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Post YC Depression

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Re: Post YC Depression

#61

Post by murm »

barry-cotter wrote: post #32
arexxbifs wrote: post #17

> Farmgirl Flowers CEO Christina Stembel normally sleeps just 4 hours per night Doing this for sustained periods of time will lead to reduced cognitive performance[0] and, eventually, severe fatigue and possibly depression. Sounds like optimal operating conditions for a CEO. If the dotcom bubble taught me anything, it's that working all the time is neither cool nor a measure of success, but rather the opposite. [0] h…

For people with a normal need for sleep that’s worse than going two days without sleep. Six hours a night for a week degrades mental performance about that much. Ms Stembel could be far out on the bell curve in terms of her need for sleep. People who are perfectly healthy on four hours sleep a night for decades exist.

>Ms Stembel could be far out on the bell curve in terms of her need for sleep. People who are perfectly healthy on four hours sleep a night for decades exist.

Out of curiosity I dug up this article about Ms Stembel and in it she talks about her sleeping habits:

"When I do sleep more, I’m like, “Oh, that feels good. I should do that more often.” But I definitely believe in the power of habit. I’ve kind of honed the habit of not sleeping much, so my body can respond accordingly. It’s very normal for me now, but it’s not ideal. I probably sleep about 4.5 hours a night during the week, and then I try to get one weekend night where I can sleep seven or eight hours."

Even she herself acknowledges that this is not ideal and tries to create opportunities to sleep for the normal 8 hours. The problem with sleep deprivation is that it accumulates damage in the body which becomes apparent only later in life, so by sleeping this little she might be creating problems for herself in the future without even realizing it now. According to sleep researcher Matthew Walker, people whose bodies require less than 6 hours of sleep do exist, but they are extremely rare. It might be that Ms Stembel is one of those people, but I would still place my bet on that she is chronically and seriously sleep deprived.

Re: Post YC Depression

#63

Post by ghusbands »

StevenWaterman wrote: post #15

This was a good article, but I want to briefly call out that `6X more likely to suffer from ADHD` is not a useful stat when trying to argue that being a founder causes health issues. ADHD is present from birth and cannot develop as the result of trauma. It's still an interesting statistic, but for a different reason. People with ADHD are more likely to become founders, as they're more driven by passion, challenge, an…

> ADHD is present from birth and cannot develop as the result of trauma.

This is a misleading claim, as secondary ADHD can result from traumatic head injury, and childhood trauma can result in a condition that may differ from but is behaviourally very similar to ADHD.

Re: Post YC Depression

#64

Post by quelsolaar »

You have to work on something you are passionate about. If you work on Sundays because you cant keep yourself away from it, then great. If you work Sundays because you think if you work hard enough you will become rich and successful, then you are likely going to burn yourself out. Your life is NOW, be happy now. Don't push it off. If coding all day makes you happy do so. but if you rather hang out at the beach do so. There is nothing wrong with that.

I see a lot of startups made up of people who bought in to the startup myth and all they want to do is be successful. They dont care the least about the problem they are trying to solve, or like to do the work needed to solve it. If you would spend day and night on something even if you knew it would never come to anything, then that's the thing you should do.

A lot of people try to figure out what the pattern for the perfect startup is, and I think its just what ever you are passionate about. Maybe it will work out, maybe it wont, but at least you wont have wasted your time.

If you are passionate about caviar, be a sturgeon fisherman, or a chef. dont start a startup.

Re: Post YC Depression

#65

Post by KnobbleMcKnees »

arexxbifs wrote: post #17

> Farmgirl Flowers CEO Christina Stembel normally sleeps just 4 hours per night Doing this for sustained periods of time will lead to reduced cognitive performance[0] and, eventually, severe fatigue and possibly depression. Sounds like optimal operating conditions for a CEO. If the dotcom bubble taught me anything, it's that working all the time is neither cool nor a measure of success, but rather the opposite. [0] h…

If a stat sounds like it was invented for dramatic effect, then it probably was.

This is nearly always something touted as a self virtue, but actually just a ploy to get subordinates to work unreasonable hours.

(I'm not saying that there aren't people working these kind of hours, but they certainly aren't bragging about it or trying to convince others to join in).

Re: Post YC Depression

#66

Post by adriand »

hawkice wrote: post #19
speedplane wrote: post #9

This article should be another datapoint in every entrepreneur's handbook that simply going through the YC and Silicon Valley VC community does not ensure good outcomes. Owning 100% of a company making $1M/year is far more rewarding and valuable than owning 1% of a company making $100M/year. Consider YC as a last resort if you have no other options.

For most people, owning 100% of a company making $1M/year would be preferable to owning 10% of a company making $1B. It's not just that money has decreasing marginal value. It's about what life you want to live. The ten percent life is... just not for everyone, and maybe not for anyone, which is why it needs to be incentivized so much to ever happen.

> It's not just that money has decreasing marginal value. It's about what life you want to live.

I reached a point where I realized that the life experiences I was having were essentially the same as what much richer people are able to enjoy. A great example is when we got a pool. My wife had talked about it for a while, we have young kids and an unusually large backyard for a downtown home, and thought it'd be a great addition to our property. So I looked into it and it was going to cost at least $40,000 to $60,000 for an in-ground pool.

So I went to Walmart and bought the biggest above-ground, self-assembly pool I could find. It cost me $400 for a 16' diameter, 4' deep pool which holds somewhere around 15,000 litres of water (IIRC). A couple of days later my wife and I were sitting in inflatable chairs, floating in our pool and drinking cocktails in our backyard.

At that moment I realized that for 1% of the investment I was having at least 90% of the enjoyment. The experience of laying in an inflatable chair with your feet in the water and the sun beating down on you while you sip Aperol spritzes is essentially identical no matter the size and type of pool so long as it's deep enough to float in.

The same goes for so many other experiences: a rich person can buy a $250,000 car, but at the end of the day, their butt is on a seat like us and their hands are on a wheel like us and they're stuck in traffic just like us. If you can afford a helicopter, that's certainly a step change in terms of experience, but the sacrifices you have to make to get one and the overall chances of reaching that point just don't make it an appealing path for me.

The truth is, if you want a pool because you like floating in water, then the Walmart pool is enough. If you want a pool because you want your friends to envy how much money you have, then nothing will ever be enough.

Enjoy what you have!

Re: Post YC Depression

#67

Post by keiferski »

est31 wrote: post #58
keiferski wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you only own 1% of your company after raising funds, you've made some serious mistakes along the way. Even Bezos, prior to his divorce, still owned 16% of Amazon, and that's after they raised money and went public - he owned 48% prior to the IPO.

Bezos founded Amazon in a different era. It predates even Google. In fact, by the time Google was founded, Amazon has already IPOd. Back then the tech VC system was highly different. Bezos had to explain to early investors what the internet was. If you found a company now, you will be exposed to much different conditions.

Just an example. Again, if you raise money and end up with 1% of something that isn’t Apple/Google/etc., you made some serious mistakes along the way.

Re: Post YC Depression

#68

Post by philprx »

keiferski wrote: post #22
speedplane wrote: post #9

This article should be another datapoint in every entrepreneur's handbook that simply going through the YC and Silicon Valley VC community does not ensure good outcomes. Owning 100% of a company making $1M/year is far more rewarding and valuable than owning 1% of a company making $100M/year. Consider YC as a last resort if you have no other options.

If you only own 1% of your company after raising funds, you've made some serious mistakes along the way. Even Bezos, prior to his divorce, still owned 16% of Amazon, and that's after they raised money and went public - he owned 48% prior to the IPO.

Wait a second... Half joke: Isn't being founder and running a company about making mistakes all the time, learning from them and hoping you avoided the really bad mistakes?

no joke: I wouldn't criticize someone who

1. Founded a company

2. Had the company under his or other people management go to 100m USD

3. Kept some equity, even 1%

Re: Post YC Depression

#69

Post by arexxbifs »

KnobbleMcKnees wrote: post #65
arexxbifs wrote: post #17

> Farmgirl Flowers CEO Christina Stembel normally sleeps just 4 hours per night Doing this for sustained periods of time will lead to reduced cognitive performance[0] and, eventually, severe fatigue and possibly depression. Sounds like optimal operating conditions for a CEO. If the dotcom bubble taught me anything, it's that working all the time is neither cool nor a measure of success, but rather the opposite. [0] h…

If a stat sounds like it was invented for dramatic effect, then it probably was. This is nearly always something touted as a self virtue, but actually just a ploy to get subordinates to work unreasonable hours. (I'm not saying that there aren't people working these kind of hours, but they certainly aren't bragging about it or trying to convince others to join in).

Yeah, it's likely to be hyperbole, but articles like that perpetuate dangerous ideals by reinforcing the myth that successful people are somehow superhuman, and that we all need to push ourselves with dangerous habits to be able to succeed.

Re: Post YC Depression

#70

Post by est31 »

hawkice wrote: post #19
speedplane wrote: post #9

This article should be another datapoint in every entrepreneur's handbook that simply going through the YC and Silicon Valley VC community does not ensure good outcomes. Owning 100% of a company making $1M/year is far more rewarding and valuable than owning 1% of a company making $100M/year. Consider YC as a last resort if you have no other options.

For most people, owning 100% of a company making $1M/year would be preferable to owning 10% of a company making $1B. It's not just that money has decreasing marginal value. It's about what life you want to live. The ten percent life is... just not for everyone, and maybe not for anyone, which is why it needs to be incentivized so much to ever happen.

Founders often have controlling shares in their companies. This means they control a $1B revenue company instead of a $1M one, can become CEO if they want, etc. CEO salary for a $1B revenue company is more than for a $1M revenue one.

Also, if you own 100% you are the only person who is worried that the company is doing well. As often said, with great power comes great responsibility and in this instance it means you are the only person responsible that your 100% owned company is doing well. You can't just hire a manager. $1M/year revenue won't attract any good managers. They are going for the $1B/year class of companies. If a company has multiple shareholders, it has multiple people who care about share value increases. Investors are usually well networked.

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