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> It's interesting that others in the thread have implied that I'm not spending enough time on my startup and will be out-hustled You're not spending enough ti

> It's interesting that others in the thread have implied that I'm not spending enough time on my startup and will be out-hustled You're not spending enough time on your start up AND you're not spending enough time with your family. You're losing on both counts but you will only realize this in ten years. What's the rush? Couldn't you have accepted a job at a big company for a few years while you plan a start up once your kids are a bit older?

ryandrake 12y ago
Accepting a job at [big company] is often not a cure for work/life imbalance, especially in tech. It's going to be better balanced than running a start-up, but it's not like you're going to all of a sudden have all your nights and weekends back.
- mwfunk 12y ago
  Sure it is. Stay away from jobs that require you to be on call or work nights and weekends. They not only exist, they're the rule, not the exception. Every tech job I've ever had has had occasional spurts of crunch time, but they were relatively few and far between.
nostrademons 12y ago
FWIW, there are ample counterexamples of startup founders who have had young children and done very well on both fronts. For example: All but one of the Fairchild Eight had young children while founding Fairchild (and the modern Silicon Valley). Jan Koum had two young children while founding WhatsApp. The Zenter founders both had young children during YCombinator, and ended up getting bought by Google. It can be done. I doubt anyone would consider it easy, but the data certainly doesn't a blanket claim of "You're not spending enough time on your start up AND you're not spending enough time with your family."
- avalaunch 12y ago
  You didn't list any counterexamples, or at least we have no way of knowing if they are counterexamples. You've listed a number of examples where the startup founders had young children while successfully growing their companies but we have no way of knowing whether they were equally successful on the parenting front. Perhaps they sacrificed their parental responsibilities to achieve their business success.

ryandrake 12y ago

Accepting a job at [big company] is often not a cure for work/life imbalance, especially in tech. It's going to be better balanced than running a start-up, but it's not like you're going to all of a sudden have all your nights and weekends back.

mwfunk 12y ago
Sure it is. Stay away from jobs that require you to be on call or work nights and weekends. They not only exist, they're the rule, not the exception. Every tech job I've ever had has had occasional spurts of crunch time, but they were relatively few and far between.

nostrademons 12y ago

FWIW, there are ample counterexamples of startup founders who have had young children and done very well on both fronts. For example: All but one of the Fairchild Eight had young children while founding Fairchild (and the modern Silicon Valley). Jan Koum had two young children while founding WhatsApp. The Zenter founders both had young children during YCombinator, and ended up getting bought by Google. It can be done. I doubt anyone would consider it easy, but the data certainly doesn't a blanket claim of "You're not spending enough time on your start up AND you're not spending enough time with your family."

avalaunch 12y ago
You didn't list any counterexamples, or at least we have no way of knowing if they are counterexamples. You've listed a number of examples where the startup founders had young children while successfully growing their companies but we have no way of knowing whether they were equally successful on the parenting front. Perhaps they sacrificed their parental responsibilities to achieve their business success.