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This guy doesn't seem unusually mentally ill to me. He seems well within the bounds of normal. Depression happens to everybody. (I'm not sure if we actually dis

by 55555 10y ago

This guy doesn't seem unusually mentally ill to me. He seems well within the bounds of normal. Depression happens to everybody. (I'm not sure if we actually disagree or I'm just choosing different words.)

hackuser 10y ago
It's one thing to speculate ignorantly about the latest app; it's quite another to do it about someone's mental illness.
mgkimsal 10y ago
I had your view - I just read a number of his posts. You can define 'mental illness' to be almost anything, and it would encompass a lot of folks, but most of his writings were pretty balanced. What I did see (and others did too) was a post about need $600k - needing a lump sum, then working on something and paying it all back from the 'riches' of the project. Now.. the 'riches' part may have been somewhat tongue in cheek, perhaps, but he was really going for some "go big go home" sort of project, and that didn't work out. Now's probably not quite the time to criticize (and I'm not criticizing him), but when is there a good time? Dennis seemed to get caught up in the belief in "big payout tech projects". This isn't to say they don't happen, but Dennis' isn't the first story I've read of people "shooting big", then ending up in deep debt, deep despair, considering suicide. We don't read about these much - we generally read about the continuing waves of billion-dollar unicorns fronted by people continually younger than ourselves. It's gotta wear some people down. I just bumped in to some folks a few days ago who are (independently) "buckling down" on their big "game changing" projects. While I only know these folks socially, if the projects fail, and one ends up taking his life (or even considering it), I will not be overly surprised (saddened, yes). But there's little I can do. People chasing web/tech/app riches then falling in to debt/despair has got to be the unspoken plague of this industry. EDIT: looks like his most recent project was Gallus: https://dennisforbes.ca/index.php/2017/01/24/gallus-lessons-in-developing-for-android/ https://dennisforbes.ca/index.php/2017/01/24/gallus-lessons-... And while that looked like it was going to pay off in a sale, the buyer got acquired and everything got put on hold. The house eviction may have pushed him over the edge?
- czbond 10y ago
  Thanks for posting that. One illuminating thing about this post, from yesterday(!) is that he is making plans for the future .... "Nonetheless, the experience was illuminating, so I’m taking a moment to document my observations for future me to search up later-"
- tluyben2 10y ago
  I do believe this focus on billions of $ is extremely weird. You can live a very very nice life on a few million $. And that in itself is a weird and skewed statement of what people consider nice. There are 1000s of places all over the world with fantastic living conditions in climate, health, healthcare, pensions etc you can grow old with a few 100k. The unicorn or bust idea is very strange as the chances you will make that are very close to 0; putting everything in it instead of building a solid business and 'we will see what happens' is rather alien to me. Having a long term profitable company is far far easier than a multi million or billion payout. People who need fast cars and million$ mansions should know what risk they are taking and explain that to their family when taking them.
  - mgkimsal 10y ago
    FWIW, many of the folks I know that are shooting for the 'big payout' aren't really chasing after the fast cars and material side of things - it's simply what the definition of 'success' has been in the tech world for a long time. TechCrunch (and that ilk) is a sort of porn, and I've known some folks become addicted to that narrative. Some of the stories on HN probably feed in to that as well. If/when you're down, seeing so much seemingly easy success (and, let's be fair, some of it really was easy - there are people we read about who didn't slave away for 10 years to become an 'overnight sensation') is difficult to deal with. I don't think Dennis in particular was necessarily after the fast cars and million $ mansion (actually, he had a million dollar house already, on mortgage).

by 55555 10y ago

hackuser 10y ago

It's one thing to speculate ignorantly about the latest app; it's quite another to do it about someone's mental illness.

mgkimsal 10y ago

I had your view - I just read a number of his posts. You can define 'mental illness' to be almost anything, and it would encompass a lot of folks, but most of his writings were pretty balanced. What I did see (and others did too) was a post about need $600k - needing a lump sum, then working on something and paying it all back from the 'riches' of the project. Now.. the 'riches' part may have been somewhat tongue in cheek, perhaps, but he was really going for some "go big go home" sort of project, and that didn't work out. Now's probably not quite the time to criticize (and I'm not criticizing him), but when is there a good time? Dennis seemed to get caught up in the belief in "big payout tech projects". This isn't to say they don't happen, but Dennis' isn't the first story I've read of people "shooting big", then ending up in deep debt, deep despair, considering suicide. We don't read about these much - we generally read about the continuing waves of billion-dollar unicorns fronted by people continually younger than ourselves. It's gotta wear some people down. I just bumped in to some folks a few days ago who are (independently) "buckling down" on their big "game changing" projects. While I only know these folks socially, if the projects fail, and one ends up taking his life (or even considering it), I will not be overly surprised (saddened, yes). But there's little I can do. People chasing web/tech/app riches then falling in to debt/despair has got to be the unspoken plague of this industry. EDIT: looks like his most recent project was Gallus: https://dennisforbes.ca/index.php/2017/01/24/gallus-lessons-in-developing-for-android/ https://dennisforbes.ca/index.php/2017/01/24/gallus-lessons-... And while that looked like it was going to pay off in a sale, the buyer got acquired and everything got put on hold. The house eviction may have pushed him over the edge?

czbond 10y ago
Thanks for posting that. One illuminating thing about this post, from yesterday(!) is that he is making plans for the future .... "Nonetheless, the experience was illuminating, so I’m taking a moment to document my observations for future me to search up later-"
tluyben2 10y ago
I do believe this focus on billions of $ is extremely weird. You can live a very very nice life on a few million $. And that in itself is a weird and skewed statement of what people consider nice. There are 1000s of places all over the world with fantastic living conditions in climate, health, healthcare, pensions etc you can grow old with a few 100k. The unicorn or bust idea is very strange as the chances you will make that are very close to 0; putting everything in it instead of building a solid business and 'we will see what happens' is rather alien to me. Having a long term profitable company is far far easier than a multi million or billion payout. People who need fast cars and million$ mansions should know what risk they are taking and explain that to their family when taking them.
- mgkimsal 10y ago
  FWIW, many of the folks I know that are shooting for the 'big payout' aren't really chasing after the fast cars and material side of things - it's simply what the definition of 'success' has been in the tech world for a long time. TechCrunch (and that ilk) is a sort of porn, and I've known some folks become addicted to that narrative. Some of the stories on HN probably feed in to that as well. If/when you're down, seeing so much seemingly easy success (and, let's be fair, some of it really was easy - there are people we read about who didn't slave away for 10 years to become an 'overnight sensation') is difficult to deal with. I don't think Dennis in particular was necessarily after the fast cars and million $ mansion (actually, he had a million dollar house already, on mortgage).