I'm in Boston at The Spotted Apron, which is a fairly snazzy bakery near Audrey's apartment that caters to people with laptops by having approximately eleventy billion outlets to plug into. Whether they designed it this way or it was just a happy accident is up for debate, but my guess is they realized they would have a ton of people kicking around with laptops, and nothing draws laptop people more than sweet, sweet alternating current. And the longer they stay, the more they drink coffee and purchase cupcakes. Truly a perfect business model.
So I began to wonder today why I feel so glum about working for large companies. It doesn't necessarily follow that large companies make people sad, and they didn't always make me sad. But something about the thought of working for a huge company (let's say more than 50 people) sort of gnaws at me now.
Back when I first started programming, I figured I would work as a cog in a huge company, which is pretty much what my father does. It looked lucrative to me when I was younger, and by all accounts it is. And although it may be somewhat uninteresting programming, even uninteresting programming is preferable to, say, bagging groceries. Plus, even at a young age I knew computers were going to be my life. They fascinated me beyond anything else the world had to offer. And back then, the only way I knew how to work on them was to work for a big company, like Dad.
Flash forward to age 23. I realize my programming skill has allowed me to pursue my own activities in whatever language I want. I further realized that I wanted to be my own boss. And after many a drunken bull session, a plan was made: to make something new that people would like.
But why is it that I want to do this? Is it the money? Maybe. I can make a fine living continuing to work for a large company. But I will never have sizable equity stake in anything unless I go my own way. Is it the challenge? Perhaps. Making my own company work would be far harder than anything I could possibly experience working for a big company. But it would also be far and away more rewarding to succeed.
So we come to the real reason I am striking out on my own: I want to do something new. I want to be the first to do something. And I want to help the world at large somehow. What I am working on right now (with my co-founder) will not make the world better. But if it becomes successful, I will have enough money to do something worthwhile. Something to change the lives of people who need help. That is the ultimate goal -- to be achieved through a mix of naive optimism and disillusionment.
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