Note to people that know me IRL: This comment is quite personal. Feel free to read it but please bear that in mind.
I've really been trying to bite my tongue in the last 2 months but the number of articles about depression on HN is overwhelming and it's starting to bug me. A lot. And by "bug" I mean "upset, anger, and insult".
Here's some ground rules for not being insulting. It is possible to break these rules and not be insulting, but it's hard, so for a crude guide I think they are of some use:
1. If you don't and have never suffered from depression, don't tell people who do what they should and should not do.
2. Do not ascribe people's actions to their disease, nor predict them based on them having the disease.
3. Do not assume there is a correlation between depression and suicide. The connection is actually very weak, far weaker than most people assume.
4. Don't use (or even make mention of) other people's deaths for your own cause.
If you don't understand any of these, or see a need for them, please ask and I will expand.
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Specifically regarding this article, but by no means is this the worst offender in recent memory (I just feel that, out of everyone, Jacques will actually read this):
If you want to write an article saying that running a start up is very stressful in certain ways, that you need to have certain other areas of your life in order, go for it.
Don't cover it with the blanket "don't do it if you have depression".
Why?
Stress isn't linear and some people can cope with some forms of stress better than others. What would break one person another could power through. Some people stress most at the thought of being homeless and jobless, other people find the idea of being stable secure and in a rut far more stressful.
Some people who don't have depression would fold under the stress of running a startup.
Some people who do have depression would rise to the challenge. It may even help them to have more control over their situation.
So in terms of a classifier for who can run a start up, depression isn't a particularly useful variable.
On: "taking their own life because"
Just don't go there. Please. You have no idea why they did it or what was going on. How many of your friends ran startups just fine while managing depression, and you had no idea they were depressed? How many people commit suicide seemingly randomly because no one else has any idea what is really going on inside their heads?
People with depression aren't fragile timebombs that if you aren't super nice to, they will kill themselves.
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So, I've tried to keep things cool and rational so the things I am saying are hopefully sensible and self-evident. But I do want to impress upon you, Jacques, and you the reader, and especially you the HN contributor who might write an article like this in the future:
This advice is toxic. It is horrible. It is exclusionary. I suffer from depression that varies from the extreme mild end of the scale the majority of the time, all the way to the severe end of the spectrum at its worst. The one constant is that it is always present, even if in a very mild form. You are effectively telling me: "You will never make it. You don't have what it takes - some quality that I have, and you do not. Because of a disease you have due to no fault of your own, you won't make it in the startup world. Your dreams are futile and you should stick to the 9-5".
How would you react if someone had told you that some years ago, before you starting doing your thing? There are times when my reaction would be to curl up, give up, cry. Even now I am shaking not just with anger but also because I want to cry. These days though I am stronger - it is possible to have depression and yet be strong - and so my response is simple: "Fuck you. I'll do what I want."
I really hope that others reading this article have the same reaction, not because it is a good one (I would much rather the reaction be "What a useful and insightful article, I know what my next steps should be") but because it is far, far better than the alternative - to give up.