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> how hard starting/running a business is

That it is, but here Michael is explicit that most of the pain [0] was from doing hardware, software, and e-commerce all at once. Surely, there are other relatively easier businesses in tech?

[0] Reminds me of Avery Pennarun's A profitable, growing, useful, legal, well-loved... failure (2012), https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3754531

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Thanks for posting that article, quite a throwback -- but first I've ever encountered it. Really great piece. I do think we've all been sold on the entrepreneur vision/lifestyle, but the unsexy reality is it's an insane slog that might not even pay off.

It's always good to get these reality checks from time to time.

If it’s easy, everyone would do it.

... by which time all the competition no longer makes it easy?

Nah the person/company willing to do the thing for the lowest margin wins out.

Would doesn’t guarantee could

Right. Easy guarantees would.

If it's easy, then there's probably not a lot of value in doing it either.

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