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How I Feel as Young Father Involved in Early-stage Startup

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Re: How I Feel as Young Father Involved in Early-stage Startup

#41

Post by czbond »

davedx wrote: post #16

As a contractor who's interested in startups and who has a 6 month daughter, I can certainly empathize. Throughout all of my crazy ideas, side projects, contracts in different timezones, bits of overtime, all of it, I've constantly kept a check on myself that I don't spend too much time away from my family. I decided not to pursue a potential CTO position at a promising startup because it might have required me to wo…

Your situation is mine exactly. I founded 2 startups, one died - one is going strong, but I left to create a better balance. The "regrets of the dying" was the exact article that made me re-shape everything. I've even turned down some VPE/CTO roles to avoid the endless barrage of work.

Re: How I Feel as Young Father Involved in Early-stage Startup

#42

Post by hoggle »

lmg643 wrote: post #34
Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #30

"My dear Daughter, Wait for me." Of all the things that might happen, much as we'd like it to be different, I can guarantee that this is one which won't happen. However upsetting it may be now (or looking back in the future), time isn't going to wait for you and all those firsts, all those events and experiences you miss, won't wait and won't happen again. We tell ourselves it isn't a choice but for many of us it is.…

I would agree with this. People have a way of heavily discounting the present in favor of the uncertain future. It becomes a habit, almost an addiction, to medicate feelings in the present (FUD - perhaps their anxiety over being a parent, even). A friend of mine uses the term "future tripping" - I like it. I will give this guy a lot of credit for honesty. It's tempting to pretend that starting a company is something…

"I want to say, in all seriousness, that a great deal of harm is being done in the modern world by belief in the virtuousness of work, and that the road to happiness and prosperity lies in an organized diminution of work."

Bertrand Russell - "In Praise of Idleness" - http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html

"Leisure: The Basis Of Culture" by Josef Pieper also seems on topic, I'm planning to read it myself - http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/767958.Leisure

References are from comments on here yesterday - "How did we get so busy?" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7769610

I don't know if the OP is still contracting but if he is, something like Brennan Dunn's "Double Your Freelancing Rate" could help with working less on more interesting / higher paid projects - http://doubleyourfreelancingrate.com

Re: How I Feel as Young Father Involved in Early-stage Startup

#43

Post by dustinbrownman »

josefresco wrote: post #12

There is no amount of money that can make up for missing dinner times, bed times, play times and even bad times that you experience with your kids. Don't fool yourself into thinking "once I get this right, I'll have all the time in the world to spend with my kids". This will never happen, and if it does it will be too late to form that close bond, and share your life with your kids. I'm in to work (my own business) a…

Do you feel like your colleagues secretly look down on you because of this? I work with all single, younger folks, and while they're always supportive, I can't help but feel like I'm seen as not pulling my wait. Almost certainly a projection on my part, but I'm curious if others with strong family priorities feel the same.

Re: How I Feel as Young Father Involved in Early-stage Startup

#44

Post by pauljohncleary »

lkrubner wrote: post #35

I think Paul Graham summed up the situation fairly well when he wrote: "Economically, you can think of a startup as a way to compress your whole working life into a few years. Instead of working at a low intensity for forty years, you work as hard as you possibly can for four. This pays especially well in technology, where you earn a premium for working fast." and this: "Combine all these multipliers, and I'm claimin…

PG is an investor, so of course he wants founders to be 36x more productive!

Re: How I Feel as Young Father Involved in Early-stage Startup

#45

Post by dvirsky »

mbenjaminsmith wrote: post #32
dvirsky wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've worked in two early stage start-ups since I became a dad a few years ago, as employee 1 and 2. I do a few things to help me stay involved as a father: 1. Unless there's a real emergency, which is rare, I leave the office around 6-7, even if I still have work planned for today. It's not really early but it leaves me a couple of hours with my kids (I live really close to work, like a 10 minute motorcycle ride). 2.…

I'll be a father in a couple of weeks but I've been working on a "life/work balance" for quite a while now. If it ever comes up with a client I remind them that we're running a marathon, not a sprint, and that putting in a solid 8 (or 9), consistently, week in and week out can get a tremendous amount of work done. It's really easy to work too much and burn out, even if you have a lot of experience -- and 40 hours per…

On down side though, time is one thing, what you make of it is another. It's hard to make an instant switch from thinking about that annoying bug or tough to crack algorithm, to playing with a toddler. I often find myself staring into thin air while they are talking to me, caught in a hard problem bothering me.

Re: How I Feel as Young Father Involved in Early-stage Startup

#46

Post by justinpaulson »

Killah911 wrote: post #21

Seriously! How are people giving "advice" to this guy? It's not a F#$%ing blog post, it's a work of art... Do you guys write in to HBO after every episode of Silicon Valley? It's an great piece (IMHO) & if it helps you reflect, then it's done its job. It's not a problem do be solved (yes, I know... that's what we do... but really though....)

Settle down guy, people are just discussing their feelings about the situation. People do get on forums and discuss episodes of silicon valley after they have aired, and they discuss it with their friends/coworkers in real life.

Are these comments not the appropriate place to voice our feelings/insights/experiences with the subject of the post??

Re: How I Feel as Young Father Involved in Early-stage Startup

#47

Post by vdaniuk »

pauljohncleary wrote: post #44
lkrubner wrote: post #35

I think Paul Graham summed up the situation fairly well when he wrote: "Economically, you can think of a startup as a way to compress your whole working life into a few years. Instead of working at a low intensity for forty years, you work as hard as you possibly can for four. This pays especially well in technology, where you earn a premium for working fast." and this: "Combine all these multipliers, and I'm claimin…

PG is an investor, so of course he wants founders to be 36x more productive!

Yeah, I am constantly surprised at the apparent lack of mathematical thinking about returns on effort in start-ups.

The risks of the startup going down without IPO or buyout are extremely high, long hours, equity will be diluted, founders will lose control of the decision making, short term objectives will be prioritized.

Returns on efforts in bootstrapping seem to be much much better.

Start-ups are really good for VCs, though.

Re: How I Feel as Young Father Involved in Early-stage Startup

#48

Post by Evgeny »

lkrubner wrote: post #35

I think Paul Graham summed up the situation fairly well when he wrote: "Economically, you can think of a startup as a way to compress your whole working life into a few years. Instead of working at a low intensity for forty years, you work as hard as you possibly can for four. This pays especially well in technology, where you earn a premium for working fast." and this: "Combine all these multipliers, and I'm claimin…

but when I had my own startup, I gave up reading the news

And my question would be: did you miss something important, that could be life-changing if only you had seen it on the news?

Being off the news myself (except tech news) for more than a year now, I'm yet to experience such an "event".

But of course some non-technical news "sip through" - get posted on HN, you hear from family etc. So there is no way to really miss something important, and no way to completely stay away from news.

Re: How I Feel as Young Father Involved in Early-stage Startup

#49

Post by justinpaulson »

lkrubner wrote: post #35

I think Paul Graham summed up the situation fairly well when he wrote: "Economically, you can think of a startup as a way to compress your whole working life into a few years. Instead of working at a low intensity for forty years, you work as hard as you possibly can for four. This pays especially well in technology, where you earn a premium for working fast." and this: "Combine all these multipliers, and I'm claimin…

"if you focus you can probably get three times as much done in an hour."

This part makes no sense to me. Why can I produce 3x as much work in an hour at a startup because I "focus"? I think that's a bit of a stretch.

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