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Ask HN: How true is it that most founders are taking drugs like Modafanil?

• allthenews 8y ago
  In my experience, computer scientists tend toward self optimization. To this end, stimulant use in my circles is quite common. I wouldn't say any of us need them, but they are useful tools, both for work and occasional recreation.
• rco8786 8y ago
  I saw lots of it when I was younger and cooler. I imagine it’s still pretty prevalent. I never did it and it’s worked out fine.
• Panjam 8y ago
  Like coffee? Three cups a day mate.
• mstump 8y ago
  I wouldn't say it's super common. Of the 20-30 founders that I know well I'm the only one I'm aware of that has a nuvigil prescription. I take it because I'm a single parent of young kids and do a lot of international business; my sleep schedule is pretty screwed. I'll use it to combat a sleeping med in the AM and attempt to get back on a normal schedule. Adderall is pretty common, but they usually take it for ADD or depression. When I see Adderall get "abused" it's usually people using it before going out drinking and not necessarily for work purposes.
  • ozzmotik 8y ago
    i will say that for the more enterprising individual, a lack of prescription is nowhere near the barricade one might be inclined to think of it as. and being a heavy user of mind altering substances, while I tend to be more expressive and open than other people, it's still hard to admit these things to other people because it typecasts you to a specific type of individual in their head and it just isn't always the most tactical decision that could be made.
• hprotagonist 8y ago
  founders, i can't say. Graduate students and postdocs: very common indeed.
• sillysaurus3 8y ago
  Yeah, I'll break ranks and admit that yes, I do, and yes, it's necessary. This is partly due to compensate for a medical condition. Part of the reason it's dangerous, however, is because no one goes in prepared what to expect. The doctors' "do you have any questions?" line is a joke. And they usually don't take adderall anyway, so they can't tell you what to expect. I think Elon takes/took adderall as well. Or at least I heard someone say that in a pretty convincing context, once. (So it must be true, right?) The biggest thing to watch out for is the annoyance it imposes on your life. Get ready to spend every month going to the doctor, every single month, to get your script. Faxing/mailing adderall scripts isn't a thing, because controlled substance. The second thing to watch out for is that it's easy to ruin your sleep schedule. But I don't know how true this is, because my medical condition is related to sleep issues in the first place. That all begs the question: Is it worth it? I remember sleeping through class. If I had been on it from age 12, I would probably have attained high marks. The worst aspect is that you feel an urge to conceal it, because otherwise you feel classified into the same category as these guys: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQVb6Cd-w8s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQVb6Cd-w8s The other reason to conceal it is that people start to make fun of you or be dismissive of you. It's a tough decision, and there's no clear right answer. There are pros and cons.For some people the cons outweigh the pros. One of my friends said that he felt like he was having a heart attack any time he took even a small amount. Another said he didn't want to take it because "he liked being able to think." Both are true in certain contexts. If you need to plow through mundane work, there is no better way. But it comes at a price.
• austenallred 8y ago
  I consider myself relatively well connected, and chat regularly with hundreds of different founders, both inside and out of YC. I’ve never met anyone that takes those. I have certainly met many founders that could be prescribed them.
  • xor1 8y ago
    Most people will never admit it to someone they aren't extremely close with, especially if it pertains to work/business. I certainly wouldn't.
    • casefields 8y ago
      I work in tv and we have a reputation for liberal drug use but I didn't really see it that much for it a few years. Now that I've moved up and know people the transpo guys are like a fucking candy store catering to any needs.
• tptacek 8y ago
  In 20 years in the industry, most spent in startups, much spent consulting with a pretty broad spectrum of other startups, I have never known anyone I've worked with to take modafanil. That's just one data point. But: I don't think it's at all common.
  • sillysaurus3 8y ago
    I've worked with you, and it was false for me. I concealed it because of social stigma. (Adderall, not modafanil.) Perhaps you're referring to founders specifically though, rather than people you've worked with. There's immense pressure to say nothing. And that translates into you not knowing. But the leap to "It's therefore not common" would be mistaken.
    • tptacek 8y ago
      When did you work with me? I have in fact no idea who you are; I assume: under a different name? (I assume lots of people take adderall, for what it's worth).
      • tptacek 8y ago
        Never mind, I think I worked it out.
        • sillysaurus3 8y ago
          Interesting. I'd be happy to verify if you email me.
          • tptacek 8y ago
            No, that won't be necessary. But you and I never worked together, and I'd appreciate it if you'd be clearer about that in the future.
            • sillysaurus3 8y ago
• wasd 8y ago
  I know a small handful of founders on a personal level and none of them take modafinil or adderall.
  • dboreham 8y ago
    Curious how you know that. Blood tests?
• josephpmay 8y ago
  I think there's an important point to make (although I don't have empirical evidence of this), that ADHD is way more prevalent in startup founders than the general population. This is logical when you consider that those with ADHD are less likely to be fulfilled by a desk job and are more likely to be risk taking. In general I've found that unmedicated ADHD founders seem more common than medicated, but I wouldn't count on that as generalizable or fact. In terms of people without ADHD using Modafanil or amphetamines to get an edge, I'm sure that happens a lot, but it's less common than Wall Street or high-powered law firms. Funnily enough, I just started taking Modafanil this week.
• pixl97 8y ago
  Here's a better question: How many people at founder level actually have to take drug tests? People at the bottom piss in cups all the time. I have a sneaking suspicion the top rarely does.
  • flippy2 8y ago
    In SV I have yet to run into a tech company that drug tests. It once came up in a higher up meeting at a company I worked at and someone snickered and said “never gonna happen. I would lose a bunch of my top performers.” (I am sure there are companies that test but it is the exception here.)
  • rconti 8y ago
    Bottom of what company? I took a drug test for a summer job, once, when I was building cardboard displays and moving boxes of chips for Frito-Lay. That's it, period, in 20+ years of work.
• eecsninja 8y ago
  I don't know of anyone in tech who takes these things, except for myself. I also don't know anyone who microdoses LSD, although I doubt those people would tell anyone. If I wanted LSD, I don't know anyone I could ask. I get my modafinil online. This could also be a part of the media's unfortunate tendency to conflate "tech founder" with "software engineer", and "San Francisco" with "Silicon Valley" -- I wouldn't be surprised that you'll see more smart drug use among people in the former than the latter.
  • bfuller 8y ago
    anyone with a grateful dead logo on a piece of clothing can get you lsd
• 21 8y ago
  There is a documentary on Netflix called "Take your pills" about Aderall (and it's cousin Ritalin). According to it a lot of people under 25 take it, they feature a student, a software developer, a financial analyst. After watching it my understanding of Aderall is that it makes you capable of intense focus (a sort of anti-procrastinator). It doesn't make you smarter or capable of solving stuff that you couldn't before. They end with saying that it destroys lives and that it's dangerous, but they never quite delivered on that, one guy said that it destroyed his life but he never went into detail and he didn't look like you typical image of a crack-addict (ie: felt to me more of like a thing they did to prevent them being accused of promoting drugs).
  • yeswecatan 8y ago
    That caught my eye while scrolling through Netflix last, but I didn't watch it. Anecdotally, I took adderral 5 or so times in college to help me study. It helped a lot but wasn't habit forming at all. I have considered taking it for interview prep.
  • jacques_chester 8y ago
    I take ritalin (methylphenidate). It makes me capable of merely ordinary adult focus (and I still need other tactics in addition). I read these anecdotes about superhuman laser-beam focus and it kinda irks me because I just come up to "able to hold a job" levels.
  • taneq 8y ago
    > It doesn't make you smarter or capable of solving stuff that you couldn't before. Probably the biggest surprise for me since starting my own company has been how little "hard stuff" I've done. I've learned a whole lot of new skills but the hard part is keeping nose to grindstone, not emitting flashes of brilliance. Versatility and average engineering skills applied persistently are more than adequate (in my experience) so something like modafinil would probably be a significant win for me - too bad I can't risk trying it since I'm probably not diagnosably ADHD and my work involves semi-regular drug tests.
    • mlevental 8y ago
• jacques_chester 8y ago
  The media focus on what is extraordinary. "Granny walks home safely for 2,472th time" is not going to get a front page splash in any newspaper save for The Onion. Similarly, "many men and women do not take a particular drug" is not going to move copies of Wired. What brings eyeballs is novelty. Danger. Jealousy. Sex. Power. What doesn't bring eyeballs are repetitious, unremarkable, properly calibrated statements of reality. Our brain already tunes that signal out. By way of disclaimer, I take methylphenidate as a treatment for ADHD-PI.
• Trundle 8y ago
  Not a founder but I do want to share some information to act as context for the other responses. I use modafinil quite regularly. It is very easy to get. No one that i don't do drugs with recreationally knows that I use it. If it came up in a discussion with people I know professionally and I needed to contribute an opinion, it'd be slightly negative and dismissive of the idea.
  • strken 8y ago
    > No one that i don't do drugs with recreationally knows that I use it. This is the key, I think. If you're not close enough with your co-workers that they'd offer you weed after the office Christmas party/do lines off the table in front of you/tell you about the time they bought ketamine in Slovenia[0], why would you know about their non-recreational drug use? [0] hypothetical examples - all my office Christmas parties have been staid and family-friendly - but examples based to some degree on reality
• pixelHD 8y ago
  Unrelated, but I couldn't help but think about this tweet I saw recently https://twitter.com/ChloeCondon/status/988942270891085827 https://twitter.com/ChloeCondon/status/988942270891085827
• newnewpdro 8y ago
  You're not going to get much meaningful data, this kind of thing is often kept hidden.
• atomical 8y ago
  Modafinil has weak affinity for the dopamine transporter. Don't take advice from Dave Asprey, Tim Ferriss, or other pseudoscience practitioners. See a doctor if you have problems at work.
  • andrenth 8y ago
    This should be the top comment.
• brandoncordell 8y ago
  I take modafinil daily to counteract the exhaustion and lethargy of obstructive sleep apnea. I only take 50mg (so I split the pill in quarters) but some days take another 50mg after lunch time. It's greatly affected my work in a positive way and will continue doing so until I get used to my CPAP and actually get a real night's sleep.
• finnthehuman 8y ago
  You'll never find real numbers, and anyone pretending to know is putting too much weight on their own impression. Most people on medication don't mention it, especially when there is a stigma (like with mental issues). The only times I ever learn about someone on prescription "smart" drugs or antidepressants is when we're close and I confide in them first, or they're the type of person who shares their adderall with people who want to take it recreationally.
• all_blue_chucks 8y ago
  ITT: literally everyone saying "I'm the only one who does this"
  • mlevental 8y ago
    these people are self-selecting into this thread.
    • mirimir 8y ago
      Me too :) But generally, how would we know?
  • tptacek 8y ago
    On a thread with 40+ comments I see 4 people saying they take modafanil, so we have differing definitions of either the word "literally" or the word "everyone".
    • all_blue_chucks 8y ago
      ... and one guy with no sense of humor.
• kenning 8y ago
  I took modafinil for a while because a crypto SV nerd told me it was hip. We both ordered some and tried it. The stimulant effects basically stopped affecting me after a week, and i had the bizarre side effect of crying very regularly. My father, who has adhd, also tried modafinil and also found himself crying a lot at his work. I gave my extra pills to another friend who was interested; both my friends stopped using them after a while, saying they made them feel different but not more focused or anything. It was a mildly interesting waste of time and money for all four of us.
• xzel 8y ago
  I describe modafinil as one of the best cups of coffees you'll ever have, but it doesn't leave much more of an effect than that; imo it is mostly mental. Things can become very clear in your head and you will often be very awake for a long period if you take 100+ mg. I've had friends bring me back wakalert, modafinil, modvigil, from India and I've ordered them online. I've taken them off and on for about three years. At first I tried a quarter of of a pill, about 50 mg of modafinil, every couple of days. I started to crash very hard about 6 hours and stopped. I eventually figured out I could get a similar effect with about 20 or 10 mg and not crash. I currently take about 10 mg every other day just to stimulate my brain. My advice to anyone interested with this is start small and go slowly. Like all drugs it isn't for everyone and it isn't cool. Be safe. :)
  • oliwarner 8y ago
    I feel like you're admitting to being party to several federal crimes here.
    • srean 8y ago
      Well, he wrote more than six lines.
    • chi3 8y ago
      He mentioned nothing about where he's from though.
      • oliwarner 8y ago
        Comment history includes both a employment and location history. He's doing this in America. But just be aware of the legality of whatever you're doing. Broadcasting that you're having your friends mule prescription drugs into the country for you is going to take the very laziest of warrant applications to work out who you and your friends are.
    • xzel 8y ago
      I still torrent music too. I agree it’s a bit lax and my Opsec probably isn’t the most consistent with my comment history here but I’d rather be honest with an employer than lie anyways. I’ve lost at least one or two interviews this way, but I see it as a positive thing. I’m not particularly good at not being myself, which is something I’ve had difficulty with at the workplace. But seriously thanks for pointing out; it’s not something I’ve considered much on HN.
• throwawayaddy 8y ago
  (Posting on throwaway for obvious reasons). I was on Adderall for mild ADHD for 10 months in 2016. Software Engineers in my late 20s. I found that I was not finishing any of my side projects. Was working (and still do) for a FAANG. Consulted a real doc i.e Psychiatrist in San Francisco and he diagnosed me with very mild ADHD Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) Apparently this is quite common in adults these days, esp. in high intensity brain-work related professions like Software Engineering, Finance / Wall Street and such. My prescribed dosage was 5 mg / day of Adderall, the lowest possible dose. I was very concerned about long term side-effects and the doc assured me that it was perefectly safe. He said that it's not the same as crystal meth like the media would have you believe. In my last outing , I mentioned the "Take my Pills" netflix documentary and his take was that the documentary featured extremes cases of very high dosages (the 3 people featuered were on atleast 50 mg / day, = 10x my dosage) and also that 2 of the 3 didn't have any ADHD or ADD symtoms - the football player and the girls in school. Now for the effects, I can say it's incredible. The first day I felt lazor like focus. I walked into work, and finished a javascript library that I'd been stuck on for days, in like 4 hours. I even helped a super-star Russian coder fix a nagging complex multi-threaded bug. I didn't (and still don't feel) "high" from it. What I feel is extremely sharp focus, like I notice very small things out of order and correct them, in codebase and outside in my daily life. In the first month or so, I also got lot of "life-things" that I'd be procrastinating on done, like I did my TRUST, Living Will etc.
  • throwawayaddy 8y ago
    (Continued. HN is limiting my posts for whatever algo reason) My side-project procrastination was the main reason I decided to see a Psychiatrist. Before Adderall, I had about 8 different side-projects in various states of progress, with a couple hosted and launched, but I was doing nothing to market and grow them. Now, a couple of years later, I have successfully grown the 2 that were launched and were languishing, launched 3 more, killed 3 that were going nowhere. I am now very satisfied mentally with my situation, do not procrastinate, and am making about 1000$ per month across all the side-projects. These projects were more for learning and keeping up to date, so money is not a concern for me, completion is (/ was) Word of caution: I did as my doc about micro-dosing LSD. He gave me a very stern warning. According to him, LSD, even in micro-doses, "fries" the your serotonin production network in the brains and destroys neurons permanently. He strongly advised me to not try it even once. And for those looking for Adderall or LSD, I would advice you to consult a Psychiatrist, if you believe you have ADHD. For people that don't have ADHD, Adderall, Ritalin etc don't work, and they end up getting addicted on high doses and land on documentaries like "Take my Pill". LSD is only available on the "dark web" as far as I know, so you'll need to use TOR and Bitcoin. It's also shady and you have to purchase a "Tester Kit" (who knows if that tester kit is also legit?!). Don't do it.
• 51927ec0c65f572 8y ago
  I'm in SV proper and I take adderall and have taken modafinil before. People generally don't talk about it. I've met more people who said they used to use it than say that they currently use it. > is this actually common? My experience has been that it's trivial to get a prescription of adderall in America. Doctors have tried to give it to me even when I've said that I don't want it. So (I assume) anyone with health insurance that wants it can get it. > do you need them to survive? Yes and no. If I were to immediately stop, I think it would take me 6 months to 4 years to redevelop coping strategies to manage work and my own life properly. I grew up taking it, thus it's my primary coping mechanism. Certainly possible, but certainly unpleasant. I think it's probably the safest investment I can make. The cost of going to doctors and filling prescriptions is mostly in time, but the payback is huge. I think my life would have taken a very different path without adderall. To clarify, when I say adderall I mean Adderall XR. My experience with other, similar drugs has been much worse. Here's how various similar drugs affected me: - Adderall instant release reliably caused psychosis for me (paranoia and hallucination primarily) and the come up and come down were too sharp. It worked, but benefits < costs - Ritalin works for me, but it's closer to being unmedicated than it is to being medicated. - Dexadrin works the best but is both easy and tempting to abuse. I think the benefits < costs. - Vyvanse feels much "dirtier" for lack of a better word. It causes too much PNS stimulation. At lower doses, it's a bit less effective than adderall, at higher doses it just makes me feel bad. - Modafinil is very different from any of the above. It does what it says it will, but cheating sleep is a losing game (and that's all that it's really good for), with or without drugs. Thus, benefits < costs. - Caffeine doesn't help with focus much and has a lot of nasty effects. For various personal reasons (the stigma and laws of foreign countries), I do want to taper off/stop, but it's been extremely difficult. Even with adderall, the modern world is just so crushingly attention-grabbing that I find it hard not to feel mentally exhausted and overwhelmed constantly. Honestly, I think getting rid of my smart phone and not keeping my computer connected to the Internet all day would be better for my health than stopping adderall.
• deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
• dragonwriter 8y ago
  > Anyone here take those things and do you need them to survive? I don't, though I've known people who do (not in SV, FWIW); mostly those are taken for quality of life reasons, not immediate survival needs (though obviously quality of life does have potential survival impacts.)
• Simulacra 8y ago
  I tried modafinil and it wasn’t very helpful.
• mrthrowaway000 8y ago
  I'm not going to use my real account. I do use Modafinil occasionally as a perk me up and it is easy to acquire. I use about 50mg. I do use it to complement my life and I find that it does make me a better person. My days are hectic between full-time work, sideline hustle, having a child, housework, exercise and spending time with my partner. I do it to help me stay focused and bang out the necessary tasks that I need to keep my life in order. I try to get 7-8 hours of sleep and I do maintain a healthy diet. The only side effect that I have noticed is that if I use it too often I do feel my immune system get weaker. Overall, I've had a positive experience with using Modafinil as a supplement.
• caguru 8y ago
  I’m a serial startup junkie and I am usually one of the first 20 employees. About half of the startups I have worked at the founders were abusing Adderall. One company even offered it to developers. It provides an edge but the fallout is usually terrible. I won’t tolerate it anymore. It’s just too crazy.
• vimcat 8y ago
  Is there any human who can read binary code 01011010010110101101 without take psychedelic?? steve jobs, bill gates, elon mask, john lennon ,thom yorke , genious everybody took lsd, everybodys junkie. lsd make human robotize that push our technolody towards future
  • majewsky 8y ago
    > Is there any human who can read binary code 01011010010110101101 without take psychedelic?? Nobody can "read binary code", because you do not specify what you encode. It's like asking what e.g. a circle symbol means, without supplying any context whatsoever.
• segmondy 8y ago
  I don't know of anyone in the industry that uses. But I've seen some people that have such laser like focus it makes me wonder. I can understand working on exciting stuff, but even the most mundane boring crap they are focused like machines. I envy them. I frankly don't care if people are using or not. You have to decide how to handle yourself. I organize myself with a bunch of checklists/todo lists and such.