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Comment by te_chris | Hacker News Reader

I really like this, but I can't help but think that encouraging young people to throw away the best time of their lives being startup founders has been a massive mistake and will be looked back on as stupid by future generations.

I tried it, thought I wanted it, but when it failed the relief that I could keep fucking up and partying was immense. Some friends are now very successful founders, and while they say they're happy, that they don't regret spending their youth 'businessing', this is always said with a pang of insincerity.

There's no right way to live your life, and people will take different paths, but more and more it seems like the myth of founder, the desirability of it, is a farce sold by VC's who want to turn £2 million into a 10x google acquisition.

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In one sense, the fact that you can "keep fucking up and partying" is exactly what makes it the perfect time to be a startup founder. To paraphrase Jeff Foxworthy, you can lose everything you own and you're only out $15.

I'm 38 and I'm just now trying to get my own business off the ground, for an idea I had back in 2003. I registered the domain and ran it as a side gig, but there wasn't a viable business back then. Now SaaS and cloud services are more mainstream, there's a lot more potential to develop the idea. The only downside being that now I have to balance a family life and a career path along with it.

>To paraphrase Jeff Foxworthy, you can lose everything you own and you're only out $15.

You can also lose your mental/physical health, family/friends, love life

This is true. But you can do that at 40 too. At 20, you've got a lot more time to get back on your feet.

You can do a startup, but grow organically. No one says you need to play the VC game with crappy odds and low chances of payoffs.

Alternatively, if you need to raise investment (once you have established the model actually works) there are alternative ways to fund the business (i.e. family investment funds who want to be your longer term partner rather than flipping it in two to five years)

I'd rather take a 50% chance on owning a smaller niche business (think Convertkit) that does a few million a year, of which most profit ends up in my pocket, than playing the VC game with low odds and hoping for a $100m exit.

The only ones for whom the odds are great, are VCs. They'll make back their entire fund on one or two investments as part of their portfolio and will pocket a healthy amount of carried interest as a result, on a massive amount of money. But they're not the ones slaving away. And their management fee makes sure they're always well compensated and living well.

Actually the VCs don’t make out so well either; VC as an asset class generally underperforms the public markets. A few whales (Kleiner, Sequoia, et al) run the market, and they’re market-makers who prop up valuations and bring in other folks.

VC is a gladiatorial ring where rich people do economic battle with each other. But it’s largely zero sum with some small, highly localized gains.

Very true. To be honest, it's a bit of a crapshoot, but in comparison to other asset classes VC managers are very well compensated for the mostly meager returns they deliver.

If you're a two person VC fund managing €50m, and you return 50% in 10 years on that money, you'll make close to €5M + a €1m management fee for 4 to 7 years.

The only reason why I assume that is, is because it's not super closely aligned with the performance of the stock market (well, it sort of is -- you often need public companies to acquire some of these startups).

Right, even then you have more funds end in the red or very close to break-even than the black. It’s definitely a portfolio game.

My hypothesis is that the Unicorns need public-company levels of financing but don’t want the oversight used to have to go public to get money. But now that Goldman and SoftBank are writing $10B checks, they can also set terms favorable to late stage investors. This can wipe out many of the mid-late VC investors’ gains, but they are under pressure to take the money in the short term just to get to an exit, so they agree to it.

I actually think that what took Travis Kalinik down was the fact he diluted his early investors so much they just want to get to an IPO. That wasn’t going to happen any time soon under Travis. The sexual harassment stuff was legit, but his days were always numbered once he diluted as much as he did.

Anyway just some speculation. Would love to hear others’ opinions.

The canonical essay: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/05/12/strategy-letter-i-...

Are your twenties the “best time of your life” though? It seems to me that you can find happiness and satisfaction at almost any time in your life, if the circumstances are right. I acknowledge that in your twenties you’re more able to stay out all night and have crazy adventures.

At any rate I’ve noticed a funny thing where peers who aren’t doing startups in many cases end up working just as hard. They’re young and out there to prove themselves at FAANG or other places and they make up for their lack of experience but putting in long hours. Same with investment banking, law firms, medicine and many other careers where the path to success is paved with very hard work.

I too would hardly describe the 20s as "the best time of your life". The only thing that is undoubtedly best is the amount of physical and mental energy you have which almost feels for free because most youngsters don't really eat healthy and have an awful sleep schedule. Not to mention they barely hydrate themselves well, if at all.

Everything else is as you said -- it's never too late! I found the love of my life at 34 and discovered I can be even more energetic than in my 20s (although not for weeks on end which is actually a very good thing). And I am making more money than before because I now know my price and don't let myself be trampled all over. Examples in other areas exist.

RE: The hard work, I am not even convinced hard work is strongly correlated to any amount of success. Once an organization commoditizes its way to success, most creative people like designers and senior programmers eventually become miserable and move away because there's zero career and financial growth for them in the organization.

I honestly believe that no matter what you do, if you think about it, you're going to regret it.

No startup? "Maan, I wished I would have done more with my youth!" Startuping? "Maan, I wished I would have done more with my youth!"

My problem is going to be 'not traveling' when I was young.

Traveling sucks. Expensive. Time consuming. I feel unhealthy. I get to see a bunch of physical monuments and experience cultures that I dont understand.

I enjoy traveling when I'm already there, its been 2 days where I'm not jet lagged and the non-american sizes of protein havent taken a physical toll on me.

So I'll prob regret it the next time ISIS destroys some roman building, but I have a life I consider a 9/10 or 10/10

I'll have a confession here that will make me sound like an asshole. I used to love to travel, alone. I went, made summary plans or even spontaneous ones, savored the place, got lost, walked a lot, got into weird situations, interacted with the locals.

Then I got a girlfriend. I love her, but now I don't like traveling anymore. Now traveling means, plans, finding the _optimal_ place to stay, everything has to be settled beforehand, the housing has to have some standard of decency, now we have _objectives_ and no time for spontaneous whims.

I can definitely hear my wife saying while smiling at you: "Then you don't have the right girlfriend".

Let that not sound like me being an asshole. But your true love would follow you everywhere and overcome the hardships of spontaneous travel with you.

However, people truly loving each other while having drastically different interests is also an undeniable fact of life. Maybe you should just periodically travel alone, without her?

Maybe that's just a different kind of life, I guess?

Exactly. This is related to The Deathbed Fallacy, discussed recently in another post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17112241

Completely agree with this. I was raised on the 'follow your dreams', 'hustle every day' flavour of kool aid that defines being an ambitious, young developer right now. Slowly I phased out weekends, sex, friends, conversation, stories, and almost everything that is supposed to mark your early twenties. Once the early stage startup I was with failed, I realized how one-dimensional I'd become, and how unhappy I had been during my 'dream job'. Sure, if you become a multi-millionaire, then it all seems worthwhile in retrospect. However, when most startups fail, you need deeper motivation than just a sliver of a chance at wealth and fame. I couldn't find that motivation.

In a way, choosing to be an entrepreneur made me appreciate the stability and cadence of a 'normal' life. This over-glamourized blood bath of startup culture makes people commit years of their life to being unhappy - for the chance to make their 'dream' come true, assuming that their dream will even make them happy once they achieve it. It's a little fucked up, to be honest.

"...throw away the best time of their lives"

I would find this characterization depends heavily on the person. I'm much more happier at pushing 40 than when I was in my 20:s.

"the relief that I could keep fucking up and partying was immense"

I would rephrase that: People are happiest when they can be true to their inner self and are able to do those things which bring them pleasure.

Not all people enjoy parties, for example...

There is a flip side to this: wishing you hadn't partied away your youth and instead actually tried to do something meaningful or productive.

Surely this is a false dichotomy no? The alternative to some "CEO of some internet company" isn't "party away your youth." Perhaps you are creative and really want to be involved in creating movies, music. Some people enjoy hardcore technical work and don't wish to "elevate" to the point of CEO and want to do research.

This, this is why I love HN, logical people making good points

>wishing you hadn't partied away your youth and instead actually tried to do something meaningful or productive.

So Im 27 and Ive been spending almost every moment outside of work, programming.

At least 1 night of the week, me and the wife go to a party, and our lifestyle usually forces us out of the house 1-2 other times during the weekend.

Ive considered this, I could spend every other moment of my week playing video games or going to party.

I kinda am bored of most video games until I get really into it. But the same can be said about programming.

I enjoy parties, but its usually based on the people rather than the drugs. That said, the people are often miss and the drugs I can do while I program.

Here is my current outlook: Programming is always interesting and it is often fun. Parties are rarely interesting and is often fun. My wife is interesting and fun. Bacon is fun. Diet Caffeine free Coke is fun.

My conclusion, enjoy what you enjoy, enjoy being productive, enjoy the physical pleasures. I find video games and netflix an inferior method.

Just out of curiosity, what do you write? (i.e. web apps, embedded systems, C/assembly/scripting langs.) What drugs do you take? (unless this is too personal to ask)

I am an engineer by day, then I run a few projects at night.

App isnt cryptocurrency, but the concept is to make ETFs spendable on a debit cards and peer to peer. App is a react-native javascript full stack with redux, php laravel and mysql.

We also run a charity, Kids In Kitchens and I run Efficiency is Everything.

Drugs? I cycle caffeine and weed every 3-4 months to maximize productivity. Been doing this for about 3 years and I can pull off a 70-80 hour work week. I sew clothes for recreation/withdrawal periods.

I'd give my lifestyle a 9/10 or 10/10. My programming skills automated lots of my day job and I really like my SO.

I really like your current life state as you've mentioned it. I've saved to wonder if that's (perhaps in part) my life goal.

I'm in my late 20s, maybe a reasonable time to think where I want to land up or the journey I want to take :). (Edit:Wow I reread your post, you're about the same age as I am)

Thanks for sharing this :)

Ya, it's tough. The best time to do startup stuff is when you're young, IMO. When you are older, you have many more obligations (bills) and it's hard to just take a few months off to build an idea.

I don't know about 20 though. I was busy chasing girls and drinking beer. Maybe 25 would be better. I wised up a little by then.

> I can't help but think that encouraging young people to throw away the best time of their lives being startup founders has been a massive mistake

The best time of any person's life is not necessarily on their twenties. If that were the case, most people should just call it quits never having achieved anything. Maybe I'm just telling myself this since I'm about to turn 30, but in the other hand, I just don't think being young is particularly good for anything interesting to me.

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