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The last day

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Re: The last day

#141

Post by stephengillie »

tptacek wrote: post #54

The amount of privilege built into this "painful failure" is disquieting. Here's a person whose biggest problem in life appears to be that he's in debt and, for the moment, unemployed. But: he was the CEO of a company funded to the tune of 8xFTE, and can thus almost certainly walk into hundreds of VP/Product Management or Business Development roles immediately, all of which will pay him more than any of his technical…

The only failure this person has made is wallowing in self pity. Why is he just letting everything wind down? It's like this founder doesn't understand how his first company began, and so is unable to try try again.

Re: The last day

#142

Post by CamperBob2 »

Kaedon wrote: post #2

It's interesting to think about what can happen after the collapse of a startup, particularly when we tend to give so much of ourselves to the process. I think it's inherently a regenerative process, though. A company may disappear but the lessons stick with you. I'd guess it's not easier but perhaps more familiar the next go around. That's comforting.

A company may disappear but the lessons stick with you.

That's what I think a lot of people miss. Most young professionals lose tens of thousands of dollars and spend several of the most productive years of their lives learning these lessons. Except they refer to the experience as "college," not "entrepreneurship."

Either way, education costs money, and the only question we all have to ask ourselves is, how much do we want to learn? We go to "school," then we graduate and move on.

Re: The last day

#143

Post by rhizome »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #138
rhizome wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you really being outcompeted if the startup winds up going basically nowhere and you've put a year or two of huge time and opportunity costs into a failure? What if startups weren't worth it unless they were well-run enough to require very few hours over 40 from its employees?

What if startups weren't worth it unless they were well-run enough to require very few hours over 40 from its employees Are we talking about employees, or founders?

I'm talking about well-run startups.

Re: The last day

#144

Post by CamperBob2 »

rhizome wrote: post #143
CamperBob2 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if startups weren't worth it unless they were well-run enough to require very few hours over 40 from its employees Are we talking about employees, or founders?

I'm talking about well-run startups.

Oh, OK. I guess I haven't known any of those.

Re: The last day

#145

Post by [deleted] »

tjic wrote: post #132
tptacek wrote: post #54

The amount of privilege built into this "painful failure" is disquieting. Here's a person whose biggest problem in life appears to be that he's in debt and, for the moment, unemployed. But: he was the CEO of a company funded to the tune of 8xFTE, and can thus almost certainly walk into hundreds of VP/Product Management or Business Development roles immediately, all of which will pay him more than any of his technical…

> The amount of privilege built into this "painful failure" is disquieting. The word "privilege" is one of those politically correct Newspeak words that always stops me dead in my tracks. It's a shibboleth of a whole bunch of broken thinking, and worse than that, it's a term that tries to bake in conclusions to the assumptions of an argument, so that once one engages with the argument, unaware of the land mine that's…

[deleted]

Re: The last day

#146

Post by tptacek »

chernevik wrote: post #134
chernevik wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I break your jaw -- funny how that's the example that springs to mind -- are you going to sit in the ambulance celebrating the outstanding First World medical care you're about to receive? Or are you going to be saying Jesus Christ this fucking hurts? How effective an anesthetic will Perspective be? You can be right and Wrong at the same time. Figure it out.

It is too late to edit the above. I was trying to convey irritation and even anger, but many seem to think I've gone over the edge to hostile or even threatening. I should written more carefully. Posting while drunk is one thing. Posting angry while drunk is one thing. Veering near someone's personal space while drunk and angry, probably not such a good idea. I apologize for any alarm I caused.

You're frustrated. I'm frustrating to argue with. I totally get it, and I got it at the time. It was funny, so I joked about it a little, but for the record, if anybody cares: I didn't feel threatened. I won't presume you're apologizing to me, but for whatever it's worth, I wouldn't ask for an apology anyways.

Re: The last day

#147

Post by JohnHaugeland »

tptacek wrote: post #76
chernevik wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fuck you. I daresay my problems are somewhat worse than those of the OP's CEO. He isn't in a divorce, doesn't have kids, does he? And yeah, even if my problems are worse, they're still distinctly First World. It isn't as if I have trouble finding potable water for my kids, or have to worry about teenager "soldiers" raping my daughter. So maybe I too am Entitled. And perhaps I too should just Shut Up. But I don't thin…

Again: it's not that there are people in the world who are worse off. There are always people in the world that are worse off. Most people in the world are much worse off than most Americans. It's that most Americans are worse off than this person. This is startup exceptionalism. It is the intersection between nerd exceptionalism and the myth of the heroic entrepreneur, both of which are virulent memes in our culture…

"I'm sorry that the way I articulated this perspective offends you. I probably wrote it carelessly and offensively. But it is the right perspective."

No. It isn't.

Please don't confuse your ennui with other people's need to actually communicate their pain when they're in pain.

Even if they're people you're jealous of.

It does not matter if other people are better or worse off. This isn't a race.

Nobody is helped by your foot-stomping here. This is ego salvation.

Re: The last day

#148

Post by JohnHaugeland »

tptacek wrote: post #61
monochromatic wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure which part of a story about a guy whose dream crashed, whose bank account is less than empty, and whose girlfriend left made you think "I am offended that he is upset."

I am not offended that he's upset.

You very much seem to be, while talking about how privileged he is and how much worse everyone else has it. Sometimes people who are offended genuinely don't realize it, and need to be told by dozens or hundreds of people saying "dude, you're lashing out, cool it."

If you're Thomas Ptacek the security person, I wonder if you realize that people are jealous of you, too. (Yes, even though you earned what you have.)

This will be a very difficult Thanksgiving for me, while I try to keep my startup alive.

I sympathize with the guy who just lost more money than I'm likely ever to have. Even though I have it worse than he does. I don't actually want someone telling him to keep it quiet on my behalf.

Maybe the next time you're on a down streak, you'll remember sympathy.

It's easy to forget that even with privilege, failure hurts and is scary.

Re: The last day

#149

Post by JohnHaugeland »

stephengillie wrote: post #141
tptacek wrote: post #54

The amount of privilege built into this "painful failure" is disquieting. Here's a person whose biggest problem in life appears to be that he's in debt and, for the moment, unemployed. But: he was the CEO of a company funded to the tune of 8xFTE, and can thus almost certainly walk into hundreds of VP/Product Management or Business Development roles immediately, all of which will pay him more than any of his technical…

The only failure this person has made is wallowing in self pity. Why is he just letting everything wind down? It's like this founder doesn't understand how his first company began, and so is unable to try try again.

When you've fired friends, feel like a failure, and are destitute, you might understand why it's so hard to look at spending several more years of your life trying again.

Re: The last day

#150

Post by chernevik »

tptacek wrote: post #146
chernevik wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is too late to edit the above. I was trying to convey irritation and even anger, but many seem to think I've gone over the edge to hostile or even threatening. I should written more carefully. Posting while drunk is one thing. Posting angry while drunk is one thing. Veering near someone's personal space while drunk and angry, probably not such a good idea. I apologize for any alarm I caused.

You're frustrated. I'm frustrating to argue with. I totally get it, and I got it at the time. It was funny, so I joked about it a little, but for the record, if anybody cares: I didn't feel threatened. I won't presume you're apologizing to me, but for whatever it's worth, I wouldn't ask for an apology anyways.

It's an apology to the community. I wouldn't have written that, even if drunk, if I hadn't thought YOU would take it as I meant it. So I am glad I read that right, and thank you for saying so.

But many readers either didn't read it that way or thought it unhelpful to the tone of the board. And I think concerns about that are more than fair. Any "humor" touching on violence really must be clearly humor. This wasn't, at leas to the wider audience, and I'm sorry about that.

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