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Jason raises a good point. The stresses of startups often go unmentioned, or certainly minimized, in the myth-of-the -heroic-founder out startup narratives beco

Jason raises a good point. The stresses of startups often go unmentioned, or certainly minimized, in the myth-of-the -heroic-founder out startup narratives become after the fact of a success. Failure and hardship are rites of passage, right? But the collateral damage is real. Going out on a limb financially is celebrated but most stories don't end with a win - just the ones we tell. Most startups fail and a lot of these risk takers we celebrate end up with financial strains for years to come, busted relationships or broken marriages. Anything can derail the startup process. Experienced entrepreneurs are acutely aware of this and if the end comes when you're out on that limb it can be devastating. I am sure there are many more suicides and countless lives broken that we just don't hear about because they never achieved prominence or success. It's worth pausing a moment to think about that. To the criticism of Jason's post. He has his haters for whatever reasons, though I find them to be highly unfair - I think it's clear that he genuinely loves startups and will do whatever he can to help the ecosystem succeed. I've met him twice and he's been nothing but generous. I think it's wrong to accuse him of using this for traffic. It's an important point he's making, and he's right nobody was talking about it in this case, for some reason.

Zimahl 14y ago
Ilya's mother reportedly said, "I strongly believe that if Ilya did not start this project and stayed in school, he would be well and alive today." I agree on the startup stress but you have to admit that the above quote isn't fair either. College kids attempt suicide at a pretty regular clip - be it from social or institutional pressures. I personally believe that suicidal people are prone and it's not their circumstances so much as it's them.
- einhverfr 14y ago
  > I agree on the startup stress but you have to admit that the above quote isn't fair either. College kids attempt suicide at a pretty regular clip - be it from social or institutional pressures. I personally believe that suicidal people are prone and it's not their circumstances so much as it's them. But you can't separate social context from this, can you? College students, for example, are very much liminal figures. One essentially enter adolescence somewhere around high school and becomes a full adult after graduating college in our society. This extended adolescence is very likely a part of the problem, and it keeps people in this liminal state. The same problem exists in start-ups. We think of the start-up phase as being sort of an extended rite of passage, which involves insane work schedules, personal sacrifices, and the like and which lasts from founding to IPO or acquisition. But that puts people through the same basic problems just to a greater extent. Again, I have nothing against insane work schedules and personal sacrifices. These can be helpful in this rite of passage process but one has to admit that they are not sustainable, and therefore one goal needs to narrow the scope. I would prefer to see the scope narrowed to be from launch to first customer delivery. Sure, put in 160 hr workweeks between those points, have bunk beds in the break room, or whatever you need to do. An extended hackathon isn't a bad way to look at it. Let everyone live in the office for all I care, but make it a short and reasonable time for this. Don't let it stretch on for five months let alone five years. (In reality two weeks is probably optimal.) Then get back to a normal work week, and running a proper business.
michaelochurch 14y ago
But the collateral damage is real. Going out on a limb financially is celebrated but most stories don't end with a win - just the ones we tell. The biggest danger from startups as I see it isn't even the financial loss. That's very bad, don't get me wrong-- $100,000 losses aren't uncommon-- but it isn't the worst thing. The worst thing that comes out of startup failure is the confluence of opportunity cost with the extremely harsh age-grading of VC-istan. Most industries give you 25 years to build a career, and then 15 more on the plateau before you even start to worry about age discrimination. That's something people start to face in their 60s, not 30s. In VC-istan, you have much less time and losing 2 years to a dogshit startup is catastrophic. The loss of opportunities even between 25 and 30 is a substantial drop. By 35, if you're not retired or an executive (never mind whether you actually want to manage) people start to ask what happened. VC-istan is a hypocritical culture, because it superficially champions risk and failure, but if you don't have an unbroken stream of successes, you become yesterday's dogshit pretty much immediately. What "we accept failure" means in VC-istan is that people with the political skill to make their failures appear to be someone else's fault can continue their careers uninterrupted, but how is that different from the rest of Corporate America? It's not. VC-istan is just as narcissistic and intolerant of missteps. If you're not VP/Eng by 35 and a Founder by 40, goodbye. The real calamity you risk in a bad startup is the career damage. You can easily end up in a position well below your level of ability in the next job, and once that happens, you're screwed because most people get bored rapidly and lose motivation when this occurs. I have no idea what happens to the people who fall under their age curve. I hope to never find out. It's no wonder why people are so depressed. A world in which the aging process starts so prematurely is depressing. It's like modeling, but with uglier people.
- arbuge 14y ago
  Maybe so. But there is life outside venture capital - lots of it, in fact. Most of America's biggest companies got started outside the VC ecosystem. It's possible, although it may take some unconventional thinking at times. The other point to bear in mind is that a bad startup does not mean any particular individual was responsible. I've had a bad startup in my lifetime and went on to have a successful 2nd one, as did 2 of my cofounders there. The original startup was VC funded. 2 of the 3 others were not.
einhverfr 14y ago
> Failure and hardship are rites of passage, right? They are and they should be. The problem though is that rites of passage are, well, rites of passage. You go from one social state to another. The confusion I think is in making the liminal state in that rite the object of the passage. It's a paradoxical place to be, being at once both very lonely, and filled with the bonds with the initiation brothers and sisters.

Zimahl 14y ago

Ilya's mother reportedly said, "I strongly believe that if Ilya did not start this project and stayed in school, he would be well and alive today." I agree on the startup stress but you have to admit that the above quote isn't fair either. College kids attempt suicide at a pretty regular clip - be it from social or institutional pressures. I personally believe that suicidal people are prone and it's not their circumstances so much as it's them.

einhverfr 14y ago
> I agree on the startup stress but you have to admit that the above quote isn't fair either. College kids attempt suicide at a pretty regular clip - be it from social or institutional pressures. I personally believe that suicidal people are prone and it's not their circumstances so much as it's them. But you can't separate social context from this, can you? College students, for example, are very much liminal figures. One essentially enter adolescence somewhere around high school and becomes a full adult after graduating college in our society. This extended adolescence is very likely a part of the problem, and it keeps people in this liminal state. The same problem exists in start-ups. We think of the start-up phase as being sort of an extended rite of passage, which involves insane work schedules, personal sacrifices, and the like and which lasts from founding to IPO or acquisition. But that puts people through the same basic problems just to a greater extent. Again, I have nothing against insane work schedules and personal sacrifices. These can be helpful in this rite of passage process but one has to admit that they are not sustainable, and therefore one goal needs to narrow the scope. I would prefer to see the scope narrowed to be from launch to first customer delivery. Sure, put in 160 hr workweeks between those points, have bunk beds in the break room, or whatever you need to do. An extended hackathon isn't a bad way to look at it. Let everyone live in the office for all I care, but make it a short and reasonable time for this. Don't let it stretch on for five months let alone five years. (In reality two weeks is probably optimal.) Then get back to a normal work week, and running a proper business.

michaelochurch 14y ago

But the collateral damage is real. Going out on a limb financially is celebrated but most stories don't end with a win - just the ones we tell. The biggest danger from startups as I see it isn't even the financial loss. That's very bad, don't get me wrong-- $100,000 losses aren't uncommon-- but it isn't the worst thing. The worst thing that comes out of startup failure is the confluence of opportunity cost with the extremely harsh age-grading of VC-istan. Most industries give you 25 years to build a career, and then 15 more on the plateau before you even start to worry about age discrimination. That's something people start to face in their 60s, not 30s. In VC-istan, you have much less time and losing 2 years to a dogshit startup is catastrophic. The loss of opportunities even between 25 and 30 is a substantial drop. By 35, if you're not retired or an executive (never mind whether you actually want to manage) people start to ask what happened. VC-istan is a hypocritical culture, because it superficially champions risk and failure, but if you don't have an unbroken stream of successes, you become yesterday's dogshit pretty much immediately. What "we accept failure" means in VC-istan is that people with the political skill to make their failures appear to be someone else's fault can continue their careers uninterrupted, but how is that different from the rest of Corporate America? It's not. VC-istan is just as narcissistic and intolerant of missteps. If you're not VP/Eng by 35 and a Founder by 40, goodbye. The real calamity you risk in a bad startup is the career damage. You can easily end up in a position well below your level of ability in the next job, and once that happens, you're screwed because most people get bored rapidly and lose motivation when this occurs. I have no idea what happens to the people who fall under their age curve. I hope to never find out. It's no wonder why people are so depressed. A world in which the aging process starts so prematurely is depressing. It's like modeling, but with uglier people.

arbuge 14y ago
Maybe so. But there is life outside venture capital - lots of it, in fact. Most of America's biggest companies got started outside the VC ecosystem. It's possible, although it may take some unconventional thinking at times. The other point to bear in mind is that a bad startup does not mean any particular individual was responsible. I've had a bad startup in my lifetime and went on to have a successful 2nd one, as did 2 of my cofounders there. The original startup was VC funded. 2 of the 3 others were not.

einhverfr 14y ago

> Failure and hardship are rites of passage, right? They are and they should be. The problem though is that rites of passage are, well, rites of passage. You go from one social state to another. The confusion I think is in making the liminal state in that rite the object of the passage. It's a paradoxical place to be, being at once both very lonely, and filled with the bonds with the initiation brothers and sisters.