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The last day

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Re: The last day

#81

Post by forrestkyle »

Boo hoo. This is emo nonsense. Life is a brutal war for survival you are going to get severely beaten down a few dozen times before you ever make it to the top. 1% of 1% have an easy route to the top. The rest take it on the chin a few times, spit out their teeth, and keep throwing punches.

You seriously can't let that much negativity into your own life. Your business failed? Cool. That same day, 30,000 kids starved to death in Africa. You learned a lot about running a business and discovered that your specific idea didn't work out.

Move on and find a new adventure. Live in the windshield, not the rear view mirror.

Re: The last day

#82

Post by tptacek »

srid68 wrote: post #80
tptacek wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think of the comment thread that would ensure from someone writing an article about not making it into Harvard or Stanford, and instead having to go to the University of Michigan. That strikes me, literally, as a comparable disappointment.

The distinction is easy to identify, is it because of desire or expectation. At heart every one knows their limitations and every one tries to hope that they can acquire more than their capability allows them to achieve naturally Expectation is not the same as desire, every one can have unreasonable desire, but expectation is more subtle. If the guy has been groomed from the earliest school days based on his/her perf…

I guess I just disagree that it's healthy for us to validate the pain of failing to achieve such high expectations. Investment bankers have high expectations too! But I'll think more about what you wrote, and thanks.

Re: The last day

#83

Post by tptacek »

monochromatic wrote: post #73
tptacek wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I salute you for posting while intoxicated. It works well for me too. It's not that the author of this post is unhappy that his startup failed. It's that he's lost perspective; that you could plausibly write a post thanking the universe for having been in a position to take a shot on the kind of company that makes vanity stickers for itself (note: founder of company w/ vanity stickers, posters, and refrigerator magne…

Fair enough. And I guess I don't actually disagree with you, not really... there is nothing tragic about a failed startup. But I'm sure it does suck plenty to have your hopes dashed like that.

It sucked when my startup failed in 2001, but in retrospect it isn't close to the worst suckages in my life. Girlfriend breakups were worse.

Thanks for listening to me, though. I obviously managed to lose you completely with my original comment. I'll think about how I managed to do that. I probably won't actually learn from it, but I'll take a shot. :)

Re: The last day

#84

Post by spindritf »

tptacek wrote: post #76
chernevik wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fuck you. I daresay my problems are somewhat worse than those of the OP's CEO. He isn't in a divorce, doesn't have kids, does he? And yeah, even if my problems are worse, they're still distinctly First World. It isn't as if I have trouble finding potable water for my kids, or have to worry about teenager "soldiers" raping my daughter. So maybe I too am Entitled. And perhaps I too should just Shut Up. But I don't thin…

Again: it's not that there are people in the world who are worse off. There are always people in the world that are worse off. Most people in the world are much worse off than most Americans. It's that most Americans are worse off than this person. This is startup exceptionalism. It is the intersection between nerd exceptionalism and the myth of the heroic entrepreneur, both of which are virulent memes in our culture…

> It's that most Americans are worse off than this person.

You're being surprisingly sensitive and insensitive at the same time. It doesn't matter that most Americans are worse off than the guy, he didn't write a report for the Census Bureau.

He saw something, had an idea, for him this idea was as good as real, and then it died. Along with everything he had invested in it which wasn't just money but probably also a good part of his self-image, reputation and ego.

The fear of failure is so powerful that most people never even try. And he had all their worst fears come true.

You know how people are terrified of public speaking? When you did that the first time, did "hey, it's no biggie" helped and assuaged your fears?

Re: The last day

#85

Post by sigkill »

tptacek wrote: post #72
srid68 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you underestimate the pain created due to expectations, Greater the expectation, greater the pain. Startups are being promoted to every one all over the world as the way to create wealth after mentioning minimally that 90 to 95% startups will fail. If i am 48 year old guy working in a Manufacturing Factory in the US, i can definitely see from far off that i may loose my job. When i can predict my outcome, i c…

Think of the comment thread that would ensure from someone writing an article about not making it into Harvard or Stanford, and instead having to go to the University of Michigan. That strikes me, literally, as a comparable disappointment.

But there's a difference still. I think it'd be better to compare it with a guy who has only applied to a single university and got rejected. Not only has he lost a year, he's also lost his pride.

Next year, he needs to start all over again. It is at this point, where he sees his friends already start college and slowly feels excluded from the 'college social circle'. We, of course know it's all in the head. But does he?

Re: The last day

#86

Post by tptacek »

spindritf wrote: post #84
tptacek wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again: it's not that there are people in the world who are worse off. There are always people in the world that are worse off. Most people in the world are much worse off than most Americans. It's that most Americans are worse off than this person. This is startup exceptionalism. It is the intersection between nerd exceptionalism and the myth of the heroic entrepreneur, both of which are virulent memes in our culture…

> It's that most Americans are worse off than this person. You're being surprisingly sensitive and insensitive at the same time. It doesn't matter that most Americans are worse off than the guy, he didn't write a report for the Census Bureau. He saw something, had an idea, for him this idea was as good as real, and then it died. Along with everything he had invested in it which wasn't just money but probably also a g…

He's not a real "he", right? We're clear that we're talking about a fictitious startup, right?

I do not think less of actual startup founders who are unhappy when their companies fail. I just do not care for this particular fictitious character and would like to push back against the veneration of his fictitious feelings, which are (fictitiously) unreasonable.

Re: The last day

#87

Post by edwinnathaniel »

tptacek wrote: post #54

The 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…

Whenever I'm down or sad, I look up to this video: http://youtu.be/H8ZuKF3dxCY and suddenly I feel better and blessed.

Re: The last day

#88

Post by spindritf »

tptacek wrote: post #86
spindritf wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's that most Americans are worse off than this person. You're being surprisingly sensitive and insensitive at the same time. It doesn't matter that most Americans are worse off than the guy, he didn't write a report for the Census Bureau. He saw something, had an idea, for him this idea was as good as real, and then it died. Along with everything he had invested in it which wasn't just money but probably also a g…

He's not a real "he", right? We're clear that we're talking about a fictitious startup , right? I do not think less of actual startup founders who are unhappy when their companies fail. I just do not care for this particular fictitious character and would like to push back against the veneration of his fictitious feelings, which are (fictitiously) unreasonable.

I don't know how fictional this account is, or how realistic the story, nor would I defend the writing style, or hn-worthiness of the article, but the feelings associated with failure do ring true.

Re: The last day

#89

Post by rhizome »

tjic wrote: post #6
rhizome wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One lesson that can be learned is to give less of yourself to a startup until they prove their worth, and that they're worth it.

I guarantee you that people who avoid working hard at their startups will never have any success that tempts them to work harder.

By "hard," do you mean 80hrs a week for half-price?

Re: The last day

#90

Post by rhizome »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #34
NathanKP wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument could be made that giving as much of yourself as possible is a crucial ingredient to making the startup worth it. After all if you are holding back the product and business isn't building itself. Of course it probably isn't healthy to make a business the center of your life, but people who do will likely have a higher chance of success in that business because they are willing to put forth a lot more eff…

Of course it probably isn't healthy to make a business the center of your life If you don't, though, you will likely be outcompeted by those who do. It's a simple, obvious truth, not a value judgement.

Are you really being outcompeted if the startup winds up going basically nowhere and you've put a year or two of huge time and opportunity costs into a failure? What if startups weren't worth it unless they were well-run enough to require very few hours over 40 from its employees?
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