Start-ups and Emotional Debt (2014)

"By developing “start-up skills” for four years, you are missing an opportunity to hone your skills as a writer, musician, engineer, architect, or whatever that secret aspiration was that you had before you decided it was necessary to make a lot of money first. It will be a regret that will not go away."

I did fully commit myself to build a company which gives me immense financial freedom and I definitely did not pursue some interests I wanted to. However, I have absolutely no regrets. Given a choice all over again, I'd choose building the startup without even thinking for a micro-second compared to wanting to pursue a career in music. Interestingly, now I can take private lessons on playing the piano when and where I feel like.

Money is definitely not everything and cannot singularly make you happy, but in today's world it's definitely the first thing you'd like to acquire to simplify getting most of the other things you want.

If you do plan to run a startup, and then fail, at least you are prepared for it, and you can still feel good about yourself.

Also, I'd advise to do something that has social impact. If your company is just building the next todo-list, or the next css framework, or the next electronic paperclip, then if you fail to make this a big financial success, you will feel you have wasted part of your life. On the other hand, if you have worked on renewable energy, and failed, then you will still feel good about at least having tried to make the world a better place, rather than just having aimed for the money.

As everything you do in life, the startup should be aligned with your values and long term goals in life (aka the purpose you are giving your life), so you can be totally in peace with yourself.

That way, as you mention it, whatever happens financially with the startup, you can be in peace with yourself, knowing you have contributed your part to make this world a better place.

This blind spot is the undercurrent to his whole essay. While there are definitely startup founders who can experience regret of an alternative life, the author completely ignores the opposite situation: the play-it-safe employee who has "friends & family" but has demons of "unfulfilled potential" constantly gnawing at him.

>, you should probably spend more time learning about your own brain, and trying to form enduring friendships, and less time worrying about money and start-ups and equity and things.

This assumes that one cannot create enduring friendships while in the act of building startups. People can pursue goals of becoming a Navy SEAL, climb Mt Everest, hunt for the Higgs-Boson, etc and cultivate friendships while spending time on activities that require intense focus.

>For whatever reason — maybe it’s generational — today’s founders feel the need to be the hero of their own inner narratives. For them, start-ups embody a kind of happy confluence of making a lot of money, changing the world, showing everyone how smart and wonderful they are, and, ultimately, becoming their awesome true authentic selves.

The author has a dismissive tone using phrases like "for whatever reason", "showing everyone how smart and wonderful they are", and "becoming their awesome selves". Sure, manipulate the reader by only describing caricatures of egotism.

The author doesn't mention the other legitimate sentiments such as, "I don't to be a cog in someone else's wheel", or "I don't want to optimize algorithms to make people click on ads"[1]

The author doesn't seem to acknowledge the existence of people who will not be fulfilled with friends unless they are satisfied with what they are doing with their life. A similar scenario is a family man who isn't fulfilled by settling into a domestic routine. He has children; at best, he loves them but at worst, he's apathetic and sees them as constant reminders of ambitions that were killed. The girlfriend/wife unexpectedly got pregnant and now he feels trapped.

[1]http://www.fastcompany.com/3008436/takeaway/why-data-god-jef...