Is negativity really a thing in our culture? Business books and blog posts prepare founders for all of the hard negativity they're expected to get for founding

Is negativity really a thing in our culture? Business books and blog posts prepare founders for all of the hard negativity they're expected to get for founding a new project. But it's a myth, at least in my experience (living in the U.S.). I don't think this was always true, but it seems true in 2022. After starting a project a few years ago, I have personally never come across any hard negativity from any close friend or stranger. I know that personally people have doubted our project, but there's so many "politeness" and "encouragement norms" around early tech founders, that negativity rarely gets uttered to my face. Instead what you get as a founder is a total empty void of silence: nobody cares about your project whatsoever, until it starts to get off the ground on its own. Then there starts to be a bit of negativity. But negativity is so much better than silence, because negativity means you're starting to have an impact on things, or at least enough of an impact for someone to express a negative thought about you in public. I've read it's common wisdom among pro athletes to not talk trash to great players before a game, so as to not motivate them more. I think this is the reason why: negativity is really energizing. What a gift public negativity would be for an early project. Constant motivation for you and your team to keep going against the odds. Tesla from 2006-2017 might not have survived if nobody cared about what they were doing. Instead, the constant public criticism (or at least debate) just fueled the motivational fire. But if negativity is energizing: perhaps it's a good thing for early founders to hear more of it? I sincerely believe that 20+ years ago, early founders got way more shit for wanting to start ambitious projects. Perhaps that motivation created a hidden incentive for projects to keep going. It seems like we've gone too far with politeness and encouragement norms surrounding new projects.