Reddit: "Unbeknown to many, drug culture at startups is a huge problem." | Hacker News Reader

Reddit: "Unbeknown to many, drug culture at startups is a huge problem."

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59 pointsjoshbert43 comments

I worked at a PA startup until it was bought and moved to another location. I use Provigil and Ritalin (not at the same time), but then again I was prescribed both and am diagnosed with ADHD.

The people that I happen to know of that take ADHD medication at PA startups have also been diagnosed with ADD, and my subjective impression is that the people using these drugs are model DSM-IV examples of attention deficit. I saw plenty of heavy drinking, 'work hard play hard' mentality, drinking at work, etc. I saw almost no 'drug culture'. Maybe we were just nerds among nerds, but I doubt it.

TLDR; The reddit poster is full of crap, I haven't seen nor heard rumors of any 'pressure to do drugs' whatsoever. If anything, I could be considered as 'pressuring people' because I'll talk openly about what an amazing drug provigil is, or how much of a difference medication makes to those of us who really need it.

(Before you drown this comment: it's a serious question) Are these ADHD diagnoses and drug perscribtions an American thing? I'm not from the US and I find these articles on ADHD medications quite surprising (the ammount of cases, not the fact that someone is actually sick. And I know people with various diagnoses as well have a gf who works in a clinic.), more I hear of is taking anti-depressants or being bi-polar.

ADHD meds are fairly prevalent in the US, especially amongst children.

I’ve been through the experience of taking modafinil to get myself through 'rough patches', but then accidentally allowing it to become a daily necessity. Nevertheless, I hesitate to call it an addiction because the moment the pressure went away, the drugs did too.

I analysed the situation and concluded that my increased work capacity (due to modafinil) was the cause of my increased workload; I found myself volunteering for more work and more responsibilities because I knew I could fall back on the drug if it became too much. I wasn't addicted to modafinil—I was addicted to work, and the drug was my enabler.

That's odd. When I've tried modafinil, it marginally increases my productivity primarily through enabling me to be alert for more hours of the day and stay up longer (my thinking isn't any clearer, nor is my focus better), but I have a "hangover" for a couple of days afterwards. On net, modafinil is a productivity loser for me; it is only good for deadlines.

I took modafinil for few weeks, I was really sleepy and it was affecting my work at ambitious startup. It helped me go through the period. Also after that, even though I didn't take it any more, effects persisted. I would say it helped me.

My anecdotal rebuttal of his anecdotal accusation is that there are plenty of startups where drug culture is non existent, and doing drugs (ignoring 'reasonable' alcohol/nicotine consumption) would be looked down upon.

That said, I look forward to substantial evidence being brought into the conversation.

So now we vote totally unsubstantiated reddit comments to the top of Hacker News? I have never heard of this and highly doubt it is true.

You have never heard of this because it isn't socially acceptable to admit that you take drugs to work harder. The fact that you haven't heard of it doesn't necessarily mean it doesn't exist. What this comment says to me is that you aren't someone who would consider engaging in this sort of behavior and as such do not know people who engage in this sort of behavior. Depending on your length of time in the work force I bet you have worked alongside someone who has but they just never told you.

Let the votes speak for themselves. If everyone thought this was absurd and contrary to their personal experiences, it wouldn't be at the top of the homepage.

Well, it's either that or the upvoters simply find the topic intriguing and want to hear more discussion on the subject.

How far into the Palo Alto startup scene are you?

'Assertions made without evidence may be discarded without evidence.'

True, but the lack of evidence is not proof of falsity, especially when the subject of discussion carries a stigma.

This is one startup in one city in one geographical area. Extrapolating this to a general anecdote about all startups in the Silicon Valley is a bit of a stretch.

However, in any competitive and high pressure enviornment people will always feel compelled to use performance enhancing drugs to get an edge or just to keep up with the rest of the pack. In my mind it isn't really all that different than professional sports.

As a counterpoint, the company I work for is predominantly immigrants from India and nobody at my work uses drugs to my knowledge (except for the sales team, can't really speak for them ;).

If the measure of "drug culture" in particular community is percentage of people on ADHD medications then drug culture in American schools -- elementary through college -- is a "huge problem."

Reuters reports there were 18 million Adderal prescriptions written in 2010[1]. ABC says almost 10% of school-aged children have been diagnosed with ADHD[2]. Certainly a huge number of those diagnosed take medication for it.

1. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/01/us-adhd-adderall-s... 2. http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2012/01/03/adderall-drug-...

This is an incredibly fallacious line of reasoning. Just because something is prescribed to elementary schoolers does not mean that being pressured to take it in a different context does not qualify as "abuse".

Also, the comment references Provigil (also known as Modafinil) which I believe is usually only used by soldiers to stay awake for days at a time.

Also, the comment references Provigil (also known as Modafinil) which I believe is usually only used by soldiers to stay awake for days at a time.

Two points: 1. Provigil is prescribed to civilians as well. 2. If it's good enough for soldiers, why not let everyone else take it too?

Who said anything about pressure? No one mentions pressure anywhere in that reddit posting. It is EXTREMELY easy to get ADHD prescriptions.

The user to linked said "expect pressure to do adderall" in the second sentence.

Whoops, you're right. I missed that. However I will definitely say there is pressure on parents to get their children "seen" for ADHD from schools. At least around here. I'm speaking from first-hand experience.

Drug culture in American schools is a huge problem.

I agree. I believe ADHD is a legitimate "thing" but I also believe it is over-diagnosed.

Holy crap. Does that mean that 6% of the USA is on Adderal? Or might one individual have multiple prescriptions?

On a side note, there are ~75mil children in the USA, which combined with your numbers means roughly 7mil children have been diagnosed w/ ADHD.

Does that mean that 6% of the USA is on Adderal?

Nope. The 18 million is the number of prescriptions in a year, and most prescriptions are for far less than a year's supply.

Unbelievable!

Legally, you cannot have refills for Adderall, and until recently the most they could prescribe was 1 month's worth. That means that 18M prescriptions is about 1.5M people using the medication.

Although unsubstantiated, I find this claim completely plausible. In an environment where twenty-something hackers are told that their only path to "fuck you" money is compressing forty years of work into four, and we glorify startup success stories where people spent weeks sleeping under their desks (http://www.jwz.org/blog/2011/11/watch-a-vc-use-my-name-to-se...), is it any wonder that this would be taking place?

Just search the archives of HN for these drugs and you'll find a surprising number who have tried them recreationally.

Still, I'd like more data.

I have been in the valley for years, and I have seen hundreds of developers doing some kind of adderal/modafinil or some other performance drug.

Are these mostly founder-types who have a stake in the projects they are working on or also just regular programmers for whom its "just their job".

I know a lot of developers that are taking Adderall. Even though they may not have much equity in the venture they're working on, the ability to work faster and longer gives them the opportunity to increase their pay, position, and granted stock options.

I've also seen a good number of developers that would never touch Adderall, but drink a horrendous number of free energy drinks throughout the day, for much the same reasons.

Sounds plausible, I guess, but I expected to hear about rampant alcoholism, not adderal. I would be intersted to hear more people weigh in before believing it though.

I'm not really surprised in the slightest. Adderal and the like are rampant in pretty much any competitive university and I would expect ambitious people working at start-ups would be seeking the same sort of edge competitive students do.

"The fascinating thing about Adderall is that it was a weight reduction drug for adults called Obetrol. It was so extremely addictive that Obetrol was taken off the market for that reason. Now we have the FDA bringing this extraordinarily addictive drug to market for little children."

Wow, if that is true, then that's very sad.

It's Wikipedia, so take it with a grain of salt, but...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obetrol

There is a misconception among some that the ingredients in the drug Obetrol have always been the same as those in the present day drug Adderall. In fact, the drug Obetrol was reformulated at least once.

Go to a conference and hang out with the smokers. This stuff comes up a lot. This matches the experience of people I know who have used adderall, with or without ADHD:

His colleague Alfréd Rényi said, "a mathematician is a machine for turning coffee into theorems", and Erdős drank copious quantities. ... After 1971 he also took amphetamines, despite the concern of his friends, one of whom (Ron Graham) bet him $500 that he could not stop taking the drug for a month.[13] Erdős won the bet, but complained that during his abstinence mathematics had been set back by a month: "Before, when I looked at a piece of blank paper my mind was filled with ideas. Now all I see is a blank piece of paper." After he won the bet, he promptly resumed his amphetamine use.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erd%C5%91s

... working out every morning seems to have similar effect, but requires far more discipline.

eh, personally, I think "Medication shame" is a bigger problem than "drug culture" - I've never seen an employer pressure an employee to take medication, however, I have seen depressed people being told to go off their medication because it's "not natural" and they can't be "truly happy" until they come off the medication.

Of course, this isn't unique to startup culture.

I'm glad to see this is no longer on the front page.

The OP is full of shit. I have lived in Palo Alto for my whole life: no such problem exists here.

Even when I was at Palo Alto High, "study drugs" were never a problem. Sure, some people took medications, but it was all via prescription. I have never seen anybody, no matter how rigorous the course, ask others for a drug that would improve memory, performance, etc.

My evidence is also anecdotal. Nevertheless, my sample (Palo Alto High, as well as jobs around the area) is much larger than the "really small company" the OP is from.

Well just for a contrasting data point: at the small SV startup I work for, I don't know of anybody who uses "performance enhancing" drugs [aside from caffeine, but in that case the majority of the working world would qualify] and I would heartily discourage anybody from sacrificing their health for job performance.

I'm not saying it doesn't sound potentially plausible, but this is the first time I have heard of it so it certainly isn't something that everybody does.

The only "drug culture" I've seen at startups is a manifestation of a different core cultural brokenness. I've seen people pressured to do modafinil (Provigil) and amphetamines (like Adderall) by their ludicrous deadlines / working hours, but I've never seen anyone pressured into doing drugs directly.

I think "drugs at startups" is more a symptom of many programmers legitimately having ADD combined with stupid work demands than it is a problem in and of itself.

Entirely unrelated to the article, but apparently my employer (Ericsson) has blocked reddit sometime between friday evening and now. I suspect this could cause a bit of a stir come monday morning...

I'm actually thinking of coming in early tomorrow just to watch the fireworks.

Maybe this is just my opinion, but who cares? If you are pressured to take drugs and don't want to, be an adult and find a new job.

Wow, why does this post get's buried so fast? It was right now on place 1 and now it is on site 2 in less than 5 minutes.

These sorts of anecdotes and here say always worry me, if for no other reason than many many develo

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