My point is only that if you quit a thing, don't do it without something else lined up, it is just foolish. Doesn't matter if it is your own business or another job, but you don't just say, "I don't like this, so I'm not going to do it anymore."
I'd argue that assuming you must always know what you're doing next is another kind of foolish.
Nature abhors a vacuum. Someone who values creating things and making an impact will find a way to create things and make an impact, even if that way is not immediately apparent at first. What else are they going to do, sit at home and watch TV?
I have both gaps and overlaps on my resume. I find that the gaps - where I said to myself "I have no idea what I want to do, I'm going to play around with things and keep an eye out for opportunities" - are far more valuable than the overlaps, where a side project became a startup immediately after I quit. I think that's really common for a lot of folks. PayPal was Max Levchin 4th idea (he got out of college and said "I don't want to work for anyone else, I'll play around with stuff until I figure out something to do"), Parse came out of the wreckage of Gamador and Etacts, Paul Buchheit quit Google without something lined up before founding FriendFeed, getting acquired by Facebook, and then ending up at YCombinator, etc.
A lot of people take it to be a sign of confidence and an embrace of vulnerability when you're willing to accept that you don't know what you want to do. Maybe you have something to learn from Loren, too.
Hi Jason -- That point is not quite what I read from your initial post, but regardless I tend to agree with most of your advice. I just really disagree with your assessment of loren. (So apologies if my reaction seemed overly-negative).
It sounds to me like loren did have a few project ideas lined-up, and the drive to work on them. While personally I'd want a better guarantee of future revenue before quitting a job, I can't fault someone for following their passions like that. He may someday become wiser and more experienced, but my hope is that he'll be able to look back without regret on his decision to quit.
If that was the point you were trying to make, it didn't come across to me at all. I interpreted the point to be, "If you want to quit because things are boring you need to stop whining and keep doing it."
