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Comment by rsp1984 | Hacker News Reader

rsp1984

> The problem I find (and one I've seen in a lot of cofounder groups) is that most of the people who want to start startups are visionaries.

It's simpler than that. Most people just prefer slacking off to working their butts off.

However it's the narcissists and sociopaths that will call their slacking off being "visionary" while the good guys either just leave or start working their butts off as everybody else. Obviously you want to pick your cofounder(s) among the latter kind.

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Working your butt off has zero to do with having a executable vision that creates value.

Clearly shit needs to get done, but there's only so many hours in the a life of a startup and being able to see what needs to be done ultimately is more important than just getting stuff done. __

"I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it."

- Bill Gates

I do not agree. A person who doesn't work their butt off usually lacks any sort of meaningful perspective derived from hard work.

"A shortcut is not shortcut, unless you know the way." - nxzero

Finding shortcuts does not require hard work, but a willingness to be different and take risks others will not.

"Someone else already knows the trade secret for the problem I'm trying to solve, but they won't tell me the solution, because I don't have lots of money. Even if they did tell me, I probably wouldn't understand it, because I lack the perspective of experience." -amorphid

"I have no idea in which direction I need to go, so I'm gonna have to work my butt off to find the right path." -amorphid

"I worked really hard, and found a solution!" -amorphid

Oh, I agree that a startup needs an executable vision. However if someone provides just the vision but doesn't put as much work in as everybody else that's an advisory role, not a co-founder role, and should be reflected in the equity distribution.

The thing is that vision is just so much easier than actually doing the grinding grunt work.

"Vision without execution is hallucination"

- Thomas Edison

Disagree. I've literally run a startup where I took an opportunity I saw, pitched it to a cofounder, got a single client, cofounder did all the work. After year, cofounder was tried of doing work, so I told them how to turn the service into a product and rapidly got five clients; after that, the cofounder didn't have to do anymore work either.

I'm not lazy, happy to do hard work, but if I see an exploitable situation I will not create work just to feel good about things.

Do exactly what needs to be done, nothing less, nothing more.

Footnote: Not a fan of Edison, he in fact was lazy, refused to change, and spent a good deal of his life literally pounding rock to no end.

Why would you exploit your cofounder into performing a disproportionate amount of work?

I didn't exploit the cofounder, I presented them with an opportunity, they were fully aware of the situation. In fact, they were excited about the project, enjoyed the work, and often bragged about it to our friends.

Beyond that, after I told him how to turn the service into a product, I turn something that without me would have had no value after they stopped into something that produced value for years without any major effort from either of us.

EDIT: Truly curious as to the reasoning behind the downvotes and would welcome a comment expressing someone's thoughts on why this comment has received 3+ downvotes.

"I've literally run a startup where I took an opportunity I saw, pitched it to a cofounder, got a single client, cofounder did all the work."

Pretty sure that's why. Also the part where "I told him how to turn the service into a product" is equated with actually doing that work.

Not saying that your contributions weren't important - I wasn't there. Maybe without you getting a client there would've been no business, and maybe your cofounder is super happy with how things turned out, too. But it does read a bit like exploitation, and it definitely raises the question of what things might have looked like if you'd bothered to work as hard as it seems like your cofounder did.

Edit: Also, I think this probably touches a nerve with HN people, many of whom dream of founding their own company and are probably scared of exactly this sort of thing happening to them, but without the happy(?) ending.

Perhaps people, and you, are underestimating the difficulty of getting that first big client.

I believe the reason you're getting downvoted is because of the casual way you reel off how easy it is to found a successful company that you can do it casually, sort of disinterestedly tossing it out of your one limp hand to your co-founding pleb who eagerly grasps at the crumbs of your genius.

In other words, you come off as an arrogant know-it-all.

You, sir, have a way with words.

You are getting downvoted because you look like someone full of themselves.

You admit you did nothing... and that your cofounder did everything... but you refuse to attribute the success of the startup to your cofounder and instead attribute the success to yourself.

You have the audacity to claim that the startup would have been worthless without you, but ignore the fact it wouldn't even exist without your cofounder.

Plus you quote yourself.

I can't down vote you, but all of the sibling comments mirror my thoughts. To me, your writing comes off as sounding quite arrogant and self-involved.

As someone working on getting rid of a cofounder like yourself, where I did all the work and they sat on the sidelines until they saw a product and then decided to reach out to get his share, this shows that you aren't as invested even though you are a cofounder. There's a reason why the "co" is there, because both people are working on founding not one person waiting for the other to do all the work so they can just throw an idea into the bucket every now and then so that they can get a piece of the end result.

because too many people think code=business...

> "Vision without execution is hallucination" - Thomas Edison

I like this one better:

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them. -- Henry David Thoreau

Both quotes are getting at pretty much the same point, I think, but the Thoreau quote is kinder, and more encouraging.

I get what you're saying, and i think the whole "you gotta work your butt off to be successful" thing is a lingering noting from workoholic culture. "How many hours you put in?" is the corporate version of "how much can you lift?" And I believe it's not exactly right; working smarter is better than just working harder. But both do entail work.

Then again, isn't there some quote about inspiration and perspiration ;)

Well, here is this about Bill Gates coding 18hrs a day in his first job. http://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2015/10/bill-gates-first-re...

Very interesting.

Perhaps if he'd managed to skip undergraduate studies straight to graduate school as adviced he'd be wrestling with hard enough problems not to think about writing programs for the upcoming PCs of the era

"you gotta work your butt off to be successful" thing is a lingering noting from workaholic culture. "

Completely false.

There are very, very few startups that are successful wherein the founders are not putting in crazy hours.

"Working your butt off has zero to do with having a executable vision that creates value."

Except that 'working your butt of has everything to do with actually executing that vision'

Google, FB, Apple, MS - founders 100% of these companies worked really, really hard to get there.

Bill Gates was notorious for pushing his people to extremes.

The thing you missing is leadership. People won't bust there ass off over and above what they are paid for a lazy person that looks to exploit them. But, if you can work your ass off and have a vision people want to follow with a whole lot of luck you might create something special.

I'm not sure I would go that far but I have always had very mediocre experiences with people who describe themselves as "visionary"

Visionary is something other people might call you after you earn it. Beware of anyone who toots their own horn like that.

I don't know about the word "visionary" or using it as some sort of self-descriptive label, but I do think it's important for the founders investing their time and effort into a startup to have a vision for what they're really trying to achieve and to dream big. That's obviously not sufficient for success, but I suspect that to some extent it is necessary, given the commitment that tends to be needed from founders and perhaps early employees and how difficult it can be to ride out the rough patches without some sort of goal you believe will be worth it in the end.

That's my heuristic -- those who call themselves "visionaries", "architects" or "coding ninjas" are usually those you have to stay away from.

I agree with you. And I also have a tendency, based on a few personal experiences, to associate self-proclaimed visionaries, with narcissistic personality disorder. And it is also my experience that, besides being very active in taking credits for other people ideas, design and work, they are typically lazy and a hindrance.

However, somehow, they're alway seems to be able to find people who will do the job for them, from bench work to CEO work, so they can call themselves successful.

There is definitely such a thing as 'architecture' role in software.

Usually they have a lot of experience, and work on larger teams where such things are necessary.

Agree. I didn't mean that the role is not there. It is more about people walking around and saying "I am the architect". I've heard that once. He wasn't joking.

There's nothing wrong with someone saying 'I'm the architect' - if that's what they really are. That said, it might be a power thing.

Now - there's more wrong in saying 'I'm an architect' - because architect really is not a profession, really. I suppose you could kind of get away with saying that if you have a lot of experience, and have been in the role of architect for some time, but it's a difficult thing to say and strains credibility if you were to put it on a resume.

> Most people just prefer slacking off to working their butts off.

Representing the individual desire to work for "most people" isn't your job or your right any more than it's my right to say your internal view of the world is totally fucked up if you think that way.

It's all well and fine to mention there are sociopaths in the industry, but colluding them with narcissists is unreasonable. Narcissism is simply the ability to externalize one's internal viewpoints in a way that tend to spread that same viewpoint to other's internal views, often at times without empathy for those who it infects. If that benefits the company, whose function is to make everyone there more money, then narcissism may a required trait of the company's leader. If someone can't accept that for themselves, then they should leave the company or never join to begin with.

The whole sociopath matter is another thing entirely. Sociopaths can be untrustworthy, which makes dealing with them problematic.

I think it's safe to say most people would rather slack off than work extremely hard.

Sometimes, rarely, people have a strong sense of purpose, or a very high level of professionalism.

But 95% of people, if they could chose to take a big salary - AND - chill and not do much, probably would.

Somebody worked their asses off to give us an immutable infrastructure on top of which our reality runs. I think rationalizing people being lazy (and speaking for their laziness) is a poor way of approaching things, unless we all just want to be lazy. If that's the case, carry on! :)

Taking a "big salary" is just a symptom of not being careful with how we implement consciousness on the Internet. Taking a moment to appreciate what one has in this moment is far more important than what one may have tomorrow.

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