Comment by jackcosgrove | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jackcosgrove | Hacker News Reader

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I have experienced all of the negative emotions the OP experienced, although his seem to be more acute.

Some things which have helped me are to stop thinking about succeeding or advancing in life. Those goals are so high up most people don't even get close. OP got very close by being funded, and it sounds like the whole experience was a let-down over and above the business failure. It sounds like the OP has let go of those dreams, which is necessary especially once you know the dark side of those dreams.

Most people are just trying to survive. They have little control over their lives, and that relieves some of the self-blame when things go badly. It is okay to not be in control, to need help, to lose. That's where most people are. You have friends and allies.

Now that you know how the system works, would you feel better about yourself had you succeeded? Would you feel guilty?

I think OP is being too hard on himself, and he should look back on that experience with pride. "I was good enough that they gave me a shot." You could have been a contender. You actually landed a punch.

> Now that you know how the system works, would you feel better about yourself had you succeeded? Would you feel guilty?

I think about that sometimes. Had I been one of the young optimistic CEOs running around talking about how to improve the world completely unaware of the tech underbelly, what would my life be like? If I had a button in front of me that would teleport me into that life, would I press it? I'm honestly not sure, but I'm leaning towards no. I want to learn how to integrate all this and learn to operate knowing what I know. I don't think I'd choose staying hopelessly naive for another thirty years. (Then again, I don't think they'd press the button to teleport into my life either.)

well based on that belief I think you might have your answers to why you went through this experience. you clearly value discovering both sides of things and you say you want to integrate that. The positive take I have on that is you want to integrate all of that information positive and negative into something stronger and more real. that's ultimately more creative and future looking then the CEO kiddies who just ride the wave of success.

not to pep talk at all but possibly you could be setting yourself up for something great in future. jobs had a pretty terrible time getting fired by the Soda executive.

the thinking of it this way and I'm just brainstorming here perhaps any resistance you have to moving forward with this new perspective could be related to the fact that you're comfortable with how you now see yourself. no longer the hundred percent optimist doing something positive for the world. it's a more compromised position. you're more embracing the shadow side as well. I can understand why that would be hard but depending on your path it might be useful and could be your destiny.

A lot (most?) of the responses in this thread are "learn to leave work at work, fuck greedy capitalism, enjoy your family and hobbies". And most of those responses sound to me like they come from people with a lot of unresolved resentment and cynicism. I know that I can't do that.

But my god, the integration is hard. No one really prepares you for it. The old role models don't work because they're unwittingly or deliberately blind to this. (For example, I've never heard pg talk about this, even though ycombinator is practically a factory that inputs idealistic people and outputs people with experiences like mine) Biographies cover this quite superficially; you basically never hear from the person in their darkest hour.

I'm sure many people have gone through this, but to me it really feels like uncharted waters.

> For example, I've never heard pg talk about this

I remember him writing somewhere that he does not have another startup in him - that, at best, he can now do the YC. It's kind of a hint that doing a startup sucks.

BTW you may want to try reading Jacob Fisker's "Early retirement extreme". He's an ex-astrophysicist who became disillusioned with the way modern society is organized and wrote what is essentially a philosophy book about how one can live differently.

Re pg saying that, that's sort of different to what OP is saying. It's not just a general "startups suck" or "it's hard". It's a specific critique of the structural abusiveness of the industry which pg is actually a part of propagating these days.

I hear you, it does sound super hard, never seen it addressed in the "SV lore" and you could be onto some uncharted waters, would could spell opportunity. Whaddayathink?

Good to hear you're sounding a little better, because it must be super hard to go through that.

Re pg, it's obvious to me why nobody mentions this. It's not part of the narrative, which is designed to produce useful slaves (darts) to throw at a bet (target), with a blindfold on.

If you wanna chat more about it, you can mail me crisf7e@gmail.com. I have a feeling it could be interesting.

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