Entrepreneurs anonymous
economist.com
economist.com
Some advice from someone in the trenches.
First, assume that you will never raise a dollar of outside Angel or VC money. Smart, great board, great product, it won't matter. An investor's null hypothesis is that you will fail and it is incredibly difficult to convince them otherwise. If you're the CEO and you don't have Brad Pitt like charisma and you're not a sociopath then it will be very very hard to raise capital.
Second, be prepared for the dreads. The worst part about it is that once these wounds are opened they will be there for life. You're going to wake up at 4:00 and won't be able to sleep because your mind is churning, trying to find some solution to your problem. This usually boils down to insipid growth rates and lack of capital to properly execute.
Third, there will always be 100 things to do and you get to pick 3. What you have will be imperfect. You won't have the metrics you need, and you'll be apologizing for everyhing. It also makes it that much harder to get others to see your vision.
Fourth, the longer it takes you to raise capital the more your team will doubt your competence.
Fifth, you will be rejected every day. VCs, customers, partners, potential employees. This takes a massive psychological toll even as you're get back up to put on that brave face. Unless you are a sociopath it is bound to chip away at your confidence and it may be that split second of doubt that hurts you in your next meeting.
My dad has AD and I'm his primary caregiver and compared to caregiving, entrepreneurship with all its pain is literally a fucking joy. Happiest part of my day even when making $0. I've failed at entprenreurship badly for a 2+ years but psychologically I have none of the pain associated with it because I know how much harder life can be.
Don't get me wrong, if I had the chance I would walk away from both but once you've experienced the toll of careigvng, you quit complaining about how hard entrepreneurship is.
I sometimes think that all wannabe entrepreneurs should work as a fulltime caregiver at an old age home or childrens ward at a hospital for 2 weeks. It would lessen the "pain" of entrepreneurship 10 fold.
That would reframe a lot of the pain away and help you focus on what needs to be done to market/sell a product and build it.
The truth is that the "pain" is 100% psychological and most children bought up in middle class and above families have never experienced what it means to have nothing.
Entrepreneurs who have grown up poor don't even understand what I'm talking about when I try to explain this concept.
So volunteer in the peace corps and it'll take away 100% of the pain of entrepreneurship and help you focus on executing.
And working as a minimum wage 'robo-slave' in a pen factory for one week when I was at high school made me realize that this kind of work is no cake either.
Entrepreneurship, however hard, is still one of the easiest methods how to make a living.
The point, from my interpretation, is not that entrepreneurship is mind-numbingly painful but that it is deceitfully painful, while care-giving for an Alzheimer's patient is expected to be painful.
Some advice from someone who has also been in the trenches:
First, you don't need to waste time thinking or complaining about angels and VCs when you start a business you can fund yourself.
Second, if you're expecting growth to come easily and quickly, and you don't have the capital necessary to execute a realistic plan in a realistic amount of time, you're setting yourself up for unnecessary disappointment before you even begin.
Third, if you can't identify the primary drivers of your success and truly believe that you have 100 things to do, you don't have a good understanding of your business.
Fourth, fundraising won't impact your team when you don't need to raise capital.
Fifth, rejection, while hard, is a part of life. Even the most successful salespeople hear "no" far more often than they hear "yes." If you have unrealistic expectations about this and can't maintain a positive attitude unless you close the majority of the people you sell to, you might want to reconsider entrepreneurship.
It might be convenient for you to believe that anybody who disagrees with your negative perspective hasn't been in the trenches, but that doesn't make it reality.
Failure is part of the game. Very few successful entrepreneurs have no losses. If you truly believe that VCs or a lack of sociopathic tendencies are to blame for the failure of a new business, I would humbly suggest that you reconsider. Such a cynical attitude is far more likely to be a detriment to one's efforts than any external force.
I'm not saying this to be snide. Those problems feel real and scary enough. But as the other replies to this comment demonstrate, there is a vast spectrum of human misery that we live on the far end of.
Anything you can do to remain mindful of that will have the side effect of letting you sleep like a baby, even the night before the big investor meeting.
The "vast spectrum of human misery" exists unless or until someone's mind-churn waking them up at night results in viable solutions and real growth.
It's not one or the other, both are linked situations. There is a seriousness about all the "preoccupation" ... it's even natural and organic in the sense that it is how one hand washes the other in the grand scheme of it all.
'Real' founders are fine -- we have a lower expected salary anyways but are probably extra employable. (Imagine who knows the most about contributing to a business!)
The issue is that we were the ones who convinced the people we sat down with to put their eggs in our basket. Investors put in their hard-earned money, employees devote their precious personal hours and "one shot", and customers (in B2Bs) put their own businesses on the line. A company is a social bedrock and we're ultimately responsible.
This stuff can certainly be rationalized away. Professional investors spread their risk and angels are often in it for the fun, employees get a bundle of a paycheck, lottery ticket, and personal responsibility, customers make business decisions, and everyone is getting a seat on the rocket. However, founders are human and part of that means having empathy.
Ironically, a lot of the stress that some founders experience comes from their own lack of transparency with employees. I don't doubt that many founders care deeply about their teams, but many are also so mortified at the thought of not being able to recruit and retain that they try to paint the most favorable picture of the startup's current state, conveniently ignoring facts that aren't so favorable.
Obviously, the information that founders can reasonably share with employees changes over time as a company grows, but at an early-stage startup, there's really no excuse for anything less than full disclosure. As the founder of such a startup, you must accept that you can't guarantee your employees continued employment, but you can promise them that you'll be honest about the company's state.
Sure, there are wonderful days when things are working even better than I had planned. But then there are also the regular sleepless nights where I wake up puking, just from the stress. And it's been like this for years. It's a great path for the right person, but if you need someone to talk you into starting a business, then you're probably not cut out to be an entrepreneur. Owning a business isn't all it's chalked up to be. Turns out it ends up owning you. And yet, there's an amazing satisfaction that comes from entrepreneurship that you just can't get by working for someone else.
That is a strategically stupid thing to do. You may not ever actually do it. But being able to do that without having to answer to anyone but yourself is enough. There's a very real psychological difference.
Could you please try me?
I have a good job as a software engineer at a successful start up. I am introvert and somewhat shy (although less then I used to be). I don't think many people could imagine me as a CEO. Nonetheless here are the reasons I want to start a company:
- I want to do something meaningful. I don't mean curing cancer, but having small, positive impact on other people though software. My current job provides that, but only in very small, indirect way.
- I need to have as much control as possible over what I work on, if my work seems pointless it's a huge demotivator for me.
- My father is an successful entrepreneur and I think that rolemodel influenced me.
- I dream of financial independence in my 30ies (working only when I want to). I know that this is not a good reason, but nonetheless part of my motivation.
EDIT: I rewrote some of this, because my I failed to express myself in my first attempt
* A burning desire not to work for anyone else.
* A desire, not to retire, but to free up time for all the other things I want to do. Chiefly learning.
I wanted to be free of my time. I had read the four hour workweek, and longed for income to that was mostly automatic.
Your motives don't seem like mine. You sound like you might be a better candidate for this:
http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/
That's a reasonable guide to retiring in your 30s. The author was a software engineer. He just reduced his spending and saved a high % of his salary.
While I understand the appeal of passive income, I think I would rather work 24/7 on something really meaningful.
Your motives don't seem like mine.
That is not necessarily a bad thing. There are many types of entrepreneurs.
Thing is, you're always working for someone else. A boss, a customer, an investor etc.
As far as I'm concerned the only really good reason to do your own thing is that you get to choose what to work on, provided what you want to work on is actually financially viable.
If this is what you want, then pare your life down to the bare minimum (get roommates, don't buy gadgets, don't eat out, drive a sensible sub-$15k car, or no car at all if possible), and invest and save every penny you make as a highly paid software engineer. That's a much more surefire way to early retirement.
Not what I do, but it's the best course of action for most people who want to retire in their 30's.
EDIT: As for what I do, I'm co-founder at a well funded startup, although without a CxO title, after bootstrapping a different business nights and weekends for around 2-3 years and fulltime for 1 year. My motivations are similar to graeme -- a burning desire to not work for someone else, and a driving need to accomplish certain things in the course of my life which no one else is doing. Also a certain uncomfortableness with perceived stupidity in how things are organized, which miraculously went away when I was the one doing the organizing. For people like me, taking responsibility relieves stress.
I have a family, so I can't save every penny, I am already payed at the higher end of market rate and I could never ever work in corporate job.
Its going to be 10x harder for you, if you have a family.
Why dont you start working on weekends/spare time on your idea, if you get some traction then you can think about quitting your job.
I suspect you don't have a family ;)
If you have a family it is better to start moving on your idea within normal business hours, where legally possible (some creativity may be required).
Founded current company with two young kids and just had a third. Pulling together the right team way more of a factor than having a family.
Having a much larger savings would have helped. Having a plan B is also good. With a family you need a safety net.
I'll be honest that your options are more limited, but I'm proof that it is possible.
But is it what you really want? Whether you go this route depends on what is driving you, and how strongly.
Are you local? Feel free to reach out to me if you want more advice from a parent entrepreneur. My email is in my profile.
There are non-founder roles at companies where you can have complete technical control and a lot of product control. Growth hackers / technical marketers, data scientists and analytics people at small and mid sized companies, for example.
Coming on as a first engineer is another good option to tick this box.
"I want to do something meaningful"
Would working on a google x project count? What about an early engineer at someones funded and ambitious startup? It's not easy to get those roles, sure. It's also not easy to start a company working on something extremely meaningful. As a first time entrepreneur you're often going to need to work on an iterative solution in a more proven market because investors won't fund you on pre-traction moonshot ideas, and moonshot ideas don't often have early traction. For most people, unless you have an unusual background or set of connections that door won't open until you're a successful serial entrepreneur. What would happen if you took 1/10th of the energy and time you would need to start and succeed at your first business and instead use it to deliberately find job opportunities, learn relevant skills, promote your professional identity, and network in industries you care about? If you can get a new job or a significant promotion every 12 months, you should have no problem getting to a highly paid and meaningful role with autonomy. And all without putting your finances on the line.
Here are my personal highs and lows....
Pros & Highs... - My resume is nifty; neat/awesome jobs are easy to land - Been accredited for creating first of its kind idea - Alway receiving spontaneous applause when demoing due to concepts being novel/cool - Featured in many tech publications - Receiving seed money - Winning awards at tech events - Exciting things happen for weeks in a row
Lows... - Being pretty much broke & in debt - G/f of many years wants stability before kids - Doing this pretty much alone & at my age (late 30s) connecting w/local techies has been tough. Though I've tried. - Nothing going on for weeks in a row - Not able to keep cool job opportunities for more then a year. Those who hire me are cool with my start-ups then not - INSTABILITY!!!
Is it worth it, for me YES, as the highs I noted above can never be experienced at 9 to 5 desk job! Though I do long for stability as I want to have a family.
I don't know why, but comments like this rub me the wrong way. Not that I don't agree that entrepreneurship is extremely difficult, it is!... just that I think people have a way of surviving and developing coping mechanisms for whatever life throws at them.
The fact that you have sleepness nights and puke from the stress tells me that you are not cut out for it.. yet, you are doing it...and without regrets.
Humans have a way of being resilliant.There is only one measure that determines if you are cut out for it or not...and that's if you try and it ends up ruining your life.
This idea that entrepreneurs tell others - that they are not cut out for doing a startup is really just a classic case of putting others down to prop yourself up.
If you want to do a startup, DO IT! Don't let others talk you out of it by convincing you that you aren't cut out for it. Short of a therapist encouraging you to avoid it, I would discount that advice as an insecure founder trying to make himself feel better about coping so poorly.
People aren't born ready for anything but shitting and sucking nipples. They learn everything else.
[1] Roll the Dice - https://vimeo.com/78472610
if you’re going to try, go all the way. otherwise, don’t even start.
if you’re going to try, go all the way. this could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives, jobs and maybe your mind.
go all the way. it could mean not eating for 3 or 4 days. it could mean freezing on a park bench. it could mean jail, it could mean derision, mockery, isolation. isolation is the gift, all the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. and you’ll do it despite rejection and the worst odds and it will be better than anything else you can imagine.
if you’re going to try, go all the way. there is no other feeling like that. you will be alone with the gods and the nights will flame with fire.
do it, do it, do it. do it.
all the way all the way.
you will ride life straight to perfect laughter, its the only good fight there is.
Are you sure about this? For everyone? How?
The cool thing about running your own business is that you can run it any way you like. Yes, you can work 120 hour weeks, lose your wife, and have your heart attack at 45. But you can also work one 8 hour day per week, with a quick 10 minute email spin on the other weekdays, and spend the rest of your time enjoying your life.
Both of those routes will get your product shipped, fit it to the market, and ramp you up to a full time living if you do it right.
The idea that you have to work yourself into the ground is just a story they tell people to scare them off. The reality is that entrepreneurship isn't particularly hard, particularly stressful, or particularly scary. Unless you want it to be.
By hiring out to vet the idea it reduces the confirmation bias that entrepreneurs face when researching their own ideas. As you noted, it forces an upfront financial commitment on the part of the entrepreneur, helping them realize what it will take to properly fund a startup at scale. It's also a time saver - trying to talk to potential customers (particularly for B2B startups) while holding down a full-time job is very difficult.
Of course, the entrepreneur should still be involved to the greatest extent possible, otherwise any early learning from the customer conversations, MVPs, etc. is lost...
- We have chosen this path ourselves, nobody forced us to run our own business and play the startup game.
- We are able to do something we love all day and possibly even make a lot of money doing so.
- We can decide ourselves how much we actually work and how we organize our life (even if most people pretend they can't).
- If our business fails, we can (mostly) just go back working in a high-paying job in industry.
That's not exactly what I call a hard life. If you think it is, you might wanna take a look outside your IT-/Silicon-Valley bubble, where many people get up every day at 5 am, work 12 hours in a job they don't like but can't quit because they need the money and still are barely able to make ends meet. To them, most of our "problems" would be luxuries to have.
That being said, and as a print subscriber to The Economist, I was a bit overwhelmed by this article, which reads like propaganda or cult literature. What I do is hard work, sure, but society doesn't owe me respect for all my hard work (and sympathy for my sacrifices) anymore than they owe farmers or factory workers. And definitely not as much as the guys working on the garbage trucks.
Anyone entering the startup space thinking their lives will be easier is going in with their 'eyes wide shut'. Having said that, if you manage your own personal expectations of being the next Mark Zuckerberg and are realistic, then you should manage.
Always make sure you have more money then you think you need to prove your concept, always estimate longer then you need and always listen to what your body says it needs.
Great article.
The problem is, I cannot forego my job income because of upcoming personal situation. Potential customer will not give me lump sum money, and wants to hire me as a consultant, but then I would not be able to sell it to other customers. If I build the product in my spare time, my employer owns it as it is directly in company's field of operation. Angel networking people I have talked to have also asked for a working prototype, but I have none and for building one a good developer will be needed.
So can somebody please give some suggestions on this? Or if someone from Edmonton or Alberta is reading this please get in touch with me @ msedm@outlook.com .
The most crucial first step is to change your frame of mind: you're not bound to any employer, and your personal time is entirely your own.
Develop a prototype in your own time, get lots of feedback to improve it, and suddenly all sorts of avenues and options will be open to you.
You could license it back to your company (for a price); if that's rejected, go somewhere else. It certainly sounds as though there's a gap in the market, so the obvious thing to do would be to fill it - ASAP.
Think of it this way: you're working your way toward financial freedom. Why allow anyone to put obstacles in your way?
Maybe iamshs could switch to another job, perhaps something a bit more part time without the non competes and build the thing on the side then?
That is what I was thinking, of changing jobs. I have talked to lot of friends and they all have this clause as a standard. I think going part-time is a good suggestion. Because even yesterday I had a chance meeting with one of local company's director and he was also up to see the product and said if I "build it solidly, company will be my first flag". I want to build this thing ASAP.
Honestly the entire notion of building my own company and not having the security of a stable paycheck is frightening. But even taking that into account, it doesn't diminish my desire to keep following this path regardless of the risk and warnings I've frequently heard.
Maybe this means I'm "over optimistic" bordering on "completely delusional" but I'll be damned if I don't try and make this work anyways.
Someone in his 20s who has already raised hundreds of millions of dollars and is already a millionaire.
Hardly the example of the struggling entrepreneur the article is warning us about.
I like to surround myself with family and activities I love to recharge my battery. Often when I come back to working on my project the creative ideas come flowing out.
Not if you're picking your battles, planning ahead, and executing right.
[I assume you mean "work late". There's nothing wrong with working hard, 9-5, 5 days a week.]
The entrepreneur is the responsible one that will work hard and work late when he has to. The trick is never having to.
"Management literature is full of guff about how entrepreneurs should embrace failure as a “learning experience”. But being punched in the face is also a learning experience."
This is the #1 priority for me now.
When I first started seeing results in my business, I quit my job and was able to spend a lot of time doing whatever I wanted. My wife would post pictures of us constantly going on day trips and vacations. It pissed some important people in my life off, and they became very passive aggressive towards me.
It's easy for people who haven't experienced it to assume it's easy to ignore, but when your family members start off by criticizing you, then doubting you, then watching you succeed beyond what they could have imagined, they can end up feeling extremely violated.
I spent the first two years feeling sorry for myself that so and so wasn't talking to me. Now, I've moved on and am stronger than ever.
For example, one of the people who won't speak to me anymore is a family member who was my biggest hero growing up and the reason why I got into computer programming. I was very angry that he stopped talking to me, and he gave me all sorts of excuses as to why, but his criticisms told the truth of what was really bothering him.
Over time, what I've had to accept is that he has limitations, and he's not the hero I had made him out to be. It's takes time coming to terms with reality that way, especially when you thought so highly of the person to begin with.
real friends will cheer you on. they will be happy for you. if they're struggling, they will seek your advice - "a friend in need is a friend indeed".
family does not imply friendship. i know all of this from experience.
My cousin, mid 30's has FU money. Took him around 8-9 years of hard work (not in technology). He's the guy that buys a 5k rolex (or whatever big brand of watches) for fun. Last 'toy' he got was a 250k euro car for himself to drive maybe 1 month a year (he travels a lot). He is still an amazing person, tries to help people. He will have no problem spending a day with you trying to help fix a problem you may have. He will lend you 5k, no questions asked.
My parents try to badmouth him every time they can, and try to bring his accomplishments down at every party/gathering. From insulting his business partner to just saying he is an exploiter of people/resources/whatnot. I noticed his friends, behind his back do the same, even though he throws parties for them, welcomes them in their house, lets them use his pool even when he isn't there. The car I just mention before, he lets anyone drive it if they ask. But still, the envy is there.
On a smaller scale, my wife's family and friends. My wife decided to quit her job to raise our kid. I still work, but due a good amount of effort, I'm making a good amount of money. There is no need for my wife to work so we both prefer that she stays with our kid. We also live a decent life (near the beach, pool, etc) but not FU money like my cousin. The amount of flak she gets for our choices is just amazing. From her mother telling her she is kinda useless, to her friends making snide comments about getting a 'rich husband', etc. We never show off, we invite everyone to spend some time with us for free in the summer (saving them 1000's in holiday rentals and food), but still, I can feel the jealousy in them... Hard to explain completely.
I never thought this, but last few years what I noticed is in general, people are an envious bunch. A few are really happy for your successes, but most will resent you, because you are doing better than them, or 'showing' to them that some of the decisions they made in the past were the wrong ones, and they can't really come to terms with it, so it is just easier to excuse/criticise you.
However younger people often have little or no idea what happened before them. Perhaps among the aunts and uncles of a family, an older brother or sister sacrificed for years working at a dead-end job in order to put a younger brother through college. Then as things work, the younger brother moves across the country has some success, and the older brother is working in a dead-end job. This was the story in "It's A Wonderful Life" 60 years ago and the story wasn't new then.
Then they have kids - the better-off ones go to a private prep school, the ones of the guy who sacrificed go to public schools. The children don't even know everything about how one brother sacrificed his potentiality and even to some extent his children's potentiality for the other brother. Some kids go to Ivy League schools, have great financial success, and develop a conceited attitude. The sacrificer's kids might not even be able to go to college.
If you look at the Forbes 400 richest list with tech CEO's, we see Bill Gates, who was born with a million dollar trust fund, Larry Page, whose father was a professor, Mark Zuckerberg, who went to Phillips Exeter Academy etc. These are are all white, male people born on third base, or at least second base. You look at Silicon Valley CEO's and you see people whose success was shaped to a large extent before they were born. Why have they succeeded whereas some black kid, whose family moved from Mississippi to Oakland in 1947, did not? Or maybe some Ohlone's whose families "owned" large tracts of lands in the Bay Area before whites came and stole it?
It's a self-serving narrative that people succeed solely due to initiative, hard work, flexibility etc. Are white males from upper middle class families the only people who possess these traits? Of course for the self-serving narrative to be tautological, there will always be murmurs among those people that that is so. Of course once in a while a white woman from an upper class familiy will slip through, or someone from a wealthy Brahmin immigrant family, but that should go without saying.
If one brother sacrifices in a family so that another can have success, the successful person will often have a wife and kids with a vain attitude that they're better than the sacrificer and his family. The repayment for the sacrifice is contempt that they're now better than the sacrificer, and that the poorer family has some innate flaws, are uncouth and so forth. If they feel some resentment toward that, they go on HN and whine how their family resents them driving around in a flashy sports car. The only real excuse the golden child has is he has no knowledge of what went on in the years before he was born.
I know a few (computer-interested) people who went to expensive private prep schools as their families are rich. They really live in a complete bubble. In the documentary "Born Rich", one of the rich kids talks about how much of a bubble his parents live in when he introduced his normal, middle class friend to them and they ask him "where did you summer last year?" This is certainly the case, these people have no idea how the average American worker lives. It's kind of like Mitt Romney, whose father was a CEO and who went to the exclusive Cranbrook prep school blathering on how 47% of Americans are dependents who see themselves as victims. Americans were smart enough to throw him to the curb. These people who are born to the manor, and who live off the wealth they expropriate from the workers who create that wealth, are ever increasingly disconnected from the real world and reality. Why shouldn't they hold themselves in ever high regard? Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette did in the years before they wer
And I agree with most of your ideas, and while I don't know the lives of Gates, Page, etc, and I have no idea how they treated their family/friends, it seems you have an idea (maybe true, I don't know, but it isn't my experience) that as people go up the ladder, they change their attitudes ('develop a conceited attitude' and 'will often have a wife and kids with a vain attitude' or 'now better than the sacrificer'). Again, I'm talking about what I saw here, but it is usually the opposite (maybe cultural differences make it so), but you see a much more humble and giving attitude with people that have reached a good level of success than the ones that haven't. The ones that do reach, usually appreciate all the hard work their parents did to give them the opportunities they have (I do every day), but the ones that didn't usually blame everyone about their problems, but give no thanks/props to the ones that have helped them. Quick example, I've worked for a startup a while ago with one main investor (basically, he was footing the bill for everything until there were revenues). He is one of the richest guys in Portugal, and when I had some personal problems and I mentioned I needed 3-4 months unpaid leave due to that, the only thing he told me: "Go, go take care of things, don't worry about coming until things are good with you", and kept paying me the salary for those 4 months. Didn't ask for a single thing, nothing.
What I'm trying to say is that maybe I have had a different experience with successful people than you, but in this corner of the world, humbleness and a giving attitude are much more prevalent when you go up the ladder than when you don't, and it is hard to find people at the bottom (Even close friends) that don't resent you for that.
My immediate thoughts revolved around:
> 5k rolex
> 250k euro car
> tries to help people
> throws parties for them
> lets them use his pool
This could be seen as someone in a position of power, and someone happy to let other people know that. No judgement on anyone for rewarding themselves materially for their success. It's just not the same as sharing a box of doughnuts with your family and them then being ungrateful behind your back. It's more akin to showing people how many doughnuts you have, letting them touch them, compliment you on your good taste, but not letting anyone eat them. Just because you don't eat them in front of them doesn't mean it's not antagonising. Aware of how weak that analogy just got.
It would take an absolute buddhist monk of a person to not indulge in toy-buying, I can't imagine the self-control it would take, but I think that's the only solution to not end up with the comments. Can you imagine people making negative comments if the FU-money-guy gave 90% of his cash to charitable causes? No reason why he should, but it puts his current situation in contrast.
> We also live a decent life (near the beach, pool, etc)
> we invite everyone to spend some time with us for free in the summer (saving them 1000's in holiday rentals and food)
> We never show off
You're definitely not showing off directly, I'm sure you would never mean to, but I do think by virtue of you raising your living conditions up (way) above those of your peers (I'm assuming) and then thinking you're doing them a favour by sharing it with them, the net effect is the same.
As an alternative idea to saving them 1000s in rentals and food, you could just rent a modestly-priced house together on neutral territory. Especially if you're starting to think people are taking your generosity for granted.
If you have a 250k car, you aren't going to buy one for each of your friends, sure, but if any of them calls you asking to take it for a ride or a couple days, he has no problems giving them the keys, I honestly don't know what else you can do to not make them resent you. He lets his friends have parties in his house (gives them the keys) when he is out on business so they have a nice place to party.
As for us, we open the doors of our house to anyone (Family and friends). We live in a very desirable place, where most people pay in the 1000's to vacation there for a week or two, we open our house for them to stay there if they want (they do). This is while I'm working, so we aren't really talking about doing a vacation together. It's AirBnB for free if you want to call it that. We give them keys, they are free to do whatever they want. Eat our food. Basically as if it was their own holiday home. Again, not exactly sure what can be done to not be resented for it. I guess don't invite anyone there, don't talk about the house, don't say nothing so people think we live in the projects?
As for giving money, I know for sure, even as a percentage, both me and my cousin give much more than at least all of our family members (not sure about friends as it is something I don't talk with them about). He financially supports an orphanage (20+ kids) by himself along with other charitable works he has over there. As for us, we give to Watsi, support various children as well, among other things (UNICEF, local charitable organisation that work with poor families with newborns), and one of the reasons we are trying to save up money is to be able to create and support an halfway house in our future. The amazing thing is, I wrote about the charitable aspects on my previous post, and I deleted it since it seemed like bragging. I had no problem with the rest, since that to me, specially when we really do try to share with our close family and friends our successes, it is a matter of joy.
This is what I mean though. I think people with a bit more success don't mind sharing their stuff (in Portugal), but even so, it seems people take it the wrong way, and resent them for it. Do we resent pg and others that share their resources/time/money with ycombinator startups? No! We admire and are happy they do, but it seems as soon as it is closer to home, the resentment does come up.
it takes a real bitter person to resent someone for sharing. yeah sure i can theoretically empathize with that viewpoint but it just feels wrong. it's just pedestrian, petty human hatred.
1. It's important to separate good and bad forms of envy. Bad envy involves wishing misfortune upon someone. Good envy doesn't. Many people envy Elon Musk, but don't wish him any ill and want him to succeed.
I don't know why I'm wired the way I am, but I'm just not susceptible to envy--at all. However, I hardly think that most people successful or otherwise are like me. In fact, I'd say a good bit of successful people are so because of their envy.
Envy is the worst of the 7 deadly sins. It's like Charlie Munger says, "It's the only deadly sin you're not going to have any fun with."
That is their own personal issue if being proven wrong makes someone feel 'violated'.
His take on it was he wasn't going to not do these things because it caused problems, he just wouldn't socialize. When you have kids and your friends don't, they don't want to hear about your kids and yet they are consuming your life. When your an entrepreneur and your friends aren't they don't want to hear about your business and yet your business is all you spend your time on.
The stresses of being an entrepreneur take a tremendous toll and given the risk-taking nature of the condition (entrepreneurialism) I absolutely see those stresses lead to dangerous and addictive behaviors in those who follow an entrepreneurial path - whether it's drugs, drink, sex or gambling I have seen all behaviors triggered in individuals.
The absolutism of your position on what does/does not constitute an alcoholic and what triggers the behavior is misplaced.
i second that; you might increase the amount you're drinking on a dailly basis for a bit of relief, but that has absolutely nothing to do with being an alcoholic.
I have 15 years of experience working with drug addicts and alcoholics and the stresses that I hear people trying to get sober have dealt with are often rape, abuse suffered as a child, molestation suffered as a child, loss of a parent when they were very young or just growing up in an alcoholic home. You must be able to admit that these stresses dwarf "being an entrepreneur." In comparison, most people handle starting their own business without it wrecking them but very few people can handle getting raped, or abused as a child without some really serious psychological consequences.
And there are always outliers and exceptions but if that is all this guy is, then it seems pretty disingenuous to use him in an article like this.