Confessions of a 20-Something Startup CTO

If it's the former, I'd suggest you a be slightly more direct about what point you are trying to make. Alternatively simply just upvote or ignore the story all together.

Also, I find it very interesting that the "high" of this roller coaster is the funding.

I’ve since made an asserted effort to dedicate time to my social life: going on trips with friends; going on dates; and, most importantly, getting work completely off my mind occasionally."

Serious question (and my thoughts) here I'm not trying to be cute. Regarding your "social life".

Do you think you will grow out of this? Because what do you think is going to happen if/when you are married and have children and aren't living in SF or some exciting place and have much on your plate?

The best way to insure that you can live the life you want and have some fun is to put all the effort in that you can now and try to put off having fun until a bit later on. Now is when you have energy and should be able to work non-stop with very little else. (I didn't surface for air for 7 years working 6 to 7 days a week ..)

I point this out also because the world is littered with people who didn't get into a good school because they spent a bit to much time worrying about missing something or having fun and are paying for that later. I'm sure you've met people like this in your high school.

It's a little unclear how long you worked before you realized what you wrote. It was certainly less than two years since you wrote this: "I’ve grown a lot as a person in the past two years." That's not a long time to be denied the pleasures of other people and fun (look at people on tours of duty in the war or speaking of my own experience).

The fact that you never had a problem until later means you really haven't dealt with the situation you are in now in the past which I think is what you are saying. Things were easy for you until you got around a group of people who were also good. I know first hand about the MIT syndrome since I saw others that suffered from it at the school that I went to which was quite good.

I didn't suffer from that for one simple reason.

Things were never easy for me it always took hard work and it also took plenty of effort for me to get into the school I went to. So when I got there I didn't fall apart if I got a "B+". I just kept chugging away while the ones who were "so much smarter" who got in with their top grades and SAT's wilted under the pressure of having to do so much work. This was a long time ago compared to when you are in school. So to answer your question, no, things haven't changed that much.

You've got plenty of time to have fun. Now is the time to work as hard as you possibly can with minimal breaks in order to achieve your goals. You might not surface for air for a few years but it will probably be well worth it.

One last thing. There will be times in life when you might have some crisis either in personal life or business that will require you to work all the time. I had a case where several of my top people left, I was in the middle of a legal case, and a breakup, and I still had to show up to work doing the job of three people and deal with personal issues and family fights. Having to go through that and knowing I could (similar I'm sure to having climbed a certain mountain like you are doing) was a great experience that made me realize that I didn't have to be scared of the unknown and that I could handle it.

Some of those people may have gone through the same and can offer their opinions of how it worked out for them.

Have you ever had a medical problem and asked an older person about it? They might tell you "don't worry I had that same pain and it went away, no biggie". Don't assume someone older has no experience or empathy to what someone younger is saying.