I've been thinking about living in a different country for a while. Done it a couple of times for short periods (up to three months), but maybe I should spend a year or so doing something entirely different in a foreign country. Thanks for the advice! I speak a couple of languages, though only 3 fluently, which means that there's a lot more to learn, thanks!
Yes, this is indeed what I originally planned to do. Although I keep a book with the problems / ideas I have, none of them really motivates me (and I think there are about a hundred ideas in there). Given that there are enough ideas, I don't think the ideas are the problem...
I guess this is the perfect solution, but I don't feel like doing that now. I have the time, some money, lots of contacts and no car, expensive house or girlfriend. I have the ambition to become wildly successful. I've spend the last 5 years reading a lot on startups, but I don't see myself putting in long hours of software development at this moment.
have u considered living abroad? I spent 3 years in silicon valley and got burnt out. So i just moved to vietnam, opened a bookstore and outsourced most of the work. Then I just went out a lot and traveled a lot since Vietnam is close to everything (thailand,singapore,indo, hongkong,etc). Best years of my life by far:)
You didn't give a lot of hard details to work with, but based on this post, I would say find work outside of software. It's clear that you're not well suited to founding a startup - you don't have the a vision and lack motivation - and you probably are right that you wouldn't do well at a larger company.
A number of people I know outside of software have great ideas for startups because they run into hard problems in their fields that they recognize could be automated, but they lack the technical talent to solve the problem. Maybe you'll be in a position to find one of these problems and be motivated to solve it if you find something you're passionate about.
It was just a lot of fun. I couldn't help myself. I started my first year of college doing something related to CS, but after I started taking some CS courses I switched almost immediately. My MSc. was even more fun, I really liked the problems. However, I didn't want to go to grad school, I just don't see myself working on one specific problem for 4 years or more.
I guess I'm burnt out indeed. A while ago, I asked my doctor about this, but she said that I should just make a list of things I like to do, and not worry too much: it's natural at my age (the infamous quarter-life crisis).
This weekend I'll leave on a month-long vacation with no laptop, iPad and wireless internet, so let's see if that helps a bit.
Thanks (and also, thanks to everybody else in this thread, I've already learned a lot).