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What no one talks about when running and selling a business

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Re: What no one talks about when running and selling a business

#31

Post by espeed »

wickawic wrote: post #11
pcunite wrote: post #6

Material things do not make people happy, at all. This! This is the found God moment everyone needs to come to. We will all die. You had better get your eternity in order. Answer that call within, and go find the true "why" that is eating at you on the inside. Read Acts 2:38.

It is worth noting that you can also find fulfillment in intangible things that are not religiously oriented. Teaching/taking courses, artistic endeavors, and volunteering come to mind.

"Repent" properly translated means metanoia, the journey of changing one's mind, heart, self or way of life. It's the journey that converges towards love and truth.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metanoia_(theology)

Re: What no one talks about when running and selling a business

#33

Post by slackstation »

alpha_squared wrote: post #23
paulsutter wrote: post #16

The brutally honest truth about this guy is that he's an insecure prick who loves boasting > Only 0.4% of all businesses make it to $10M in annual revenue. We made it almost halfway through...When I sold my startup, we had 100 people working with us. > Unfortunately, I no longer have very many friends... > ...Tesla...$300 pairs of jeans, $450 pairs of boots, concrete countertops...trips to New Zealand no longer bothe…

I understand how it can come out that way, but I didn't read it that way. He's genuinely trying to straddle the fine line between being honest about recognizing where he is and how he's perceived while simultaneously acknowledging his accomplishments. It's not easy to walk that line. I see the author coming from a humbled, almost despairing perspective. That _despite_ his accomplishments, which he lists for emphasis,…

It isn't that he isn't trying. It's that it's clear that despite trying, he still isn't seeing it.

He talks about being a "pretty good" listener but, not catching the fact that people he respects and admires feel like he's constantly talking down to them.

It's an easy trap to fall into and I imagine a hard one to get out of (not because I'm not an asshole but, because I'm not rich enough to say that I'm in his position).

He just clearly doesn't understand himself. Startup culture looks at this thing called exiting as the very hard thing that very few people do sucessfully and then we look at the few that do it as some kind of oracle. We want answers to hard questions and automatically think that people that achieved success have found it.

Maybe he isn't this business savant and maverick. Maybe he just got lucky and the momentum of that took him over the line into success. I'm not saying it was easy but, maybe his success isn't because of the things he thinks it is.

Re: What no one talks about when running and selling a business

#34

Post by jacquesm »

I don't see the correlation between 'being an asshole' and 'sold my start-up'.

There are plenty of successful entrepreneurs that are perfectly capable of relating to others and treating their fellow men, friends and family with dignity and respect.

Some people succeed because they're playing nice with others, some succeed in spite of not being able to do so, some even succeed because they are are assholes.

There is no correlation here and you probably won't be able to extract many lessons from this piece, no one talks about it because it isn't a particularly common experience.

Wealth does not typically turn assholes in to non-assholes.

Re: What no one talks about when running and selling a business

#35

Post by gydfi »

hkmurakami wrote: post #17
gydfi wrote: post #14

> Material things do not make people happy, at all. Everybody says this, all the time. I would like to propose the controversial theory that actually material things do make people happy, at least within certain constraints. When I was younger I had shitty cheap material things which made me unhappy. Now I have better stuff which makes me happier. I used to have a shitty unairconditioned apartment. That made me unhap…

I think OP's line is hyperbole, and that you're both getting at the same thing in the end. Once you do remove your sources of baseline discomfort, material upgrades above that level don't move the needle much anymore.

I'm not convinced the baseline is that low, I think most middle class people still have discomfort or inconvenience which could be removed.

For instance I now sit in a comfy chair at home, but when I fly somewhere I'm stuck being uncomfortable in economy.

And then there's the big one: I have to go to work, every day, whether I feel like it or not. Inconvenient!

Re: What no one talks about when running and selling a business

#37

Post by jacquesm »

pcunite wrote: post #6

Material things do not make people happy, at all. This! This is the found God moment everyone needs to come to. We will all die. You had better get your eternity in order. Answer that call within, and go find the true "why" that is eating at you on the inside. Read Acts 2:38.

All? No thanks. I'll take my life as it is and live it the best I can rather than to live for promises of eternity that most likely are nonsense. It's perfectly possible to find balance in your life without religion, which destroys as often as it heals.

Re: What no one talks about when running and selling a business

#38

Post by hkmurakami »

slackstation wrote: post #33
alpha_squared wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand how it can come out that way, but I didn't read it that way. He's genuinely trying to straddle the fine line between being honest about recognizing where he is and how he's perceived while simultaneously acknowledging his accomplishments. It's not easy to walk that line. I see the author coming from a humbled, almost despairing perspective. That _despite_ his accomplishments, which he lists for emphasis,…

It isn't that he isn't trying. It's that it's clear that despite trying, he still isn't seeing it. He talks about being a "pretty good" listener but, not catching the fact that people he respects and admires feel like he's constantly talking down to them. It's an easy trap to fall into and I imagine a hard one to get out of (not because I'm not an asshole but, because I'm not rich enough to say that I'm in his positi…

He's far from the only person who's had to struggle through this. I give him the benefit of the doubt that he sincerely does not want to be seen as a rich asshole.

His wealth is still very new to him and there's an adjustment process. Both individuals and entire nations go through this adjustment process of newfound wealth. It gets to your head and it takes some time to work it out of your system, counting your mistakes each time you "slip up" and show your materialistic, vain side again and again. But if his desire to be a decent guy who happened to work hard and made it, then he'll figure things out for himself.

Re: What no one talks about when running and selling a business

#39

Post by danilocesar »

Ignoring a bit all that I'm-a-successful-Ceo, when most of the "people that mean the most to you" are saying that you are an asshole, take the advise: probably you're. Money doesn't necessary play a hole here. My bet is that you were an asshole before being a milionare. Check with those 'old friends that understand you'.
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