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As way of a cautious recommendation: About a year and a half ago, I was stuck for a week away from home traveling for work. Searching for something to read whi

As way of a cautious recommendation: About a year and a half ago, I was stuck for a week away from home traveling for work. Searching for something to read while I was gone, I popped into an Atlanta Barnes and Noble and futilely tried to find some books which were on my Amazon wish list. Of the five or six I looked for, they didn't seem to have any, save for "Hackers and Painters" (which required a storewide manhunt to track down where exactly they had decided to shelve it). I read it in my hotel room that night and spent the rest of the week enthralled by the thought of quitting my job and working at a startup (either my own, or someone else's). When I got home, I told my girlfriend that I was possibly in the middle of something, and would need to take the next few weeks to decide if I was about to upend my (our) life. She was understandably nonplussed by this discussion. Fast-forward a few weeks and I managed to come back down from the ledge. It may have just been the comfort of home, or the general inertia of a content over-priviledged life; but I reverted back to my previous plans, and set aside the fanciful notion of slaying dragons and working at a startup. So by all means, you should read it. Just be careful about your mindset when you do, lest you also be swept away by notions of ramen dinners and liquidity events. Like a call to the sea, it has the potential to plant itself in your mind and than drive you mad if unheeded. You've been warned.

colinplamondon 15y ago
Having a startup isn't slaying dragons, it's shipping something, charging money, and reinvesting revenue into growth. It's not rocket science- just time consuming.
elias 15y ago
What! That's sad. You're a victim of what I call "Everest Syndrome": http://eliasbizannes.com/blog/2011/08/everest-syndrome-is-the-biggest-crime-in-our-society/ http://eliasbizannes.com/blog/2011/08/everest-syndrome-is-th... Startups in my portfolio at CRV (we're the guys that funded Twitter, Yammer, Millennial Media...) have plenty of cash and I think you'll make more money working in a startup and enjoy life more. There is no risk, because if the startup fails, you move to the next one. Silicon Valley is like working in a big company with multiple divisions: you may change 'departments', but you're still working for something where everything loosely aligns as the same goal.
- wickedchicken 15y ago
  > Silicon Valley is like working in a big company with multiple divisions buzzkill
- stilist 15y ago
  There’s no risk in leaving stable employment for a lifestyle that can ruin your finances and relationships, and leave you completely burnt out? Startups can be huge successes personally and financially, but there’s definitely risk.
  - hfthrowaway 15y ago
    No risk if you're a VC. Best case, you're net worth increases by orders of magnitude - worst case, you still earn a hefty management fee on all committed capital. If someone else spends five years of their life on a failed venture, its just one company in your portfolio. Nothing wrong with entrepreneurship. I just find it grating when the benefits are expounded by people who take the exact opposite deal, in terms of asymmetric risk.
    - elias 15y ago
      Not quite. If you are a venture partner and you don't produce returns on the fund, you're out of there. The entire partnership needs to show gains on the fund. In my experience, it's actually pretty easy raising money (either from advertisers, investors, or sponsors) but what's hard is ensuring you give a return on that money. You can measure the success of a venture fund not on how much money they raise the first time, but how much they've raised in total over successive rounds.
  - elias 15y ago
    Let me qualify that: as a founder, of course there is risk. That's what makes you a founder. And that's why not everyone is cut out to be a founder: you need to be mad. (And there's madness is a bit of all of us, but as a twenty something bachelor, being a mad man affects me less than a 40 something father of three.) My response was in the context of being an employee. I was an employee at a 5,000 person consulting firm in Australia when the financial crisis hit in 2008 and I had more fear losing my job then then when I moved to recession-plagued America in 2009 to work at a search-engine startup (and Australia has been one of the strongest economies in that period since). In fact, I was paid more (in salary, not counting options), given more responsibility, and enjoyed life more.
MichaelApproved 15y ago
"I managed to come back down from the ledge" That you would consider it a ledge, means you made the right choice, for yourself. On the other hand, many people see the chance to create or work at a start-up a positive opportunity that they can benefit from regardless of the outcome.
- m0nastic 15y ago
  I may have done a disservice using that metaphor, as it wasn't my intent to suggest that anyone who choses to work on/at a startup is up on a ledge. What I was trying to convey, was that even someone like myself (pretty much without an entrepreneurial bone in my body) was so enraptured by the thought of it after reading the book that I almost did it. The book is powerful mojo.
rmason 15y ago
Reading this I am reminded of the great quote from Nassim Taleb who wrote the Black Swan. “The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary."
may 15y ago
This.

colinplamondon 15y ago

Having a startup isn't slaying dragons, it's shipping something, charging money, and reinvesting revenue into growth. It's not rocket science- just time consuming.

elias 15y ago

What! That's sad. You're a victim of what I call "Everest Syndrome": http://eliasbizannes.com/blog/2011/08/everest-syndrome-is-the-biggest-crime-in-our-society/ http://eliasbizannes.com/blog/2011/08/everest-syndrome-is-th... Startups in my portfolio at CRV (we're the guys that funded Twitter, Yammer, Millennial Media...) have plenty of cash and I think you'll make more money working in a startup and enjoy life more. There is no risk, because if the startup fails, you move to the next one. Silicon Valley is like working in a big company with multiple divisions: you may change 'departments', but you're still working for something where everything loosely aligns as the same goal.

wickedchicken 15y ago
> Silicon Valley is like working in a big company with multiple divisions buzzkill
stilist 15y ago
There’s no risk in leaving stable employment for a lifestyle that can ruin your finances and relationships, and leave you completely burnt out? Startups can be huge successes personally and financially, but there’s definitely risk.
- hfthrowaway 15y ago
  No risk if you're a VC. Best case, you're net worth increases by orders of magnitude - worst case, you still earn a hefty management fee on all committed capital. If someone else spends five years of their life on a failed venture, its just one company in your portfolio. Nothing wrong with entrepreneurship. I just find it grating when the benefits are expounded by people who take the exact opposite deal, in terms of asymmetric risk.
  - elias 15y ago
    Not quite. If you are a venture partner and you don't produce returns on the fund, you're out of there. The entire partnership needs to show gains on the fund. In my experience, it's actually pretty easy raising money (either from advertisers, investors, or sponsors) but what's hard is ensuring you give a return on that money. You can measure the success of a venture fund not on how much money they raise the first time, but how much they've raised in total over successive rounds.
- elias 15y ago
  Let me qualify that: as a founder, of course there is risk. That's what makes you a founder. And that's why not everyone is cut out to be a founder: you need to be mad. (And there's madness is a bit of all of us, but as a twenty something bachelor, being a mad man affects me less than a 40 something father of three.) My response was in the context of being an employee. I was an employee at a 5,000 person consulting firm in Australia when the financial crisis hit in 2008 and I had more fear losing my job then then when I moved to recession-plagued America in 2009 to work at a search-engine startup (and Australia has been one of the strongest economies in that period since). In fact, I was paid more (in salary, not counting options), given more responsibility, and enjoyed life more.

MichaelApproved 15y ago

"I managed to come back down from the ledge" That you would consider it a ledge, means you made the right choice, for yourself. On the other hand, many people see the chance to create or work at a start-up a positive opportunity that they can benefit from regardless of the outcome.

m0nastic 15y ago
I may have done a disservice using that metaphor, as it wasn't my intent to suggest that anyone who choses to work on/at a startup is up on a ledge. What I was trying to convey, was that even someone like myself (pretty much without an entrepreneurial bone in my body) was so enraptured by the thought of it after reading the book that I almost did it. The book is powerful mojo.

rmason 15y ago

Reading this I am reminded of the great quote from Nassim Taleb who wrote the Black Swan. “The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary."

may 15y ago

This.