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Comment by gizzlon | Hacker News Reader

Wow, props for going "all the way".

I have to wonder though, is this a wise choice? If the product alone, e.g. the code, is what drives investment it surely is.. But I would guess that's only one of many factors. People are scared away from others that are too different when it comes to things like behaviour and clothing.

How long can he live in the forest before he's too "weird" to make meaningful connections to customers and investors? My guess is 2 days =/

Unless you're running a b2c SaaS, this might not be a good idea.

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I'd expect the Swedish winter will probably make a significant impact on an end-date decision. This is super cool and doable now, but when it hits 0 and is light for 7 hours a day it may not be worth it.

Still - that's in 4-5 months - plenty of time to be hugely productive while keeping living costs to a minimum.

You ask "is this a wise choice" but I think in fact there isn't much of a choice.

If you want to work on your idea full-time, you need time. If you need time, you have to quit your full-time job doing something else. If you don't have income from your job, you can't afford an apartment.

One could argue you could try to get funding for your idea, but what if you want to make it free and open source and owned by humans rather than any specific corporation?

He does say "until my startup takes off". I don't think this is really that much different from the kid who kept sneaking into a big corp's office (was it YCombinator?) and sleeping under a table in a sleeping bag until he got caught. He's also wisely doing this during a Swedish summer, where the daylight hours are so extreme that everyone's behaviour changes anyway (well, that's what we get here in England anyhow….)

Well, isn't it hard to make a startup take off without ever physically interacting with other people?

A few years ago I was writing my master's thesis, and because I was in a hurry at the end and I didn't have any lectures I was spending a lot of time more or less alone. After only a few days with limited human interaction I picked up some strange behaviours. Nothing major. But surely stuff other people with normal social skills could pick up on. Like humming when I was getting my groceries and my small talk was way off. Unlike him, I had access to a shower and clean clothes. (actually, showering each day is kind of a waste of time if you spend it alone anyway ;)

I would rather work with him in the forest than most startups in San Fran in an office personally. But that's because i abhor offices - they're the downfall of humanity.

It was AOL:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-32973_3-57440513-296/meet-the-tire...

On the same vein, the Apple Graphing Calculator story:

http://www.pacifict.com/Story/

I've known people who lived off in the woods for a while, and thought they were fine. Of course maybe that says something about me.

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