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While I was reading this, I kept making a mental translation of the word "startup" into "grad school" (especially the bit about being 30 and single, due to the seven previous years of 80-hour weeks). It held together just as well. I'm no defender of the blind optimism that goes along with the startup universe, but there are certainly less lucrative ways to waste the best years of your life.
Really good programmers also need to consider other opportunity costs. Linus and the world are better off because he has pretty much stuck with Linux through thick and thin, and never got heavily involved in running a startup. Tcl started going downhill when Ousterhout did Scriptics (although he did make lots of money). Some people are better off focusing 100% on tech, in other words.
I enjoyed the article. I have to say, though, and this is totally unrelated to the article itself, that this is one of those pieces where I've thought--hey, I'd like to get in touch with this guy--and yet there's no way to do it directly. I may be the only one who still prefers to communicate specifically with one person directly from time to time, rather than via public comments, blog posts, walls, and the like, but…
Definitely a lot of truth in this article, but Matt barely acknowledges the advantages to doing startups. I also think that he's way too pessimistic about things like maintaining friendships and finding things to do after cashing out -- both of those are probably a lot easier than he describes.
Recently re-reading pg's How To Make Wealth [1] made me wonder if this will soon become an outdated view of startups. The factors leading to the current and predicted rise in the number of startups (free software, cheap hardware, less personnel) should also lead to a large broading of the spectrum of failure success.
The startup world has until recently been determined by its capital-intensive, high-risk nature - big money chasing big rewards. But the new dynamics may leave room for a lot of diversity in between, and consequently a lot more working on some kind of startup. 37 signals can be seen as exemplary of the other extreme to a go-big-or-die startup: founders and employees accept less risk, less pressure and more life for a higher chance of reward, though a lower expected reward. I think there will be a lot of middle ground: a lot of investors willing to accept less risk for lower return, and a whole lot more people will choose lower rewards for a more comfortable life, and better chance of success.
[1] [http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html] "The all-or-nothing aspect of startups was not something we wanted. Viaweb's hackers were all extremely risk-averse. If there had been some way just to work super hard and get paid for it, without having a lottery mixed in, we would have been delighted. We would have much preferred a 100% chance of $1 million to a 20% chance of $10 million, even though theoretically the second is worth twice as much. Unfortunately, there is not currently any space in the business world where you can get the first deal."
Startups tend to be fairly binary, with you making either a very large amount off of them or nothing at all. Recently re-reading pg's How To Make Wealth [1] made me wonder if this will soon become an outdated view of startups. The factors leading to the current and predicted rise in the number of startups (free software, cheap hardware, less personnel) should also lead to a large broading of the spectrum of failure s…
The problem still largely remains though. A venture backed company still has a lot more money than a bootstrapped one, and that still translates into a big advantage, even though database software is now free rather than $100k.
While I was reading this, I kept making a mental translation of the word "startup" into "grad school" (especially the bit about being 30 and single, due to the seven previous years of 80-hour weeks). It held together just as well. I'm no defender of the blind optimism that goes along with the startup universe, but there are certainly less lucrative ways to waste the best years of your life.
My perception was that it's much harder to fail at grad school.
While I was reading this, I kept making a mental translation of the word "startup" into "grad school" (especially the bit about being 30 and single, due to the seven previous years of 80-hour weeks). It held together just as well. I'm no defender of the blind optimism that goes along with the startup universe, but there are certainly less lucrative ways to waste the best years of your life.
My perception was that it's much harder to fail at grad school.
Startups tend to be fairly binary, with you making either a very large amount off of them or nothing at all. Recently re-reading pg's How To Make Wealth [1] made me wonder if this will soon become an outdated view of startups. The factors leading to the current and predicted rise in the number of startups (free software, cheap hardware, less personnel) should also lead to a large broading of the spectrum of failure s…
I think this is already happening somewhat thanks to Google's penchant for making a lot of small acquisitions, and other companies following their lead. The problem still largely remains though. A venture backed company still has a lot more money than a bootstrapped one, and that still translates into a big advantage, even though database software is now free rather than $100k.
The current economic turmoil may even help speed the process up somewhat, as investors seek to minimize risk.