
 	Startup - Bill Watterson, a cartoonist's advice  - linux_devil
http://www.zenpencils.com/comic/128-bill-watterson-a-cartoonists-advice
======
Afforess
I wish more people in software followed this kind of advice. I see posts about
air hockey or ping-pong tables and fully stocked mini-fridges as if that is an
acceptable replacement for ones free time and best creative years. Are we
children, so easily fooled by the shiny, bright candy in the checkout aisle?
Worse yet those who take the corporate-ladder type jobs at a big corp like MS,
and sacrifice their friends, family, and home for something as meaningless as
office or tablet apps.

Your startup is probably not changing, or even improving the world. Your
social media killer app is part of the problem, not the solution. And I _know_
Microsoft/IBM/Oracle/etc gave up on improving the world a long time ago,
instead opting for "shareholder" value, whatever that is. What good is money
you can never enjoy? Your kids won't thank you if they don't even know who you
are and have never spent time with you. Exhausted evenings don't count.

I have chosen door number 3. I live an ultra-frugal lifestyle and am already
planning an exit from my day job in the next decade, to retire before 40.

People like Bill Watterson, Cory Doctorow, and Richard Stallman are on to
something. They are actually enjoying life now - Are you?

~~~
kamaal
>>Your kids won't thank you if they don't even know who you are and have never
spent time with you.

Most kids, the moment they grow up will rather like you pay for their college
fees, take care of them while they are settling down and you leave them a good
inheritance.

May be small kids would like you spend time with them, but even teenagers are
smart enough to understand the importance of financial priorities in life.

>>I live an ultra-frugal lifestyle and am already planning an exit from my day
job in the next decade, to retire before 40.

I don't know how you propose to come back home so early, practically do
nothing on the side. Don't start a business on your own. And yet save your way
to becoming a millionaire(Which I can tell you as a some one saves and invests
very often, that's just not possible).

Have you planned for medical emergencies, rising house rents, inflation and
many other routine problems which come regularly in ones life etc?

>>People like Bill Watterson, Cory Doctorow, and Richard Stallman are on to
something. They are actually enjoying life now - Are you?

There are two kinds of enjoyment a human being can experience. The pure
philosophical kind of enjoyment of sitting on grass and sleeping under a tree.
The other one is partying on a yacht.

Both have their own fun.

~~~
cko
>> Most kids, the moment they grow up will rather like you pay for their
college fees, take care of them while they are settling down and you leave
them a good inheritance.

I'm still young with no kids, but that sounds awful. Especially "leave them a
good inheritance."

~~~
Tyrannosaurs
I'm not sure it's entirely true.

I think with increasing life expectancy most people are settled into their
lives long before their parents die.

Speaking as a parent I can see that I'll never stop wanting to be a father to
my children and making their lives better in whatever way I can, but speaking
as a child my only wish for my father is that he enjoys the rest of his life
and if that involves him spending his money (that he earned and that, not to
put too fine a point on it, I have no right at all to) then so be it.

Essentially as a parent, it's something you'll want to do, but I'm not
convinced that it's something your children will expect of you.

------
unimpressive
At this point "follow your dreams", "live a satisfying life" and other
variations thereof are cached wisdom. When you go to a high school class and
hear people who admit they didn't go where they wanted in college telling you
the same thing, you'll notice something like an epistemic code smell. Unless
the proportion of people working for "the man" has changed significantly in
the last...whenever this meme became popular, I can only conclude that the
sort of "creative work" which seems to have become something of a holy grail
to young job seekers is possibly:

1\. Unattainable or unsustainable for the vast majority of people.

2\. Not as good as it sounds on paper.

3\. Economically infeasible.

Otherwise we would all be cartoonists.

EDIT: Maybe I'm not 'getting it'. Considering that other HN thread on the
front page where everyone complains about contrarianism, I have to wonder if
theres something fundamental here that I'm not seeing.

~~~
graeme
I think what you're referring to are platitudes. People say "follow your
dreams", but most of the people saying that in schools didn't follow their own
advice.

Watterson actually lived by his own standards. This included forgoing millions
in licensing deals, and retiring to pursue personal art, when the strip was at
its peak.

He achieved great success, but to the conventionally minded he seemed
positively insane for a long time. He spent four years living at home, working
a day job and submitting cartoons, without success.

When most people say "follow your dreams" it's implied that they think you
should do so within existing structures.

~~~
unimpressive
>I think what you're referring to are platitudes.

They are, and I guess my point of contention with Watterson is that I'm having
trouble distinguishing between his advice and the platitudes, even though he
actually lived it.

~~~
graeme
I think the difference is having your own standard and actually following it,
even if others think its crazy.

------
personlurking
As someone who dodged the corporate world and everything a person is 'supposed
to do', I'm now in my early 30s. And while I did do the things I thought
important during my 20s, I wish more than ever I had adhered more to the
things one is supposed to do in order to 'get ahead'. I liked saying I was
living more than everyone else I knew back home who stayed in the same place,
with the same people, doing the same things...but I now know I was merely
living differently, not necessarily more. My main comparison with all those
people now is they are financially sound due to jumping through the hoops, and
I deal with near poverty for having vagabonded around the world, learning
about cultures and languages, while doing this and that to make ends meet.
There's worth in what I did, sure, but that time spent on learning for
learning's sake came at a cost.

The recent research by Princeton, et al. on the effects of poverty on the mind
nailed what I go through daily. Now I'm learning to program in hopes to fix
the problem (later, when I've spent a year learning to code) that most affects
me day in, day out.

------
dylandrop
Why is this prefixed with "Startup"? Unless I'm missing something... while
working at a startup might be more inspiring than a large corporate job, it
doesn't seem to be _AT ALL_ what the author is talking about. Leaving your job
to become a cartoonist is a LOT riskier than working at a startup.

~~~
graeme
I have no idea. This title ought to be changed. It's not the original, and is
not really the context of the original either.

------
spin
If you're living alone on a desert island, there's one job available:
scavenging for food. It doesn't matter if you're a genius mathematician or
something, your job is to search for food.

If you're in a town full of dotcom businesses, you can probably find a job
building web-apps in JavaScript. (Hey, it's a million times better than
scavenging for food...)

I really like this cartoon. It's exactly how I feel about "having a day job"
vs "doing something cool".

I've been reading PG's essays for a long time. Since back around the time that
he created Y Combinator in the first place. I think his essays are brilliant
and honest and inspiring.

But at the end of the day... I just don't care about starting a company. If I
can live a normal, middle-class life and have a normal, middle-class
retirement.... then, man, I really don't give a shit about getting rich. I
have an endless supply of awesome things to work on and think about.

------
awjr
This calls to me on so many levels.

I was contracting all around the UK traveling up to 5 hours per day with a
5:30am start and home around 9pm and even living away.

Now I've gone permie locally. I get up at 7:30am, walk the dog, make breakfast
for the family, walk/cycle my child to school and then cycle off to work.

If my daughter is ill I can even shift work and start at 2pm (wife works to
1pm) so we don't lose holiday.

In theory I could work 8am-4pm and be home by 4:20pm. Most nights I'm home by
6pm after going on a long cycle ride.

Money isn't as good as it was contracting, but my god, is my home life better,
and not just for me. THAT needs repeating, NOT JUST FOR ME.

I smile a lot more these days.

~~~
CmonDev
It's not the contracting that was bad it was the kind of contracts you were
getting. Did you pay off your mortgage and set aside some money for your kids?

------
kamaal
Amazing advice. But just that these kind of things don't workout for majority
of the people.

Most people have to get married, have kids, prepare and pay for medical bills,
pay rents or loan installments, send their kids to school and live life like
other humans around. So you can't really sit the whole day under a tree play
lego with your kid. Sooner of later you will run out of money and then the kid
will itself want you to go out and work.

Our ancestors didn't write Ant and Cricket stories for nothing.

Working hard, and then savings and investments matter. Looking back the
happiest families I see around with their kids doing well are generally kind
of ones where parents worked hard and made sound financial decisions in the
past. Which now takes care of their health care bills, post retirement
expenses and nearly everything else.

So unless, you don't want to run into trouble when you are old you have to
earn well enough right now.

~~~
irahul
> So you can't really sit the whole day under a tree play lego with your kid.

I don't know where you are getting the idea that the cartoonist(the artist) or
Bill Watterson(the cartoonist has used a quote from Bill Watterson's speech)
advocates doing nothing.

If you go by just the cartoon, the first panel shows him working. He doesn't
find drawing the jeep for the advertisement fulfilling, and he isn't
interested in having beers with his co-workers. Overall, his job isn't for him
so he quits. Later, his old company comes with an offer which he considers but
rejects because that will mean not being with his kid and going back to
drawing jeeps for advertisements.

Do you know Bill Watterson's story? These aren't empty words. He pretty much
followed this to the letter and spirit. He started at some news agency drawing
cartoons(or was it ads). He didn't find it fulfilling and quit. He started
Calvin & Hobbes. He could have become a millionaire had he merchandised it,
but he fought against merchandising because he believed it will dilute the
art. Now whether he did the right thing or not doesn't matter. Calvin & Hobbes
is his; he can do whatever he wishes with it. On a slightly related topic, all
this "Calvin pissing on cross" and "Calving kneeling against the cross" make
me angrier than it should. For fuck's sake, I don't give a shit whether you
are a militant atheist or a religious nutjob. Come up with your own ideas
rather than stealing from someone who clearly doesn't wish his creation to be
merchandised.

As the cartoon states, the whole point is creating a life that reflects your
values and satisfies your soul. If your 9 to 5 does that, superb. If not,
everyone owes it to himself to pursue something that does.

~~~
kamaal
Bill Watterson got successful by doing X != If I do X I will be successful.

Even if you follow the advice in the same letter and spirit as he did.

Though I agree you increase your chances of being successful that way.

~~~
irahul
> Bill Watterson got successful by doing X != If I do X I will be successful.
> > Even if you follow the advice in the same letter and spirit as he did.

You will notice that I didn't mention success once, nor did I talk about if I
do what Bill Watterson did, I will be good. You are intentionally or
unintentionally misreading the article and my comment.

The article or my comment isn't about "follow your dreams and you will be
successful"(that will be incredibly stupid advice). The point is I don't have
to care what you or anyone else thinks of what constitutes success. My monthly
income is above average for an engineer in Bangalore. That is partly due to my
hourly rates and partly because I put in long hours. If I had a kid, I won't
put in long hours. Period. Will it affect the amount of money I make? Of
course. Am I under the illusion that doing that will somehow make me more
successful? Fuck no.

> Though I agree you increase your chances of being successful that way.

If only...

------
stevoski
I like Bill Watterson's sentiment. It puts into words that I wasn't able to
find why I've made the decision I have. That decision: to keep my software
company a one-person operation. I don't _want_ the company to be bigger. I
don't _want_ to have lots of employees. I don't _want_ to make a quadzillion
dollars. I want the joy of running a tiny firm, where I can choose how to run
every aspect of it. And have lots of free time for my other pursuits.

~~~
personlurking
Does your one-person operation let you pay the bills or do you do it on the
side?

I sometimes see small shops here on the streets of Lisbon and they seem like
specialty shops where (I imagine) old men who have perfected their craft sell
their wares and services. When I pass them I think to myself that the world
would be way better if everyone sought to be a master of their craft, if they
just focused on one thing and on doing it well...like Jiro
([http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-aGPniFvS0](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-aGPniFvS0)).

~~~
stevoski
It is my sole income and sole work. Definitely lets me pay the bills

~~~
graeme
Are you a fan of rob Walling? If not, you should look him up:

[http://www.amazon.com/Start-Small-Stay-Developers-
Launching/...](http://www.amazon.com/Start-Small-Stay-Developers-
Launching/dp/0615373968)

~~~
mgbmtl
Very cool. This is exactly the type of book I was looking for ideas on how to
better describe my current situation and for ideas on where to go next.

~~~
graeme
Awesome. Just noticed you're in Montreal too. My email's in my profile if you
want to talk. I'm not a developer but find most of the advice still applies.

------
LTheobald
A great cartoon but wasn't this posted just two days ago with the exact same
title:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6303776](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6303776)

~~~
shrikant
By the same user, no less!

~~~
LTheobald
They must _really_ like it :)

------
nakedrobot2
Again and again, the same point comes up: It is VERY difficult not to compare
yourself to others. Once you can stop doing that, you can decide for yourself
how to live on your own terms (if - and this is a big "if" \- if you are
fortunate enough not to have any circumstances on your plate that prevent that
- disabilities, debt, bad circumstances, and so on).

On top of this challenge, if you have the support of a loving family, your
chances are orders of magnitude better. Without such support - or with
resistance - then things can be even more difficult.

No one said it is easy.

~~~
mercer
Indeed. I find myself become ever more aware of how even when I think I'm not
comparing myself to some norm, I subconsciously am doing this anyways.

I find that meeting people wildly different from myself in lifestyle or
perspective really helps. Traveling to 'foreign' cultures too.

------
namenotrequired
It's funny that some parts of this are exactly the opposite to the culture
here in the Netherlands. Everyone's expected to be happy with who they are,
and ambition is often looked more or less looked down upon unless you can
explain how much happier you are for it even if you don't reach the top.

Ironically, with the peer pressure to seem happy, in a collective definition,
the result is more or less the same: few people are brave enough to break out
of expectations and live according to their personal values.

------
sergiosgc
The title is misleading. This is not by Bill Watterson, it is _inspired_ by
Watterson's work...

~~~
jballanc
The art is not Watterson's, but the words are.

~~~
LTheobald
Can't really say it has anything to do with startup's either.

~~~
k__
I thought about starting-up a company about stuff I like to do in my freetime,
like creating video-games. But when I look at the game industry I get the fear
that it's a bad idea.

------
InclinedPlane
Some of this advice is good but I think it ultimately misses the mark it's
aimed at. It's interesting how "follow your dreams" and effectively "don't
worry about fulfilling your potential" can simultaneously fill the same
cognitive space despite being diametrically opposed.

I wish I had more time to reply here so if these thoughts are muddled or
incomplete: my apologies.

Ultimately I think advice like this is possibly a net disservice to people.
The end result tends to be people who accept living a life without ever trying
very hard at anything. The crux here is that societal pressures on
achievement, status, and wealth are onerous and by and large should be
rejected but if that leads to nihilism or something close, which it often
does, that's not much better. There are many people today who are just not
trying very hard, because trying hard has been associaated with corporate
bullshit and classism and so on. But many people are capable of some degree of
amazing things, and those things take effort and perseverence. Not necessarily
sacrifice ofall of one's free time or health or anything like that but it will
require effort and time. And without a drive to achieve one can miss out on
the potential of creating great art, great tools, or even becoming a great
parent.

So don't give up on the idea of fulfilling your potential just avoid getting
suckered into climbing into a hamster wheel just because you think that's what
everyone around you wants. Take the time to make your life choices carefully
and intentionally but don't be a nihilist by accident and don't avoid
greatness merely because it's hard.

------
pmelendez
Is this the third time this showed up in a week or Am I having trouble with
cache?

~~~
jamesbritt
No, this was submitted twice before in the last few days.

------
NIL8
I'm glad you posted this. It's a much needed reminder.

Your artwork is excellent and I love the sentiment. I signed up and look
forward to seeing more from you. Keep up the good work!

BTW, thanks for the free posters!

------
billyto
Working over the wkend for the company. Took a break to paint a space marine.
read this comic. Crying on the inside.

