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Comment by onion2k | Hacker News Reader

Greg is the guy you need. Not necessarily the guy you want to be.

I don't think that's true. At least at the beginning, a "Greg" will be the person who has all the direct contact with mentors, investors, team, suppliers, and customers. A "Greg" will be the "business face" of things (not necessarily who the public see, but who everyone else sees). That's a very good position to be in when things fail or when the company exits.

CEOs go on to start something new. CTOs start interviewing for a new role. People who are a "Greg" find offers coming to them.

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> Greg is the guy you need. Not necessarily the guy you want to be.

(I am Greg, and am reasonably happy to be me.)

I think this reply is true. But even that aside, the startup philosophy that guides me is variance maximization. So yes, when starting something new and pouring your heart into it, you have a chance of having nothing concrete to show for yourself in a few years. But if you succeed, the magnitude will be much greater, and you'll have been a core force in making that happen.

I worked on a number of startup ideas in college, which never went anywhere. The first company I worked on that had any sort of success was Stripe (which I joined when we were 4 people). I've taken an identical approach (hard work and trying to cover the entire problem surface area) to each organization I've been a part of, and am pretty happy with recommending it as a general strategy.

> "trying to cover the entire problem surface area"

Could you elaborate on that?

I'm guessing Greg means handling a problem / process end to end. Not saying "I'll just do the initial phone screens when recruiting candidates" but just doing the whole thing without passing the buck to someone else.

So having worked way too hard on my startup only to have it fail, I can somewhat relate to this (I do not pretend to be as amazing as Greg). You're right - after my startup failed people were throwing what were objectively great job offers at me. Even more amazing, many of my investors were encouraging me to start another company and were willing to give me fantastic terms just for agreeing to start a company (entirely at the idea stage I could raise 7 digits at an 8 digit valuation with no strings attached from investors I already knew to be great people).

This ignores the mental toll that exhausting yourself on a company takes though. There are lots of people that start companies, but many people quit when the going gets tough. Those that commit everything to it are praised when they succeed but mostly forgotten when they don't. I am just now recovering after several months of not working, catching up on years of lost sleep, and basically becoming a person again.

There are days when I regret it and there are days when I don't. I learned a hell of a lot and I recognize it has opened doors for me, but the real question is was it worth it? And that's going to be different for everybody.

An important note, which is particularly relevant for HN. Paul Graham once said Sam Altman was the right person working on the wrong problem (with regards to his company Loopt). I bet there are a lot of people like that who just commit themselves to the wrong thing.

I learned a hell of a lot and I recognize it has opened doors for me, but the real question is what it worth it?

If you learnt even one thing from the effort, then it was worth it. Not every endeavor will bring you financial rewards, at least not directly. If you took on the effort because you loved the idea, rewards will flow via other means.

It has nothing to do with money. It's about ruining your life trying to make something work that just isn't going to work. I put my company before friends, family, and my health.

It's easy after-the-fact to see that, but it's hard to know when it's happening. Possibly the most celebrated entrepreneur is Elon Musk, and I don't think there's any question he put his company before his personal life multiple times in order to succeed. But how many other people have done that and then failed? It can leave you as a shell of your former self.

Everybody talks about the upside. Nobody wants to talk about the downside.

I just went through one episode myself, so I know how it feels. For a couple of months, it was as if my skull was empty, that there was nothing there. It's an emptiness that's tough to describe.

But this is the point of life! The experience.

Now I'm onto something else.

There has to be this drive to do something different, something that you love and that will make a difference. Sometimes it takes more than one try to find that one thing.

It's the modern form of a luta continua, vitória é certa. How else would you succeed if you don't try, and fail, and fail...

That, or stick with your day job, even if it bores you to death.

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