators, community builders, and needs experienced podcasters. You have options, but important to get the work-life balance or nothing else matters. After 12 months of pandemic, many people are feeling boxed in, but spring is here and things are getting better. Good luck!
Jeff, I've been a long time listener and I'm sorry you have had to rebuild so often. It sounds like you're really against the grindstone. If you want to engage with community and company-building, AND still have the bandwidth to settle down and enjoy a family, you might like the idea of a democratically run worker's coop. Instead of the natural tension between employer and employee, where one has a lot to lose in failure and the other has little to gain in success, all employees are driven by the profit motive and share in the wealth of profits. You still have business analysts, sales, engineering, support, but instead of working harder to earn enough profit for themselves, their company, and their shareholders, they only have to work hard enough to support themselves and their company, which is now in their own economic self-interest!
Dr Wolff has made available several videos on the subject that are easy to listen to and would highly recommend https://youtu.be/a1WUKahMm1s
Where you see a set of failures I see inspiration. Look at any entrepreneur and you’ll see a trail of failed attempts that ultimately end in success. You have always been an inspiration to me. Your podcasting work and other business ventures have helped me become the successful engineer I am today. Without the opportunity of contributing to the Software Daily open source ecosystem I would have never learned the things I know today. Without your podcast I would never have known the depths of software engineering. You have quite literally changed my life.
Your knowledge, passion, and persistence is admirable and inspiring.
The struggle I’ve found is balancing the desire to do something great with managing relationships. I’ve found that as much as I want to focus on building something great it means nothing if you can’t share it with someone. I hope you find that balance between career passion and maintaining thriving personal relationships.
The post resonated with me a lot. It is good that you had this realization rather than later.
One day, we'll all die. When we are on our deathbeds, I wonder, will we have regrets? Will we have family surrounding us? Or will we die alone?
Nobody wants to die alone. So we all make families. It is also best to die without regrets. Given these things and my nihilistic view of the world, I do wonder: what is worth my limited time on this planet?
The answer is different for everyone. Takes a lot of thinking and time to figure out what it is. I've arrived at mine after 5 years:
- I want to take care of my family (parents and find a life partner to start one)
- I want to be connected to my friends and be involved in their lives.
- I want to enjoy nature.
- I want to invest in my health
These things take precedence over everything else. Often in the earlier part of my career, I sacrificed a lot to accomplish something. I found myself often thinking about these things and explained away my thoughts thinking that "oh the promotion you got was worth it" or "you learnt something new" or "you worked with an incredible smart group of people and accomplished something together". I eventually realized, all these things were not what would give me the most satisfaction.
Since then, I've been living my second life. No one is going to remember my code. No one is going to remember an OKR I crushed. But I hope, my friends and family remember the beautiful moments shared with them to remember me after I'm gone. I hope they drink over my casket and share fun stories from my youth.
Working more means less time spent towards these activities. So, I'd rather optimize now for a regret-less death :)
Of course, the only reason I'm able to even think about this is because I am in a position of privilege (engineering job, parents paid for college). None of this would be possible if not for the great help I've had in my life to get me to this point. But.... why waste this opportunity. Most people on earth don't get to have the freedom to choose their life. They simply don't get as lucky as us.
Software Engineering Daily is simply the best podcast on the net. Please find a way to keep it going. You're an extraordinary interviewer.
Hey Jeff,
I have listened to quite many episodes of your podcast and they were great. In fact after listening one about Rust I decided to invest time in learning and I am trying to use it to build a software product and I am looking for a co-founder:)
Let me tell you a bit about me. I started learning to code at 36 and I got my first job at 38. I am about to turn 41. I have a family so it is hard to find time to work on side hustles.
Sometimes I regret not coding earlier when I was younger. You can look back and regret things or you can be proud of how far you have travelled.
All I want to say is that be proud. You have nothing to regret!
Your wish to "scale business" and become independent of the Software Daily podcast in 5 years and the fact it generates you $1.6m yearly raises the following question: where do you invest money additionally to your business?
Here's the math. $500k with 12% yearly dividends will give you $5k per month. I'm sure you're able and actually saving $500k per year already. So in five years it may become $25k per month without compound interest (!). And 12% yearly interest with dividends and reinvestment is easy.
What do you think?
Great write-up Jeff. I’m an avid listener of the podcast, and I can tell you this much: your podcast is world class. I don’t know much about your other projects, but I really like that you are building stuff, I think it shows in your approach to SEDaily, the questions you ask, the guests you have on.
I’ve been trying todo something similar, a newsletter and building projects, so far it’s been very difficult, but I remain optimistic.
All the best.
all the very best 💙
Sounds to me like you are well positioned for whatever comes next. I was a tech journalist for 20 years, then worked in the tech industry, now independent. The media business is constantly changing; your starts & stops are not unusual. And there's value in your many ideas, entrepreneurial approach, content skills, and community experience. You might do well to a) partner with other like-minded people so you are not trying to do everything yourself (podcast or whatever), or b) take your skills to the corporate world, which values storytellers, content creators, community builders, and needs experienced podcasters. You have options, but important to get the work-life balance or nothing else matters. After 12 months of pandemic, many people are feeling boxed in, but spring is here and things are getting better. Good luck!
Jeff, I've been a long time listener and I'm sorry you have had to rebuild so often. It sounds like you're really against the grindstone. If you want to engage with community and company-building, AND still have the bandwidth to settle down and enjoy a family, you might like the idea of a democratically run worker's coop. Instead of the natural tension between employer and employee, where one has a lot to lose in failure and the other has little to gain in success, all employees are driven by the profit motive and share in the wealth of profits. You still have business analysts, sales, engineering, support, but instead of working harder to earn enough profit for themselves, their company, and their shareholders, they only have to work hard enough to support themselves and their company, which is now in their own economic self-interest!
Dr Wolff has made available several videos on the subject that are easy to listen to and would highly recommend https://youtu.be/a1WUKahMm1s
Where you see a set of failures I see inspiration. Look at any entrepreneur and you’ll see a trail of failed attempts that ultimately end in success. You have always been an inspiration to me. Your podcasting work and other business ventures have helped me become the successful engineer I am today. Without the opportunity of contributing to the Software Daily open source ecosystem I would have never learned the things I know today. Without your podcast I would never have known the depths of software engineering. You have quite literally changed my life.
Your knowledge, passion, and persistence is admirable and inspiring.
The struggle I’ve found is balancing the desire to do something great with managing relationships. I’ve found that as much as I want to focus on building something great it means nothing if you can’t share it with someone. I hope you find that balance between career passion and maintaining thriving personal relationships.