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Tuesday was my last day as CEO of CircleUp
- ghiculescu 6y agoI was wondering where I knew that name from... there's a module about Ryan & CircleUp in the HBS Disruptive Innovation Course - https://online.hbs.edu/courses/disruptive-strategy/ https://online.hbs.edu/courses/disruptive-strategy/ It was one of the more interesting companies profiled and I found the module very cool. If you read this Ryan - thanks for being part of it, and all the best for the future.
- theNJR 6y agoWhat did you think of that class? I’m doing a Reforge program now and hungry to keep doing similar. The Innovation Course looks pretty awesome.
- madrox 6y agoReading this is like reading about my own experience. I went through a similar period several years ago as an executive. I was leading engineering for three separate products and dealing with some very difficult stakeholders. I was also in a new relationship that I was trying very hard to maintain. The stress of all these things happening to me at once was colossal. I experienced a constellation of bad health symptoms. What I can't believe, in hindsight, was when I asked my doctor if this could be stress related. He asked, "do you feel stressed?" I thought for a second and said, "no." I've never written anything about that time, despite wanting to, but this is the thread I wish I could write. Details aside the emotions are all the same. It felt cathartic to read this.
- noir_lord 6y agoI had a business fail, an 8 year relationship break down (got cheated on) and in the middle of all of that they found a syrinx in my spine and a few months later I got diagnosed with Chrohns. On my desk is a rock, just a hand sized piece of chalk off the foreshore near me but it has special meaning, I picked it up at 2am on the night I decided I wasn’t going to kill myself after flipping it from hand to hand for several hours while sat watching the moon on the water. Now it sits under one of my monitors and when work starts to stress me out or life generally I pick it up and think back to 6 years ago. These days my health is under control, the chrohns is stable, the medication works for quality of life, I have a good well paid job and I met the love of my life so between now and that beach is 6 years and a universe apart but man, you don’t see the signs until afterwards eh. No one knows what the rock means to me, to everyone else it’s just a paperweight.
- nickff 6y agoThanks (to both you and the parent poster) for sharing your experiences. I know exactly how helpful seeing this kind of post can be for people who are struggling.
- grp000 6y agoAgreed! As someone who is in a tough spot right now, this post really hit home.
- jaimefjorge 6y agoThank you for sharing this. I admire your strength.
- jpxw 6y agoWhat symptoms, out of interest?
- madrox 6y agoVarious digestion issues and stomach pain. I'd find myself getting dizzy and lightheaded out of the blue while doing nothing more than sitting. I'd have trouble concentrating when talking to someone and have trouble remembering what I was talking about. I'd wake up in the middle of the night nauseated. I'd have episodes where I felt like I had to focus on my breathing or my body would forget to breathe. None of these persisted. They'd all come and go. When I went to the doctor, all tests showed I was fine, which stressed me out more.
- tidenly 6y agoI have persistent anxiety and every few months my body will either revert to one of the symptoms you described there or invent something entirely new and fun for me out of the blue. It took a while for me to realise what was happening and actually start taking care of myself - it's criminally easy to get stressed behind your own back. You don't realise you're in the thick of it until it's too late.
- rmason 6y agoHere's the blog post that goes along with that tweet stream: https://ryancaldbeck.medium.com/transitions-fa7ce4af435 https://ryancaldbeck.medium.com/transitions-fa7ce4af435
- a-posteriori 6y agoAdding the google cache. Looks like the medium is down. http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:-EgQnmpa8QoJ:https://ryancaldbeck.medium.com/transitions-fa7ce4af435&hl=en&gl=us&strip=1&vwsrc=0 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:-EgQnmp...
- ilamont 6y agoSimultaneously, we were forced to deal with a board member who was beyond counterproductive. After we bought him out fully in 2019, I sent this feedback email detailing the ways in which he had disrupted our board and company. The former CEO should take down the feedback email, as he is exposing himself and others to legal liability. He is not the only one who has had to deal with toxic investors who sit on startup boards. It's driven many good people away from companies they've founded. Sometimes the toxic board members are not newbies, either - they're supposed pros. Not sure what sort of due diligence can sniff these jerks out before they join the board, and maybe it's not even possible to turn them away if it's a condition of getting investment.
- nickbauman 6y agoI'm thankful for that "feedback email", whoever that guy was, he either has a serious case of the Dunning–Kruger effect going on or he deliberately behaved that way to extract money out of a startup by being a total resource vampire for the group; like it was a strategy. Maybe that's how a certain number of VCs actually operate? They're just grifters all the way down.
- kumarm 6y agoI think it is of great public service that the email is out in public domain. It warns many first time CEO's of the dark side of raising money from naive VC's who never ran a company before becoming VC. The email also adds context to Vinod Kosla's famous message: https://techcrunch.com/2013/09/11/vinod-khosla/ https://techcrunch.com/2013/09/11/vinod-khosla/
- PragmaticPulp 6y agoThe 6-page e-mail sent to the difficult former board member is interesting: https://docs.google.com/document/d/17tEc9ETL4tjfTmNbpwJJ5OSx1c4j10ZBgeYXWGzO30Y/edit https://docs.google.com/document/d/17tEc9ETL4tjfTmNbpwJJ5OSx... Given that he posted the e-mail contents online and wrote it in a way to narrate the board member's own bad actions, I'm assuming the real intent to was to warn others against working with this person. He stops short of naming the difficult board member, but it wouldn't exactly be difficult to figure out who it was from all the clues.
- sokoloff 6y agoI think just publishing the event without posting the email leaves enough of a trail for another CEO to reach out and ask "Hey, we're going to work with XYZ and know he used to be on your board. Any advice for us?"
- hinkley 6y agoNobody likes to date people who are always trashing their exes. Board members end up choosing the CEO, do they not? There are degrees of dirty laundry airing that could end up burning bridges with people you've never even met before. Meanwhile the next CEO knows there's a rat, and can work out for themselves who that might be before their first 100 days are up, by which point most managers have been typecast. After that it's very hard to fully take advantage of major new insights you've had. It's an uphill battle to make major changes to your style of management.
- 6y ago
- duxup 6y agoI don't want to digress too much here but I thought this was interesting: > Believing that to attract a great CEO we would need more than two years of runway What is involved in this process that takes 2 years?
- codingdave 6y agoIt isn't that the process takes two years - I'm guessing they were talking more about being a good career move for a CEO candidate: A great CEO has many options in front of them of what to do with their career. Asking them to take on a company that doesn't have much runway limits the time they have to get in, become the new leader, and mold the organization. Therefore, it is not likely to be their best option, which means the candidates who are interested are more likely to be not-so-great CEO candidates.
- bishnu 6y agoI think what he's saying is that no-one would be willing to take over as CEO unless they had two years of runway ahead of them.
- PragmaticPulp 6y ago> What is involved in this process that takes 2 years? He's not saying the process will take 2 years. He's saying that no reasonable CEO will sign on to a company that is months away from going bankrupt. Two years of runway is long enough for a new CEO to find their feet, set direction, and work on profitability and/or fundraising. If the CEO arrives with only a few months of runway, their first tasks will be to cut burn rate by laying off many of the employees. That doesn't create a good first impression.
- ProAm 6y agoTwitter is the worst for long form messaging.
- Kiro 6y agoI agree that the UI sucks but I like the constraints. It gives no room for filler text and every paragraph/tweet needs to have its own point.
- darkhorse13 6y agoThis exact same comment is found in literally every one of these types of threads. And the answer is fairly obvious: audience, and forceful conciseness thanks to the platform constraints. I really wonder when this cycle of typical HN cliches will go away.
- NewOrderNow 6y agoOr maybe... get this... people have an opinion? Mind blowing right? Sounds like confirmation of an opinion to me if it needs to be said a lot.
- darkhorse13 6y agoI didn't mean to offend. My point was that these cliche comments rarely (if ever) contribute anything to the actual topic being discussed.
- ProAm 6y ago> audience, and forceful conciseness thanks to the platform constraints It might be cliche because its a problem often seen repeated. This is how you get important messages not read or have them taken out of context, even by your intended audience. (we obviously disagree and both perspectives are opinion based)
- easton 6y agoThread Reader really helps for this, given the length (and some weird issues at least for me with twitter web). https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1316730252295454720.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1316730252295454720.html
- cthulhua 6y agoWow, this really struck home with me. I left a FAANG about a year ago to be employee #1 at a startup. 6 months ago, after some headaches and vision issues, I was diagnosed with a brain tumor. My work has been great through all this, but I can't imagine the additional stress of being a CEO whilst dealing with all that.
- remote_phone 6y agoThat’s terrible news and I’m very sorry for you. I hope your prognosis is excellent.
- luminati 6y agoFirst thanks so much for writing this. The gilded world of unicorn CEOs seems all roses and wine from the Techcrunch armchair VC/outside world, so it was eye-opening to read an intimate account of the cold, brutal reality of being one. That said, I have one question. What on earth was the co-founder doing? Isn't it the whole point of having co-founders so that you can share the trauma? Why did the CEO have to suffer through so much pain all alone?
- czbond 6y agoFrom much experience with startups, founding and co-founding is a mental mind-f*ck at all times. Even founders of good companies are under constant stress to keep the thing proposed up. The stress and drama of running a company completely f's your world up long into "success"
- Aeolun 6y agoI always wonder why people use Twitter for these braindumps? Do these threads just lend themselves well to starting and typing until it’s all off your chest?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- kypro 6y agoI quite like it. It promotes a concise writing style which wouldn't be as acceptable if it were on a blog without character limits. Whenever I write something like this I've found I end up constructing each tweet a bit like a lengthy bullet point. I cut everything unnecessary and try to make my point as clearly as possible in as few words & tweets as possible. When I write a blog post I naturally end up optimising for writing quality, and what could have been 5 tweets ends up as 1,500 words.
- cercatrova 6y agoThe audience is on Twitter. More likely to get engagement from tweets than via a blog post; because it's off platform, most people won't click it. There's also virality on Twitter from sharing specific parts of a thread in the form of retweeting and liking.
- d3ntb3ev1l 6y agoSo many fine people on both sides of the Silicon Valley soap opera
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- regularemployee 6y agoI'm not a CEO, nor do the livelihoods of people depend on me. But I feel the pain everyday of having to answer to my managers who are constantly asking for status on my projects. I care about my managers but I don't care about the projects. I hate my work. There are so many things in life that I am curious about like singing, drawing, gardening, bird watching, etc. I'm not good at any of them (nor do I wish to be) so they won't bring me any income. Every day I put my curiousness aside to code some stuff to make my managers look good. I can't quit my job to take a break because my wife and kids depend on my salary for money. My neighbors are suffering more because they are not in tech. They are trying so hard to have my life and I try my best to help them get into an industry I don't even like. Money brings so much suffering and our entire society is built on it. Society is greedy and wants to expand infinitely too! Everything in nature must eventually be owned my someone. It seems like the only way to escape is to become a CEO, make millions, and buy a bubble of eternal happiness as Ryan has done. I hope I don't end up behaving like his former board member.
- tossmeout 6y agoWhy not just downgrade your lifestyle to be in a cheaper situation? Easier said than done obviously, as that initial downgrade feels like a big hit. And ofc you might have extenuating circumstances that prevent it. But otherwise, I've found that you simply acclimate over time. Then you can give yourself breathing room to take time between jobs, or perhaps move to a lower-paying job you actually enjoy.
- ludamad 6y agoThanks for your input. I've never really thought programming was much of a rewarding career for those capable yet wholly nonplussed. I hope, predicated on the notion that this isn't for you, you don't give up on developing another career path
- jaiprabhu 6y agoFor context I am a developer in the Silicon Valley. The more I see around me and our nation at large, the more I am forming the opinion that greed is THE defining attribute of our time. The way the economy and society is structured, there is absolutely no breathing room left for anyone to perform any activity except to exist in the service of a paycheck. Why? because of greed. Because of greed and the blindness it brings with it, any attempts to build even a slightly more benign economic arrangement gets immediately labeled as "socialist" or some such. Not to mention the absolute beating our natural environment and habitat is taking in the process of servicing this greed to accumulate as much as you possibly can.
- anon_usr_134 6y agoIf you read the email it states that the investor was a lead. Series A was led by USV and the email already ruled them out. This investor sold right during or after the series C. might be Brendan Dickinson from Canaan for the Series B.
- tschwimmer 6y agoCanaan still lists CircleUp as a portfolio company and the partner is Deepak Kamra. Curiously, a 2015 article lists the Canaan board memeber as Daniel Ciporin. Curious.
- anon_8362 6y agoRyan explicitly calls Dan Ciporin "a great board member" in his blog post. The selected passage: "A great board member, Dan, called me to say, “Ryan, I’ve never in my career seen a CEO as worn out as you. Please, you need to take a sabbatical — at least six weeks”. He, and other board members, tried so hard to do the right thing and convince me to take care of myself." Further, on LinkedIn, Dan still lists himself as a current member of the Board of Directors. CircleUp is still listed as a current investment on Canaan's site. I have not worked with Dan but I have worked with Canaan. They have always struck me as founder-friendly. Indeed, they have several notable repeat entrepreneur relationships. It seems unlikely they would tolerate the sort of behavior Ryan described. --- Conversely, Collaborative Fund led the Series C in November 2015. Note that, in Ryan's letter, he cites board issues from 2016 to 2019. Further, Collaborative Fund no longer lists CircleUp anywhere on its site. Per Crunchbase, Jungju (Jay) Kim was the board partner for Collaborative's Series C investment in CircleUp. Note that, per his LinkedIn, Jay became a VC at Collaborative in 2014.
- stickfigure 6y agoPlausible. The guy has a wikipedia page that was clearly written by a PR agency: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Jung-ju https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Jung-ju There's way too much detail and it's all incredibly flattering, stuff like: He is known for strategic investments that aren’t limited to gaming companies, and he has acquired firms and invested in various fields. Being an avid Lego fan throughout his life, in 2013 he purchased Bricklink, the world’s largest online marketplace for Lego toys. It sometimes surprises me that wikipedia can be gamed this easily.
- draw_down 6y agoThere is a lot here. So much that the point below can only get lost in the deluge, but I think it’s important to consider. Grit ain’t everything. > I made many mistakes during this time, thinking I could just grit it out alone.
- pembrook 6y agoWhile I feel for the guy's struggle with cancer and the fertility issues he and his wife went through, I'm seeing the same tone in some of his other tweet threads (and threads from other people) and it's starting to feel like an intentional pattern done for audience building. Which, I don't doubt he went through all this, but just can't help the bad taste in my mouth given the "I'm just selflessly saying things to help others" tone. But hey, maybe I've just grown to be overly cynical after spending too much time around growth marketers.
- nxmnxm99 6y ago"Vulnerability porn" is an intensely annoying trend among Twitter tech personalities.
- undecisive 6y agoI'm equally cynical. But is it a chicken / egg question? Does attempting to be genuine, vulnerable and reflective lead to a bigger audience, or does seeing that the audience gets bigger as a result lead a person to be more genuine, vulnerable and reflective - to a point of artificial oversharing? I guess the other question is... if there is good to be done, and being this kind of person causes a certain amount of help to hurting communities, does this form of vulnerability capitalism have a downside? (assuming its done with respect to the person's family and friends, who never asked to be thrust in this weird limelight) And a question I often have to ask myself, what if it is nothing but genuine? How does one call out BS without trampling on the spirit of the genuinely hurting?
- sortbycontrov 6y agoOkay, so let me get this straight. This guy founded a financial services company (cool, help rich people acquire yet more money), did the "hard work" of being big boss in charge (I mean, maybe it really is much much harder than being the outsourced slave labor who actually makes whatever "consumer goods" you're upselling -- sure), dealt with a bunch of assholes in finance day in and day out (people in finance? rude? why I never), probably missed the early childhood of both of his kids in pursuit of making the extra hundred million bucks or whatever, then got diagnosed with cancer. The cancer bit is sad, but getting treated by the best medical doctors in the entire universe would probably help a bit with that! (instead of being fired, losing your health insurance, and bankrupting your entire family, like every normal working person in this country). Now, he's making a "big transition" to being a retired millionaire. I really do appreciate the candor. It helps me to understand how people who are so wholly and tremendously disconnected from regular people justify their own existence. Whoops, did I say all that out loud?
- howlgarnish 6y agoInteresting read, but one thing that always strikes me reading this kind of story is how invested founders are in things that -- I'm sorry to say -- are not exactly earth shattering. I'd never heard of CircleUp before this, and their slogan "Creating a transparent and efficient market to drive innovation for consumer brands" still doesn't tell me what exactly it is that they do. Obviously they have investors and customers who found it worthwhile, but is it really worth sacrificing your health & family on this altar? That said, I do wonder how Elon Musk, who's simultaneously trying to send humanity to Mars, convert the world to electric cars and solar panels, and create direct neural uplinks doesn't crack from the pressure though.
- daniel-thompson 6y ago> That said, I do wonder how Elon Musk, who's simultaneously trying to send humanity to Mars, convert the world to electric cars and solar panels, and create direct neural uplinks doesn't crack from the pressure though. Not to mention what I would consider the most important commitment for any parent: how does he find enough time to be a good father to his 6 kids?
- kbenson 6y agoAs a father of three, I often feel I don't have enough time to be a good parent to that many. How does anyone have enough time to be a good parent to 6 children while also working? (That is, assuming "good" means more than "pays the bills and isn't a complete douchebag").
- remote_phone 6y agoEasy answer: he’s not a good father. It’s his choice. I don’t think there’s anything particularly wrong about it, but it’s sad for his kids. Steve Jobs was a shitty parent as well. You can’t have a balanced life if you want to be extraordinary. It’s literally impossible.
- LunaSea 6y ago> I don’t think there’s anything particularly wrong about it I'd say that not being a good father by choice rather than necessity could be considered pretty wrong.
- mauritzio 6y agoEyeopening. When "follow your Dreams" leads to this....well did you really dreamed about it that way? Where is the fun? Looks like one becomes a "business" brainwashed robot spending way to much lifetime at doing ???????? just playing 'respect' to ego psychos for an in fact empty basket filled with $$$ paper. Listen to signals your body sends, if there is no fun soon, it means STOP. Oh yeah you can watch datapoints, brainscans and talk to experts for years, but listen to what you feel is enough. It is hard to beat that "intelligence" sensor encorporated in the human shaped by thousends of years of evolution. I wish this guy al the best, this maybe is the best thing he ever did. I hope he can find back to a more satisfying life with lots of lifetime, enjoying doing fun things with his family! No need to track down that destructive board member. He is sitting at work right in front of you on a basket with $$$, you listen to him as you think you need it for food and if you are priviledged for "dreams".. maybe just look in a mirror ?
- achillesheels 6y agoHere here! Great lesson for all. Also, very damning to peak into the kitchen to see the sausage making. If starting a high growth company is this demanding and obnoxious, what’s the point? “Making an impact” is the best answer, but then it should be something more humane than financial.
- zcoelius 6y agoThe VC firm in question is trivial to figure out. Just look for a firm that had a board seat that is no longer listed on the site and that does not list Circlecup on their site.
- rexreed 6y agoThe world of silicon valley-style startups and tech entrepreneurship is so full of drama and intrigue. The entrepreneurship ecosystem is full of narcissists, blowhards, and self-important people who believe that since they are managing other people's money they therefore have more wisdom and insight than anyone else. Board members who feel that their role as board member grants them instant authority and credibility on all topics. CEOs who believe that their title means they deserve respect. And a range of hangers-on and wantrepreneurs who want to be part of the scene but have no real idea or knowledge on how to build a business. Some startups are built to grow. Some are built to flip. Some will never go anywhere but fill people's pockets and egos. But many many more just fail. There is little relationship between the alternate reality that is the startup world and the more mundane, sedate, and less interesting traditional business world. Tweet storms and email chains like these read like the startup version of Jersey Shore or Housewives of OC.
- rexreed 6y ago(replying to myself here) When will people understand that the VC industry is a form of money management? It's an investment vehicle focused on generating a particular kind of return by investing in a particular kind of company. VCs don't invest in businesses as much as they invest in return-generating vehicles. If you can find a way to turn a grilled cheese business into a billion-dollar return-generating vehicle, then the VC will invest in it. It doesn't matter if it's an actually sustainable business or even really a business at all. Heck, you could be giving away grilled cheese and putting advertisements on the bread and if it fits the VC model then VCs will invest in it[1]. This is why "businesses" like WeWork are so divorced from business reality. Because they don't need to follow the typical path of traditional businesses, which are dependent on cash flow and customers and mostly industry or region-specific competition. Banks can loan to traditional businesses they understand. VCs invest in the businesses that don't fit those molds. This is why venture investing exists - to chase those non-traditional businesses that have the promise / potential to generate huge returns. The specifics of the business really don't matter. It follows then that if you're building a VC investment-return generating vehicle then what you're doing is not the same as building a "normal" business. You're in an ecosystem dominated by the needs for big returns. Board members don't know about or care about traditional business needs. They only care about the dynamics of investment return vehicles. This reality is not the same as the traditional business reality. [1] https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/melt-shop https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/melt-shop
- danbmil99 6y agoIs it just me, or do people in the tech startup world know this personality type all too well? I see them as slightly less crazy, but just as annoying as our dear president. Hopeless narcissists who read Ian Rand and The Prince in their teens, and think of themselves as Tony Stark when they're really just Russ Fucking Hanneman.
- tzm 6y ago> When at a board meeting at USV you stopped the meeting and said “guys we just aren’t focused on the right issues, this company has less than 6 months left.” One of the other board members said “ What are you looking at?” (You later realized you weren’t doing the math correctly). This would be an immediate red flag. How do you handle this type of issue?
- tzm 6y ago> When at a board meeting at USV you stopped the meeting and said “guys we just aren’t focused on the right issues, this company has less than 6 months left.” One of the other board members said “ What are you looking at?” (You later realized you weren’t doing the math correctly). This would be an immediate red flag in my book. How do you handle this type of issue?
- tidenly 6y agoThe more I work in this industry the more I resent upper management and boards. Not just the guy he's writing about, but even just venture and this guy himself. Is this guy really contributing so much to society that it's just he has enough money to "call in the best doctors in the country" while the workers are left with squat? It seems like the people who work the least reap all the benefits.. Maybe covid's just got me being cynical though. I hope his prognosis is good.
- tpxl 6y ago>It seems like the people who work the least reap all the benefits.. How exactly did the reading of this post make you conclude he did the least work?
- achillesheels 6y agoYou do not comprehend the concept of risk. As in, his life-continuum determined for him the affordance to seek the best treatment after compounding time in a direction you or I could never perceive. In fact, this is what makes entrepreneurialism so virtuous. I am really starting to get agitated by this pettiness on HN. It didn’t used to exist in tech.
- bg24 6y agoA gem of a writeup by Ryan. I read through the whole thing, including the emails he shared. Some snippets below for folks who may not read the whole thing. The people we let go had joined because they believed in our product and mission. They had done nothing wrong, yet suddenly there was no longer a place for them. I remember letting go of someone I had known since college. She turned to me and said, “I took this job over something that paid more, and now what should I do?” These agonising decisions kept me up at night for weeks, and I know it was much harder on those affected. That group of professional challenges was more difficult than anything else I’ve faced in my career. At the time, I told a teammate that it felt like I was playing seven-dimensional chess because of the complexity of the negotiations combined with so many conflicting challenges at work. I was also juggling personal challenges that were far more stressful than the hurdles at work. It started with absolutely brutal fertility issues that my wife and I went through, beginning in 2016. One of those tests revealed unexpected, terrifying information. I was diagnosed with cancer. I only remember a pair of words from the first conversation with my doctor: “two tumors”. For the next several months, my emotions would sometimes pour out in a tidal wave of tears and yelling. Anger, frustration, fear, confusion — there were so many feelings to contend with. I worried that the team would use my diagnosis as an excuse to throw in the towel, that my health would become a distraction, cause the company to fail and make things that much worse. To this day, I cry every time I go to the cancer center at Stanford. I hadn’t had a headache in 20-plus years and now I couldn’t go through a full day without experiencing crippling pain in my head. By the end of 2017, I was completely worn out. Persistence was my superpower. But now I’ve now come to understand that persistence is a double-edged sword, and my decision not to take a break, to not take more off my plate, hurt me, my family and the company. That was the biggest mistake of my career. depression and burnout can make even small challenges feel like a big deal. I had gotten to a place where I only focused on the losses and couldn’t accept positive things. my daughter looked at me and said, “Daddy, you always look so sad”. She was five. It was the push I needed to change. A successful and healthy transition requires one to live in the nothingness between the end of one period and the beginning of another. FINALLY HIS FIRST EMAIL(feedback to the board member) IS AN EXCELLENT READ.
- secondcoming 6y ago> She turned to me and said, “I took this job over something that paid more, and now what should I do?” What a shitty thing to say. I'm sure she was an adult when she joined, fully capable of making her own decisions and weighting up pros and cons.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- he11ow 6y agoI'm happy everything worked out for you Ryan. But I was left so queasy by this whole read. This is presented as a victorious journey. By the end of it he's got his health back, his kids, an easy job, lots of money. The company's in good shape - everyone's a winner. And you're telling readers - it's GRIT! I'm a super Gritter! I never give up! Mate, you got so lucky, to be alive, to have kids. Yet you lost years of your life, plus all your kids' early childhood fretting over terrible bosses. And by the end of it you're still wondering whether in future VCs will find you worthy of investment. And in our day and age you're considered a winner! You're the person YC points to and says - See him, you could be like him one day! "Life, if you know how to use it, is long. But one man is possessed by an avarice that is insatiable, another by a toilsome devotion to tasks that are useless; one man is besotted with wine, another is paralyzed by sloth; one man is exhausted by an ambition that always hangs upon the decision of others, another, driven on by the greed of the trader, is led over all lands and all seas by the hope of gain; some are tormented by a passion for war and are always either bent upon inflicting danger upon others or concerned about their own; some there are who are worn out by voluntary servitude in a thankless attendance upon the great; many are kept busy either in the pursuit of other men's fortune or in complaining of their own; many, following no fixed aim, shifting and inconstant and dissatisfied, are plunged by their fickleness into plans that are ever new... Ask about the men whose names are known by heart, and you will see that these are the marks that distinguish them: A cultivates B and B cultivates C; no one is his own master." -Seneca, On the Shortness of Life
- mercer 6y agoYeah, well, fuck the whole thing. So this guy fired a college buddy who chose to work for him instead of a better-paying job. "I believed in you". And the story just moves on, like it's a colour detail to the whole thing? Does this person get a royal severance package? Does the struggling CEO help them land on their feet? That's the kind of stuff I want to know. With those little details left out, it's just another powerful individual complaining about how hard it is to be powerful and wealthy. I'm trying to think of ways to make this comment more even-keeled and less likely to be downvoted, but I honestly can't. This kind of stuff bothers me to my bones, and while I definitely support this guy being honest, so much, because I do care about mental health, I can't get past the "here's my hero story, forget about the consequences for the small guys" aspect of it.
- achillesheels 6y agoIt’s called leadership he created ex nihilo. Prey tell, sir, who have you ever led to be so prudential in your judgment?
- mercer 6y agoI don't see how my accomplishments, or lack thereof, have any bearing on my moral beliefs and expressing them. That said, I was in a bad mood, and in hindsight I shouldn't have judged based on so little information; I don't know what /actually/ happened. mea culpa.
- achillesheels 6y agoAccomplishments provide empirical knowledge of one’s hypothetical and private judgements. How else can one know one’s wisdom if not through its demonstration?
- pierrefermat1 6y agoGuy is writing a pity story in hopes of getting some more VC funding at some point down the line for his new business. It's pathetic and I'm just angry I wasted my time reading through the whole medium post