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Why do you want to pursue a startup?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Why do you want to pursue a startup?

#11

Post by jwecker »

Alex3917 wrote: post #4

Creating something of great value to others is the ultimate challenge. It makes everything else look like a joke.

And (for me) to create something beautiful. The products; the processes and machinery of the business; the carefully crafted image; the thriving corporate culture; the systems for watching the market, the competition, and the systems for maximizing the money that you and your employees can thrive on. To see someone you've never met seriously passionate about your product. To be able to craft and share the results of your imagination- having a piece of yourself in the hands of thousands- enriching their lives and creating opportunities for them.

All of it created with sweat and anxiety, most aspects failing at some point and being brought back from the brink. I can't think of a more complex system to build- needing inspiration and creativity and luck in so many disciplines- with unlimited capacity when you finally get it right.

Re: Why do you want to pursue a startup?

#12

Post by Alex3917 »

jwecker wrote: post #11
Alex3917 wrote: post #4

Creating something of great value to others is the ultimate challenge. It makes everything else look like a joke.

And (for me) to create something beautiful. The products; the processes and machinery of the business; the carefully crafted image; the thriving corporate culture; the systems for watching the market, the competition, and the systems for maximizing the money that you and your employees can thrive on. To see someone you've never met seriously passionate about your product. To be able to craft and share the results of…

Beautiful.

Re: Why do you want to pursue a startup?

#13

Post by papersmith »

By having our works exposed to the market, we get direct feedbacks that erase some of our delusions we have about ourselves, so we can have peace of mind and don't live the rest of our lives unconsciously envy those who we perceive to be less capable than us.

Re: Why do you want to pursue a startup?

#14

Post by johnlongawa642 »

I've spent the last two decades making other people rich. I've worked on cool stuff but been ordered to do dumb things. Yeah, I got patents and promotions but the time I spent preparing for them, or implementing DRM or copy protection could have been better spent making better products. I want to make myself rich this time (or at least a little better off) by focusing on something that someone really needs - not a fickle consumer, but a business customer who will pay to be able to do something faster or cheaper or with more precision, or to do something that wasn't previously possible. A month ago I walked and I'm not looking back.

Re: Why do you want to pursue a startup?

#15

Post by pictperf »

My company recently went through layoffs and it seems that the only people who got canned were the ones who have been there for 15+ years. These layoffs didnt seem to be performance based. They seemed to be "size of pay check" based ( people who have been there longer obviously make more money that the newer people). I don't want to be the "guy who got laid off" in 10 years time ( I've been there for 6 yrs). I want to make enough money to be able to decide whether or not I have to work, and not be forced to be "code monkey" for a large company, that won't even bat an eyelid when its time for them to show me the door.

Re: Why do you want to pursue a startup?

#17

Post by python_kiss »

"This is your life and it's ending one minute at a time." While we are at it, we might as well create something beautiful. YouTube, Google, and MySpace managed to change the very lifestyles of its users; if you could build something that amazing, why wouldn't you? :)

Whatever we do here will eventually be lost in time. And those who do remember our dream, they too will inevitably perish. To me, creating something of great value to others is the only reason why we even matter. Besides that, our worth is simply that of the atoms that make us.

Put simply. a startup is my opportunity to change the world.

Re: Why do you want to pursue a startup?

#18

Post by volida »

Ithaca

As you set out for Ithaca

hope your road is a long one,

full of adventure, full of discovery.

Laistrygonians, Cyclops,

angry Poseidon - don't be afraid of them:

you' ll never find things like that on your way

as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,

as long as a rare excitement

stirs your spirit and your body.

Laistrygonians, Cyclops,

wild Poseidon - you won't encounter them

unless you bring them along inside your soul,

unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope your road is a long one.

May there be many summer mornings when,

with what pleasure, what joy,

you enter harbours you're seeing for the first time;

may you stop at Phoenician trading stations

to buy fine things,

mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,

sensual perfume of every kind -

as many sensual perfumes as you can;

and may you visit many Egyptian cities

to learn and go on learning from their scholars.

Keep Ithaca always in your mind.

Arriving there is what you're destined for.

But don't hurry the journey at all.

Better if it lasts for years,

so you're old by the time you reach the island,

wealthy with all you've gained on the way,

not expecting Ithaca to make you rich.

Ithaca gave you the marvelous journey.

Without her you wouldn't have set out.

She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaca won't have fooled you.

Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,

you'll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

K.Kavafis

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