
Not A Waste - sahillavingia
http://al3x.net/2011/03/18/not-a-waste.html
======
maxklein
"But it’s worth a read to understand the perspective of a vocal minority in
the tech industry."

That statement is a bit off-putting. First of all, this 'minority' is the
majority. Most software businesses are indeed small, and are not aiming for
venture capital and outsized returns. It would not even be mathematically
possible to be otherwise.

Secondly, the 'vocal' people are the people trying to make you start a big
business. Almost all blogs and writers cater to the startup crowd, not the
mISV crowd. Most people writing country specific tax software or inventory
sorting software are not blogging at all.

Maybe I am misunderstanding what he means - but to me it seems like he is deep
in the bubble, and can't see out of it. That's why the article he reacted to
would have been so disturbing to him.

~~~
erikpukinskis
Yeah, it's truly bizarre that Alex is at Amy Hoy's throat about this. Amy is
utterly dedicated to encouraging more people who don't feel safe starting a
business to GO DO IT. That seems like something Alex would be into.

Maybe because he's shooting for the stars right now with BankSimple (which I
am SO excited about) he's feeling a little nervous about that strategy. Being
pre-launch on something so anticipated and ambitious must be at least a little
scary!

~~~
jv22222
I guess I can understand Alex's perspective when I consider he's one the lucky
few to be on the 0.0001% side of the equation and raised $2.9 million first
round funding. (Must be nice.)

~~~
KirinDave
I think the idea that only %0.0001 of people who enter into startups walk out
with their lives improved is absurd. It's a myth that we're all in this game
for an FB payout, and it's a myth that that's the reason we want to play the
game.

Most of my startups have had payouts to me personally, via either stock
buyback (to retain control of the company while securing more funding), or
exit deals (in the case of powerset). And even for the cases where I didn't
get a big payout, my experience and skills were improved dramatically by the
environment and demands placed on me by the job.

I went from working a dead-end job at Lockheed Martin and getting less than
3/4 the fair salary for someone with my skillset to courting jobs and turning
people down. Anyone who knows me will tell you I am _not_ a lucky person, and
I am not a brilliant star amongst the constellation of smart people that fill
the Valley. I simply play the game and move to jobs that balance my personal
improvement with my chance for a payout.

~~~
erikpukinskis
I really like your ideas here! But the thing you do where you take what
someone else said, and then turn it into something absurd, and then call them
out for being absurd... it doesn't really move the dialog forward.

jv22222 said "Alex [is] one the lucky few to be on the 0.0001% side of the
equation and raised $2.9 million first round funding"

You translate that to "only %0.0001 of people who enter into startups walk out
with their lives improved"

Really, what does that accomplish?

------
DanielBMarkham
Let's say I buy a box of doughnuts and go down to the street corner and sell
them.

For each doughnut I sell, somebody gives me money and I give them a tasty
treat. They are happier because of our exchange, if only for a short while,
and I know that I have "done some good" for that hungry person.

Now I could just as easily stay home and try to invent the uber-nut, a killer
replacement for doughnuts that costs half as much as lasts twice as long. A
treat that will change the snacking world as we know it! I can build a factory
to make uber-nuts, I can design complicated equipment, I can go on the web and
talk about how earth-shattering uber-nut is going to be.

But none of that sells any uber-nuts. It's just me spinning out an imaginary
architecture and vision of world domination and using my skills to construct
this fake world where it all is going to happen.

For every guy who makes an uber-nut and changes the world, there are
_thousands_ of failed attempts. For all of those attempts, most of them result
in making the world no better at all. It's a long, bitter experience. As
opposed to the guy who actually buys the doughnuts and goes and sells them,
where he knows he is doing some small amount of good in the world. For every
20 or so guys just looking to make a difference, any difference, only one of
them makes it happen.

Those are some amazing numbers, and you'd be a smart person to take some time
and think about them.

What folks are saying is simple: Go make a difference. Right now. Some little,
_real_ difference. Sell a doughnut. Find a small niche and improve people's
lives in it. Because even if you do one tiny, unimaginative, boring thing that
only helps one person in some really small way? You've actually _done_
something. As opposed to imagining you are creating the next earth-shattering
invention and then flaming out. Because even if you created the uber-nut that
changes snacking as we know it? You're going to do that by making a box of
uber-nuts and going down to that street corner and making one person happy at
a time. You roll out huge changes by picking one small niche at a time. It's
the same difference. The key question here is how much self-bullshitting you
want to do versus how many doughnuts you want to sell.

~~~
taphangum
"The key question here is how much self-bullshitting you want to do versus how
many doughnuts you want to sell." <\- This.

One of the best comments i've read on HN. What you just said knocks it out of
the ballpark.

The thing that is wrong with the lifestyle business though is that at some
point the founders intend on stopping their value creation beyond what they
need to survive.

It's inherently selfish while the startup is inherently (mostly
unintentionally) unselfish.

That's what, i think, the OP was trying to say with his post.

~~~
nhangen
Are you sure you want to claim that startups are unselfish? And furthermore,
what is wrong with being selfish?

Selfish can make the world better as a byproduct.

------
patio11
I find this notion that small businesses mean small impact downright bizarre
in the Internet age. BCC is pretty freaking small. I have _hundreds of
thousands_ of users and _thousands_ of customers. I wanted to go into teaching
back in the day. I taught more lessons to more kids while sleeping last year
than I would have been physically able to in a several lifetimes.

A time tracking app with a thousand customers improves the life of enough
people to pack a stadium. Their businesses improve, their families make more
money, their customers see less deadweight loss dealing with them, their
communities see the benefits of economic growth, etc etc.

~~~
ahoyhere
Hear hear.

If I can give 1,000 people an additional 15 minutes of pleasure a day -- or 15
minutes less of stress & self-recrimination -- then that is 250 hours of
additional happiness added to the world. Or 3,800 days of additional happiness
per year.

That's a lot of extra happiness.

------
Nate75Sanders
I think that his comment about AmyHoy's app was childish and his comments in
this article are both naive and megalomaniacal ("I'm trying to touch more
people's lives than you, so I'm better!").

I get the feeling that he doesn't understand the different types of glue that
hold together the various scales at which society operates.

This coupled with yesterday suggests a childish acting-out of sorts.

I prescribe a healthy dose of spending time with people instead of trying to
change the world from your computer desk.

------
jraines
_When you look back on your life, do you want to be the person who got by and
lived for your own happiness, or the person who brought happiness, security,
and prosperity to countless others?_

I think this is a false dichotomy. If not, then the word "countless" is
important.

Most of these small businesses are "lifestyle businesses" because they
purposely limit their market by focusing on a specific niche. This is one
reason they're supposed to be a "safer" bet -- you address a need that you
either already know well because you are a part of the market, or it's small
and accessible enough that you can get a firm grasp of its needs and provide
value.

Yes, these businesses provide value. That's what their customers are paying
for. Is it not noble (or at least, not self-serving) to provide value to a few
thousand, say, occupational therapists who need a particular service that
they're willing to pay $10 a month for? Or is it only worth venturing to help
"countless" people?

My father is a doctor, and his lifetime number of "customers" is probably a
lot lower than a largeish web app serving some good purpose, but I wouldn't
call it a wasted life.

~~~
loganfrederick
"My father is a doctor, and his lifetime number of "customers" is probably a
lot lower than a largeish web app serving some good purpose, but I wouldn't
call it a wasted life."

I would disagree. Doctors help save and improve people's lives. Those people
then go on to continue to impact people. Doctors most certainly help
"countless others" :)

~~~
scott_s
I think that was jraines's point: if you're going to be reductive about how
you measure impact, your conclusions are going to be silly.

------
alexophile
I think there's a really strong disconnect here that is really common around
HN - basically, do you really want to change the world? It seems like people
have a tendency to answer "yes" to this question because the alternative makes
you look dispassionate.

This line of thinking makes the assumption that ambition is a necessary
prerequisite for efficacy. I'm not exactly in a position to qualify this
statement, but I would guess that the people who make the greatest positive
changes in the world weren't necessarily setting out to have a huge impact,
they were just doing what they knew to be right.

Because everyone loves statistically unproven case studies, I offer Penny
Arcade. PA launched a webcomic in 98. Five years later, they launched Child's
Play - a charity that has raised ~$9M to fund research and facilities for
children's hospitals.

When asked about it, Mike mentioned that, when they started Child's Play,
neither of them were parents so they didn't know how effective their efforts
would be, they just knew it was the right thing to do.

~~~
umjames
I agree. Which type of story resonates more with would-be entrepreneurs? The
"I want to help others via my business" story, or the "I hate my crappy job,
and want to seek what I perceive to be happiness via my own business" story?

I'm not saying that you can't have a mixture of both, or transition from one
motive to the other, but most people's first thoughts are about themselves,
others tend to come afterward. We are afraid to admit this in public, but I
think we can all agree it exists.

So what's wrong with seeking personal happiness first? Does that preclude you
from being more altruistic later in life? If you can put others' needs first,
more power to you, but that doesn't make those who cannot worse people.

~~~
ahoyhere
Very good points. To which I'd add, happiness is a social contagion. Happy
people make people around them happier. They are nicer, more generous... they
give more to charity. Etc. etc. etc.

But woe be unto the selfish, lazy person who seeks personal happiness.
Somebody out there is ready to school him/her on what he/she really ought to
be doing!

------
jv22222
When I read through your post it was all going well until the part where you
say:

"At the core of the pro-micro business argument is an idea that I find hard to
swallow: that merely being happy should be purpose enough for a person."

Wow.

Doesn't everyone have the goal of being in an non-state of pain and suffering.
Which, is basically the same as being happy/content/satisfied.

If _your_ "non-state of pain and suffering" = you need to be a billionaire...
then, there was NO point in my original article that said "you can't be a
billionaire". So what relevance does that point have to the article?

The main point I was trying to make (and it's my lack of good writing that
didn't get this across) was absolutely nothing to do with what your post talks
about.

I was proposing that we would all have a better ultimate chance of fulfilling
our entrepreneurial goals if the very first thing we did was to build a micro
business.

Build a micro business. Make it successful. Then swing for the fences.

The advantages are:

\- You will have a more rounded understanding of "business"

\- You will be financially free and able to pursue your other big risk
ventures

\- You will loose less % in any future investment deals you cut because you
will have proven yourself

\- You will ultimately have more control and less people to answer to

"The waste" that I was referring to was that by taking the other route
(chasing after golden ticket investment) is a waste of potential real world
business learning.

Sure we all learn with every route we take, but the faster and more immersed
we become in dealing with ALL aspects of business - the better we get.

The beauty of a micro business is that it's far easier to see all the facets
of business. Any other route... there are bound to be some facets that we miss
out on compared to a microcosm of a total business experience.

------
pg
Boy is this thread boring. I was about to write that it's like a thread about
politics or religion: huge angry comments that teach one nothing. Then I
realized why. The whole question of startups vs "lifestyle businesses," while
a neutral topic for most people, is for many of the users of this site a
matter of identity (<http://paulgraham.com/identity.html>).

~~~
blasdel
I find your comment even more obnoxious that what al3x wrote, just for its
sheer disingenuity.

This isn't a neutral topic for you either, not in the slightest, but declaring
the discussion to be as useless as /r/atheism is simply petulant.

The top level of comments in this thread (barring yours) is full of some of
the most helpful and insightful comments I've ever seen on HN. A respected
member of the community flames out and people are earnestly helping him figure
out where the disconnect was. Given that he chopped down his blog post in
response, it looks like al3x really appreciated them and is understanding that
the flaminess of his argument wasn't what people were really upset about.

~~~
pg
Actually it is a neutral topic for me. I know there have to be both types of
companies, and no one is more aware than I am that startups aren't for
everyone, because every 6 months I have to pick, from a huge pool, the people
I think are suited for it, and it's painful for all involved when I pick
wrong.

If you're going to be so nasty, you should be sure first you're right. Though
frankly, if you're right, you don't need to be nasty.

~~~
tptacek
You just reframed the debate in the light most favorable to your argument. The
issue isn't whether there should be lifestyle companies or not. The issue is,
for a hacker equally capable of and equally armed by circumstances to starting
_either_ a "lifestyle" business or a shoot-the-moon startup, is there a
"right" choice?

------
olivercameron
I think an apology to Amy, even just one sentence, would have been good.
Calling her out seemed really unnecessary. Otherwise, it seems like a more
well thought out comment than the original:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2338911>. I still disagree, however.

~~~
KirinDave
He as apologized for his tone more than once, and in more than one venue. What
more do you want?
[http://isalexpaynesorryforhistonetowardsamythatdreadfulthurs...](http://isalexpaynesorryforhistonetowardsamythatdreadfulthursdaynight.com)?

~~~
olivercameron
I'm not talking about his tone, I'm talking about how he called out someone
for no good reason.

~~~
KirinDave
You can't unsay something you already said, man. Or did you miss how this all
started?

------
jdp23
> Some readers found my comments to be anti-small business. This was not my
> intent.

Then you should have avoided statements like "There's nothing wrong with being
a small software company.... It's boring, but there's nothing wrong with it.
Don't expect anyone to celebrate you for doing it, though."

I don't know what your intent was, but it comes across as very hostile to
small business.

------
cageface
I'd be a lot more sympathetic to this argument if I thought the people
"swinging for the fences" were really creating something of lasting human
value. Maybe I'm in the minority on this, but it's not clear to me at all that
things like Twitter and Facebook empower the man in the street nearly as much
as they empower entrenched interests.

Just yesterday I was privately lamenting all the energy young people today are
pouring into gimmicky, me-too social networks and into chasing dollars. I'd
love to see that energy redirected into something more artistic and creative
and, yes, personal.

------
eof
So it's morally superior to use your rad skills to get rich and make the world
a better place than by simply using your rad skills to have a good life? Sure.

Are 99% of the people really swinging for the fences doing this? No.. they are
trying to get fame and fortune for the fun of it. Nothing wrong with that; but
let's not get confused about what we are talking about.

I am 28 and will probably never have to work more than 20+ hours a week doing
things I enjoy for the rest of my life. I imagine far less than that in not
too many years. I could really swing for the fences and bust my ass until I am
45; but that is 17 years of not engaging with my life in the same way I would
if I weren't "working" all the time.

------
ziadbc
I'm saying this earnestly and with care:

The first priority should be finding out what is right for yourself.
Ultimately, no one can tell you what is right for you.

Hacker news is a good place to reflect, but hopefully you can read things
without having your whole mental framework being disrupted by one article with
a different perspective.

------
PaulHoule
Uh, I think microbusinesses may be more oriented towards "making a difference"
than some businesses that go the V.C. route.

It would be unfair to tar all V.C. funded companies with the same brush,
because many of them really are trying to create something awesome and make a
splash in the world. However, when times get bubbly, people come out of the
woodwork who are more concerned with making a fast exit than they are in
building a business.

Whereas, if you're bootstrapping a microbusiness, you need to find some market
where you're making something somebody is willing to pay for right away, so
you're definitely "making a difference" for somebody, even if you're not
changing the world.

------
rams
pg seems to have said something alex'ish elsewhere:

"I once sat in a crowded hall and listened to Paul Graham give a keynote
presentation about going big, doing it quickly, and getting tons of funding.
During Q&A, someone asked what was wrong with instead of trying to go big with
big money backers, you just went for profit and kept ownership to yourself and
Graham said something like "you want to run a little business? Go run a shoe
store then"

Matt Haughey [http://dashes.com/anil/2011/01/mom-and-pop-at-web-
scale.html...](http://dashes.com/anil/2011/01/mom-and-pop-at-web-
scale.html#comment-6a00d8345409f069e20147e2000033970b)

------
rbarooah
Alex Payne is a self-professed afficionado of minimalism and good design - not
just in software, but in physical products.

I'd venture to say that a great deal of good design work is done by small
studios which would count as 'lifestyle' businesses by his description.

Is he claiming that by trying to make real but incremental improvements to
relatively mundane things, these designers are wasting their lives? Should
they give up their practices and instead concentrate only on the most world
changing ecological projects, or trying to create the next iPod or Dyson?

If not, why does this apply only to digital goods, and not physical goods too?

Accusations of 'hoodwinking' aside, A successful lifestyle business implies
that you're doing something that other people value. A failed 'shoot-for-the-
moon' business does not.

------
MicahWedemeyer
Thanks! I wasn't aware of Amy Hoy before this but now I've got a new role
model to aspire to :)

~~~
grails4life
Yes the twitter dropout only helped Amy gain exposure

~~~
swombat
So he "dropped out" of Twitter. Where did you drop out of?

------
philwelch
I like this post, even though I disagree with it, because it gets at the
fundamental moral motivations and justifications behind starting a business.
Alex is an altruist, and from that perspective it indeed makes sense to try
and go big. If it's your duty to improve as many lives as you can, why not try
and go big? What's interesting is hearing it from that perspective rather than
a more selfish perspective.

From a more selfish and individualistic perspective, I think a small business
makes sense if you consider your moral duties to only go as far as producing
more value than you extract from the world. From this perspective, it might be
praiseworthy to try and provide as much value to as many people as possible,
but it's not obligatory to be much more than a net positive contributor. And I
think a lot of people go about as far as living up to their moral obligations
and then satisfy their own desires after that.

------
fingerprinter
Yesterday when I saw his comment on twitter I almost fell into the "someone on
the internet is wrong!" trap, but today I feel I can't resist.

Almost everything about this angers me. It's presumptuous, arrogant,
intellectually lazy and fallacy driven. And worst, Alex not only thinks he's
correct, but morally right! Absurd!

Lets start at the top.

1\. "If selling subscriptions to a small web application to cover my mortgage
and subsidize my hobbies is “freedom”, then I’ll happily risk incarceration."
- All Alex is really saying is that he defines "freedom" a different way than
x person. You can't really judge that. Perhaps be perplexed, maybe
inquisitive, but don't judge. In this regard, to each their own. And please
don't confuse what makes you happy with what makes someone else happy. Alex is
saying that obligation makes him happy. Great! Go for it. Someone else is
saying that taking care of their family and living a simple live makes them
happy. Cool...

"Seek first to understand, then be understood".

2\. "When I read statements like this, my secular humanist streak flares up.
... We should endeavor to improve the lives of as many people as possible in a
lasting and significant way, making the most of our own skills in the
process." - Uhm...wow? This is nearly a nonsensical statement, saved merely by
the fact that I _think_ I know what he is trying to say. Several problems
arise from this statement, the first being that he brings in Humanism.
Humanism, meant to enlighten perspective, only clouds the statement with
doubt. Secondly, "should" is a word that will always get you into trouble with
regard to other people. "Should" implies "I know better than you" or "let me
tell you why you are wrong" not "hmmm..interesting perspective but I've always
been of the mind that " which is a conversation, not an attack.

Lastly, it is worth noting that the statement is cute in that it provides an
ego boost for the person espousing it, the statement itself is nearly
worthless alone. I suspect that the statement serves to boost ones ego more
than it serves to guide ones life. It also smacks of a statement made by
someone with very little life experience.

3\. "Building a business around maximizing your individual happiness is not
particularly useful or admirable. That is my position, and I’m well aware that
it may be unpopular with some." - Equivocation. Alex is not using the "term"
happiness to talk about this side of things, but that is what it is. He is
striving to find meaning/happiness on his own terms in his own way: by going
big and making an impact. Deriding someone for doing the same thing in a
different way is, at best, silly, at worst, narcissistic.

I would like to leave with a story about a country doctor I knew. He worked
for 40 years in the bush in Australia. He loved living there and it was where
he grew up. He was able to make a good living working there and being the
small town country doctor and generally found happiness doing it. He told me
about when he did a rotation in the UK and was offered a job starting a new
hospital. He would have been able to reach massively more people in one year
than he could in his entire work life in the country, make tons more money and
have a hugely beneficial impact. He turned it down and went back to Australia.
His reasoning "someone other than me would have taken and done that job, but
that same person was unlikely to help these people in this town."

~~~
verysimple
I had a reply that said a few things along those line, deleted it. Yours is
much better.

Just wanted to add a few things:

1- some contributions in this world are only _accidentally_ world changing
(see various open-source software). They were not done with some zealous
ambitions. Their instigator merely had an itch to scratch and it turns out
that the rest of the world appreciated it so much that it just took a life of
its own.

2- I am a notoriously trashy person, yet I love a clean space, but I'm also
notoriously slow to clean stuff. There's this little lady who has a business
cleaning apartments in the neighborhood and she comes once in a while to clean
up my place for 30$ (takes her about 30-45min). By _some_ people's standards
she's only making herself happy with her business. But I'll tell you, when she
leaves my place my brain starts functioning again. The place is spic and span.
I produce some of my best code and sometimes throw in new features for my
clients for free. I'm pretty sure it might make their own clients happy. This
is the butterfly effect of small contributions. You don't need to change the
entire world to make a difference.

------
noelsequeira
In one line: the classic dichotomy of opinion just degenerated into a
vitriolic debate.

If only sanity prevailed, most commentators would probably dismiss this entire
conversation with a "to each his own".

Dwell on the entire conversation for a couple of minutes, and it's immediately
apparent that it smacks of religion. I'm ashamed to say a lot of individuals I
have a tremendous deal of respect for, have dropped their guard in an
unabashed attempt to proselytize the masses.

Yes, I get it. You feel strongly about it, and your unequivocal about how you
feel. That's why it's called religion. Just don't shove it down other people's
throats.

If there were ever an embodiment of Paul Buchheit's words "ADVICE = Limited
Life Experience + Overgeneralization", this would likely be it.

------
GordonRobertson
I live in neither the of these camps. Perhaps that's why both articles read
the same to me - "here's how I think you should lead your life". Nonsense.

------
Detrus
A healthy economy needs a balance of small and large businesses. Today's
technology is making it easier to make incremental improvements to existing
ideas, which are usually small businesses. This is a safer strategy and people
could flock to it like they flock to safe corporate jobs today.

It becomes a problem when there is an imbalance. Many domains/markets are
crowded. Today we have too many CMSs, fart apps, MVC frameworks etc.. At one
point we had an abundance of word processors.

It wouldn't be healthy if every programmer tried to make his own word
processor, progress in the domain would flat-line. It's only after the dust
settled and people had time to think about the concept that we have some
genuine innovation, like the no-distraction trend.

Too many small businesses in the same niche is just as bad as a monopoly if
your goal is technological progress. The money is distributed differently of
course, so if your goal is to create a healthy middle class, small business
overcrowding is better than big business monopolies.

It's hard to judge what the right balance is. People working on ideas that
don't scale don't crowd the space for ideas that do. Like all matters of
complex systems, it's complicated. We won't get to the bottom of it with
essays alone.

------
camcaine
Doing enough to 'get by' is not failure. Sometimes you do what is necessary to
make ends meet to feed you and your family, and helping others in significant
ways has to wait.

A large hole would be left in most modern economies without the 'lifestyle'
business and 'solo-preneur'. If you believe in this so strongly, is BankSimple
going to reject anyone who is 'wasting their life' by your account?

------
nhangen
I think most entrepreneurs overestimate the amount of "world changing" they
are actually doing.

The original post was off-base, and I think this one is too.

~~~
rythie
Alex worked at Twitter, pretty world changing if you ask me.

~~~
nhangen
really? World changing how?

~~~
rythie
For example for reporting fraud in the Iranian election which wasn't being
reported otherwise. Enhancing free speach in 'Trafigura' situation in the UK.
Numerous other examples at <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_usage>

------
statictype
The implicit assumption he makes is that small businesses are incapable of
positively affecting a lot of people's lives.

A (slightly tenuous) example: I derive significantly more value from
Instapaper/VLC/Thunderbird than I do from Twitter or Facebook.

2 of those 3 are not even for-profit ventures and the other one is very much a
'small business'.

------
dminor
> We should endeavor to improve the lives of as many people as possible in a
> lasting and significant way, making the most of our own skills in the
> process.

Why the qualifier?

------
jacoblyles
"Even if one’s contributions are comparatively modest, we should admire the
individual who tries to help others in significant ways."

Effect should be judged more highly than intention. We all know what the road
to hell is paved with. And the vast majority of the improvement in the human
condition has been unintentional, as a side-effect of selfish actions in the
free market.

------
zasz
That was really uncharitable towards small businesses. The article makes a
false dichotomy between wanting your freedom and helping other people. Surely
my ability to do the latter is maximized once I'm free of the need to go to a
soul-sucking, exhausting 9-5.

------
gm
So this is a reply to a blog comment board? Why put it on HN and not on the
comment board itself?

~~~
davidw
A desire to change the world, apparently.

------
pauldisneyiv
That was a lot of writing. While you may have clarified your views I have to
wonder how many will fully read them.

That being said - and having read the full piece - you have a view and are
attempting to communicate it and that is to be commended.

------
naner
Oh, come on. How many successful startups can you list that are benevolent
world-changing businesses versus how many are simply solving some technical
problem or a fun distraction.

------
BornInTheUSSR
Do you want to impact as many people as possible because that is what makes
you happiest?

------
ahoyhere
There is a big difference between people who tell you what you CAN do, and
people who try to tell you what you SHOULD do.

I can't decide which is more aggravating -- that somebody many people respect
is out there, in public, trying to shame me by claiming that I'm not living up
to my potential... (that my dreams aren't big enough, that what I do isn't
good enough for the world, blah blah blah).

Or that the person doing it seems to be ignorant of what I'm actually about
and what I actually do, and why, and what my future plans are.

Should I defend myself by explaining myself, or should I just fight the very
idea that anyone should expect me to explain myself -- especially after
insinuating something so rude, that I was "duping credulous customers" into
buying trendy crap?

After some reflection, I'm going to stick to the latter course.

By the way - why me? Wondered that? Me too. I wonder if it had something to do
with the fact that, many moons ago, al3x approached me to design the first
preview version of BankSimple. It didn't work out, and I always figured that's
because they really wanted a full-time designer and I was definitely unwilling
to devote more than a little bit of consulting time to it, because I was
committed to my own products.

KirinDave is going to come on here and try to skewer me, imply I'm lying and
that story is untrue, etc., etc., so I'll just pre-empt it here and state that
that is his viewpoint.

FTR: I think BankSimple is going to be really awesome, as well as beautiful,
and that al3x is very, very, very smart. Yet this whole brouhaha is extremely
confusing to me.

~~~
acangiano
A few brief thoughts on this:

\- I understand how it hurts to be unjustifiably attacked for doing what you
love. But I believe you'll only benefit from this, because your work will be
exposed to more people as a result of his attack. No one here seems to believe
that you are duping people.

\- I don't have any way of knowing this for certain, but from the way how Alex
writes, I get the impression that he doesn't really know what it means to be
broke as hell. If he did, he'd probably consider lifestyle businesses as the
saving grace for many people out there, rather than a manifestation of small
ambition.

\- Lifestyle businesses can become empires with time. It's just a different
approach to reach the same end goal of creating stuff you love, and doing
something that matters.

~~~
ahoyhere
Oh, I'll absolutely benefit from this. No doubt about it. But this is not how
I would have picked to gain exposure. I like al3x.

------
earl
What bugs me about Alex's post is that he started at twitter what -- 9 months
in? I think I read that somewhere. So it's not to hard to imagine that, given
his early start date, and given Twitter's amazing valuations, and given that
some employees have cashed out, that he also has taken some money off the
table. So my apologies if I'm wrong, but your perspective totally changes even
if you make, say, $1MM in cash. That certainly isn't fuck you money, but it
does really allow you to be very selective about what you do for the rest of
your life and insulates you from lots of downsides. The fact is, _if_ he has a
million dollars or so and he shoots for the moon on try 2, his worst case
scenario is he has $800K after not taking a salary for 2 years and not even
trying to conserve cash. Whereas the downsides facing a different person
without a large cash cushion are much worse.

Just my .02, and obviously, if Alex hasn't cashed out, he still holds a decent
chunk of Twitter stock that is probably relatively easily converted to cash.
That's not to say I don't respect him, because I do, but I think that -- as
the 37 signals people have beaten to death -- if you have a 10% chance at $1MM
or a .0001% chance at $1B, you'd probably be a fool not go for for the easier,
more likely money. Try to shoot the moon try two.

------
mkramlich
I've seen good points on all sides of this debate. What I think hasn't been
emphasized enough is that one goal/philosophy does not preclude the other. You
can do both. For example, you can first aim to make a small exit, and/or a
small recurring revenue from a lifestyle business, then, move on to try a
larger exit, or add additional revenue streams. I do think the "let's go for a
huge exit, and change the world!" on one's very first attempt, especialy if
you come from humble financial background, or have significant financial
dependents, is probably not wise, in the general case. You should crawl before
you walk before you run. Plus if you are going to fail, don't let anybody kid
you into thinking it's better to fail using millions of dollars of other
people's money than to fail with just a few hundred of your own. It's nice to
have the ability to quietly bury your mistakes. You still get the upside of
learning from them, but with less of the downside.

Side note: Ack, just got bitten by the "Unknown or expired link" flaw with HN.
Paul, man, what is with that? Bad user experience. Don't tase my flow, bro! :)

