AE's Journal

Where are you and where are you going?
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AnalyticalEngine
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AE's Journal

Post by AnalyticalEngine »

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classical_Liberal
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Re: AE's Journal

Post by classical_Liberal »

Welcome to the forums AE!

Don't be too hard on yourself, just work on the best life for you going forward. From a savings standpoint, you're doing great. It would seem you can decide to pursue any type of intellectual challenge you want. So don't limit yourself if corporate software isn't cutting it after giving it a fair shake with your new attitude.

Personally, I've found trying to reach ERE level thinking/consumption one of the most challenging intellectual, social, and psychological endeavors of my life. If you chose do do this, the side effect would be you're already FI.

Looking forward to more.

Mae
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Re: AE's Journal

Post by Mae »

Welcome to the forums. I'm looking forward to reading about your journey and insights.

AnalyticalEngine
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Re: AE's Journal

Post by AnalyticalEngine »

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Chris
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Re: AE's Journal

Post by Chris »

I hear you on the tech conferences. But the whole industry really isn't like that. The closer you are to the hype curve, the worse it is. But for me, I've been a part of some really good teams. Interviewing is a method of exposing yourself to the possibilities in the industry. During the interview, just ask, "does your company have a 'no asshole' rule?" If they don't know what you're talking about, move on!

I left my first job around your age for a startup. At the startup, everyone was older than me, and significantly so. Also, no assholes. It was a good experience.

jacob
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Re: AE's Journal

Post by jacob »

I've worked (for some years) in all three alternatives. I think this is enough to have a good idea about it but not enough to remove all autobiographical bias, so caveat emptor.

Finance - I was a quant trader in a private/principal equity company on the buy-side. High finance divides in sell-side (think investment banking, people wearing expensive suits calling themselves vice presidents (it's a sales title), and making high salaries) and buy-side (think mutual funds, hedge funds, people wearing flip flops, and making bonuses). The average age was 27 or so (I was the oldest in our group) and this is definitely something you'll age out of unless you get rich(*) or get into management/support. Research is similar to academia except that there's way more secrecy. The level of intellectualism was much higher and broader than found in academia. In academia people are surprisingly uninterested in anything outside their subsubsubfield. In finance, an idea might be new way to see the market, so people are always interested. This is also why people are reluctant to share their best ideas, unlike academia. People tend to divide into ballers and mundanes. This is more of a personality thing than a wealth-effect but different companies will have different cultures in that regard.

(*) In which case you either retire or start your own boutique shop and try to get even wealthier. Many are only there to get rich. When people learned I was already FI, some wanted to know why on earth I went and got a job in finance. Someone interviewing with the company once requested an interview with me based on having read the ERE book just to see if I was real.

Academic - Undergraduate work is nothing like grad school (in my book, a masters is just an extension of undergraduate work with more courses). The difference between phd work and masters work is that there are nobody who has the answer. It's unknown-unknowns vs known-unknowns or unknown-knowns. In other words, it requires persistent originality. This can be highly frustrating for some when they are used to being able to give up and ask the professor for the answer. Research interests are so specialized that you will probably have very little to discuss with your colleagues professionally. Read http://phdcomics.com/ from the first post to get a fairly realistic idea of the grad school environment.

Writing - This is tricky. I've struggled with the boring/pointless thing myself. Is your motivation external or internal? Do you need to make money? Does it matter to you that people like your book or that the book gets read? When I wrote the ERE book, I was strictly internally motivated. I never figured I'd sell more than 30-50 copies. I just wanted to write down what I knew. Working on book #2 I'm more cynical or spoiled... at the very least it matters to me that the book gets read and to some degree also that it's liked. Otherwise, I can't find it in myself to bother compared to just sitting on the data/ideas myself. This is also due to the fact that when I wrote ERE there were practically no books on extreme early retirement, so it filled a void. This is not the case for the subject matter of book#2. But but ... I tend towards the Magnum Opus style which doesn't lend itself well to the 50,000 words per month and publish publish publish until you win style. Thus, motivation and strategy matters greatly.

AnalyticalEngine
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Re: AE's Journal

Post by AnalyticalEngine »

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AnalyticalEngine
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Re: AE's Journal

Post by AnalyticalEngine »

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Cheepnis
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Re: AE's Journal

Post by Cheepnis »

AnalyticalEngine wrote:
Sat Feb 16, 2019 10:21 am
. The business side has zero care for the quality of the code we write.
This seems to be the reality of most industries. I know I had to grow accustomed to it when I entered the adult workforce. If they want it bad, they'll get it bad.

prognastat
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Re: AE's Journal

Post by prognastat »

Business generally will prefer quick and dirty since that equals cheap. At least until something breaks or needs to be rewritten/updated.

AnalyticalEngine
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Re: AE's Journal

Post by AnalyticalEngine »

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prognastat
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Re: AE's Journal

Post by prognastat »

Yeah once you hit the limit Roth is definitely the better bang for you buck once you can't deduct it anymore. Still pay the same amount of taxes up front, but at least lower in the long run.

Hope work goes better for you next year, well this year I guess.

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