Frankly, startup or no startup. You can only do so much work within a day. With a bit of planning and discipline you can manage to stay effective and be a part of the family while building your startup.
How I Feel as Young Father Involved in Early-stage Startup
71–80 of 147 posts
Re: How I Feel as Young Father Involved in Early-stage Startup
#72So, I am the child of a startup founder. Roughly a year before I was born my dad founded a startup. Throughout most of my early childhood he would routinely be working for 10+ hours at the office and then work after me and my sibling were put to sleep. Plus, he was usually travelling 4-5 days a month trying to pitch his idea (we didn't live in a big center for startups). Basically, he wasn't there.
I love my dad. A lot. He is still one of my favorite people, and when I come home it's always a joy to talk to him. But, he just wasn't around all that often as a kid, and I know he really tried, but you just can't be in two places at once. Honestly, I think it was a lot harder on my mom, what with the financial difficulties (especially when the startup eventually went belly up for a bit) raising me and my sibling on her own, all that stuff. I'm not angry at my dad, he did something he really wanted to do, and worked really hard at it, but you know you can't stop growing when you're five.
The only piece of 'advice' I have is try to carve out a regular time for being with your kids. Every Friday night, my dad would take me and my sibling down to the lake, and we'd get food, and talk, and play at an arcade (I still can totally beat him at Space Invaders, by the way), and that w as a really meaningful time for me and my sister, especially on the weekends he was working, or when we found him passed out in his chair after working all night.
Re: How I Feel as Young Father Involved in Early-stage Startup
#73This is a good reminder, to me, of why I have chosen to delay any ambitions of my own startup until after my kids are grown and no longer want to spend (as much) time with me.
However, I think it's important to remember that we can just as easily get caught in the trap of being present with our family, but not "present", because we're stuck in a 9-5 job that is sucking the soul out of us.
I'm currently in a position that consists about 80% meetings and 20% reading/responding to email, when I would so much rather be coding. I come home feeling unfulfilled, and am irritated way too easily.
Some people can still cope with a job like this and separate themselves from it as to not affect their home life. I wish I was one of those, but I'm not. And since I recognize that I'm not, I have chosen to find -- and have found -- another job that without a doubt will not have this impact on me.
If you're in the same boat, and are not able to cope and separate yourself from the drudgery of your 9-5 job, find one that you enjoy better. And I personally think it's worth even taking a cut in pay, if you can and if you have to.
Re: How I Feel as Young Father Involved in Early-stage Startup
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
Couldn't agree more. The post is very well written and reads like a poem, but the message is terrible on all counts. It sounds like a soldier being forced to go to battle crying for the family he leaves behind, where in fact it's entirely his own choices. And if it's some sort of an internal torment, being torn between two passions that conflict with one another, then I would suggest he gets a grip and decide which s…
I share this sentiment. The author needs to consider which thing will cause him more regret in the long term--working a more normal schedule and potentially missing out on whatever rewards living the startup life may give him, or definitely missing out on his daughter's childhood. For me it would be (and is--I have two sons) a no-brainer. I actually am working at a start-up, but it's one that places a high value on w…
> The author needs to consider which thing will cause him more regret in the long term--working a more normal schedule and potentially missing out on whatever rewards living the startup life may give him, or definitely missing out on his daughter's childhood.
Given the psychology studies on creativity and productivity given the mythical man hour, it's not much of a choice.
Beyond that, missing his daughter's life and working many hours, sleeping less will ultimately lead to a shorter life due to the physiological effects.
Re: How I Feel as Young Father Involved in Early-stage Startup
#75"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.…
> We tell ourselves it isn't a choice but for many of us it is. Most of us could earn enough money to support our family comfortably in a relatively regular 9 - 5 job. We might not be personally as satisfied and we might not be as financially well off, but we can choose one possible version of our life over another.
I'm currently in the 9-5 job and maybe I'm just a whiner, but I feel the same as this guy. I hate the commute through rush hour traffic that I am required by the time window to make. I hate that once I get to the office I sit in a 8'x8' cube, with two 8'x4' desks taking up 50% of the space. I hate that I've just been reassigned to a new cube, same size, same desks, but now with a structural 4x4 pillar taking up another 25% and my back to the "door".
I hate that I spend all day patching the same kinds of holes again and again without the authority to fix the root problems. I hate that I have no real ability to influence the direction of my organization. Without agency it become very difficult to keep caring about the product. I hate that nobody else cares either. I work purely to support my family. That is the only reason. I used to love writing software, and I still do, but I hate my job. I hate that I feel like everything that makes me who I am is being slowly ground away into nothing.
I get home with time for the kids but I have nothing left. My mental tank is completely empty. I almost can't get up in the mornings, I don't want to get up. If it wasn't for my wife and kids I wouldn't get up. Somehow this wonderful, exciting process of solving problems and finding solutions to people's needs has turned into torture. I'm on a sinking ship and am too burdened with responsibility to jump off. So I'm frantically trying in my spare time to build a raft so I can find my own island. I feel like I'm racing against time. I have to finish the raft before I have a mental break and land my family on welfare and me on a psychologist's couch.
There are great things about my job, those benefits that you mention: 40 hours a week (well, 50 including the commute), an above-average salary (my wife can spend her quality time teaching and raising our kids), job security (we've been planning to end-of-life the product for longer than I've been here), a reasonable boss (who is just as powerless to change things as I am).
I guess I'm not really disagreeing with you, just sharing an admittedly depressed view from the other side. We do have a choice, and right now my choice is to pull late nights after the kids go to bed. I'm scrambling to create my own software that I can sell so I don't have to go to this 9-5 which you advocate for OP.
Re: How I Feel as Young Father Involved in Early-stage Startup
#76I 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…
This is one of the areas where I think PG has it completely wrong. Sure if you're a 20-something with no kids/life and only care about your startup, you can code 24/7. But many of us don't fit into this stereotypical startup-founder box that PG and others have created. Some of us have kids, some have partners, some have ... a life! Does PG really want a bunch of code obsessed, single minded founders with no hobbies o…
"Does PG really want a bunch of code obsessed, single minded founders with no hobbies or life outside of their startup?"
Yes. He wants his startups to work, eat, exercise and sleep.
Re: How I Feel as Young Father Involved in Early-stage Startup
#77I 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…
This is one of the areas where I think PG has it completely wrong. Sure if you're a 20-something with no kids/life and only care about your startup, you can code 24/7. But many of us don't fit into this stereotypical startup-founder box that PG and others have created. Some of us have kids, some have partners, some have ... a life! Does PG really want a bunch of code obsessed, single minded founders with no hobbies o…
> . Sure if you're a 20-something with no kids/life and only care about your startup, you can code 24/7.
Disproven by https://medium.com/i-m-h-o/e092ee0b79b7
If anything, a 20 something is more likely to drive their body and their product in the drastic wrong direction, than somebody older, wiser.
Re: How I Feel as Young Father Involved in Early-stage Startup
#78Two weeks ago, my daughter asked me if she could give up on college for a while and come work with me on my startup instead. She's 20 now. I couldn't be more pleased or proud.
For years, I worked in "safe" enterprise jobs, rather than the risk of startups, for the financial security of my children. They're adults now, and I'm starting over in many ways. I'm twice the age of the "startup founder" trope. It feels very natural to me now.
As for my daughter... she has the entrepreneurial spirit. She wants to be challenged, to learn and grow in ways she won't get to do in college. Working for me, she'll get to do things she wouldn't get to do in a slower, safer business. And she has a strong self-interest, too - if it succeeds, I'll become very wealthy, almost as a side effect. As my heir, she eventually benefits from that as well. So from the point of view of both her learning and her long-term financial security, helping me is the best thing she can do for herself. Smart kid.
Re: How I Feel as Young Father Involved in Early-stage Startup
#79I 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…
What's missing here is a simple fact: your life is different in every period. No matter if you can retire when you're 35: you won't be able to relive your 20s. I am not saying that all in all you won't be better off, but would keep this in mind.
Re: How I Feel as Young Father Involved in Early-stage Startup
#80I 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.
I think over the longer term, it's true, although not for individual hours. Knock some of pg's essays if you want (they deserve it), but "Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule" hits the nail on the head about productivity. http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html