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Sometimes, it’s just time to go home

benmilne.com

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Re: Sometimes, it’s just time to go home

#41

Post by rhizome »

unclebucknasty wrote: post #37
abuteau wrote: post #19

It shouldn't be the way. We met Brad Feld last year in Las Vegas (Up Summit) and he talked about his depression[1]. I suggest everyone to read the depression archives on Brad Feld blog [2]. Pretty insightful posts. I tend to be obsessive and I lost someone I really care about because of focus on money and too much work. At the end of the day, you have to focus on your priorities, your wife/family is one and should de…

I read the following from link 2 in your comment: http://www.feld.com/archives/2014/10/helps-depressed.html This may be veering off-topic, but reading the suggestions submitted by the reader in that post made me wonder some people (many, in fact) have to actively work so hard to hold off depression. Something is going wrong (organically, culturally, or both) that depression is the default state for so many. Culturall…

Don't forget the industry that they're working in.

Re: Sometimes, it’s just time to go home

#43

Post by ridgeguy »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #20
hemantv wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are confusing working hard vs working to death. I work hard everyday but at some point in a given day I realize that I am not productive anymore. If something is menial, doesn't require much mental process. Than its okay to keep going but if its something new which require even small amount of mental effort than working super hard is not going to get you anywhere. I also sometimes work late, because I don…

I agree with everything you've said, but if it's true that you can get rich from a startup without working extremely long hours, we should be able to find some evidence of that. And if there's no evidence, then maybe we should rethink whether it's true.

Most founders work very hard, often to destructive excess as portrayed in the article. And most startups fail. This suggests that hard work is weakly correlated with startup success.

If so, a dearth of examples of successful startups by founders lacking a chronic death-march work ethic doesn't speak at all to whether burnout is a requirement for success.

Re: Sometimes, it’s just time to go home

#45

Post by alexbecker »

unclebucknasty wrote: post #37
abuteau wrote: post #19

It shouldn't be the way. We met Brad Feld last year in Las Vegas (Up Summit) and he talked about his depression[1]. I suggest everyone to read the depression archives on Brad Feld blog [2]. Pretty insightful posts. I tend to be obsessive and I lost someone I really care about because of focus on money and too much work. At the end of the day, you have to focus on your priorities, your wife/family is one and should de…

I read the following from link 2 in your comment: http://www.feld.com/archives/2014/10/helps-depressed.html This may be veering off-topic, but reading the suggestions submitted by the reader in that post made me wonder some people (many, in fact) have to actively work so hard to hold off depression. Something is going wrong (organically, culturally, or both) that depression is the default state for so many. Culturall…

> Something is going wrong (organically, culturally, or both) that depression is the default state for so many.

I'm not convinced that this is any different from the "natural state" of humans (which granted is not completely well-defined). I do not see any reason to expect people to be generally happy. While it's overly reductionist to think of evolution in terms of individual "fitness", it is not clear to me that a general trend of being unhappy (which in slightly more outlying cases becomes depression) decreases fitness. The only obvious effect I can see is suicide, but that's pretty rare statistically speaking, and we have strong self-preservation instincts independent of happiness that are pretty hard to override. Being reliably happy on the other hand is probably ruinous to fitness--what motivation would I have to do anything?

Re: Sometimes, it’s just time to go home

#46

Post by bretpiatt »

Animats wrote: post #40

This guy is the CEO. So, by definition, this is a management problem. Dwolla has some money now; they can hire people. This guy needs to learn how to build a staff and delegate. He's only done startups, and hasn't worked in a long-established company where they have this figured out. Some founders have trouble letting go of control. They want to do it all themselves. That doesn't scale.

Saying, "they can just hire people" is quite flippant. No matter how many people a CEO hires there is always more that they can do. Using a topic he discussed the f.ounders event... he cannot hire someone to go to it -- that event is exclusively for founders. By not attending he's missing out on a BD opportunity. Could he have hired someone to cover the BoFA or other meetings? Maybe? Maybe not -- would BoFA take the meeting with the brand new BD team member? Would that member be as effective? "Luck" is preparation meeting opportunity and as you're rapidly scaling any business scaling a team that is prepared and ready to take on the opportunities in front of you is as hard or harder than any technology scaling problem the business will face.

Re: Sometimes, it’s just time to go home

#47

Post by partisan »

8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote: post #32

The startup thing has been both amazing and incredibly devastating. Haven't seen my folks in years. Spouse dumped me because I practically didn't exist outside of work. Absolutely no hobbies or traveling in years. No guarantee the company will be anything but a massive drop in my financial history. You're constantly running out of money, so you're cutting every unnecessary expense, and you're living on scraps for yea…

The crazy part is that there are plenty of people making money off of "lifestyle" businesses. They cobbled their websites together using technologies we wouldn't even look down our noses at. They work 20 hour weeks and enjoy their freedom the rest of the time.

I think we buy into the story that it has to be so difficult, but it doesn't.

Re: Sometimes, it’s just time to go home

#50

Post by partisan »

It's pretty standard to take a break after a long period of hard work. Especially if it starts to feel like burnout.

I'll probably write an enlightening blog post one day about how sometimes you have to take a nap during the day, especially if you feel sleepy. I'll encapsulate it into a life lesson: Don't lie to yourself, you are sleepy so just take that nap.

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