10 ms·

The dark side of entrepreneurship

181 points by rustoo 5y ago

yawnxyz 5y ago
I'd go on a limb and say that the "dark", "down" and "destructive" sides are what makes entrepreneurship so special... these are all attributes that normal jobs won't ever be able to offer. This is what makes a bootstrapped startup so much different from an "internal startup". Of course you don't ever WANT to be destructive or losing money and feeling naked and exposed, but those are the conditions for something to thrive and grow and blossom. I think those are the necessary conditions for something great to come out the other end, for better or worse.
- ido 5y ago
  Excuse the bluntness, but that's bullshit (as in: I don't think you're lying, just that you are wrong). What makes entrepreneurship so special is the freedom. A lot of these downsides are accompanied/caused by that freedom but you got the direction of causation wrong.
  - worthybox 5y ago
    I think the experience varies from person to person. Some may be in it for the money, some for the thrill (and many for both).
    - ido 5y ago
      I certainly accept that other people may be different, but in my network I haven’t seen much of that (at least those I asked seem to say they tolerate the stress/uncertainty rather than enjoy it).
  - Pyramus 5y ago
    I'm an entrepreneur and parent makes a valid point even though they are exaggerating. Hardship and pressure can indeed fuel startup success - it makes a huge difference if you are running out of cash in X months and know you have to fire everything and bury what you exclusively worked on for the last X years. That captures the dark side of entrepreneurship perfectly. I believe we can see this effect also in countries like Israel or many African countries.
a0zU 5y ago
I mean I doubt anything in that article would come as a huge surprise to a nascent or prospective entrepreneur? It seems like most of article's point is just an anecdotally obfuscated version of, "Entrepreneurship takes time, effort, and has no gauruntees of success." A fairly obvious message I doubt anyone who has seriously considered starting a business hasn't realized.
- bredren 5y ago
  Perhaps the culture of the valley has changed, but in my experience this is very common in startup accelerators. Many are too young to realize the financial and relation hardships that can result from chasing a dream and failing to deliver a fraction of hoped for results. It doesn’t help to have stories like the Airbnb founders with binders of maxed out credit cards.
  - ido 5y ago
    Even if you "know" it, you don't really know it until it happens to you. I'm running a small startup (5 months old tomorrow) and everything is "fine" - I have funding (part of it signed, other parts seems very likely to be signed in the immediate future), a team, development is going well - but there are constant obstacles and setbacks and it's a lot harder to keep my cool/spirits than as an employee. Rationally I know whatever happens I'll be ok (at worst I'll have to get a well paying job as a developer somewhere else) but emotionally it's different, especially when you have employees depending on a salary you're paying. One thing I found helps a lot is to talk to other entrepreneurs who have been where you are now & I'm very fortunate to have several people like that in my professional network.
- achow 5y ago
  Yes, but also.. There are just not enough such writings to balance out the (mega) success stories which are obvious result of survivorship bias.
  - justicezyx 5y ago
    Really, if one cannot figure out the lack of aithenticy in most of such success stories, I think they figure out quickly when they jump into the cold water of running a start-up. It's not that the success stories have any convincing ideas for any aspiring founders anyway.
paulryanrogers 5y ago
I don't think the lack of accountability, such as from perverse incentives, is a problem unique to solo entrepreneurs. Still, the entrepreneur worship may be contributing to some work-is-life subcultures. Failure should be culturally destigmatized at the personal level, without propping up those unfit/unequipped to lead.
jandrewrogers 5y ago
Starting a company is a crucible in every sense, brutal but transformative. For some people, they come out the other side a better person in almost every sense, with a much stronger identity and mental fortitude. For other people, and I might argue most people, it is destructive in a very real way and I know of many examples. People who haven’t done it truly underestimate the level of pressure across many aspects of life that entrepreneurship entails, even if you are vaguely successful. It isn’t to be envied per se, though I’ve done it multiple times and would place myself in the former category. It is a calling. I don’t recommend it for almost anyone but some people are compelled to do it. There is little to recommend that lifestyle. Society won’t reward it one whit unless you are spectacularly successful. But… There is much to be said for the opportunity to take that risk nonetheless. You can’t do that everywhere.
- jyscao 5y ago
  > For some people, they come out the other side a better person in almost every sense, with a much stronger identity and mental fortitude. Could you elaborate a bit more on this point, based on your own personal experience with entrepreneurship?
  - iamstupidsimple 5y ago
    The comment below put it rather succinctly. > Avoiding pain and hardship is hardly a way to discover life. Strife is character building, and can lead to a more experienced, well-rounded person, if you're lucky. Of course, it can go the other way too.
    - WJW 5y ago
      This makes me wonder if anyone has done thorough (and replicable) research into which amount of strife leads which percentage of people to become more well-rounded rather than bitter and traumatized. I agree that zero strife is probably not the optimal amount. OTOH, there are many people who manage to work their way up out of the ghetto but are definitely not well-adjusted. The agressive paranoia and constant need to prove their "big-ness" are very telling. You can see this in a lot of war survivors too, the constant suffering and uncertainty just breaks people in ways that are almost impossible to recover from.
jjmorrison 5y ago
Avoiding pain and hardship is hardly a way to discover life.
vmception 5y ago
I think the denial is the biggest destructive downside I had a cofounder always in denial of negative outcomes “Whew that meeting went well!” uh the respected guy was on his phone the whole time, literally said the firm wouldn't invest, and barely listened to us But at least that cofounder’s Ivy League pedigree and.. uh… other visual attributes for the US market got me into the room!
colordrops 5y ago
Oh, I thought this was going to be about all the sociopaths you encounter among investors and other startups.
jasfi 5y ago
My startup (CxO Industries) aims to reduce the negatives. A lot of the downsides is because Entrepreneurs don't have much support.
- murukesh_s 5y ago
  interesting, can you elaborate how are you going to help? Financial, emotional support? Are you open to international companies?
  - jasfi 5y ago
    It's open ended, however I can't do everything from the start. I plan to start with helping people decide on their idea and whether to start it. Financial advice and emotional support are two big areas I hope to cover. I think emotional support is where a lot of new founders find themselves unexpectedly in trouble. Yes, this will be to help companies internationally.
adamnemecek 5y ago
Yeah but 9-5 for 40 years is fucking amazing.
- inter_netuser 5y ago
  serious or joke?
  - rl1987 5y ago
    Pretty sure they were speaking ironically.
blueblisters 5y ago
> Even though we normally think of grief in the context of the death of a loved one, a broadly similar reaction can occur when a close relationship is ended through separation or when a person is forced to give up some aspect of life deemed to be important. When our family business died, my father exhibited a number of worrying emotions. There were numbness and disbelief that this business he had created 20-odd years ago was no longer ‘alive.’ There was some anger toward the economy, competitors, and debtors. A stronger emotion than anger was that of guilt and self-blame: he felt guilty that he had caused the failure of the business, that it could no longer be passed on to my brother, and that, as a result, he had failed not only as a businessperson, but also as a father. These feelings caused him distress and anxiety. He felt the situation was hopeless and became withdrawn and, at times, depressed. This experience is eerily similar to the failure of a business of a family member. People who have built their business over decades will go to irrational lengths to save it, even when it would be prudent to wind it up and preserve your existing wealth, and mental and physical well-being. When traditional creditors refuse to lend more, I have seen homes getting mortgaged, willingness to take on high-interest loans from dubious people and a belief that things can be fixed if they can just have a little more money and time. I think the attachment, and subsequent grief from failure, with business built over years and decades with little outside capital is significantly more than venture-backed businesses where entrepreneurs can generally share the fruits and failure with other investors/backers.
- brundolf 5y ago
  Most people need at least one thing in their life to put their name on which acts like an external incarnation of their self-worth. I feel this way about my side-projects. Luckily those can't "die", though they can be threatened by eg an excessive employment contract.
  - madaxe_again 5y ago
    I find it’s far easier to just accept that everything is transient, and that our works and deeds are insignificant. You can’t fight entropy. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.
phase5 5y ago
There's a big difference between entrepreneur vs business owner. Entrepreneurship refers to creative destruction which some people actually thrive on because it gives more meaning to their life as opposed to a mundane job or small business.
- adwn 5y ago
  > Entrepreneurship refers to creative destruction No, it doesn't. That may be the definition used by a small minority of people, but it's not a generally accepted definition.
maxrobot 5y ago
Biggest non-article ever...
Amin699 5y ago
“I call for the need for more research on the dark, down-, and destructive side of entrepreneurship—what are their dimensions, why do they generate suffering, and how we can reduce them and speed recovery? Such a stream of research holds the potential to make an important, compassionate contribution,” Shepherd wrote. “I started my scholarly journey into the dark side of entrepreneurship after my father’s business failure caused him to suffer greatly. I was interested in understanding this darkness to help people like my father anticipate negative outcomes of entrepreneurship and reduce their suffering.”
k__ 5y ago
Especially working with friends is dangerous. Many friends wanted to start something with me, but I never gave in. They did so with each other and it never worked out. No big fails, but still it was a quite sobering when the alpha of the group turned out to be only words and looks.
- matwood 5y ago
  The problem with friends is the built in assumptions. A mentor (who has started and sold multiple companies, some successful some not) told me to always spell everything out in writing with your partners/founders. It's even more important if doing something with friends because of assumptions. Money and stress shows who people really are.
- cweill 5y ago
  Perhaps that's true. A startup will put your friendship through a crucible, and at the end, whether success or failure, if they are still there for you, you know they were a true friend. And true friends are the people you want to go into business with. We need to think of startups as a repeat game with multiple iterations. The optimal strategy is to cooperate, not defect. Your first startup does not need to be a success, but a great tool for finding worthy collaborators.
f32jhnjk33jj 5y ago
Entrepreneurship is especially bad in Europe. Before you deliver your first MVP, the bureaucracy will kill your startup. Each year the situation is getting worse and worse. This year they will introduce 'upload filter law' and couple of other startup-killing laws are already on their way.
- cpp_frog 5y ago
  I'm interested in knowing more about this, could you provide pointers to more information? I will be moving to the northern hemisphere after finishing my academic duties, and in my possibilities I consider the US, France or Germany. From what I have read on HN, Europe seems to be better if you are an employee, and the US better for entrepreneurship.
jnwatson 5y ago
“ I and my colleagues explored how entrepreneurs may say they value the environment, yet they disengage those values in order to take actions to pursue opportunities to make them rich, but destroy the environment. Logging trees to make paper, for example,” Logging trees to make paper is not destructive to the environment. Paper is made from new growth trees, planted for that purpose.
- ggpsv 5y ago
  It is destructive if demand for paper means cutting down more natural habitats to replace them with a monoculture of trees. Even if you're growing tress, there's significant loss of habitat and biodiversity.
carre12345 5y ago
Good Gawd. Enough with all the self-introspection and angst. I remember back when most entrepreneurs were single location grocery stores, plumbing companies, small factories making an aquarium pump. I guess that an economy led by large scale surveillance marketing allows for more overwrought behavior.

181 points by rustoo 5y ago

I'd go on a limb and say that the "dark", "down" and "destructive" sides are what makes entrepreneurship so special... these are all attributes that normal jobs won't ever be able to offer. This is what makes a bootstrapped startup so much different from an "internal startup". Of course you don't ever WANT to be destructive or losing money and feeling naked and exposed, but those are the conditions for something to thrive and grow and blossom. I think those are the necessary conditions for something great to come out the other end, for better or worse.

ido 5y ago
Excuse the bluntness, but that's bullshit (as in: I don't think you're lying, just that you are wrong). What makes entrepreneurship so special is the freedom. A lot of these downsides are accompanied/caused by that freedom but you got the direction of causation wrong.
- worthybox 5y ago
  I think the experience varies from person to person. Some may be in it for the money, some for the thrill (and many for both).
  - ido 5y ago
    I certainly accept that other people may be different, but in my network I haven’t seen much of that (at least those I asked seem to say they tolerate the stress/uncertainty rather than enjoy it).
- Pyramus 5y ago
  I'm an entrepreneur and parent makes a valid point even though they are exaggerating. Hardship and pressure can indeed fuel startup success - it makes a huge difference if you are running out of cash in X months and know you have to fire everything and bury what you exclusively worked on for the last X years. That captures the dark side of entrepreneurship perfectly. I believe we can see this effect also in countries like Israel or many African countries.

a0zU 5y ago

I mean I doubt anything in that article would come as a huge surprise to a nascent or prospective entrepreneur? It seems like most of article's point is just an anecdotally obfuscated version of, "Entrepreneurship takes time, effort, and has no gauruntees of success." A fairly obvious message I doubt anyone who has seriously considered starting a business hasn't realized.

bredren 5y ago
Perhaps the culture of the valley has changed, but in my experience this is very common in startup accelerators. Many are too young to realize the financial and relation hardships that can result from chasing a dream and failing to deliver a fraction of hoped for results. It doesn’t help to have stories like the Airbnb founders with binders of maxed out credit cards.
- ido 5y ago
  Even if you "know" it, you don't really know it until it happens to you. I'm running a small startup (5 months old tomorrow) and everything is "fine" - I have funding (part of it signed, other parts seems very likely to be signed in the immediate future), a team, development is going well - but there are constant obstacles and setbacks and it's a lot harder to keep my cool/spirits than as an employee. Rationally I know whatever happens I'll be ok (at worst I'll have to get a well paying job as a developer somewhere else) but emotionally it's different, especially when you have employees depending on a salary you're paying. One thing I found helps a lot is to talk to other entrepreneurs who have been where you are now & I'm very fortunate to have several people like that in my professional network.
achow 5y ago
Yes, but also.. There are just not enough such writings to balance out the (mega) success stories which are obvious result of survivorship bias.
- justicezyx 5y ago
  Really, if one cannot figure out the lack of aithenticy in most of such success stories, I think they figure out quickly when they jump into the cold water of running a start-up. It's not that the success stories have any convincing ideas for any aspiring founders anyway.

paulryanrogers 5y ago

I don't think the lack of accountability, such as from perverse incentives, is a problem unique to solo entrepreneurs. Still, the entrepreneur worship may be contributing to some work-is-life subcultures. Failure should be culturally destigmatized at the personal level, without propping up those unfit/unequipped to lead.

jandrewrogers 5y ago

Starting a company is a crucible in every sense, brutal but transformative. For some people, they come out the other side a better person in almost every sense, with a much stronger identity and mental fortitude. For other people, and I might argue most people, it is destructive in a very real way and I know of many examples. People who haven’t done it truly underestimate the level of pressure across many aspects of life that entrepreneurship entails, even if you are vaguely successful. It isn’t to be envied per se, though I’ve done it multiple times and would place myself in the former category. It is a calling. I don’t recommend it for almost anyone but some people are compelled to do it. There is little to recommend that lifestyle. Society won’t reward it one whit unless you are spectacularly successful. But… There is much to be said for the opportunity to take that risk nonetheless. You can’t do that everywhere.

jyscao 5y ago
> For some people, they come out the other side a better person in almost every sense, with a much stronger identity and mental fortitude. Could you elaborate a bit more on this point, based on your own personal experience with entrepreneurship?
- iamstupidsimple 5y ago
  The comment below put it rather succinctly. > Avoiding pain and hardship is hardly a way to discover life. Strife is character building, and can lead to a more experienced, well-rounded person, if you're lucky. Of course, it can go the other way too.
  - WJW 5y ago
    This makes me wonder if anyone has done thorough (and replicable) research into which amount of strife leads which percentage of people to become more well-rounded rather than bitter and traumatized. I agree that zero strife is probably not the optimal amount. OTOH, there are many people who manage to work their way up out of the ghetto but are definitely not well-adjusted. The agressive paranoia and constant need to prove their "big-ness" are very telling. You can see this in a lot of war survivors too, the constant suffering and uncertainty just breaks people in ways that are almost impossible to recover from.

jjmorrison 5y ago

Avoiding pain and hardship is hardly a way to discover life.

vmception 5y ago

I think the denial is the biggest destructive downside I had a cofounder always in denial of negative outcomes “Whew that meeting went well!” uh the respected guy was on his phone the whole time, literally said the firm wouldn't invest, and barely listened to us But at least that cofounder’s Ivy League pedigree and.. uh… other visual attributes for the US market got me into the room!

colordrops 5y ago

Oh, I thought this was going to be about all the sociopaths you encounter among investors and other startups.

jasfi 5y ago

My startup (CxO Industries) aims to reduce the negatives. A lot of the downsides is because Entrepreneurs don't have much support.

murukesh_s 5y ago
interesting, can you elaborate how are you going to help? Financial, emotional support? Are you open to international companies?
- jasfi 5y ago
  It's open ended, however I can't do everything from the start. I plan to start with helping people decide on their idea and whether to start it. Financial advice and emotional support are two big areas I hope to cover. I think emotional support is where a lot of new founders find themselves unexpectedly in trouble. Yes, this will be to help companies internationally.

adamnemecek 5y ago

Yeah but 9-5 for 40 years is fucking amazing.

inter_netuser 5y ago
serious or joke?
- rl1987 5y ago
  Pretty sure they were speaking ironically.

blueblisters 5y ago

> Even though we normally think of grief in the context of the death of a loved one, a broadly similar reaction can occur when a close relationship is ended through separation or when a person is forced to give up some aspect of life deemed to be important. When our family business died, my father exhibited a number of worrying emotions. There were numbness and disbelief that this business he had created 20-odd years ago was no longer ‘alive.’ There was some anger toward the economy, competitors, and debtors. A stronger emotion than anger was that of guilt and self-blame: he felt guilty that he had caused the failure of the business, that it could no longer be passed on to my brother, and that, as a result, he had failed not only as a businessperson, but also as a father. These feelings caused him distress and anxiety. He felt the situation was hopeless and became withdrawn and, at times, depressed. This experience is eerily similar to the failure of a business of a family member. People who have built their business over decades will go to irrational lengths to save it, even when it would be prudent to wind it up and preserve your existing wealth, and mental and physical well-being. When traditional creditors refuse to lend more, I have seen homes getting mortgaged, willingness to take on high-interest loans from dubious people and a belief that things can be fixed if they can just have a little more money and time. I think the attachment, and subsequent grief from failure, with business built over years and decades with little outside capital is significantly more than venture-backed businesses where entrepreneurs can generally share the fruits and failure with other investors/backers.

brundolf 5y ago
Most people need at least one thing in their life to put their name on which acts like an external incarnation of their self-worth. I feel this way about my side-projects. Luckily those can't "die", though they can be threatened by eg an excessive employment contract.
- madaxe_again 5y ago
  I find it’s far easier to just accept that everything is transient, and that our works and deeds are insignificant. You can’t fight entropy. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.

phase5 5y ago

There's a big difference between entrepreneur vs business owner. Entrepreneurship refers to creative destruction which some people actually thrive on because it gives more meaning to their life as opposed to a mundane job or small business.

adwn 5y ago
> Entrepreneurship refers to creative destruction No, it doesn't. That may be the definition used by a small minority of people, but it's not a generally accepted definition.

maxrobot 5y ago

Biggest non-article ever...

Amin699 5y ago

“I call for the need for more research on the dark, down-, and destructive side of entrepreneurship—what are their dimensions, why do they generate suffering, and how we can reduce them and speed recovery? Such a stream of research holds the potential to make an important, compassionate contribution,” Shepherd wrote. “I started my scholarly journey into the dark side of entrepreneurship after my father’s business failure caused him to suffer greatly. I was interested in understanding this darkness to help people like my father anticipate negative outcomes of entrepreneurship and reduce their suffering.”

k__ 5y ago

Especially working with friends is dangerous. Many friends wanted to start something with me, but I never gave in. They did so with each other and it never worked out. No big fails, but still it was a quite sobering when the alpha of the group turned out to be only words and looks.

matwood 5y ago
The problem with friends is the built in assumptions. A mentor (who has started and sold multiple companies, some successful some not) told me to always spell everything out in writing with your partners/founders. It's even more important if doing something with friends because of assumptions. Money and stress shows who people really are.
cweill 5y ago
Perhaps that's true. A startup will put your friendship through a crucible, and at the end, whether success or failure, if they are still there for you, you know they were a true friend. And true friends are the people you want to go into business with. We need to think of startups as a repeat game with multiple iterations. The optimal strategy is to cooperate, not defect. Your first startup does not need to be a success, but a great tool for finding worthy collaborators.

f32jhnjk33jj 5y ago

Entrepreneurship is especially bad in Europe. Before you deliver your first MVP, the bureaucracy will kill your startup. Each year the situation is getting worse and worse. This year they will introduce 'upload filter law' and couple of other startup-killing laws are already on their way.

cpp_frog 5y ago
I'm interested in knowing more about this, could you provide pointers to more information? I will be moving to the northern hemisphere after finishing my academic duties, and in my possibilities I consider the US, France or Germany. From what I have read on HN, Europe seems to be better if you are an employee, and the US better for entrepreneurship.

jnwatson 5y ago

“ I and my colleagues explored how entrepreneurs may say they value the environment, yet they disengage those values in order to take actions to pursue opportunities to make them rich, but destroy the environment. Logging trees to make paper, for example,” Logging trees to make paper is not destructive to the environment. Paper is made from new growth trees, planted for that purpose.

ggpsv 5y ago
It is destructive if demand for paper means cutting down more natural habitats to replace them with a monoculture of trees. Even if you're growing tress, there's significant loss of habitat and biodiversity.

carre12345 5y ago

Good Gawd. Enough with all the self-introspection and angst. I remember back when most entrepreneurs were single location grocery stores, plumbing companies, small factories making an aquarium pump. I guess that an economy led by large scale surveillance marketing allows for more overwrought behavior.