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Raising money fucked me up

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Re: Raising money fucked me up

#41

Post by altmanaltman »

diab0lic wrote: post #24
altmanaltman wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read about mathematical expectation in a poker book for the first time a long time ago and it's really an interesting way to think about the world. In real life, it's a bit different though since there are other factors than just raw percentages like poker hands. For example, you could do everything right and still fail while someone else (like a nepo hire) can do everything wrong and still succeed. Life's odds are…

I think the metaphor is pretty extensible to handle the things you point out. > you could do everything right and still fail Sometimes even a high probability draw doesn't get there on the river. > while someone else (like a nepo hire) can do everything wrong and still succeed Some people always start with pairs, Axs, or suited connectors.

No, that's not what I meant. I meant more like you could flop a high probability draw that does get there on the river, but the nepo kid still wins even though they just had one pair.

In poker, there are rules everyone has to follow. In real life, the rules can differ from person to person. Hence, the odds are rigged.

Re: Raising money fucked me up

#43

Post by Nition »

taurath wrote: post #7

Expectations that we hold inside of ourselves can be a really difficult echo of identities we tried fantasizing about when growing up and as an adult. We want to do well, we want the approval, we want the validation. The anxiety over expectations can kill you. It’s self abuse - people (investors, bosses, spouses) don’t invest in you for your anxiety driven productivity, they do it because of who you are outside of th…

It's hard being human. A lot of cognitive ability peaks before age 25[1], physical before 35[2], and to some extent it's an inexorable downward slope from there. Accumulated experience often makes up for it, but only to a point. You still won't be as good as the version of you that started earlier, or learned faster. People reach 40 and finally start exercising and eating properly and miraculously feel 25 again - there are always ways to fight it. But they'd have been even more effective with the same habits at 25.

Life is stressful. There is fear of failure, there is fear of disappointing others, and ultimately there is fear of death. And that final deadline doesn't even have the courtesy to let us know when it will come.

But many people get nothing much done without a deadline. Most get more done with some time pressure. I'm not sure how we would manage immortality. If we lived twice as long, would we work half as fast? One hopes that for a little while at least, we manage to be happy and content with what we have.

[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4441622/

[2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17717011/

Re: Raising money fucked me up

#44

Post by cannonpr »

Nition wrote: post #43
taurath wrote: post #7

Expectations that we hold inside of ourselves can be a really difficult echo of identities we tried fantasizing about when growing up and as an adult. We want to do well, we want the approval, we want the validation. The anxiety over expectations can kill you. It’s self abuse - people (investors, bosses, spouses) don’t invest in you for your anxiety driven productivity, they do it because of who you are outside of th…

It's hard being human. A lot of cognitive ability peaks before age 25[1], physical before 35[2], and to some extent it's an inexorable downward slope from there. Accumulated experience often makes up for it, but only to a point. You still won't be as good as the version of you that started earlier, or learned faster. People reach 40 and finally start exercising and eating properly and miraculously feel 25 again - the…

If what you value most is performing IQ tests, or competitive chess, then yes there is good data on the 25 part. If what you value is complexity and richness of thought, not so much.

Re: Raising money fucked me up

#45

Post by resonious »

Nition wrote: post #43
taurath wrote: post #7

Expectations that we hold inside of ourselves can be a really difficult echo of identities we tried fantasizing about when growing up and as an adult. We want to do well, we want the approval, we want the validation. The anxiety over expectations can kill you. It’s self abuse - people (investors, bosses, spouses) don’t invest in you for your anxiety driven productivity, they do it because of who you are outside of th…

It's hard being human. A lot of cognitive ability peaks before age 25[1], physical before 35[2], and to some extent it's an inexorable downward slope from there. Accumulated experience often makes up for it, but only to a point. You still won't be as good as the version of you that started earlier, or learned faster. People reach 40 and finally start exercising and eating properly and miraculously feel 25 again - the…

Honestly if I exercised and ate perfectly from 20-29 I would've had a miserable 20s. Doing high-discipline stuff like that is way easier when you have a material reason (i.e. you've actually felt the consequences of not being fit or healthy) compared to when people just tell you "do it! you'll really thank yourself for it 20 years later!". Being in perfect physical condition at the cost of the psychological stress of forcing myself to do stuff I don't want to do every day does not sound worth it.

Re: Raising money fucked me up

#46

Post by resonious »

taurath wrote: post #7

Expectations that we hold inside of ourselves can be a really difficult echo of identities we tried fantasizing about when growing up and as an adult. We want to do well, we want the approval, we want the validation. The anxiety over expectations can kill you. It’s self abuse - people (investors, bosses, spouses) don’t invest in you for your anxiety driven productivity, they do it because of who you are outside of th…

And what's interesting here (and likely in other cases) is that the expectations aren't even real. The author's investors don't even put pressure on him. Not to put too many words into the author's mouth here, but it seems like he got possessed by the "tech founder" persona. It's like he started doing things not because of his own volition but because it's the more tech foundery thing to do.

Re: Raising money fucked me up

#48

Post by resonious »

This may sound weird but this was a very interesting read for me as a father of 2 small kids.

A somewhat common (yet often not followed (because it's hard)) piece of parenting advice is to not praise kids too much. Especially character judgements like "you're so smart" or "you're so creative". Reason being it makes them do things that seem smart or seem creative just to get the praise. Then it comes crashing down when they're faced with a challenge that contests the idea that they're "a smart kid".

It kind of looks like this is happening to the author. He became a founder, and started doing things that seem like what a founder would do, then got hit hard when he was unable to fulfill the "founder" role (i.e. didn't grow fast enough).

I'm not totally sure what to conclude here. I guess humans are susceptible to this kind of thing regardless of age.

Re: Raising money fucked me up

#49

Post by bruce511 »

Esophagus4 wrote: post #32

> It's much more comfortable to be the person that "could be X" than to be the person that tries to actually do it. Brilliant insight. Reminds of me this, from Theodore Roosevelt's Citizenship in a Republic: > It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose…

I agree, and I'll supplement with this;

>> But from now on, I'm either gonna be a successful founder, or I'm not. And if I'm not, I'll have to deal with having broken with the expectations that people had of me.

Don't worry, they expected you to fail. They hoped you'd succeed, but expected failure. Statistically most businesses fail, and failure rates are faster when your customers are VCs not users.

I say this as encouragement, not criticism. Accepting that failure is (by far) the most likely outcome is both realistic and freeing. The anxiety of failure is gone.

Frankly, your lack of marketing experience would worry me. Without the ability to reach users (much less customers) how can you do anything but fail? New businesses are not bounded by technical ability (especially in the age of AI) they are bounded by Marketing.

Re: Raising money fucked me up

#50

Post by ekianjo »

Nition wrote: post #43
taurath wrote: post #7

Expectations that we hold inside of ourselves can be a really difficult echo of identities we tried fantasizing about when growing up and as an adult. We want to do well, we want the approval, we want the validation. The anxiety over expectations can kill you. It’s self abuse - people (investors, bosses, spouses) don’t invest in you for your anxiety driven productivity, they do it because of who you are outside of th…

It's hard being human. A lot of cognitive ability peaks before age 25[1], physical before 35[2], and to some extent it's an inexorable downward slope from there. Accumulated experience often makes up for it, but only to a point. You still won't be as good as the version of you that started earlier, or learned faster. People reach 40 and finally start exercising and eating properly and miraculously feel 25 again - the…

Most people are complete dumbasses at 25. (I include myself at 25 in that assessment) So if this is peak intellectual capabilities something does not add up.
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