Why are so many FAANG (or equivalent) engineers interested in education business?
Logically, it's a safer bet.
- Large total addressable market
- Higher margins
- Lower operating cost
- Lower barrier to entry
And if you are an Influencer, go to market and getting the initial traction becomes more cost effective.
Financially, it makes sense. It's also easier to raise funds by showing instant or fast growing key metrics.
From the ease of doing business, it makes sense too.
Even I would do an educational side gig to accumulate wealth.
Notice how I use the word "educational business" and not edtech.
Tech is such a vibrant domain with literally infinite possibilities, where tbh, an educational service is underwhelming (but it is nevertheless, important)
However, if we as technologists have achieved some financial freedom and stability in life, of all the things we could do in this world, what would you pick?
India has a lot of Influencers but very few visionaries.
Hardly any young engineer is dreaming big as a "technologist".
Even fewer think of attempting to solve hard problems.
Of course, the probability of success is very less in such scenarios.
But if you are someone who has achieved financial freedom and has all the time in this world to explore, why not?
If you are interested, here are some ideas.
What do hard problems look like?
1. Achieving a fundamental breakthrough in software algorithms and architectures.
E.g. Think about creating a more scalable or efficient neural architecture than the transformers.
Your starting point will be the latest research papers in any subdomain you like, and performing experiments on top of them to understand how you can improve things further.
2. Intersection of software and CSE with other sciences like biology, chemistry, material science, astronomy, etc.
E.g. Figuring out a cost effective way to do asteroid mining.
Often, these are hard engineering domains that require massive funding and multidisciplinary staff.
In these cases, you can think of joining as an early tech engineer of a startup that's trying to solve such things, so that you don't have to worry about the business side and focus on the pure tech problem you are trying to solve.
These possibilities are the tip of the iceberg.
Once I semi-retire, one such hard problem will be my main hustle, while some educational business will be a side hustle.
