Hey all,
I posted this in another subsection of the forum, but I thought this subsection might be a better home for the post.
I just finished up The Millionaire Fastlane, and I don't think I've ever read a piece of literature that spoke to me more than this book. To give you a brief background, I'm a math major at a top state school in the US, graduating in December with a 4.0 (which I'm aware in this forum means virtually nothing). I'm also graduating with a negligible amount of debt, thankfully. About a year ago, I decided to really take control of my education, and I began to teach myself how to program. Fast forward to today, and now I'm quite good at programming, and I can honestly say that programming was the only useful thing I got out of college despite teaching it to myself (i.e. college was useless to me from an educational standpoint).
Because of my passion for coding, I decided that I wanted to work as a software engineer when I graduated, preferably at a large tech company (Google, Facebook, etc.). Currently, I'm working as a data scientist at an F25 energy company for the summer, and this job is the reason I discovered the Millionaire Fastlane. Only after a few days, I realized how much of a scam (for lack of a better word) the 9-5 life is. I'm building out models that make/save my company hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars, and I'm getting paid 30 an hour for it. Huh? I realize this can come off as bratty, but I know for a fact I can do better.
Here's where my crossroads intersect: in my free time outside of work, I've been incessantly doing interview prep (Leetcode for you tech savvy readers). The thing is, Leetcode is almost only useful for interviewing, and outside of it, it teaches you problem solving skills (which is vital to any profession) but not really anything else. On the other hand, I have a startup idea that I really believe in (who doesn't lol), and it passes the litmus test/commandments that MJ lists out in TMF for a solid business. My business partner and I quickly built out an MVP, and we think with a year's worth of solid work, we can have something that could be quite profitable. Now, I can't really do both interview prep and this business all at the same time, because as MJ says, monogamy over polygamy. I really want to just say screw it to the dreams of being a software engineer at Google because my current job has shown me that I despise the 9-5 life, and a job at Google will be virtually no different. However, I'm afraid of graduating college with no job. I'm lucky enough to say that I come from an upper middle class family, so I wouldn't be on the streets if my startup failed, but there's still that fear that I'm shooting myself in the foot by not focusing my time on recruiting (again, this is probably part of the slowlane brainwashing I've been taught my society and family). This entire situation has been causing my overall discipline to dwindle due to paralysis by analysis, and I need to make a decision ASAP so that I stop wasting time switching between interview prep and working on the startup.
With all this being said, what would you do if you were in my position? I believe that I have the capability to create something for myself, and I hate the 9-5 life. However, I don't want to shoot myself in the foot by not getting a good job at a top tech company.
Thanks for reading. Looking forward to learning from all of you in the future.
I posted this in another subsection of the forum, but I thought this subsection might be a better home for the post.
I just finished up The Millionaire Fastlane, and I don't think I've ever read a piece of literature that spoke to me more than this book. To give you a brief background, I'm a math major at a top state school in the US, graduating in December with a 4.0 (which I'm aware in this forum means virtually nothing). I'm also graduating with a negligible amount of debt, thankfully. About a year ago, I decided to really take control of my education, and I began to teach myself how to program. Fast forward to today, and now I'm quite good at programming, and I can honestly say that programming was the only useful thing I got out of college despite teaching it to myself (i.e. college was useless to me from an educational standpoint).
Because of my passion for coding, I decided that I wanted to work as a software engineer when I graduated, preferably at a large tech company (Google, Facebook, etc.). Currently, I'm working as a data scientist at an F25 energy company for the summer, and this job is the reason I discovered the Millionaire Fastlane. Only after a few days, I realized how much of a scam (for lack of a better word) the 9-5 life is. I'm building out models that make/save my company hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars, and I'm getting paid 30 an hour for it. Huh? I realize this can come off as bratty, but I know for a fact I can do better.
Here's where my crossroads intersect: in my free time outside of work, I've been incessantly doing interview prep (Leetcode for you tech savvy readers). The thing is, Leetcode is almost only useful for interviewing, and outside of it, it teaches you problem solving skills (which is vital to any profession) but not really anything else. On the other hand, I have a startup idea that I really believe in (who doesn't lol), and it passes the litmus test/commandments that MJ lists out in TMF for a solid business. My business partner and I quickly built out an MVP, and we think with a year's worth of solid work, we can have something that could be quite profitable. Now, I can't really do both interview prep and this business all at the same time, because as MJ says, monogamy over polygamy. I really want to just say screw it to the dreams of being a software engineer at Google because my current job has shown me that I despise the 9-5 life, and a job at Google will be virtually no different. However, I'm afraid of graduating college with no job. I'm lucky enough to say that I come from an upper middle class family, so I wouldn't be on the streets if my startup failed, but there's still that fear that I'm shooting myself in the foot by not focusing my time on recruiting (again, this is probably part of the slowlane brainwashing I've been taught my society and family). This entire situation has been causing my overall discipline to dwindle due to paralysis by analysis, and I need to make a decision ASAP so that I stop wasting time switching between interview prep and working on the startup.
With all this being said, what would you do if you were in my position? I believe that I have the capability to create something for myself, and I hate the 9-5 life. However, I don't want to shoot myself in the foot by not getting a good job at a top tech company.
Thanks for reading. Looking forward to learning from all of you in the future.
Dislike ads? Become a Fastlane member:
Subscribe today and surround yourself with winners and millionaire mentors, not those broke friends who only want to drink beer and play video games. :-)
Last edited:
Access Restricted: Unlock 1,000,000+ Posts
Stop Peeking Through the Keyhole.
Open the Door.
You hit a wall because the best advice isn't free—it's earned. Since 2007, MJ DeMarco has been active here daily (99.9% active rate), building a war room for entrepreneurs who refuse to settle for mediocrity.
- Active Daily: Life-changing content posted dozens of times every day. No dead threads.
- MJ's Inner Circle: Direct access to the author of The Millionaire Fastlane.
- Vetted Network: Connect with founders scaling to 7 and 8 figures.
- Proven Roadmaps: Strategy over motivation. Execution over "hustle porn."
"SCALED TO 6-FIGURE MONTHS"
"Tips and advice here saved me from huge mistakes, others allowed me to scale my business to 6-figure months."— User MitchC
"INSANE QUALITY OF PEOPLE"
"The number of high quality people I've met from this forum has been insane. All of it predicated on building real value."— User Richard Peck
"You are the average of the five people you surround yourself with."
Are you surrounding yourself with success?
