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While there are many books out there with excellent and relevant knowledge for the founding CEO... I'd love to know some of your's book suggestions for aspiring Tech Founder-CEO.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> Employees want to work 5-10 years max and end up with millions to retire peacefully while working in an intense environment This sounds like either it is an extremely unrealistic expectation or it's extremely unfair. I know lots of smart people who worked for at least 10 years in very intense startup environments and got essentially nothing out of it. Often, they have to fallback on a life of contract work for hug…
> I know lots of smart people who worked for at least 10 years in very intense startup environments and got essentially nothing out of it. Often, they have to fallback on a life of contract work for huge boring corporations. Yes, it's not guaranteed by anything. I also know of cases where founder alone ended up with billions and early employees got nothing. I just see those startups as poorly executed who decided to…
It is not a zero-sum game. You win when your comrades win. The glory is not in taking it all but taking pride in what you have created and can potentially create and expand on over and over again. :)
> YCombinator has a near-blanket policy of only accepting co-founder teams (ie- no solo founders), because the data shows that solo founders rarely succeed. The emotional burden is just too high. But YC application FAQ states that this is not true. Although practically speaking from speaking to other startups, I have noticed that only startups with co-founders made it to the final round. This is just based off my exp…
I read the comments before clicking the link, and found myself agreeing with commenters who complained about this line: > In addition, if people are working less than 8-10 productive hours per day, then they are clearly not being as productive as they could be. I almost dismissed the book as a "yet another VC-driven, work-your-people-to-burnout story" but really, there's more to that. I've found it an excellent read…
I feel like there’s an ‘all or nothing’ attitude recently around starting a business which doesn’t make sense to me. Either you’re making millions and have 100 employees or nothing. I work in a company that has 5-10 employees, nobody is working their ass off and there’s steady income and gradual growth. Our CEO is not a millionaire, but he enjoys his work and the company he works for. There is no plans for fast growt…
I feel like there’s an ‘all or nothing’ attitude recently around starting a business which doesn’t make sense to me. Either you’re making millions and have 100 employees or nothing. I work in a company that has 5-10 employees, nobody is working their ass off and there’s steady income and gradual growth. Our CEO is not a millionaire, but he enjoys his work and the company he works for. There is no plans for fast growt…
You’re on a website which is run by an arm of a prominent venture capital firm. What did you expect? Us all talking about the successful McDonald’s franchisee in Wichita, Kansas? You’re consuming news from a portion of the overall economy where there are high stakes, big bets and a lot of money involved. Outsized, massive multi-billion dollar outcomes are the name of the entire game. That’s why you get that feeling.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You’re on a website which is run by an arm of a prominent venture capital firm. What did you expect? Us all talking about the successful McDonald’s franchisee in Wichita, Kansas? You’re consuming news from a portion of the overall economy where there are high stakes, big bets and a lot of money involved. Outsized, massive multi-billion dollar outcomes are the name of the entire game. That’s why you get that feeling.
I think you're wrong. There's lots of people here who want to build massive businesses at scale and believe VC is the right way to go, but that doesn't mean people can't also see the benefits of going more slowly. If you read HN a lot you start to see people here have huge amounts of respect for people who bootstrap their businesses. Comments from the likes of candyjapan, idlewords, and patio11 about their journeys p…
Yeah, there’s other stuff here too. But there’s a huge bias towards startups compared to the rest of the world.
I read the comments before clicking the link, and found myself agreeing with commenters who complained about this line: > In addition, if people are working less than 8-10 productive hours per day, then they are clearly not being as productive as they could be. I almost dismissed the book as a "yet another VC-driven, work-your-people-to-burnout story" but really, there's more to that. I've found it an excellent read…
I track my productivity very assiduously. For some tasks, such as writing, it is next to impossible to be productive for more than 5-6 hours/day. Your brain gives up after a while.
I feel like there’s an ‘all or nothing’ attitude recently around starting a business which doesn’t make sense to me. Either you’re making millions and have 100 employees or nothing. I work in a company that has 5-10 employees, nobody is working their ass off and there’s steady income and gradual growth. Our CEO is not a millionaire, but he enjoys his work and the company he works for. There is no plans for fast growt…
Contrary to many responses, the drive for growth is a consequence of human psychology and hence how things evolve in business. Humans are fundamentally dissatisfied creatures, and this translates into ever-increasing hunger for profit in businesses.
As a business owner, you cannot decide in isolation that you want to not grow because that decision is impacted by your competitors and customers. If your competitors decide to grow really big, your small business will get threatened. This is exactly what's happening with Amazon. A mom-and-pop shop may be happy not growing, but it's at the risk of not existing at all.
Earlier I had similar thoughts of "why grow", but now I understand better. I wrote about this in a blog post: https://growth.wingify.com/startup-complacency-the-flip-side...