I saw a documentary about the company behind Minecraft, and when they interviewed the owner about what kind of advice he would give to a game developer starting

I saw a documentary about the company behind Minecraft, and when they interviewed the owner about what kind of advice he would give to a game developer starting out, he replied: "don't listen to advice". I became an instant fan. When I was running my startup about 15 years ago, I totally subscribed to the "never give up" mantras, and other myths about success. I read everything there was to know about the titans of the software industry, and how many of them managed to become successful after stretches of adversity. This caused me to become very unreasonable and eventually drove the company into bankruptcy. I ended up with a lot of debt that I never really recovered from. Had I instead tried to connect to people who had failed before, I might have learned things that are actually valuable, such as what the warning signs of impending doom are, how to judge your prospects realistically, and when not to put your personal fortune on the line. Instead, in a delusional rush to compare myself with highly successful people, I ignored how even in adversity they had a lot of things going for them that I and my company simply never had in the first place.