Item — HN Reader

Starting your own business always entails some risk. Some people are not comfortable taking that risk, surely if you have a family to support it might not be feasible. This depends a bit on the country where you live, but where I live you are liable for your company - which means that what you own privately is shared.

I don't know how it's like where he lives, but the risk might not be worth it. It also takes a huge amount of dedication and work to make it work, I can imagine that at his age, his priority would lie with his family. (Hell, I'm a decade younger and my priority lies there, wife + kids should be a priority).

Of course, the CTO option seems good in that case :-)

2 comments

> Of course, the CTO option seems good in that case :-)

CTO typically means lots of travelling, which isn't really good if you're prioritizing your family (well, unless you can bring your family with you, and you probably can't).

At half the companies, the CTO is the head of all engineering, and at the other half, the CTO is responsible for evangelizing the technology. In both cases, but especially the latter, you are going to be the public face of the technical side of the company. Expect lots of travelling to conferences and other speaking engagements, and expect the sales team to call you in on sales trips to help sell the product to high-rolling customers. If your company has multiple offices around the world, you're also going to be expected to tour the offices as well.

All this time travelling is time you won't be spending with your family.

Consulting business is pretty low risk.

I started my own business when my wife was pregnant. I found it much more family friendly than 9-5 cubicle job.

True that seems to be low-risk, and 9-5 cubicle might not be family friendly either. But I'm working for a company where I can choose my own hours to a certain degree (in between 8-12, leave after 8 hours with one hour break). So I can be home rather early.

Plus work from home means that I can easily take care of making dinner etc.

But I didn't consider a consulting business and actually I have no idea how your day looks like in that area. Care to elaborate, I'd love to hear about it :-)

Location independence, 60% time without work...