6 ms·

> Failing at a startup sucks This. I have a PhD and a failed startup. It felt real bad, and I didn't get that far with it (9 months before calling it quits). C

by __mbm__ 10y ago

> Failing at a startup sucks This. I have a PhD and a failed startup. It felt real bad, and I didn't get that far with it (9 months before calling it quits). Creating a successful startup requires significantly more energy and stress than most science jobs, even for pre-tenure professors. It requires different skills than science. Few introverts will succeed at founding a company, for example. Moreover, you have to produce actionable results quickly, and you have very different success metrics. I'm one degree of separation from a PhD startup founder that literally killed himself as his startup imploded, when the company was 5(?) years old. Severe depression, loss of all semblance of a life... these are standard in the world of startup founders. The risk that you destroy your life is real.

pb 10y ago
Many of the most successful founders are introverts. Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, Bill Gates, none of them are very extroverted, but they've started some of the most valuable companies in the world. Of course if you are so introverted that you are unable to make eye contact or talk to people it will be a problem, but most of us are not that extreme.
- gohrt 10y ago
  Why do you think they are not extroverted? Bill Gates was a famously in-your-face person when dealing with employees, partners, and competitors.
  - lukeHeuer 10y ago
    Being an extrovert or an introvert has nothing to do with shyness. You can certainly be introverted and not very shy. Bill Gates is a great example of that.
  - fsloth 10y ago
    Introvert vs. extrovert has more to do how much energy being with a crowd gives or takes, or do you prefer your own company over that of others if given the chance. Any social skill, unless natural, can be acquired.
    - wolfgke 10y ago
      > Any social skill, unless natural, can be acquired. How?
      - xj9 10y ago
        The same way all skills are acquired: practice.
        wolfgke 10y ago
        Practicing does not help for me. I am rather a lone wolf, but not because I want to be, but because I simply fail completely, so I find it a little bit unfair to downvote the above post.
        xj9 10y ago
        Practice is the only way to learn anything, but you can practice in a lot of different ways. Everyone has different learning styles, you should find yours. Don't give up. Shit is hard.
        50CNT 10y ago
        Might you be doing it wrong then? Effective practice requires you to stretch far enough, but not too far, lest you become panicked. It's better focused than "general". It requires concentration, effort and introspection. If you fail completely, you might be trying things too far out of your confidence zone. A mousy introvert isn't going to morph into a charismatic rockstar within a single leap, no matter how much the introvert might want that to be the case. Odds are, he'll seize up and freeze, in which case the only thing he practices is the act of freezing.
        collyw 10y ago
        I was pretty shy / introverted in my early 20's. Got a job as a whitewater rafting guide, where I had to interact with new people every day (in a foreign language). It quickly goes away. Another friend was terrified of public speaking so started doing stand up comedy, and now helps run one of the regular shows in a pub here. You have to put in the hours to an extent, it's not just a case of trying a couple of times and giving up. Alcohol helps to a degree, but obviously don't go crazy with it. Probably hanging out with extroverts and taking note of what they do helps as well.
  - fma 10y ago
    I think they aren't extrovert because Bill Gates himself says he's an introvert. http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2013/05/bill-gates-how-to-succeed-as-an-introvert/ http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2013/05/bill-gates-how-to-succe... President Obama is a self proclaimed introvert, as is Warren Buffett. Essentially, the two riches men in America and the leader of America are self proclaimed introverts.
  - jomamaxx 10y ago
    'Introversion' and 'Extroversion' are basically defined as where you derive your energy from, to put it crudely. If you like to be alone with your thoughts, and feel 'exhausted' after interacting with people - you're an introvert. If you like to always be around others, and get 'charged' from it, and don't like being along - you're an extrovert. Personally - I have no problem being around people, no problem giving public talks - but I prefer solitude and contemplation to being around crowds. Introverts I think are more direct and less socially attuned than extroverts, who are very high in EI usually. Salespeople know how to handle people and would never yell and scream at anyone - ever - in any situation - they're personality won't allow it - because 'yelling' is burning massive amounts of 'social capital'. It's the opposite of being 'popular'. As far as 'public speaking' - I think both could be equally good because it's not really a 'social' thing per sey. It's not 'interaction'. Public speaking is interacting with an 'object' - the crowd. My bet is that introverts are more direct in their demands - possibly being aggressive. An extrovert narcissist will stab you in the back politically without ever doing anything to make them dislike you or burn political points. I find extroverts will avoid direct confrontation as though it's an instinct - again it burns social capital. I'll also bet 90%+ of HN readers tend introverted. Extroverts would see absolutely no value in commenting/discussing with people with whom they have no relationship. Introverts are more likely to value 'ideas' - extroverts value 'relationships'. Depending on what you are hustling - often - people will buy something or not mostly depending on how charismatic or 'likeable' the person hustling it is. 90% of business relationships are based more on the personalities than the underlying mechanics of the deal because most businesses really are commodities of sorts.
- brightball 10y ago
  I hear things like this about Zuckerberg all the time and he did one singular thing that made Facebook take off more than all of the other social networks that were out there at the time (Classmates, High School Alumni, My Space, etc). He made it exclusive. You had to have a .edu address to sign up so the people ON the network were initially only your peer group. You couldn't get in without that .edu address and therefore you WANTED to get in if you couldn't. This created a steady user base that didn't have to be EVERYBODY (as long as people at your school were on you didn't care) and a natural spam filter as there were controls on access to those email addresses. Once those people graduated from college they got to stay on the site. Zuckerberg succeeded specifically because of the exclusivity that Facebook grew from during a time where every other service was just a spam mine.
  - skewart 10y ago
    You're absolutely right. Though I'd argue the real value in that exclusivity was not only exclusivity itself making people want to join (though I'm sure that was part of it), but also in enabling a culture of honesty about names, interests, and life. That honesty was only possible at the time through exclusivity. When FB started there was a long-standing cliche about social interaction on the internet: everyone lied about or exaggerated who they were. Facebook encouraged people to use their real name and share real information. Of course that honesty made it all the more fascinating to look at - you got to see who people really were. The honesty was only possible because it was a small network of more or less peers with a high level of trust.
  - amyjess 10y ago
    > He made it exclusive. You had to have a .edu address to sign up so the people ON the network were initially only your peer group. You couldn't get in without that .edu address and therefore you WANTED to get in if you couldn't. Don't forget that each college's network was segregated from each other's. You couldn't view the full profiles of people at other schools unless you were friends with them, but by default, you could view the full profiles of everyone else at your school (you could set your profile to friends-only, but most people didn't back then). I know that I didn't care that everyone else on my network could see my home address and my phone number on my profile, because I knew that they were all classmates (or professors, but very few of them were on Facebook). After I graduated and networks became less prominent, I locked down my profile to friends-only. Groups were restricted to single schools (and Pages didn't exist): this kept group sizes small and made them feel cozier. Pretty much every school had a group for most fandoms, and it was a big deal if you were able to be the person who got to create your school's group for your favorite subject. There were a number of groups that were basically memes; I forgot what they all were, but no real discussion happened in the group, and their only value was to be listed on your profile. They were classified as "Facebook Classics", and what would happen was that the meme would take off at one school, then the members' friends at other schools would notice them on their profiles and create versions at their schools, and so on. Again, there was some prestige in being the first person to spread the meme to your school. And there were some college-specific things on your profile, too. There were fields for your class schedule, and you had a separate "mailbox" field for colleges that had dorms.
- BinaryIdiot 10y ago
  To be fair you cited a pretty tiny sample size; I'm not sure if anyone actually has compiled the appropriate statistics to prove whether or not introverted people have a harder time creating a successful company. Those could be the outliers. Or maybe not I'm not sure as I lack the data.
- abraae 10y ago
  Introverts often perform brilliantly when pitching or persuading. Being out in front of others is not their relaxing place, so they focus, pour their energy into it and succeed at it. Then they withdraw to some solitude to recharge.
  - Ma8ee 10y ago
    Or they panic, or blank out, or more likely, find a way not to be in front of others in the first place.
    - ssharp 10y ago
      I think with all the real and pop science done the past few years on introversion and it's subsequent rise in awareness, far too many people conflate social anxiety and introversion. They may be related but they're not the same thing.
- cbhl 10y ago
  This eventually became a liability for Mark Zuckerberg; some of his earliest TV interviews went really, really badly. IIRC, Zuck hired a public speaking instructor, had Jesse Eisenberg open various internal and external speaking events for him (such as the keynote for F8 around this time), started having lunches with employees to practice talking to them in Chinese, etc.
  - kornish 10y ago
    Sorry to nit; it was actually Andy Samberg from The Lonely Island who opened F8, which was actually hilarious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_vz6Me_TIY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_vz6Me_TIY. Jesse Eisenberg played Zuck in The Social Network.
- maxxxxx 10y ago
  Don't confuse introvert with shy. they are different things.
- jasoncchild 10y ago
  >Many of the most successful founders are introverts. Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, Bill Gates, none of them are very extroverted, but they've started some of the most valuable companies in the world. And none of them were/are phds
  - noobermin 10y ago
    pg has a PhD but is not an introvert.
    - jasoncchild 10y ago
      I stand corrected :)
- leksak 10y ago
  Out of the Fortune 500 companies I'd argue that most of their founders are not introverts, but some of them comes from money which helps. Just because some introverts have seen success does not mean that all introverts starting a company will share in the same amount of success. It can, just as being an extrovert can, enable you or inhibit you.
rl3 10y ago
>The risk that you destroy your life is real. Especially so for PhD recipients. Unless they're from money, they've probably already spent their post-grad years living very modestly. Starting a startup just extends and amplifies that, which can be dangerous.
meowface 10y ago
On the bright side, at least you didn't spend 3+ years on it like some people do before realizing their idea or model is fundamentally flawed. That fear is one of a few reasons why I don't think I'll start a startup any time soon.
vintermann 10y ago
> Few introverts will succeed at founding a company, for example. This is comically obvious when you look at some successful startups... My brother joined one (not technically as a founder, but he left the same company as them to join as a day 1 employee). They occasionally post PR pictures of themselves. They all look ridiculously like successful, smiling, talented and dynamic people, the kind of people a VC probably likes to see. Except my brother, who looks totally like the bookish introvert that he is. Well well, I figure smart VCs knew that they have good reasons to have that one guy around.
alimw 10y ago
I'm sorry to hear about your friend-of-a-friend†, but it's crazy to suggest that's meaningful data in isolation. Most of us have known people, or know people who have known people, who have killed themselves; they come from all walks of life. († I suppose that's what you mean by one degree of separation?)

by __mbm__ 10y ago

pb 10y ago

Many of the most successful founders are introverts. Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, Bill Gates, none of them are very extroverted, but they've started some of the most valuable companies in the world. Of course if you are so introverted that you are unable to make eye contact or talk to people it will be a problem, but most of us are not that extreme.

gohrt 10y ago
Why do you think they are not extroverted? Bill Gates was a famously in-your-face person when dealing with employees, partners, and competitors.
- lukeHeuer 10y ago
  Being an extrovert or an introvert has nothing to do with shyness. You can certainly be introverted and not very shy. Bill Gates is a great example of that.
- fsloth 10y ago
  Introvert vs. extrovert has more to do how much energy being with a crowd gives or takes, or do you prefer your own company over that of others if given the chance. Any social skill, unless natural, can be acquired.
  - wolfgke 10y ago
    > Any social skill, unless natural, can be acquired. How?
    - xj9 10y ago
      The same way all skills are acquired: practice.
      - wolfgke 10y ago
        Practicing does not help for me. I am rather a lone wolf, but not because I want to be, but because I simply fail completely, so I find it a little bit unfair to downvote the above post.
        xj9 10y ago
        Practice is the only way to learn anything, but you can practice in a lot of different ways. Everyone has different learning styles, you should find yours. Don't give up. Shit is hard.
        50CNT 10y ago
        Might you be doing it wrong then? Effective practice requires you to stretch far enough, but not too far, lest you become panicked. It's better focused than "general". It requires concentration, effort and introspection. If you fail completely, you might be trying things too far out of your confidence zone. A mousy introvert isn't going to morph into a charismatic rockstar within a single leap, no matter how much the introvert might want that to be the case. Odds are, he'll seize up and freeze, in which case the only thing he practices is the act of freezing.
        collyw 10y ago
        I was pretty shy / introverted in my early 20's. Got a job as a whitewater rafting guide, where I had to interact with new people every day (in a foreign language). It quickly goes away. Another friend was terrified of public speaking so started doing stand up comedy, and now helps run one of the regular shows in a pub here. You have to put in the hours to an extent, it's not just a case of trying a couple of times and giving up. Alcohol helps to a degree, but obviously don't go crazy with it. Probably hanging out with extroverts and taking note of what they do helps as well.
- fma 10y ago
  I think they aren't extrovert because Bill Gates himself says he's an introvert. http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2013/05/bill-gates-how-to-succeed-as-an-introvert/ http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2013/05/bill-gates-how-to-succe... President Obama is a self proclaimed introvert, as is Warren Buffett. Essentially, the two riches men in America and the leader of America are self proclaimed introverts.
- jomamaxx 10y ago
  'Introversion' and 'Extroversion' are basically defined as where you derive your energy from, to put it crudely. If you like to be alone with your thoughts, and feel 'exhausted' after interacting with people - you're an introvert. If you like to always be around others, and get 'charged' from it, and don't like being along - you're an extrovert. Personally - I have no problem being around people, no problem giving public talks - but I prefer solitude and contemplation to being around crowds. Introverts I think are more direct and less socially attuned than extroverts, who are very high in EI usually. Salespeople know how to handle people and would never yell and scream at anyone - ever - in any situation - they're personality won't allow it - because 'yelling' is burning massive amounts of 'social capital'. It's the opposite of being 'popular'. As far as 'public speaking' - I think both could be equally good because it's not really a 'social' thing per sey. It's not 'interaction'. Public speaking is interacting with an 'object' - the crowd. My bet is that introverts are more direct in their demands - possibly being aggressive. An extrovert narcissist will stab you in the back politically without ever doing anything to make them dislike you or burn political points. I find extroverts will avoid direct confrontation as though it's an instinct - again it burns social capital. I'll also bet 90%+ of HN readers tend introverted. Extroverts would see absolutely no value in commenting/discussing with people with whom they have no relationship. Introverts are more likely to value 'ideas' - extroverts value 'relationships'. Depending on what you are hustling - often - people will buy something or not mostly depending on how charismatic or 'likeable' the person hustling it is. 90% of business relationships are based more on the personalities than the underlying mechanics of the deal because most businesses really are commodities of sorts.
brightball 10y ago
I hear things like this about Zuckerberg all the time and he did one singular thing that made Facebook take off more than all of the other social networks that were out there at the time (Classmates, High School Alumni, My Space, etc). He made it exclusive. You had to have a .edu address to sign up so the people ON the network were initially only your peer group. You couldn't get in without that .edu address and therefore you WANTED to get in if you couldn't. This created a steady user base that didn't have to be EVERYBODY (as long as people at your school were on you didn't care) and a natural spam filter as there were controls on access to those email addresses. Once those people graduated from college they got to stay on the site. Zuckerberg succeeded specifically because of the exclusivity that Facebook grew from during a time where every other service was just a spam mine.
- skewart 10y ago
  You're absolutely right. Though I'd argue the real value in that exclusivity was not only exclusivity itself making people want to join (though I'm sure that was part of it), but also in enabling a culture of honesty about names, interests, and life. That honesty was only possible at the time through exclusivity. When FB started there was a long-standing cliche about social interaction on the internet: everyone lied about or exaggerated who they were. Facebook encouraged people to use their real name and share real information. Of course that honesty made it all the more fascinating to look at - you got to see who people really were. The honesty was only possible because it was a small network of more or less peers with a high level of trust.
- amyjess 10y ago
  > He made it exclusive. You had to have a .edu address to sign up so the people ON the network were initially only your peer group. You couldn't get in without that .edu address and therefore you WANTED to get in if you couldn't. Don't forget that each college's network was segregated from each other's. You couldn't view the full profiles of people at other schools unless you were friends with them, but by default, you could view the full profiles of everyone else at your school (you could set your profile to friends-only, but most people didn't back then). I know that I didn't care that everyone else on my network could see my home address and my phone number on my profile, because I knew that they were all classmates (or professors, but very few of them were on Facebook). After I graduated and networks became less prominent, I locked down my profile to friends-only. Groups were restricted to single schools (and Pages didn't exist): this kept group sizes small and made them feel cozier. Pretty much every school had a group for most fandoms, and it was a big deal if you were able to be the person who got to create your school's group for your favorite subject. There were a number of groups that were basically memes; I forgot what they all were, but no real discussion happened in the group, and their only value was to be listed on your profile. They were classified as "Facebook Classics", and what would happen was that the meme would take off at one school, then the members' friends at other schools would notice them on their profiles and create versions at their schools, and so on. Again, there was some prestige in being the first person to spread the meme to your school. And there were some college-specific things on your profile, too. There were fields for your class schedule, and you had a separate "mailbox" field for colleges that had dorms.
BinaryIdiot 10y ago
To be fair you cited a pretty tiny sample size; I'm not sure if anyone actually has compiled the appropriate statistics to prove whether or not introverted people have a harder time creating a successful company. Those could be the outliers. Or maybe not I'm not sure as I lack the data.
abraae 10y ago
Introverts often perform brilliantly when pitching or persuading. Being out in front of others is not their relaxing place, so they focus, pour their energy into it and succeed at it. Then they withdraw to some solitude to recharge.
- Ma8ee 10y ago
  Or they panic, or blank out, or more likely, find a way not to be in front of others in the first place.
  - ssharp 10y ago
    I think with all the real and pop science done the past few years on introversion and it's subsequent rise in awareness, far too many people conflate social anxiety and introversion. They may be related but they're not the same thing.
cbhl 10y ago
This eventually became a liability for Mark Zuckerberg; some of his earliest TV interviews went really, really badly. IIRC, Zuck hired a public speaking instructor, had Jesse Eisenberg open various internal and external speaking events for him (such as the keynote for F8 around this time), started having lunches with employees to practice talking to them in Chinese, etc.
- kornish 10y ago
  Sorry to nit; it was actually Andy Samberg from The Lonely Island who opened F8, which was actually hilarious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_vz6Me_TIY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_vz6Me_TIY. Jesse Eisenberg played Zuck in The Social Network.
maxxxxx 10y ago
Don't confuse introvert with shy. they are different things.
jasoncchild 10y ago
>Many of the most successful founders are introverts. Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, Bill Gates, none of them are very extroverted, but they've started some of the most valuable companies in the world. And none of them were/are phds
- noobermin 10y ago
  pg has a PhD but is not an introvert.
  - jasoncchild 10y ago
    I stand corrected :)
leksak 10y ago
Out of the Fortune 500 companies I'd argue that most of their founders are not introverts, but some of them comes from money which helps. Just because some introverts have seen success does not mean that all introverts starting a company will share in the same amount of success. It can, just as being an extrovert can, enable you or inhibit you.

rl3 10y ago

>The risk that you destroy your life is real. Especially so for PhD recipients. Unless they're from money, they've probably already spent their post-grad years living very modestly. Starting a startup just extends and amplifies that, which can be dangerous.

meowface 10y ago

On the bright side, at least you didn't spend 3+ years on it like some people do before realizing their idea or model is fundamentally flawed. That fear is one of a few reasons why I don't think I'll start a startup any time soon.

vintermann 10y ago

> Few introverts will succeed at founding a company, for example. This is comically obvious when you look at some successful startups... My brother joined one (not technically as a founder, but he left the same company as them to join as a day 1 employee). They occasionally post PR pictures of themselves. They all look ridiculously like successful, smiling, talented and dynamic people, the kind of people a VC probably likes to see. Except my brother, who looks totally like the bookish introvert that he is. Well well, I figure smart VCs knew that they have good reasons to have that one guy around.

alimw 10y ago

I'm sorry to hear about your friend-of-a-friend†, but it's crazy to suggest that's meaningful data in isolation. Most of us have known people, or know people who have known people, who have killed themselves; they come from all walks of life. († I suppose that's what you mean by one degree of separation?)