Jeff Daily

When I left my job at Amazon, I was ready to put everything into my podcast business. I had $15k in a bank account, and I figured that would be enough to sustain me to my first podcast ad sales for Software Engineering Daily.

Fast forward three years, and my podcast was making enough money to keep me alive. I was proud to be establishing myself with a self-sustaining business owner. It seemed like I had made the right decision to leave my job and strike out on my own. I wrote this song “Carbon Copy” about an alternate version of myself that stayed at the job and continued to work for a stable income.

At Amazon, I found there to be something chilling about driving to work every day, clocking into one of the numerous gigantic offices in South Lake Union, taking the elevators up to my cubicle, and sitting down to work on a backend service that nobody had heard of. I felt indignant about a job that had seemed so thrilling from the outside.

It was always raining in Seattle, and the drive to the office always filled me with a dreary feeling that I was headed for a life of corporate mediocrity. I needed to taste the sweet victory of being an entrepreneur.

Today, after a total of six years of podcasting and four failed software products, I can see how the grass can always become greener on the other side. If I would have stayed at Amazon, I probably would have moved through a variety of engineering jobs, surrounded by interesting co-workers. I might have started my own project within Amazon, and found satisfaction in building on the titanic Amazonian platform that has changed the world.

Instead, I chose to do my own thing, and that meant living without very many co-workers. When the pandemic hit, I still had not figured out how to foster a good social circle outside of my small circle of remote co-workers.

If you work a corporate job, you may be dissatisfied. But there are many hidden benefits of working for a company. I chose a solo path and today I reap both the rewards and the consequences.

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This pandemic has been hard for everyone. For me, the struggle has been psychological.

At the beginning of the pandemic, I had a breakdown that has been hard to recover from, despite my best efforts. Over the last six years, life as a full-time podcaster and entrepreneur has taken a toll on me. I’m not sure what exactly triggered my breakdown, but there were many likely causes. Stress, broken relationships, a constant struggle to try to make my software startups work.

I broke down, and I need to put myself back together. Creativity has helped me in the past, and I’m making an effort to turn this podcast into a regular creative outlet.

I want to share my music here, and discuss it. Most people who listen to my podcast Software Engineering Daily probably don’t know I’m a musician, but I have been working hard to become a successful producer since college.

In each episode, I’m going to share a piece of music I wrote and discuss it. Today’s song is called “Go That Far”.

This song follows a typical pop song structure of intro, verse, prechorus, chorus, intro, verse, prechorus, chorus, bridge, prechorus, chorus. It was written at the beginning of the pandemic, as I was sliding into a psychological hole.

The song is about a loss of emotion. During my six years of podcasting and software entrepreneurship, I set aside my emotions, focusing on growing the podcast and trying to find a software product that I could sell. In my efforts to find that business success, I spent so much time alone.

Listening to podcasts, going to the gym, and sitting by myself at my desk producing new episodes—it was a solitary existence even before the pandemic, and this song was a prelude to the abject isolation of the lockdowns.

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