4 ms·
Microsoft Ventures' site -- http://www.microsoftventures.com/ http://www.microsoftventures.com/ -- has this nugget right at the top, in large lettering: "You h
by chasing 13y ago
Microsoft Ventures' site -- http://www.microsoftventures.com/ http://www.microsoftventures.com/ -- has this nugget right at the top, in large lettering:
"You have an idea so brilliant it burns. You can’t sleep. You can’t eat. You just have to make it happen—now."
There have been plenty of posts on Hacker News about entrepreneurs and hackers being bad at work-life balance and/or trying to create better work-life balance with varying degrees of success. It's a real issue, and I think the common consensus is that entrepreneurs with poor work-life balance are more likely to experience burn-out (or other problems like alcohol or drug issues -- or depression) which will ultimately make them less effective at whatever they're doing.
So I wonder two things:
1) How much of this "work at the expense of all else" mentality is, in fact, driven by marketing like this on the Microsoft Ventures site? (Edit: Not that it's Microsoft's fault, but that this attitude is common in marketing relating to start-ups and entrepreneurship.)
2) Should having this kind of "work at the expense of all else" language in the most prominent position on the Microsoft Ventures site make me conclude that they actually kind of don't "get it" as far as start-up entrepreneurship goes? Or, at least, that they are trying to take some "cool" stance and "appeal to the kids" with some slightly more sophisticated form of the "EXTREME" everything marketing aimed at teens and twenty-somethings about a decade ago? Because it makes the site feel more like an ad for Mountain Dew or Red Bull than an advertisement for an organization that really cares to understand how start-up culture should work. Which, I guess it is, since the end-game for Microsoft is most likely to get more cool new companies to use their (otherwise struggling?) software platforms.
I understand I'm judging based on one throwaway tag-line, but it's literally the only non-menu-item piece of text on the screen when I visit their site. So I feel I have to give it a fair amount of weight.
- counterpointer 13y agoYou could apply the same logic to almost any passion that a person can have. Tennis, racing, singing, pick your choice. I was up till 1am last weekend playing tennis under lights. Overdo anything, and you're likely to get messed up. I think you're reading too much into it. It's just a pitch, effective or not and I think it relates more to deciding to go for the idea and the "Eureka!" moment rather than the weeks and months working on it after doing so.
- chasing 13y agoI agree -- work isn't the only thing you can burn out on. But I do think it totally relates to the weeks and months working on the start-up after the "Eureka!" moment. I'd say "having the idea" is the "Eureka!" moment in their slogan, and they're referring to eschewing eat and sleep in order to make that idea a real thing. Which takes weeks and months. Which sounds like a recipe for burn-out. And, honestly, I think entrepreneurship should be approached soberly rather than like some extreme sport or gameshow. Because start-ups can lose you hundreds of thousands of dollars in opportunity costs, potentially, and interrupt other parts of life. Not that they aren't potentially rewarding as well, but the stakes are high and should be treated as such.
- biot 13y agoI read that as "you can't sleep/eat because the fact that you're not working on your idea bothers you so much". A bit like how you might have been totally nervous the first time you asked someone out on a date, so much so that you were unable to eat or sleep. However, once you're in a committed relationship with the person that nervousness goes away. Of course, that's just my reading and I don't know how that stacks up with what Microsoft intended to communicate or what others will read into it.
- k3n 13y agoTo me, it comes across as trying to seduce the desperate.
- throwaway10001 13y agoMost startups and founders are like that, either because they want to get the product out yesterday, they are broke as hell or both. So MSFT is not targeting the desperate, but real start-ups.
- beat 13y agoI don't get the can't sleep/eat thing. But I do the intensity because without it, the company won't take off and there won't ever be a product to sell. Slavery to my own business is the price I pay for freedom, right?