
Preparing for Chaos - the Life of a Startup  - peter123
http://steveblank.com/2009/04/29/startups-are-inherently-chaos/
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swombat
Well put. At the same time, for those of us who thrive on Chaos (I do), it's
important to realise that just because you're _damn good_ at managing chaotic
situations with no information and enormous pressures, doesn't mean that you
should seek them out. It might be more fun to fight fires, and it's crucially
important to be able to fight them effectively, but for your company's sake
it's best to avoid the fires altogether.

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octane
One thing that nobody mentions about a startup is that if you choose co-
founders, you should probably choose someone you've already had heated
disagreements with - the more personal the better. In fact, if you started out
hating each other and then ended up working together out of circumstance and
found that it worked well on a professional level - that's probably the best
scenario.

You really need to be able to look each other in the eye and say "What the
fuck are you talking about? You're full of shit." without feeling any emotion
whatsoever other than perhaps a certain amount of healthy intellectual
competition.

There's plenty of uncharted territory that's going to be covered, but that
shouldn't be one of them. Especially if when the heat and stress go high, one
of you turns out to be a wimpy emotional pushover and the other one is a
psychopathic aggression-monster.

