
Adderall Has a Tech Industry Problem - KuraFire
http://modelviewculture.com/pieces/adderall-has-a-tech-industry-problem
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KuraFire
This piece spoke to me in a lot of ways. I’m not an adderall (or similar)
user, but as a startup co-founder I can totally see the appeal of it that
drives others—people much like myself—to it.

The first thing that stood out to me was the normalization of this in the San
Francisco/Silicon Valley culture, which casually overlooks or ignores the
risks involved. Not one person I know in tech who's taken it recreationally
has ever made mention of the risks, perhaps because they don't think they
experience any side-effects (or they're not impeding enough for them to care).

Then, the pressure of being the "10x" performer is very real; hero programmer
or startup co-founder, you're weirdly expected by the tech environment—rarely
by individuals, in fact—to be able to pull off amazing productivity and
quality. Especially as a startup founder, this pressure—if you're susceptible
to it—can lead to a very pro-work, anti-social [activities] feeling, which is
isolating and subtly demoralizing on an [inter-]personal level.

Lastly, the part in the piece about reasons people use to self-diagnose away
any symptoms of ADHD and argue (again, to themselves) that they don't have
ADHD spoke to me in a very eye-opening manner. I've done _all_ of those
things, and have felt miserable over them. Now, my 'symptoms' could still be
caused by the stress of being a startup founder, but this piece set me on the
course to explore and treat it as potentially a real condition I can get
medication for. Or, find out it's not that (for me), and have the comfort of
knowing this is something I can reduce by reducing my stress. Either way, I'm
immensely grateful for this piece.

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alexanderss
I'm curious about the actual statistics of ADD/ADHD drug abuse in the tech
community. I do have friends that have started taking Adderall but stopped
quickly, or only take it rarely, because of negative effects. By negative
effects I mean it made work and relationships harder, not just adverse side
effects of the drugs.

