> Over the years, I’ve run into many prospective employees in similar situations. When I ask them a very obvious question: “What do you want to be doing in 10 y

> Over the years, I’ve run into many prospective employees in similar situations. When I ask them a very obvious question: “What do you want to be doing in 10 years?” The answer is invariably “working at or founding a tech startup”... It's great to ask what questions, but they should almost always be followed by why questions. Why do you want to work at or found a tech startup? Startups have been glamorized by the media for well over a decade, and the hype today is at a fever pitch, so it's really no surprise that startups are so appealing. That doesn't mean that most people have a realistic understanding of what it's like working at or starting one. Frankly, "I want to do a tech startup" is as much a red flag as "I want to make a lot of money." It's so non-specific as to be effectively meaningless. A startup is just a vehicle, and if you don't have an interest in driving somewhere specific, you're driving for the sake of driving. > There is a natural human tendency to make the next step an upward one. There's also a natural human tendency to believe that the grass is always greener somewhere else. The prototypical Silicon Valley startup can be as demanding as an investment bank, and a good number are chaotic and dysfunctional to boot. And you don't have folks like Sam Altman talking about "founder depression" because running a startup is the next best thing to heaven.