
Start-ups and Emotional Debt (2014) - panic
http://www.evanmiller.org/start-ups-and-emotional-debt.html
======
mhomde
Interesting article, but I'd also claim the opposite. There's a cumulative
emotional debt in NOT doing a startup/product.

If you go through life tinkering with projects, ideas and products without
never really finishing something it gets demoralizing. You start feeling like
a broken record talking about all the things you're going to do "some day".
Not from a money point of view, but rather the joy of having created something
special.

Sure you can stay in that cushy job and give up your dreams and delusions of
grandeur, working away for someone elses vision, but you'll always have that
nagging disappointment that you didn't follow through.

This might only apply for certain personalities, but for those I think it
might be better to at least give it a shot rather than forever wonder what
could have been.

~~~
amelius
It is important, however, to be aware of your chance of success. We mostly
read about the success stories, almost never about the failures. Success is
harder (and more random) than you might think.

If you do plan to run a startup, and then fail, at least you are prepared for
it, and you can still feel good about yourself.

Also, I'd advise to do something that has social impact. If your company is
just building the next todo-list, or the next css framework, or the next
electronic paperclip, then if you fail to make this a big financial success,
you will feel you have wasted part of your life. On the other hand, if you
have worked on renewable energy, and failed, then you will still feel good
about at least having tried to make the world a better place, rather than just
having aimed for the money.

~~~
mhomde
I think its very dangerous to say "don't dream too big" or "be realistic"
because we can't succeed in things we never try

But you're right, We should have some reasonable knowledge about the odds of
success and what to do to maximize them... on the other hand failure is a
necessary ingredient of success, and as long as you learn something from each
"failure" its just another step forwards.

As for social impact, sure that's great but each individual has their own
goals and what matters to them. Some might want to entertain people, or make
peoples lives easier, or just create something beautiful. Some want to help
the poor or save the world and that's great too.

The one thing I think we can agree on is that its better to work with
something that you find intrinsically meaningful rather than being just
motivated financially.

Money might be a part of it though, many are the indie developer whose goal is
with each project is to earn enough money to keep doing what they love. Or one
project might be the stepping stone to making those world saving projects.
Last time I checked they sold Wunderlist for 100 million dollars.

------
madaxe_again
(5) in the list, over and over and over again. Started up nine years ago when
I was 22, and my 20's are a meaty blur of distressing situations, all of which
fundamentally stem from trying to fulfil the often conflicting needs of staff,
investors, clients, and all the rest. I care about people being happy, far,
far too much. Many telephones died brutal deaths to bring you this message.

The outcome is that I have nil joie de vivre, and have become a dour old fuck
at the ripe young age of 31. I've gone from boundless enthusiasm and optimism
when we started, even though we are now finally coming into our own and
running the business less like asshats, to viewing the world through crap-
stained glasses.

It's cost me friendships, relationships, my health, my sanity, and pretty much
everything else that's actually worthwhile in life.

I suppose I do at least still have enough introspection and perspective to
realise that it's not as bad as my wounded instincts lead me to believe, but
it's a never-ending struggle to consciously adjust my perceptions.

If there's any moral to this story, it's to learn to not give two craps about
other peoples' happiness as early as you can, and to learn to clamber over
people and stamp on their faces to achieve your goals. Unfortunately, I can't
get behind that ethic, so am doomed to forever feel that I'm letting people
down - thanks, negativity bias, you sod.

~~~
thenomad
I'm guessing you have already done this, but if not - have you looked into
"codependency" as a mental health issue?

"Caring too much about people being happy" is pretty much the definition of a
codependency problem. It's possible to get past it without turning into an
asshole.

There's an excellent book on it - [http://www.amazon.com/Codependent-No-More-
Controlling-Yourse...](http://www.amazon.com/Codependent-No-More-Controlling-
Yourself/dp/0894864025)

May not be of use, but I thought I'd comment in case it is!

------
jasode
_> I have not done a start-up._

This blind spot is the undercurrent to his whole essay. While there are
definitely startup founders who can experience regret of an alternative life,
the author completely ignores the opposite situation: the play-it-safe
employee who has "friends & family" but has demons of "unfulfilled potential"
constantly gnawing at him.

 _> , you should probably spend more time learning about your own brain, and
trying to form enduring friendships, and less time worrying about money and
start-ups and equity and things._

This assumes that one cannot create enduring friendships while in the act of
building startups. People _can_ pursue goals of becoming a Navy SEAL, climb Mt
Everest, hunt for the Higgs-Boson, etc _and cultivate friendships_ while
spending time on activities that require intense focus.

 _> For whatever reason — maybe it’s generational — today’s founders feel the
need to be the hero of their own inner narratives. For them, start-ups embody
a kind of happy confluence of making a lot of money, changing the world,
showing everyone how smart and wonderful they are, and, ultimately, becoming
their awesome true authentic selves._

The author has a dismissive tone using phrases like " _for whatever reason_ ",
" _showing everyone how smart and wonderful they are_ ", and " _becoming their
awesome selves_ ". Sure, manipulate the reader by only describing caricatures
of egotism.

The author doesn't mention the other legitimate sentiments such as, " _I don
't to be a cog in someone else's wheel_", or " _I don 't want to optimize
algorithms to make people click on ads_"[1]

The author doesn't seem to acknowledge the existence of people who will not be
fulfilled with friends unless they are satisfied with what they are doing with
their life. A similar scenario is a family man who isn't fulfilled by settling
into a domestic routine. He has children; at best, he loves them but at worst,
he's apathetic and sees them as constant reminders of ambitions that were
killed. The girlfriend/wife unexpectedly got pregnant and now he feels
trapped.

[1][http://www.fastcompany.com/3008436/takeaway/why-data-god-
jef...](http://www.fastcompany.com/3008436/takeaway/why-data-god-jeffrey-
hammerbacher-left-facebook-found-cloudera)

~~~
dazhbog
From the linked article: "The best minds of my generation are thinking about
how to make people click ads."

I think some engineers, I hope all, cringe thinking about this.

I do agree with you about the "greener" grass on the other side. I think
humans are wired to always feel bad and doubt when they are given a choice.

I personally wouldn't live with my self working for someone else's dreams :)

~~~
sogen
The best minds of my generation are wasting their lives tweeting, facebooking
or reading blogs

------
cl42
Point #6 puts the entire article into doubt in my eyes. Getting "good" at
"startups" is a skill in and of itself. The ability to start and manage a
small organization is an immensely valuable skill set and one that I would
rather learn in my 20s, than in my 40s after having a corporate job 'prepare'
me for such management.

Indeed, I've been managing my startup for 3 years and in the process have
learned to hire, fire, sell software, test software, manage investors, and
more. These are all skills I'd rather be getting now than later.

Different people are built for different organizations -- some do well in
small groups, others are great in large, hierarchical structures. Both are
important skillsets and knowing where you fit and will succeed is important.

I'd encourage people to read "Managing Oneself" by Peter Drucker to help
decide if a startup or small company is, or is not, for you.

------
chipsy
I can say with some confidence, in the twilight of my twenties, that it is
inherent nature that has guided my decisions, not the story I tell myself at
any given moment.

Like my parents and extended family, I fall into intensive training and skill-
building when I feel like it, not for the pragmatic reasons I was told to
believe. I'm not enterprising; although I've done some business, I am not a
founder, certainly not in the SV sense of the term. I am content with a simple
life with many friends, find little pleasure in making deals or drawing
attention to myself, and at the end of the day, would like to focus on
building the world through the esoteric, not the popular.

Valuable things for me are not something I can weigh or measure like assets
and work hours; neither are they idyllic stories and images, or carnal
pleasures. They're weird stuff, and nobody particularly cares about weird
stuff except other weird people. And so the startup narratives ultimately fail
to work for me; I don't want to allocate that level of commitment into the
marketplace. It feels like a distraction, because the market values the
popular and the practical, at any level. Everything else slips through the
cracks, and I like slipping through the cracks. The way to hook me on a get
rich quick scheme is to tell me that I'm slipping through the cracks and need
only make one small change.

I didn't come to this conclusion without lots of attempts over the last
decade, though. If I had genuinely wanted to pursue a popular, practical
approach, I had many chances to do so. I convinced myself, like many a
confused young person, that I did want this, and I took some of them, and the
experience was worthwhile, but not enough to stick around for. Successes
tended to feel empty; failures felt delusional. The biggest satisfactions
usually came when I walked away after getting bored with the idea - yes,
bored. Not after a definite, final, concrete answer, but after simply being
unwilling to take the next step forward and drifting off. I know that some of
those things I walked away from could work, could still work now. I don't
care.

This is a step that my parents stop short of acknowledging. They still live
with the burden of "being successful" as a universal, and their struggle as
one measured against that universal, tearing themselves apart a day at a time
as their behavior mismatches their expectations.

What do I actually do? Today I met someone I've only known for an hour or two
outside of the internet. We had coffee, and I met some of their relatives.
They were on vacation. We had no business together. We just sat and talked,
with luxurious pauses and lulls in the conversation. For three hours. It was
fine, and now I have a closer friend.

And that is _me_ , that is the type of thing I do and like doing. But it's not
rational thought. I felt and did, and rationalized after. As such the way
forward for me is to fuck off with planning my professional career in any more
than a broad "make a little, save a lot" conservative generality. If I do
anything more risky or ambitious, it'll happen suddenly, because it always
has, but in most respects I value inner life more.

And that is not you, dear reader. Maybe you're similar to me. Maybe you're
more like a founder. Maybe take some personality tests(that are not Myers-
Briggs).

------
dimdimdim
An interesting perspective. I agree with most but not this one:

"By developing “start-up skills” for four years, you are missing an
opportunity to hone your skills as a writer, musician, engineer, architect, or
whatever that secret aspiration was that you had before you decided it was
necessary to make a lot of money first. It will be a regret that will not go
away."

I did fully commit myself to build a company which gives me immense financial
freedom and I definitely did not pursue some interests I wanted to. However, I
have absolutely no regrets. Given a choice all over again, I'd choose building
the startup without even thinking for a micro-second compared to wanting to
pursue a career in music. Interestingly, now I can take private lessons on
playing the piano when and where I feel like.

Money is definitely not everything and cannot singularly make you happy, but
in today's world it's definitely the first thing you'd like to acquire to
simplify getting most of the other things you want.

~~~
brc
Money brings choices.

Lack of money means lack of choices.

Negative money (debt) means choices forced upon you.

My neighbour is financially independent. I don't know how much money he has,
but he certainly doesn't have a job. I know he used to own a business as he
still has some branded material around the house.

He is midway through a meteorology degree, of all things. He wants to learn
how the weather works.

That's what having money brings you.

~~~
grayclhn
I assume there are other students in his classes. Care to explain them?

