cavalier1138 wrote:Subban_Fan wrote:Maybe that's why so many head of successful start-ups seem so ridiculously confident almost to the point of delusion (Travis Kalanik, Tony Hsieh, Steve Jobs). Probably been told by many people again and again they're being dumb or their idea is flawed (Evan Spiegel), only to succeed.
But notice that you're talking about people who headed up successful start-ups, not attorneys working for big firms. And for every Steve Jobs, there are a few hundred (or thousand) people who didn't get lucky and/or got fucked over by Steve Jobs as he clawed his way to the top. If you only focus on the success stories, you're much more likely to ignore what the reality is for the majority of people who tried to do the same thing and failed.
That's generally the deal for a lot of valuable or great things. If you want a big payout, you're going to have to bet big. It's not that different in engineering, finance, real estate, or gambling. The existence and success of Skadden and Watchell Lipton was largely due to risk/timing/luck. Staying with the gambling analogies people have used, generally if you want to win big at blackjack, you're going to have to bet big.
It's interesting how people here keep using casino analogies to illustrate the stupidity of the OP's risk and the luck involved, when all of life's decisions can be simplified down to a gamble. I remember taking a statistics class and the recommended reading was The Drunkard's Walk, which covers how risk/luck plays a role in many of life's outcomes. I recommend every law student or lawyer read it.
No one is "only focusing" on the success stories anymore than others have pointed out how people here tend to focus on the failure stories. Sure, the majority of people who join a startup won't be Steve Jobs, no one said they would. But there's a comfortable middle ground. Thousands of people are minted fresh millionaires when companies like Twitter declare an IPO. They're not all Jack Dorsey, nor were they all failures. For all the people Steve Jobs fucked over, there were Apple employees that received gigantic pay-days. They're people that took a big bet at the time and with the right luck, received a huge payout. Without the willingness to take that risk and luck, would have never happened.
Yea, I'm a bit more willing to take risks than others, but I understand why they aren't. It's a personal choice.
Personally, I could care less whether someone takes on risk in their career or not (as long as I don't end up paying for whatever debt theyif they default. Go to Harvard, go to Cooley. Get your PhD in History despite poor employment outcomes. Why do I care? It's weird how TLS people get all enraged or personal about it, as if it somehow effects them (or maybe they just feel personally effected due to market satuturation. But if they think the OP is dumb in the first place, then it shouldn't be a concern because he wouldn't be competition anyways).
It's just interesting the way people on TLS view risk. Taking $200,000+ out on loans to go to a Top 10 law school on high interest, losing out on 3 years of work, insisting on only working for certain
types of law firms doing certain types of work -- that's acceptable risk. But playing craps is crazy? It's like they're very risk adverse, except they're not at all within their view of what's an acceptable risk.
The real question is, if you have such an appetite for risk, why the hell would you want to be a lawyer?
Because it might be of more interest to them than javascript?
Yeah, being a lawyer is all about preparing for the worst-case-scenario. (even in the jobs with legit adrenaline moments.)
You don't think employees of startups or prudent investors prepare for the worst-case-scenario? Don't think Tony Hsieh ever thought about the possibility of and prepared for when his bank account went to $0 because Zappos wasn't profitable?