[danssig]

I think you and the parent may be talking past each other. When most people talk about "un-ambitious" people they're talking about "cogs". People working in some generic job in a big company.

Your dad sounds like he probably effectively has his own business which I admire and aspire to.

Personally what I hate is this attitude that think if you didn't become google/facebook you failed. There was a reddit post a while back about some guy who opened a cleaning service that replaced his "cog" salary and allowed him to quit his day job. One of the first comments was "this won't scale!". He was able to quit his job! How much more scale does he need?

[notJim]

> When most people talk about "un-ambitious" people they're talking about "cogs". People working in some generic job in a big company.

No, that's exactly what I mean. You are not better than the "cogs" simply because you've made different occupational choices. We all have our reasons for choosing what we do. And some people don't even have much choice.

[danssig]

We'll have to agree to disagree on that. Right now I'm a cog in a big company and I know what I do isn't as valuable as what entrepreneurs do. I came in to a team who had a horrible software system, replaced everything and brought running costs way down by decreasing code size while increasing features and maintainability. But in the end, it's all for nothing. As soon as I'm gone the team will either be decommissioned entirely, handed over to some other team who will have no use for what I've done or outsourced somewhere that will rewrite everything again.

Big companies are just a game of musical chairs for managers. They just need to show something on their 360 reports so they can get a promotion and they couldn't care less what happens to their previous team once they get that. They don't even care about the company itself, only climbing the ladder. If the company fails then they can just move somewhere else with their new higher rung experience and start the climb again. If you're a developer in such a place either you're trying to play the game yourself or you're literally whoring out your mind and fingers for cash. The job itself is utterly meaningless and can never be made meaningful because what you produce is irrelevant. The only part that matters is the politics.

It's true that many of us end up here because we have no other choices, but it's important to keep in mind what you're actually doing. Don't romanticize being an intellectual prostitute. Save up as much as you can so you can get out. If you're happy to stay in such a place, then yea I do have less respect for you.