If you want to make a lot of money, you get a job on Wall Street.

If you want to make even more money, you might dump that Wall Street job for a startup.

It isn’t a career path that works out for everyone. But for the founders of Wikipedia and Amazon, for example, ditching finance for tech was a smart choice.

Joshua Kushner worked for Goldman Sachs before he started Thrive Capital, which invested in Instagram and Kickstarter

Joshua Kushner graduated from Harvard and worked for Goldman Sachs. After a short stint there he left to pursue a career in venture capital.

His firm, Thrive Capital, has invested in startups such as NastyGal, Kickstarter, Instagram, and Makerbot. He also recently gathered $ 40 million to start a new health insurance company, Oscar.

Alexa Von Tobel was a trader at Morgan Stanley before she founded LearnVest, a startup that’s raised more than $ 40 million to give affordable financial planning to the 99%.

Alexa Von Tobel began her career at Morgan Stanley where she rose up the ranks to become a trader. She quit to attend Harvard Business School, then dropped out to found LearnVest.

LearnVest has raised more than $ 40 million to tackle an important issue: there should be financial planners and advisors available for the middle class, especially with such a high percentage of the population in debt.

Whether LearnVest will succeed or not remains to be seen, but Von Tobel looks well positioned to clean up as a tech founder.

Scott Belsky quit a job at Goldman Sachs to start Behance. After bootstrapping it for five years then raising a few million dollars, he sold it to Adobe for $ 150 million.

Scott Belsky is now an angel investor in companies like Pinterest with his own, very big startup success. Last year he sold a portfolio site for designers, Behance, to Adobe for $ 150 million.

Prior to founding Behance, Belsky worked for Goldman Sachs. He told Business Insider about his decision to leave Wall Street for a startup.

“I figured I might just become a middle manager living a great life, but not doing something extraordinary. I came to believe that doing something extraordinary is never achieved through ordinary means. I remember that moment at Goldman where I was thinking I should leave and start something. I shared that with colleagues and they thought I was crazy. I gained confidence from being doubted.”

See the rest of the story at Business Insider