Suffering From Depression? Don't Do That Start-up

> For some reason start-ups are a magnet for people that suffer from depression.

I posit: it's hard to hold a steady job while suffering from untreated depression. (Or ADD. Or social anxiety. Or any number of other things.)

Between your (inevitably short) periods of employment, you tinker. Tinkering leads to projects, projects become startups, and--if you're good at what you do--before you know it, you're under a ton of stress.

I don't know what the solution is, but just telling people who have mental illnesses not to start start-ups isn't it. Frequently, a startup is their option of last resort--since the working world has already failed them.

Overall good advice, but I don't know if completely dissuading someone with a history of depression from founding a startup works. There's no reason you can't succeed, it's just that the risk of failure (or runaway success) can be dangerous without support.

The main point people miss when someone goes about with a startup idea is that most of the time, it's just you.

There's rarely a saftey net, often no co-founders, and sometimes not even anyone else to confide in. Well, not if you want to show weakness and still have any investors left. That's an awfully lonely and frightening place to be for someone who doesn't have a history of depression, so the condition will only compound the problem.

And a startup need not fail either for all of this turmoil to kick in. Often times, success has very similar consequences.

I see it the other way around. Creating a start-up is supposed to be fun and exciting as well as challenging. Someone suffering from depression starting a start-up could be a great way to get over their depression by working on something their passionate about.

I suppose there are many sides to this debate but that's just how I see it.

Perhaps a better way of phrasing this is: suffering from depression? Don't do that startup unless you have a safety net (of course, that could apply to people without depression too). Hell, I'd say that applies to doing a PhD (I'm in one right now) or anything that does mean you have to deal with a lot of ambiguity on your own. In those situations it's all too easy for even the most mentally secure person to start neglecting themselves in the service of the work (mentally, emotionally, psychologically, physically), potentially to disastrous effects.

> The statistics being what they are

What statistics? You occasionally read about startup employees or (co-)founders killing themselves, that's not a statistic. What's the rate compared to non-startup jobs? Suicide is a problem across the board.

If someone is suffering from depression but has even a weak desire to do a startup, I'm not so sure encouraging them to take that job at BigCo is really good advice. A lot of people found or work for startups or small companies simply because they can't stand the corporate dynamics at BigCo, whether it's not being responsible for enough things and feeling like you have no impact, or doing boring things day after day, or bad management and bosses, or something else--if you feel like you wouldn't like a corporate job and you're already depressed, getting that job at a stable company is just going to aggravate you further. The academic world isn't necessarily better; if the games you need to play as a funded researcher aren't to your taste, that too will aggravate you.

Maybe instead of saying "stay away from startups" I'd argue "stay away from startups with an explicit goal of getting big or really rich fast", or more simply "stay away from Extreme Startups". Perhaps encouraging a focus on lifestyle businesses is a better approach?