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AI Startup Founders Tout a Winning Formula–No Booze, No Sleep, No Fun

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Re: AI Startup Founders Tout a Winning Formula–No Booze, No Sleep, No Fun

#21

Don't take your health and lifestyle advice from start-up founders, episode 36. Elizabeth Holmes writes the same kind of nonsense. It's just an attempt to pass themselves off as exceptional beings who owe their success solely to their talent and iron discipline. I don't know anyone who can keep going in the long term by neglecting their sleep and their physical and mental health.

Most of these founders are performative. It's like the rash of cringey overproduced startup videos, just meant to try to get eyeballs in a time where sadly startup founders are trying less to be good at tech and more to be cluely-like marketers. I hope to see us get back to people who love tech and building and let those folks move back to different fields.

Re: AI Startup Founders Tout a Winning Formula–No Booze, No Sleep, No Fun

#22

I worked crazy hours in my early 20s because I liked it. I liked computers, I liked my team, and to be frank, I had not much else to do. If I went home early, I would be spending time on the internet anyway. But the thing is, unless you're building your own business, it just doesn't matter. No one will remember this in five years. In a corporate environment, every doc, every line of code you wrote will be replaced or…

Well said.

The reality is, unless youre working on something that is actually revolutionary and positively going to impact humanity (which is rare I know) - who cares? Many people get wrapped up in their identity for work and its pretty sad. Little do they realise, they play straight into the hands of those who want them to be a productive asset and nothing more.

Re: AI Startup Founders Tout a Winning Formula–No Booze, No Sleep, No Fun

#24
I noticed there is zero mention of burnout in the article, which is exactly what every one of these founders will get if they keep pushing at the crazy pace they are going at, and highlights the problem with this kind of mentality.

Burnout is a bitch, at least in my case it felt like I developed ADHD. Couldn't focus on anything, couldn't remember things that were said at meetings. I managed to pull back and now things are fine but had I not I probably would have been fired from my job.

Beyond that my other thought is more philosophical: which is there is more to life than just work. I sympathize deeply with these founders because I had a mentality that was just like theirs. That mentality started to change once I met my now wife and we started building our life together. She and many of our friends are from Brazil and they taught me that the grind/hussle culture described in this article is very much an American phenomenon and everyone else is on the outside looking in going "what in the hell are those folks doing???".

When I started my company before I met my wife the goal was a billion dollar exit, private jets and super yachts and the idea that my company could become a tech behemoth. Now that vision has largely shifted to "I just want a small business that pads my income and maybe lets me buy a few toys"

Re: AI Startup Founders Tout a Winning Formula–No Booze, No Sleep, No Fun

#25
post #19

Don't take your health and lifestyle advice from start-up founders, episode 36. Elizabeth Holmes writes the same kind of nonsense. It's just an attempt to pass themselves off as exceptional beings who owe their success solely to their talent and iron discipline. I don't know anyone who can keep going in the long term by neglecting their sleep and their physical and mental health.

Well, in what other way could they justifify the compensation they ask for?

What compensation are you talking about? Most founders make very little.

Re: AI Startup Founders Tout a Winning Formula–No Booze, No Sleep, No Fun

#26

Don't take your health and lifestyle advice from start-up founders, episode 36. Elizabeth Holmes writes the same kind of nonsense. It's just an attempt to pass themselves off as exceptional beings who owe their success solely to their talent and iron discipline. I don't know anyone who can keep going in the long term by neglecting their sleep and their physical and mental health.

100% this

Re: AI Startup Founders Tout a Winning Formula–No Booze, No Sleep, No Fun

#27
post #2

No Booze is the only item on this list that is helpful (as someone who has been the personal coach to Unicorn Founders over the last 20+ years, currently with a waitlist). For certain, the elimination of all alcohol will help everyone achieve more in life. If this triggers you, consider you may have a drug problem. No Sleep kills your energy and productivity. You need proper sleep to be your best. Could you imagine a…

> For certain, the elimination of all alcohol will help everyone achieve more in life. If this triggers you, consider you may have a drug problem. Oh please. What a puritanical take. There is nothing wrong with the moderate consumption of alcohol - a glass of wine a week is hardly dependency.

Unfortunately, theres been enough recent papers that indicate alcohol is a carcinogen that causes various types of cancers (colorectal, breast, liver, mouth, voice box, throat and esophageal). And evidently even small amounts raise this carcinogenic risk.

I'll still cook with red wine/meat sauces and white wine/seafood. But at least right now, am reconsidering any alcohol past 20%.

Just look up alcohol cancer risk. Tons of articles from reputable journals. Emotional or religious crap doesn't get me to accept. Science does, and it seems to corroborate. Even if you leave out US government sources for potential compromise of ethics, there are still a great deal of primary journal sources.

https://www.mdanderson.org/newsroom/most-americans-unaware-o...

Long story short: dont drink alcohol.

Re: AI Startup Founders Tout a Winning Formula–No Booze, No Sleep, No Fun

#29
post #9

It's incredible that we're at a point where people here feel the need to argue – apparently in all seriousness – that sleep and fun are important. As if that was something not self-evident. And I mean intrinsically, of course, not just as a means to help produce more value for shareholders.

There were people on here the other day arguing earnestly that women should get jobs and pay for childcare because it would improve their contribution to GDP.
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