I just don't believe that you can't be a successful founder and still have a life/family/healthy lifestyle. Obviously situations like Adora's make for a good s

I just don't believe that you can't be a successful founder and still have a life/family/healthy lifestyle. Obviously situations like Adora's make for a good story, and that's a big part of why they spread. But, realistically: we are describing (mostly) young people who have forgone the steady jobs their peers all have to try making something enormous from literally nothing. They still have bills to pay, at least one mouth to feed, quite possibly student debt, family and friends who don't really understand any of it, and maybe even family and friends who put in money (makes for a pretty shitty Christmas dinner when your company only has 2 weeks of runway left, the next round isn't closing fast enough, and Uncle Johnny's already in it for too much). Of course with a bit of experience someone could avoid/mitigate some of those issues, and that's part of why organizations like YC exist, but it is in no one's interest to sugarcoat how difficult it really is to start a startup. Anyone who says founders tell these stories to brag about how hard they work has never done it.