This reminds me strongly of the original dot-com boom/bust around 2000. Working at a venture-funded startup with flashy launch parties, huge payroll and sprawling office space on Park Avenue. We knew it wouldn't last, so we enjoyed the moment while we could.
The last day
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Re: The last day
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree, but I do think there is more to it than a sunk cost fallacy at work, though that part certainly plays a large role. In my case, the first year doing the startup was absolutely miserable, it was indescribably bad from an economical standpoint. Then, things picked up and for the first time we got the feeling that we could actually accomplish our ambitious plans. We identified personally with our "specialness",…
I absolutely agree that there's a swirling mess of emotions and impulses around giving up and walking away and declaring it over. I was, rationally, absolutely in the clear that it was time to walk away from my own experience. But I still deal with a certain emotional residue around doubts about my decision and worries about how the others think of me.
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Re: The last day
#53This is EXACTLY how I felt with my first start-up Free.TV It took me years to get over the failure and actually learn from it. But while I am more wise now in my new startups, it makes me realize maybe they may not be as a "big Idea" or that perhaps I am now too cautious and so may not be as successful. Thank you for putting my feelings in such a clear story.
Re: The last day
#54The amount of privilege built into this "painful failure" is disquieting. Here's a person whose biggest problem in life appears to be that he's in debt and, for the moment, unemployed. But: he was the CEO of a company funded to the tune of 8xFTE, and can thus almost certainly walk into hundreds of VP/Product Management or Business Development roles immediately, all of which will pay him more than any of his technical employees. Employees who are also, let's please face it, immensely privileged.
I wouldn't care, except that towards the end someone texts him and he angrily pouts that nobody can know his pain. Well, it's not for me to judge, right. But as someone who does in fact believe that people have an immortal soul, I would say that that whatever the universal spirit or cosmic order or divine intent that unites our existance is, it should probably not be taunted with statements like "you cannot know the pain of someone who was the CEO of a tech company shutting down his office for the last time before hunting for a job in the hottest sector of the entire economy", because that universal whatever might take the time to show you what it's like to be the 48-year-old employee of a midwest factory being shut down.
I had a neighbor who's kid --- a great kid, from what I can tell --- brought a pocketknife to school to show other kids. He was zero-tolerance expelled. My neighbor was doing OK for himself, but not OK to the extent of "could swing private school". From what I understand, that event killed it for them: they had to move, the mom and kids to one state (where the extended family lived and the school district would admit the boy) and the dad to a neighboring state to work and commute back on weekends. Do you know a lot of tech people that have had to do that? Then I'd like to suggest those people have standing to at least commiserate with the founder of a failed startup. And this is just something I saw personally; my inclination is, shit like this happens. Shit that is too boring to be the topic of a news story at the top of HN. Shit that happens to people who aren't lucky enough to be in the middle of the startup economy, and that happens approximately all the time.
Grand projects fail all the time. Open source projects die. Web communities die. Clubs wind down. Sporting teams disband. I write this so you can angrily tell me that I'm wrong: tell me what's so bad about a tech startup failing in 2012? (Let me preempt one obvious angry barb by saying that was a cofounder and investor in a VC-funded startup that failed in 2001, the "nuclear winter").
Please: I'm not saying that startup people are so lucky that they're not allowed to be unhappy when their companies fail. I am saying something else that is more subtle than that.
Re: The last day
#55The amount of privilege built into this "painful failure" is disquieting. Here's a person whose biggest problem in life appears to be that he's in debt and, for the moment, unemployed. But: he was the CEO of a company funded to the tune of 8xFTE, and can thus almost certainly walk into hundreds of VP/Product Management or Business Development roles immediately, all of which will pay him more than any of his technical…
Had I but votes enough and time
Thank you, Thomas, for saving me writing a much less eloquent comment along the same lines. As a startup founder way out in the wilderness, I'm often equally amused and saddened by SV tales of woe. We must all keep reminding ourselves of the '48-year-old employee of a midwest factory being shut down', and try to keep a proper perspective on values.
Re: The last day
#56The amount of privilege built into this "painful failure" is disquieting. Here's a person whose biggest problem in life appears to be that he's in debt and, for the moment, unemployed. But: he was the CEO of a company funded to the tune of 8xFTE, and can thus almost certainly walk into hundreds of VP/Product Management or Business Development roles immediately, all of which will pay him more than any of his technical…
The original article was poetic, but struck me as hollow. Had the author really experienced this, or was this just a creative writing exercise? It didn't feel genuine to me - like this is the way a company ends in the movies, not in real life.
Re: The last day
#57The amount of privilege built into this "painful failure" is disquieting. Here's a person whose biggest problem in life appears to be that he's in debt and, for the moment, unemployed. But: he was the CEO of a company funded to the tune of 8xFTE, and can thus almost certainly walk into hundreds of VP/Product Management or Business Development roles immediately, all of which will pay him more than any of his technical…
Failure is bad. Sadness is bad.
Trying to paint degrees of hopelessness on people and saying the privileged shouldn't complain is wrong. You are always the privileged to someone else.
Being happy is what everyone aspires to - and for many, it means success and doing stuff - as in creating, or as in having a job (much more important that having a salary at least to some people such as Ghandi)
The 48 yo unqualified factory worker right to happiness is just as important as your and mine - we haven't find a good way to say which persons happiness are to be prioritized.
Also, the right to happiness doesn't and shouldn't mean forced equality for everyone - some will fail, some will succeed.
But IMHO you're very wrong in your rant. You shouldn't say that what you consider "priviledged" should shut up - it almost read as if they should engage in some shadefreude, finding happiness while watching other people barely making a living. That's even worse.
You should celebrate instead that he had a chance, and wish him and every other human being to succeed in their endeavours - whatever they are.
Re: The last day
#58The amount of privilege built into this "painful failure" is disquieting. Here's a person whose biggest problem in life appears to be that he's in debt and, for the moment, unemployed. But: he was the CEO of a company funded to the tune of 8xFTE, and can thus almost certainly walk into hundreds of VP/Product Management or Business Development roles immediately, all of which will pay him more than any of his technical…
I'm not sure which part of a story about a guy whose dream crashed, whose bank account is less than empty, and whose girlfriend left made you think "I am offended that he is upset."
Re: The last day
#59I find this story extremely tragic -- not because this man's company, his dreams, failed so tremendously, but that he allowed two fundamental aspects of his adult life to fail with it. Is it the prevailing opinion in the startup community these days that building up personal debt and letting your relationships fail are worthwhile parts of starting a company, or is this, as I suspect, just a sad story about misaligned…
>> Is it the prevailing opinion in the startup community these days that building up personal debt and letting your relationships fail are worthwhile parts of starting a company, or is this, as I suspect, just a sad story about misaligned priorities? I know someone whose startup didn't work, lost his GF and was in lot of debt. He was well aware of these risks. Someone who runs a startups gives his/her everything to m…
The trade off is only personal life if you let it be. I see a lot of wannabe founders around here (Auckland) who are trying to follow the work-all-the-time, sacrifice relationships thing. This works for a couple, but those people who it works for normally tend to exhibit sociopathic tendencies anyway and would most likely be horrible people to work for once they have employees.
It's up to the individual of course, but as most of us are trying to start businesses that scale, remember that part of having a business that scales is being involved with other people who don't share your work ethic by half.
Re: The last day
#60The amount of privilege built into this "painful failure" is disquieting. Here's a person whose biggest problem in life appears to be that he's in debt and, for the moment, unemployed. But: he was the CEO of a company funded to the tune of 8xFTE, and can thus almost certainly walk into hundreds of VP/Product Management or Business Development roles immediately, all of which will pay him more than any of his technical…
I think everyone has had that moment when they think "no one knows this pain." It's easy to lose perspective when everything - from a relative perspective - looks like it's collapsing.
One could similarly make the argument that a factory worker in the midwest should get some perspective and see how bad the kids with swollen stomachs and vultures overhead have it. Obviously that's not fair.
This is a person who committed a couple of years, a good chunk of capital, and a good relationship for an idea. And on top of that, they gambled their pride - to try so hard and still fail is a defeating feeling. Especially when people around you are succeeding at the same game.
Admittedly this is all presumptuous, but that's the point. For all we know this could be a work of fiction. Or the author might have struggled through all of this and then some. It seems similarly presumptuous too to conclude that the author has a privileged perspective.