
How Many Silicon Valley Startup Executives Are Hopped Up On Provigil? - jmorin007
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/15/how-many-of-our-startup-executives-are-hopped-up-on-provigil/
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swombat
I’ve taken Modafinil extensively while I was launching my first start-up and
still working full time. For six months I was waking up at 4am every day,
working until 7am, having a one-hour nap, then off to work until 6pm… Bed-time
around 10-11pm. I wouldn’t have been able to launch without Modafinil (I’m
actually using Alertec rather than Provigil, it’s a bit cheaper). Those days I
took up to 1.5 pills a day (150mg) - 1 pill 1 hour before waking up, to make
the most of that 3-hour slot, then half a pill half-way through the day to
allow me to keep productive at work.

I still use it occasionally, to boost a specific day’s productivity. I think
taking it as described (and as I did while launching my first start-up) is
abusing it and asking for trouble later, but using it to get an odd boost of
concentration (which suddenly allows me to work like a beast for about 12
hours and get huge amounts of technical work done in that time, particularly
in combination with a little caffeine) is ok and doesn’t have any side-effects
- just make sure you drink plenty of water (sometimes on Modafinil thirst can
also seem like a bit of a distraction, but you will get a mild headache if you
don’t drink anything). Also, I only take half-pills now, so the max I ever do
is 50mg in one day.

I’m in London, though, not Silicon Valley.

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edw519
_I wouldn’t have been able to launch without Modafinil..._

How do you know? Did you try?

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swombat
No, obviously, but I was barely able to with Modafinil.

Perhaps better phrased: I wouldn't have been able to pull those hours without
Modafinil. That, I have tried, and failed.

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brent
What? You _needed_ a drug to pull 13 hour work days with 5-6 hours of sleep?
Did you try a cup or two of coffee?

~~~
LogicHoleFlaw
Ah.... caffeine counts as a drug too.

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menloparkbum
"What’s so funny is that entrepreneurs apparently aren’t interested in typical
drugs - instead they find the one that gives them a mental and stamina
advantage"

He must not pay much attention at his own TechCrunch events, as they are
fueled by booze and weed with some coke thrown in for the bizdev types'
girlfriends.

~~~
LogicHoleFlaw
How much of a competitive advantage would a startup have if it strictly
avoided booze, weed, and coke?

~~~
tstegart
I'll let you know when I start-up :)

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icey
I've tried Provigil, and found it wasn't really all it was cracked up to be.
The only thing it really does is make you less tired. I guess that's great if
you want to be awake for 40 hours at a time, but for mental clarity and
sharper thought: Drink water.

Drink a LOT of water. I bet that half of these guys taking Provigil because
they need the 'edge' have never forced themselves to drink a gallon of regular
old water in a day. Soda, coffee, and tea don't count. You'd be amazed how
many people spend years in a state of mild dehydration.

Drinking water has given the biggest improvement to me mentally, far and away.
In second place is not eating meat during the workday; but that pales in
comparison to just drinking enough water.

~~~
calvin
This is why I take a Nalgene bottle everywhere with me. 32oz of pure,
unadulterated h2o (depending on the quality of the local water source).

~~~
Alex3917
Unadulterated? Have you never heard of BPA?

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eisokant
Am I the only one against performance enhancing drugs?

~~~
edw519
No. I am too.

I have commented before on how offensive posts like this are for so many
reasons. It ususally turns out to be me against the world. So I don't even
bother anymore.

But now that I saw your question, I decided to throw my 2 cents in (again).

AFAIC, with few exceptions, everything we do is a marathon, not a sprint. So
using crutches for sprints is, at best, myoptic. Any stimulant, I don't care
which (food, drugs, etc.) has another side, i.e., what goes up must go down.
One of the commenters on OP's site talks about this much better than I can.

I really don't care what anyone does in private. But setting aside all the
ethical, medical, and legal considerations, here is my biggest concern: Lots
of people come to this site to learn and exchange; I'd hate to have them walk
away with the idea than drugs are a good idea for their startup, just from the
feedback of their peers. That's irresponsible.

~~~
Prrometheus
It sounds less awful than binging on coffee. Like it or not, sometimes a lot
of work has to be done in a short period of time.

I don't know why some people have such an aversion to tweaking the biochemical
machine whichh they inhabit, except of course with caffeine, nicotine, and
alcohol, all of which are harmful and less effective for their intended
purpose than manufactured drugs.

I don't think any drug has done as much damage to my body as the intense
stress that I suffer from being unable to focus on a project unless against a
deadline and the attempts to complete massive amounts of work overnight wit a
fuzzy-headed caffeine-fueled incompetence.

I know I sounds dangerous and iconoclastic here, but I think many people would
share my point of view if they weren't conditioned since they were 5-years-old
with "drugs are bad" propaganda in their schools.

~~~
tstegart
An opposite view is that people don't like drugs because they see so many kids
today being prescribed them like candy and it turns out sometimes thats not
good for them. "Drugs are good" can often do just as much harm.

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deathbyzen
FYI, the worst side-effect of Modafinil (beyond addiction) is that it makes
your urine smell bad (or worse depending on what kind of diet you already
have.) When Modafinil metabolizes it breaks down into sulfur and sodium, so
you get salty smelly urine.

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tptacek
How do you know it's salty?

~~~
deathbyzen
...

~~~
chris_l
Well, if Zen didn't kill you...

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kogir
Some of that might be useful about now... :)

I'm lucky (depending on how you look at it) in that I seem to be able to work
long hours fairly reguarly without drugs.

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gaika
Sleepless vs sleepers, are we approaching the world of
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beggars_in_Spain> ?

~~~
131072
Don't get too carried away with the hype about Provigil. It allows you to
sleep less and may cause a mild increase in focus, with possibly fewer long
term effects than amphetamine-type drugs (speed, ritalin, etc). IE Provigil
users don't seem to turn into tweakers.

It is safer but less effective than good old fashioned amphetamine for
actually getting stuff done.

If you're just a regular person trying to live a semblance of a balanced
lifestyle (for this purpose I will include working a regular 8-to-6 job) the
biggest effect of provigil is likely to be to make you say 'so what?'

If you are used to the caffeine-shakes and twitches that come at the rough end
of an all-nighter, Provigil can take that away to some extent. The
psychological price you pay for doing this too often is unknown, though.

Having said that, it is useful to get you out of a jam if you stay up partying
all night and need to drag yourself to work the next morning.

And best of all, if you are in the UK, the NHS pays for it all. In other
countries you often have to pay up to several USD per pill and it can take up
to 4 pills to be effective.

Edit: Based on my experience, I would consider use of Provigil during a true
work crunch or crisis that can only be solved by a burst of long work hours.
However, if your masters get used to your performance at that level under
those conditions, you might learn more about the expression 'burning the
candle at both ends' than you want to know.

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fallentimes
This is interesting, but honestly who cares if it's widespread. It's their
respective bodies, as long as they aren't hurting anyone else, they can do
whatever they want.

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JabavuAdams
It's all fun and games until your first psychotic episode.

