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Comment by danieltillett | Hacker News Reader

Sam has a job I would not want - the don't f-up YC job. The stress that has to go with this must be enormous.

Actually it's surprisingly not stressful--one interesting thing I've learned is that, at least for myself, job stress and burnout comes from something not going that well (e.g. my old startup), not from being super busy.

And to the parent comment--I'm fine, thanks for the concern :)

Well I am glad to hear you feel well - you do still have a job I would not want :)

That sounds right. When things weren't going well at the startups I worked at I felt crazy stressed out.

I also felt some stress when busy, but that was less because there was a lot to do and more because I had someone who was expecting it to be done in an unreasonable amount of time.

I have had two periods of great work stress times in my life - the first was when my startup was under enormous financial strain and I was doing everything I could to hustle up the money to keep the team together (2002 to 2003). This was a time of lying awake night after night wondering what to do.

The second time was different. I was working two more than full time jobs (academic and running startup that was taking off). I literally did nothing for a couple of years (2010 - 2012) but work, eat and sleep. At the time I didn't feel stressed (I was comparing how I felt with the early stress times), but I was under a lot of stress. I only realised when I quit my academic job.

Only a small portion of the world actually cares about YC. Besides as is Silicon Valley culture failure in a high profile way gets you to a better place because you have fame within the industry. I expect Marissa Mayer to easily land a plumb job at a VC firm with full partnership. (If she doesn't start one that is).

I am pretty sure Sam cares about YC. Sam would mostly likely land on his feet if YC did go down in flames, but he would not be happy if he felt he was responsible.

He wouldn't be responsible. PG choose him, so the buck would stop with the person who made the decision to entrust the family jewels to someone else. And of course Sam would not be happy to be at the helm but the other thing is that over time the market changes so we wouldn't know for sure if it wouldn't have gone down even if PG were still around. [1]

[1] Noting General Electric, Jeffrey Immelt, Jack Welsh and the collapse of the financial system that led to getting rid of finance as a profit center.

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