
Death of a startup founder (2016) - koolhead17
https://factordaily.com/attune-arvindkumar-alagarswamy/
======
jacquesm
What a sad story. This is the sort of thing that you can plan for but you hope
you never have to activate that plan. Cancer sucks.

~~~
melling
Another person to pancreatic cancer.

It has been 11 years since the Randy Pausch‘s Last Lecture. Probably an
entirely new generation that have not seen it.

[https://www.cmu.edu/randyslecture/story/index.html](https://www.cmu.edu/randyslecture/story/index.html)

I’m sure we’re almost ready to get started to attack this disease in a big
way. (Yes, it’s hard)

~~~
majos
I hope this doesn't sound callous, but is there anything (beyond pancreatic
cancer's aggressive mortality rate) to suggest that the disease is somehow
"ripe" for increased research funding?

"How much money should we spend on cancer research?" has been in the HN aether
lately, so I'm curious.

~~~
melling
No one said the time is ripe or that it would be easy. It’s simply a deadly
disease that really doesn’t get much attention:

[https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pancreatic-cancer-research-
fund...](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pancreatic-cancer-research-funding-no-
one-should-be-told-to-go-home-and-die/)

The US economy is $15 trillion. Beyond federal tax dollars there are likely
other ways to incentivize research.

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sibmike
“Confront your own mortality, sooner rather than later.” Startupper or not, if
you have family, get that life insurance; it is cheap when you are young.

------
kshitij_libra
Are there good examples of entrepreneurs who are able to maintain a healthy
balance ? How does one balance life and startup (especially on initial stages)

~~~
ht85
If you're talking about entrepreneur under the "startup" model, it seems like
balancing work and non-work is a contradictory idea, at least if you want to
be successful.

There are and always will be many people who are throwing themselves at a
problem, taking big risks and completely ignoring the negative consequences a
failure could have on their life.

If you don't do the same, your chance of succeeding will be a lot slimmer.

As someone who's built a successful company working 70-100 hours weeks for
several years, I know that those hours were one of the biggest factors in
being able to bootstrap and survive with the little means we had.

I'm not saying it can't be done, but I don't recall personally talking to
someone who's built a stable tech business and didn't have to go through some
insane grind.

~~~
kshitij_libra
I understand that’s the general idea, and that’s what every one out there says
, but secretly I hope for some killer advice on how not to kill yourself doing
a startup . Coz life’s short . Maybe there is some strong advice that would be
really helpful

~~~
chadwittman
By no means do I have it figured it out, but my approach is somewhat balanced.

1) Expectations

Start with setting expectations for yourself, then with everyone who matters
in your life.

2) Define

What is "work" to you? When do you work? How much should you work? For me, I'm
mentally working nearly all day everyday... except for when I'm explicitly
not. If I'm spending time with my wife & son, I'm 100% focused in on spending
quality time with them.

I've chosen to spend high quality limited time > low quality abundant time
with my family.

3) Prioritize

I've dedicated myself to 3 things in my life as it stands today: my family, my
business, my health. That's it. I've painfully cut out friends from that
equation (not friendships, but hanging out with them). I've cut plenty of
other things as well, but it does take sacrifice at the end of the day in some
dimension.

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jordache
strange emphasize on the job history of the wife, including her exact title,
and the purchase of the luxury car... detracts from the core topic....

~~~
mercer
What was the core topic to you? Her name is mentioned 34 times in the article
and I found it rather nice to have such an important person in this man's life
play a central role in the article.

~~~
jordache
about the whole diagnosis and dying process..

>The mother of two boys has been a software engineer for well over a decade
with stints at Satyam Computer Services and Accenture. She now works as lead
project manager with iNautix, a technology captive centre in Chennai of BNY
Mellon Bank in the US.

who cares where the wife worked, where she currently works, what her current
title is, and what her current company's u.s. association is?

Who cares that he bought a Merc B class?

------
overcast
This won't be popular opinion, and this is coming from someone obsessed with
science, and space. The billions being spent by Silicon Valley elites, should
be focused on things like eradicating cancer, disease, and cleaning up our
only home before dumping money into yet another rocket company.

~~~
jcadam
I don't know why space exploration is such a target for comments like this,
given the amount of money poured into vapid social media companies over the
last decade or so.

~~~
overcast
I agree most VC money has been misappropriated in the interest of purely
making more money.

~~~
refurb
Huh? That's the purpose of venture capital...to make money. How is it
"misappropriated"? I'd say it used exactly as intended.

~~~
dasil003
Perhaps a poor choice of words, but I think the GP means the super rich have a
moral duty they are shirking. One of the arguments against progressive
taxation is that government spending is ineffectual, but if the super rich
don't take up philanthropic spending in a serious way then that argument is
undermined.

~~~
ameister14
But since we have progressive taxation, does the moral duty still exist?

Personally, I don't think it's just the super rich that have a moral
imperative to give to philanthropic causes; it's everyone, though the amounts
increase as your income does, much like progressive taxation.

~~~
dasil003
It's a sliding scale. Certainly we have much less progressive taxation than we
had through most of the 20th century.

The difference seems to be in the industrial era we actually had political
will to do something about it. Now, Republicans have mastered the sleight of
hand to harness anti-intellectual sentiment to pit the bourgeoisie against
"the common man" even though it's the 0.1% capitalists that're really running
away with all the gains. This is not going to end well, and the super rich
should be trying to get ahead of the problem before the pitchforks show up.

~~~
refurb
_Certainly we have much less progressive taxation than we had through most of
the 20th century._

Overall effective tax rates hasn't changed much over the last 100 years.[1] In
fact, they are higher now than they were before the 1930's. Bracket rates were
higher, but there were also a lot more ways to avoid taxes.

I can't find the source right now, but if you look at the tax burden on the
top 10%, the US system has actually become _more_ progressive over time.

Those darn Republicans!

[1][https://taxfoundation.org/taxes-rich-1950-not-
high/](https://taxfoundation.org/taxes-rich-1950-not-high/)

