--- title: De Crescenzo’s choice | daily.dev description: A reflective essay comparing Luciano De Crescenzo's 1978 decision to leave IBM for writing with the realities facing developers today. The piece contrasts the... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/de-crescenzo-s-choice-oqmn1zmnl twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: De Crescenzo’s choice | daily.dev og:description: A reflective essay comparing Luciano De Crescenzo's 1978 decision to leave IBM for writing with the realities facing developers today. The piece contrasts the... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/de-crescenzo-s-choice-oqmn1zmnl og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/oQmN1ZmnL.png og:image:alt: De Crescenzo’s choice og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # De Crescenzo’s choice **[Codemotion](https://daily.dev/sources/codemotion)** · 18 min read · 5 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A reflective essay comparing Luciano De Crescenzo's 1978 decision to leave IBM for writing with the realities facing developers today. The piece contrasts the economic safety nets of the 1970s (job security, affordable housing, a thriving publishing market) with today's precarious tech landscape (mass layoffs, AI displacement, unaffordable housing, a collapsed publishing industry). It argues that the romantic single leap is no longer viable, but indie hacking — building micro-SaaS products and independent income streams while employed — is the modern equivalent of De Crescenzo's courage. A practical checklist is offered: validate with real paying customers, keep infrastructure costs near zero, maintain a financial runway of at least a year, and test discipline while time is still scarce. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [A friend wrote to say that my…](https://daily.dev/posts/a-friend-wrote-to-say-that-my--xwfjlkbi4) · Justin Searls · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Programming Still Sucks. — Writing](https://daily.dev/posts/programming-still-sucks-writing-jgjbx2a12) · Hacker News · 7 upvotes · 1 comments - [It's OK. 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But Are You Enjoying It?](https://daily.dev/posts/you-are-learning-but-are-you-enjoying-it--osk89z6ts) · We Are .NET · 7 upvotes · 6 comments --- Tags: [#career](https://daily.dev/tags/career), [#creator-economy](https://daily.dev/tags/creator-economy), [#indie-hacking](https://daily.dev/tags/indie-hacking) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/de-crescenzo-s-choice-oqmn1zmnl) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"De Crescenzo’s choice","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/de-crescenzo-s-choice-oqmn1zmnl","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/de-crescenzo-s-choice-oqmn1zmnl"},"datePublished":"2026-07-01T23:10:42.596Z","dateModified":"2026-09-14T08:00:32.301Z","description":"A reflective essay comparing Luciano De Crescenzo's 1978 decision to leave IBM for writing with the realities facing developers today. 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