Startup founders are relentless and a bit mad

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23 points·jwwest··4 comments

Entrepreneurship really shouldn't be romanticized. It's already overly romanticized in the media. It's hard work with possibly no payoff.

If your the kind of person who needs every hour of your work to be truly yours then entrepreneurship. Ie if the only way you can enjoy your work is for it to be all encompassing then this is a good gig for you.

If you want to have a life etc, this is not for you. Stay away for your own good and for the sake of your own health.

I agree and especially about your point of taking care of your health. There is no amount in the world worth sacrificing your health really. See how much you can enjoy life when you have a mild ailment such as flu.

I have been a programmer/entrepreneur since February 2003 and I have no illusion that I will become a millionaire. I am 33 right now and my own goal is simply to create a sustainable way to live. I want to avoid my nightmare scenario of being laid off in a corporate restructuring when I am 45 years old with a wife and two kids and a mortgage.

So, if you love it, then go ahead? Jump in if its the only way you can enjoy your work, if you live for it? That's exactly what romanticizing means.

I think some of us are like that, and romanticizing works for us. Others are just in it for the return, and reject poetical interpretations like the parent article. It's not bad writing, really. Just doesn't resonate with everybody.

My words were meant completely literally :). I wrote this after waking up in the middle of the night wondering where'd the base premise for my startup was baseless.

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