Well, depression in this context doesn't surprise me. I think of the "Let's build a company to sell and retire" startup as an attempt, in desperation, to avoid

Well, depression in this context doesn't surprise me. I think of the "Let's build a company to sell and retire" startup as an attempt, in desperation, to avoid the rat race, by working your ass and some of your best years away, with extreme pressure and slim chances of success. We only get to here the success stories, 99% of the time, though, which makes it seem much more glamorous. I much prefer the building of a sustainable business a la "37 Signals", or failing that a series of good paying / sensible time jobs working in interesting problems. Come to think of it, most of the hackers I respect most weren't at all "entrepreneurial", some were in academia and others worked in companies, from Brian & Richie, to JWZ, to Knuth, to Guido, etc. And I don't have much respect for the "successes" in the startup sense, like Zuckenberg et al, nor I think Facebook, or Groupon, or Spotify (or whatever the flavor of the day is) as "changing the world". Tim Berners Lee changed the world from a small office at CERN. Mosaic/Mozilla also changed the world. The IBM PC and the Mac changed the world. Overhyped IPOs and social networks? Not so much. (And don't get me started on the overselling of western media of the supposed role Twitter et al played in Middle Eastern riots/revolutions).