
Autistic in a startup? - HedgeMage
I&#x27;m about to go pick up my teenage son from school and hope he had an okay day.  I&#x27;m in an angry mood, though.<p>Lucas starts high school next year, and his middle school (what some would call &quot;junior high&quot;) is trying very hard to convince me and him that autistic people can&#x27;t succeed in startups.  The lengths they are going to to push him away from the local entrepreneurship high school just...stagger me.<p>I&#x27;m fighting them.  He&#x27;s a bright kid, and his social difficulties are nearly invisible when attending or teaching at a tech con, or in other environments less adversarial than his current school situation.  However, I&#x27;m worried about his morale because so many adults in his life seem to truly believe that I&#x27;m delusional and autistic people shouldn&#x27;t reach for this sort of life.  It makes me sad.<p>I have been around startups a long time, and met many cool autistic adults.  If you are one or know one, please drop a comment that I can show my son about something cool you or they have done.<p>Or, check out his beekeeping blog at https:&#x2F;&#x2F;bloomingtonbees.com -- it&#x27;s not currently accepting comments, but he&#x27;s been known to check his traffic. ;)  Lucas is currently working on a beekeeping start-up, with an eye to other agricultural projects in the future.
======
cvaidya1986
Hello. Startups are counterintuitive. Success depends on being unpopular but
right. The outgoing types conform. The introverts tend to think from first
principles and are less prone to herd mentality. Ipso facto, your son has a
higher chance of success than many of the ‘popular’ folk. Because he will be
unpopular but right more often than them. The beekeeping blog is great !
Please convey my best wishes and the reasoning why he will be successful if
possible. Also please let him read Zero to One.

~~~
matt_the_bass
Agreed. Though he may need a partner in one of those “popular” people to
handle the sales and networking side of things.

~~~
cvaidya1986
Agreed.

------
hierophantos
Recently someone close to me, upon reflecting on childhood influences and
overcoming those strong initial biases made during the impressionable years,
said: "It only takes one adult to truly care about your long-term trajectory."

That you are posting this, shows that he's got someone in his corner.

Bees are awesome, by the way. I'd invest. :)

------
potta_coffee
On the spectrum here. People like us seem to be able to obsessively focus on
certain kinds of problems, both to our detriment and our great success. I
apologize for generalizing here. Anyone who tries to tell your son to set his
sights lower than anything he wants to achieve is an asshole and they should
be shown the door.

I'm busy finding my own success right now and I've finally found a niche where
I fit. Previously I've been told that I was stupid, I would never be an
engineer, I would never succeed, etc. My current team loves my work. Doors are
opening for me. It's all hard work.

------
ecesena
Thank you for sharing this story, I was mostly unaware and the comments here
contain a lot of insights.

If I understand this correctly, he'd be "indistinguishable" in a remote
startup. There are great examples of very successful ones, and I'm sure we'll
see an increased number of them. As for my personal experience, ALL projects
start remote.

For example, in my last project (MemPa), we're a team of 6 distributed between
US, Italy, France & Germany, and we did a single 30min call (where I was
mostly talking) in the 2-3mo since we started the project.

I don't see in-person communication as a limit factor for launching something
new.

\--

As for the blog, I have a couple of comments to boost the traffic (if you can
please forward).

1\. Add an image to every post. This increases the likelihood that someone
will share your post.

2\. Use titles rich of keywords (think to what people may search on Google to
find your post). This way your posts are not buried in your blog, but can be
found later on, months and years.

3\. Why ghost and not medium? I think you can have much more engagement on
medium, but maybe I'm wrong.

4\. Bind yourself to a social. If you like to take pictures, use Instagram. If
you don't, use Pinterest. Talking about the second one which I know better,
create boards with things that inspire you, and intermix your posts (that now
have a beautiful cover image). This way people looking at your inspirations
will also land to your blog.

------
muzani
I have mild Asperger's. Startups are the perfect career.

Charisma on a techie is practically a 'dump stat'. The necessary charisma
(sales, pitching, teamwork) can be practiced easily.

Autistic people also have little trouble with written communication. In fact,
many autistic people are even better at written communication.

The main issue is in face to face communication, where they tend to
misinterpret a lot of things. This works well where the majority of
communication happens on Slack or project management tools. A lot of teams
also implement one on one meetings. Presentation skills matter less. As well
as the ability to speak up in a meeting or make jokes face to face.

One option is to find a charismatic partner. But personally, I found that I
was better at articulating my own ideas and handling things like negotiations
than my more charismatic partners.

Be careful with negotiations though. People can be dicks and autistic people
tend to lash out when treated unfairly in a negotiation. It can be trained so
that they stay calm, but you have to be aware of the tendency.

------
cpt1138
So many tech people are "on the spectrum" its almost a given. School may be
your son's most difficult trial given the propensity to shoo away anyone not
100% school proof to the building on the other side of the field.

------
jandrusk
Sadly as much awareness as there is around autism, there is still a lot of
work that needs to be done to remove peoples stereotypes by thinking
atypical's can only function in the bubble they have imagined. Just from his
blog posts, he seems to communicate his thoughts very well.

We have a son on the spectrum, so we can identify with what your going
through. Keep up the good fight.

------
LearnerHerzog
This upset me to hear. This would cause an uproar in a lot of places. I'm not
autistic but I know of many who are the best coders in their workplaces and
whose levels of focus and attention are beyond compare. Read through
YCombinator's articles regarding successful startups and, coupled with goal-
oriented passion/desire, the ability to work hard and long hours with great
focus is an ideal characteristic of a successful team.

Here is howI interpret someone saying "Autistic people can't succeed in
startups": (A) What is being said: A completely invalid statement, easily
disprovable with plenty of examples, that generalizes all autistic people
without regard to their interests and/or severity of the condition. (B) Who is
saying it: Middle school staff who have zero established career-affiliation to
the startup world, and no reason to be worthy of pushing children away from
their attainable dreams/goals. It's easy to assume the staff responsible for
this statement would likely fail a basic test on modern entrepreneurship.
Conclusion: The statement _should_ be completely ignored.

An example of advice worth taking: An article by Peter Thiel (Paypal co-
founder) called: _Asperger’s can be a big advantage in Silicon Valley_
[http://www.businessinsider.com/peter-thiel-aspergers-is-
an-a...](http://www.businessinsider.com/peter-thiel-aspergers-is-an-
advantage-2015-4)

His blog is impressive for his age, and he clearly found and is pursuing a
passion at a much younger age than most people; but whether or not he has
autism, it's important he learns and understands how to handle certain
inevitable social situations that may aim to discourage him from achieving his
goal. He will surely come across a number of haters along the way and he needs
to be able to distinguish between constructive criticism and personal attack.
You should tell him how this is a great example of the kind of negative
influence he needs to ignore if he wants to be an entrepreneur. Every
successful CEO had been put down by non-believers at some point before they
hit big. A good example: Walt Disney was fired from his first job as a
newspaper cartoonist because he apparently "lacked imagination".

Read this article, especially #2 and #7: [https://www.huffingtonpost.com/amy-
radin/ideas-are-the-easy-...](https://www.huffingtonpost.com/amy-radin/ideas-
are-the-easy-part-1_b_4440522.html)

