

Ask HN: Has PG written any essays about "people who shouldn't do startups"? - wyw

I have a sense that I'm one of these people. I'm risk-averse, perhaps anxious by nature, and I like the structure that corporate entities provide, despite being well aware of how challenging it can be to exist and thrive within that structure at times; and, despite what PG writes in "You weren't meant to have a boss":<p>http://paulgraham.com/boss.html<p>It's appropriate, given his audience, that most of what PG writes is very encouraging of the idea that people should just get out there and get things going by themselves.<p>But, not being familiar with all of his essays, I wonder if someone could point to any that are a little bit more ambivalent about the whole endeavor.
======
icey
You know, there is absolutely nothing wrong with not wanting to do a startup.

You'll find that a lot of people here have something crazy in their genetics
that makes them _know_ that they have to do a startup. Like, they could be
really happy doing whatever they're doing today, but they'll never stop
thinking about how they are going to do their startup. Those are the people
that pg is talking to in his essays.

If you ask me, it's about doing what makes you happy. If you prefer to have a
job at an existing company, or if you're risk averse, there's absolutely
nothing wrong with that.

~~~
wyw
I appreciate that you say that because I do find it troubling that some people
here seem to suggest that unless you are willing to take the kinds of risks
involved in doing a startup, you are not really living or actualizing your
potential.

It's the attitude that if you work in a company you are just a wage slave and
a drone.

It's an attitude that expresses a value system which places a premium on
achievement and 'Success' and is not so different from the value system of
certain people inside the corporate world who are desperately clawing their
way up the ladder to prove something to their peers, their neighbors or
themselves.

I don't begrudge someone their ambition to do that if they want to but what I
do resent is when someone tries to make me feel that my choices are somehow
less if I'm not willing to 'step up'. It all comes down to what you value
more.

~~~
shiro
Robustness, and potential of evolution, of a society relies on its diversity,
I think. Tech start-ups stand on the huge body of relatively risk-free
infrastructure provided by traditional structured organizations. Although such
structure may change from the current way big corporations run, there will
always be more people needed to work for such stable infrastructure than
trying new things on top of it.

And people are different from each other. Some can draw their potential by
taking risks and trying new things. Some can draw theirs by maintaining and
gradually improving the existing organization. Some even want to produce
things that don't pay their bills (e.g. most artists) so the need day jobs,
but they are roots and trunk of rich culture.

PG doesn't say explicitly, but I think his essays aim at very specific type of
people, especially those who aren't risk-averse type but are afraid of taking
risks because they're educated so.

If you're bothered by those who look down you, you can just remind yourself
that their success actually relies on you.

------
mfalcon
Something like this?: <http://www.paulgraham.com/notnot.html>

~~~
wyw
Yes. Something exactly like that. Thanks.

One thing I disagree with in the article is the premise that people get real
jobs because "it's the default thing to do". While that may be true, it's also
true that a regular job is simply the most likely way that you are going to
make a secure living over the long run since most startups fail.

If your job "fails", you can always get another one and make close to what you
were making before. And especially if you work in tech, nothing about what has
happened in the economy recently has really changed this reality.

But if your startup fails your next startup is also likely to fail - less
likely than the first time perhaps, but still more likely than not.

~~~
benatkin
One thing you neglected to mention: if your startup fails, you can use your
startup experience to help you get a job.

~~~
apalmblad
Exactly - in fact, when I was evaluating starting my startup, I figured the
startup experience - and received advice agreeing with this - would prove more
valuable than the equivalent time spent a "normal" job.

------
skmurphy
Although I had posted it earlier and been trashed for it I will point to "We
Don't Encourage Individuals to Form Startups" at
[http://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2008/12/04/we-dont-encourage-
in...](http://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2008/12/04/we-dont-encourage-individuals-
to-form-a-startup/)

My thesis is that most entrepreneurship is involuntary (either due to
fundamental personality characteristics or lack of opportunity to do anything
else). If you like the structure corporations provide, embrace it. My only
caveat is that most have done away with a commitment to lifetime employment,
give some thought to what you might do if you were not able to continue to
work in a corporation. I think the best book on the psychology of
entrepreneurship is "You Have to Be a Little Crazy" by Barry Moltz
[http://www.amazon.com/You-Need-Be-Little-
Crazy/dp/079318018X...](http://www.amazon.com/You-Need-Be-Little-
Crazy/dp/079318018X/) who concludes:

"Entrepreneurs start businesses because..they have no choice. Passion and
energy drive them on good days and sustain them on bad days."

------
Mz
I'm actually innately risk averse but I wind up looking wildly devil-may-care
to some people because my life circumstances have consistently put me in a
position to choose between the safe, secure path of certain doom or the risky,
unexplored path of possible doom. Given that scenario, "possible doom" is the
conservative risk-averse choice.

I think public school and other bureaucratic institutions help shape people in
the direction of expecting bureaucracy as the "norm"....I mean, it seems to me
it's a culture and a mindset and a lifestyle and if you grow up with it, it's
more comfortable than being out on a limb by yourself. My sons were
homeschooled for a long time and they are a lot less intimidated than I am
about plans to become entrepreneurs. I have long been torn between wanting to
strike out on my own and wanting more conventional success. I'm wired (and
probably also trained) to want the perceived societal approval that goes along
with making it in a large bureaucracy (big company, federal government...etc)
But I just don't fit in.

I currently have a corporate job and that has given me some degree of
satisfaction that "Yes! I _can_ make it on those terms!" But I've also been
languishing in an entry-level job which doesn't begin to compare to the kind
of recognition/success I've had in other (non-monetary) endeavors. I've been
very torn between wanting to pursue a career at the company and wanting to
strike out on my own. But recent events at work have convinced me that
striking out on my own is the more risk-averse path. I can't control what the
folks in charge at the company are doing and recent developments concern me.
I've also seen that working a regular day job doesn't buffer me from the
vagaries of the market as much as I thought it would. It just gives me less
control over how to meet the latest challenges than I would have if I ran the
show.

So I believe I will end up out there on my own. But I believe it will be a
logical progression, step by step, rather than a radical departure.

------
rokhayakebe
That would be a rather negative essay and it would not be any productive.
Instead of talking about people who should not, we can keep talking about
people who should or skills to acquire prior to starting a startup.

In the end, no one knows.

~~~
unalone
Here's why I disagree with you (I upvoted you because you make a valid point
worth debating and weren't an asshole):

There's an instinct in us all to assume that because people are
good/talented/interesting in some ways, they must be good/talented/interesting
in every way. On Hacker News and in the YCombinator sphere, there is a blunt
attitude that if you're at work and not starting something up, you're not
being as productive as you could be/are wasting your life. This gets
reinforced by everybody here, not because people are assholes about it (most
of them are not), but because everybody here is so well-spoken - and most
everybody here is wise and talented to boot - that it's easy to look at this
crowd and say, "These people are people I like, and they do startups, and
because I don't want to do startups there is something wrong with me."

Paul's essays reinforce this. Because he constantly writes from the assumption
that yes, building a start-up is good, his essays have slowly taken on the
attitude that the Paul Graham way is the _right_ way, no shades of gray. The
thing is, from his perspective I'm certain it _is_ the right way. He doesn't
bother writing essays for people who don't have his same mentality, and he
shouldn't have to frame himself in that way. But the Hacker News mentality is
so wholly wrapped around "PG"'s that very often it seems his essays define
what's good people and what's bad people here. So if you're not a start-up
person, there's something vaguely hostile in that set-up.

Sometimes, thinking about what advice you're giving should _not_ be followed
is the most productive thing you can do.

To the OP: My advice is to look for that knowledge somewhere outside of Hacker
News. As bright as this community is, it's a very one-sided one and it's that
way for a reason. If you want to round out your opinions, look for other
communities that aren't so focused on the start-up mentality, and stay there
until you build up confidence and realize that in the end, you get to decide
what matters to you rather than other people.

~~~
wyw
Excellent points and very well said. Recently I have been starting to feel
down about myself and I noticed that it had to do with reading Hacker News and
estimating my value through the lens of this startup value system. Despite the
obvious talent and intelligence in this community, as you pointed out, if you
are constantly face to face with a value system that is at odds with yours you
will either (a) decide that it is not for you and walk away or (b) if you are
of a more impressionable mindset, you may start to wonder why you don't match
up. In my case, I have been finding the latter, at the expense of my self-
esteem. So perhaps, as you suggested, I should take a break from HN for a
while, as seductive as it is both in terms of content as well as the quality
of the discussions.

Thanks for articulating that so well.

~~~
unalone
I found myself going through faces of obsessive determination and complete
apathy last year. I think part of that's probably just life: Everybody runs
into dilemmas. In cases like this, where partly it's a matter of being online
talking to a focuses set of people, taking a few months off works wonders.
Turn on noprocrast, set your away time to 65536, and figure out what else you
can do. I just got access again a few weeks ago, and I don't feel the pull of
this community anymore, so I don't feel as committed and frequently hopeless.
With luck something like that could help you out as well.

(My other, snarkier advice is to go to Metafilter and look at every thread
regarding a Paul Graham essay, because Metafilter's a bright community that
_loathes_ Paul Graham. My opinions are somewhere in between there or here, but
reading those threads in June was rejuvenating in some ways.)

~~~
wyw
Going there now.

