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We get into a mindset that this is the only way to start a business, particularly in technology. And while I think you have touched on a number of good points, as did the original poster, I think we need to come back to the reality that businesses have been started for a long time in many different ways. My father, grandfather, great grandfather, and great great grandfather have all been in business, they have all started them in different ways and in different industries. "If you start a startup, it will take over your life to a degree you cannot imagine." That is a strong and hyperbolic statement. In fact, with all respect to Sam Altman, his entire statement is quite hyperbolic.

Can a business take over your life? Absolutely not! Can you allow a business to take over your like? Absolutely!

I have been involved in and started a number of successful businesses. I am also actively involved in my marriage (I have had exactly 1 wife, we've been together for just a bit). I have 6 kids. I go to birthday parties, soccer games, teachers meetings, and camp outs. I even volunteer at the schools.

What happens when someone wants to schedule a meeting when my wife has dinner ready? I tell them to move it.

What happens when an investor flies in and wants me to take them out for a night on the town when it's the choir performance night at the elementary school? I tell them I can't.

Have I had investors leave me because I would not play their social games? Absolutely! And I was glad that I didn't have to deal with them again.

Now, have I missed things? Yes. But I have gotten pretty good at looking at a schedule and planning around things. I want a close personal relationship with my wife and kids, so I have made that my priority.

When people ask me how I do it, I tell them honestly. I am the CEO/CTO/CIO, I make the rules for me. I am not a slave to my company nor its success.

All great points, but you are also missing the context. Altman and PG and Andreesen aren't talking about starting businesses that are generally sustainable or considered "lifestyle." They are specifically and narrowly focused on trying to build $1BN+ dollar companies that have insane growth rates in competitive markets.

You can't "miss things" in that context - especially strategic investments - because they will be picked up by competitors who will "out hustle" you.

I feel like the YC folks either haven't done a good enough job clarifying that they don't speak for "all businesses generally" or the community is assuming that they are.

All great points, but you are also missing the context.

I don't think he's missing the context, he's explicitly rejecting the assumptions behind this position.

They are specifically and narrowly focused on trying to build $1BN+ dollar companies that have insane growth rates in competitive markets.

Altman and PG and Andreesen are not building anything, they're focussed on investing in companies which have insane growth rates. That is not a fatuous cavil - that's a very different thing and sometimes puts their motivations at odds with those of company founders. An investor does not have the same incentives as someone building a company, and it's little wonder they want as many people as possible to grow fast or burn out trying.

You can't "miss things" in that context - especially strategic investments - because they will be picked up by competitors who will "out hustle" you.

Is hard work always rewarded? Is giving your life over to your company going to make it succeed? I'd argue there is a far more complex interplay of forces in the success or failure of companies - often it'll come down far more to who they know, or who their investors know, and whether they can come to the attention of the right people in order to have an exit (which just happens to be a great outcome for investors).

Founding a company is extremely hard work, often underestimated, and often all-consuming, but it doesn't have to take over your life completely, and I'm not sure it's healthy if it does. Success has many different definitions, and there are many routes to it.

I entirely see AndrewKemendo's point. But yes, you see my position correctly. In fact, I would argue that Altman, Andreesen, PG, et al. are not even "trying to build $1BN+ companies". They are investing their money in High Yield High Risk markets. And their track records and returns show this. They have funded 716 companies. 3 are worth north of $1BN. 20 are greater than $100M. [1] Their track record is amazing, but ~97% of the business's they have invested in have not "made it big", so to speak.

A good friend of mine owns a very successful real estate software company. At last estimate he is worth ~$300M. He started the company without traditional investors (his father did put in $10,000 to be fair), he owns the entire business himself. He has many "things"; cars, vacation homes, an island. He also has a wife and has very successfully raised 4 kids while building up his business.

The point I hope a few people can take away from all of this is that investors like YC and the like have one way of starting a business. It is successful for some, life changing for others, and entirely the wrong approach to business for yet a different group. There are many other ways to start a business, technical or not. grey-area, I am with you. It is not healthy to have a company consume you completely, and it is not necessary for a business to succeed. Work hard, understand your market and most importantly your customers, build a product your customers enjoy and need, and you will find success, possibly the variety that makes you $100M+.

[1] http://blog.ycombinator.com/yc-portfolio-stats

>In fact, I would argue that Altman, Andreesen, PG, et al. are not even "trying to build $1BN+ companies".

> Their track record is amazing, but ~97% of the business's they have invested in have not "made it big", so to speak.

That's entirely beside the point. They are specifically looking for those rare, billion dollar companies.

See: http://paulgraham.com/swan.html

The fact that most of the companies don't hit $1 billion is not at all relevant. That's to be expected when hunting for companies that are rare by definition (black swans). It speaks nothing to the intent of the investors.

But it makes all the difference to the companies they invest in, even the ones that don't make it big and the same goes of course for the founders of those companies.

If YC and their competitors want to maintain their pace they have to have everybody aim to swing as hard and as high as they can otherwise those successes won't be there either. If they knew up front who will succeed they would not be using this model.

I don't think he's rejecting them because he isn't saying "I'm building a slower business" or "I'm not looking for explosive growth" - things I have seen people say that indicate they know the distinction and are rejecting it.

Agreed on the building vs investing - however my point stands, they are pushing forward the mantra of MASSIVE disruptive companies.

To the rest of your points, in my opinion those factors are held ceteris paribus compared to how hard you hustle - largely because they are generally out of your control, that is unless you are hustling.

As an example, I had NO (as in zero) network in the Angel/VC startup world in D.C. 2 years ago. Now I have quite a robust network and it wasn't because I knew someone, it was because we were building something great and I went out found who was who and talked to them. It didn't take over my life, and still doesn't but it does take up as much as possible. I am after all typing on here.

Bang on - I couldn't agree more. Wish I could +10 this.

My version of that is that there's a difference between living to work and working to live. It's really up to you, how far you allow your business to encroach on your personal life; it's up to you how much of a workaholic you want to be.

I see my kids every morning, have breakfast with them, and drive them to school. I have dinner with them every night, albeit at 2000, and they're very young. There's a (stereotypical) North American mentality that dinner needs to be early for children, that they can't stay up late, and then there's the rest of the world. Kids can nap for an hour or two around 1630/1700, life won't end.

Call me during dinner time, and you're instantly on voicemail. Employees know it, investors know it, business partners know it. Dinner is sacrosanct, I've literally never missed dinner with family.

Some people will leave you, some people can't work that way- but that doesn't mean your company can't. Sometimes that means losing great talent, there's a shocking amount of the world that (currently) NEED their work to be all consuming. That's okay, it just means my companies aren't for them.

A shocking number of investors actually get this, and respect you for it. There's no need to dance around the 'knowing what you will not bend on' phase - because you're up front. Equally, the approach helps you focus on the time you do have. It helps you maximize the time you're using, because of the need to get what's truly important.

Businesses will come and go. Fortunes will be made and lost (hopefully made!). But you only have X years. If you want to spend them engrossed overarchingly in business, there's nothing wrong with that. If you're like @trcollinson, and others like us, then family is the priority.

This ingores the bias of investors. The original post is quoting investors, so I don't think its a speculative bias. You seem to be suggesting to ignore the wisdom of "know your customer"--and for many founders/ceos investors are as critical a customer as any (equity is just another a value added product).

If we want to look at investors through the lens of a customer, I think that we should also acknowledge that sometimes you need to fire / turn down a customer. Different investors have different expectations, and compromising fundamental beliefs about how you want to run your business in pursuit of cash is going to be a horrible experience for both you and the investor in the long run.

People join YC to get the contacts and credibility to implement this strategy. But suggesting that they have the ability to implement such a strategy before having such credibility is flawed. The conditions precedent for it to be a viable ptactical are not in place. That's all I am saying.

Chelsea Clinton or Ronan Farrow doesn't need to do Y combinator if they want to launch a startup, they have their parent's rolodexes as assets on their balance sheets. But most people are looking to "raise social capital" along with raising financial capital. And to do this, other considerations come into play.

Of course, one can always use a calculated social transgression as a form of breaking into the establishment. That's also a proven stragegy, but its not without its own risks and is really beyond the scope of what started this comment thread. But it does need to acknowledged, so that's fair.

"What happens when someone wants to schedule a meeting when my wife has dinner ready? I tell them to move it."

I'm curious if when you tell them to move it how you say that and if you give them a reason why?

In other words do you tell them "sorry I can't because that's when I eat dinner with the family" or "sorry I can't I have my kids soccer game" or just "that time doesn't work for me" etc?

That's a shit sandwich, though.

It sounds incredibly self-serving for VCs to be pushing that cultural expectation. It sounds out-right unhealthy. It sounds like a great after-the-fact excuse to make workaholics feel less bad.

I know it's hyper competitive landscape out there, but it's unreasonable. If Mark Zuckerberg found a way to learn Mandarin, then the rest of us should be able to go home at a reasonable hour.

Completely agree that VCs and others should not be pushing for this to be the norm. Not only because it's unhealthy but also because it discourages a talented and mature group of people from attempting to create great things.

I kind of wonder if the current startup scene of chatty app clones and services for asshats etc. is partially a result of the startup landscape being oversaturated with individuals who meet the young, kidless and immature crowd precisely because they're the only ones who are perceived as being capable to "give what it takes" to start a startup...

For VC backed companies it is the norm. It's up to you to decide if you want that kind of pressure or not.

You did every single one of those things to yourself. In each of those situations, you had a choice, and you made it. "Startup culture" isn't to blame. YC isn't to blame. Investors and sales meetings aren't to blame. You are. You decided your business was more important than your family.

And maybe it was. I wasn't there; I can't say.

Please understand, I'm not moralizing here. I'm not saying you were wrong. I'm aware there are consequences to any of the choices one might make in these situations. I'm merely pointing out the demonstrable fact, by virtue of your self-reported behavior, that you chose your business over your family in each of these cases you're lamenting.

Own it. Don't point at something else, all, "But that thing over there." You made a choice that was unequivocally yours and yours alone to make.

Thanks Rosser. To be clear, I didn't feel I was blaming or lamenting anything. My point with the article was to share "these are my choices and how I made them." Some favored the business, others favored the family.

Each person should decide what they feel is best for their situation and understand the tradeoffs their making.

I got no sense of blaming or lamenting from your article at all, Tad. I read exactly what you intended in it: "Here are the choices I made, and how and why I chose the way I did."

My comment was directed at its parent.

The examples you gave were your choices. They weren't "shit the server's gone down" moments.

You could have said you were busy that day to either of them. For the 2nd one you even could have hired another sales guy and you wouldn't have even been in that situation.

But you didn't.

And in the end, this guy's got a time tracking/invoicing app he sells to small businesses, his scenario is completely different. I don't want to be too dismissive, but it seems more suited for the Amy Hoy/patio11 route rather than the YC one, it's not a pants on fire, runaway scaling startup.

You're right. Those were my choices. Fortunately, over the past few months, the servers have stayed up and my daughter hasn't had a need to go to the hospital. Those are holy shit moments.

But most of life is lived in a more mundane day-to-day way. Those days are filled with your choices about where and how you spend your time.

I wrote this post to detail how I go about making these decisions because I know there are others out there in a similar position. Just hearing another perspective is helpful.

Someone just pointed me to this post from Change.org's COO and I greatly appreciated her take: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/article/20141022041002-407452...

On the scalable startup or not...we wouldn't have gotten into YC if we didn't have a plan.

I really appreciate this article and the way you've handled some of these comments.

My wife is expecting our first child soon and one thing it has really done is change my perspective. I've actually become a more dedicated employee and have also realized the glass and rubber ball metaphors.

There's bugs that have to be fixed right now and projects that have to be completed on time -- but there's also a personal life.

I'm no longer killing myself because of some minor bug that can wait, but at the same time I'm finding that when I am "on," I'm actually "on" instead of the half-on all the time.

It's been a life changing experience and it's very hard to describe in an understandable way to people who haven't gone through it, but this article is coming close.

Thanks! I experienced a similar thing the first time around. I enjoy my work. But pre-kid, I found myself spending longer days where I wasn't actually "on."

Post-kid, there's far more meaning to whether you're at work or not. All of the sudden, I was getting done in 8 hours what I used to do in 10 or 12 (or in 12 hour what used to be 16).

Congrats on the upcoming child! Best of luck!

Hiring a sales guy is also a hard choice. One that involves giving part ownership to the sales guy in very early stages. Which not everyone wants to do.

Do you think that there is something fundamentally different between doing a start-up and the various other high-stress, all consuming industries (e.g. big law, finance, medical residency)? In all of these industries, the narrative is that work is all consuming. Clients are non-stop and demanding. Work is 24/7. Work makes you miss birthdays, dinners, holidays, vacations. But ultimately, in all of these industries there are plenty (maybe not a lot) of highly successful people with kids and significant others who could say nothing other than "my big law/finance/doctor significant other can be described as nothing more than the perfect significant other/parent".

I think there are lots of things that affect the quality of a relationship, celebrating birthdays and showing up for holidays are likely not high on the list.

I'd say that the other high-stress industries cause a similar dynamic. Work/Family pressure is not exclusive to startups or tech startups or however you want to label it.

But, the one difference I'd call out with doing a startup (or owning any small business), is that you're responsible for whether that business fails or not and any of the jobs that are attached to it.

So you feel an intense responsibility to those other coworkers and their families.

You also have this if you're a manager in a larger company, but I think the intensity with which you feel it is a lesser degree (you messing up is still not good, but the company may still survive).

Being a tech startup CEO is heavily over-romanticized. If the business fails your employees will likely soon go on to find other jobs, probably at a higher salary. It's not hard to think of other common jobs which are much more critical and stressful.

If you're a startup CEO and you fail, employees find other jobs. If you're a physician and you fail, people die.

not for podiatrists...

Yes there is a very, very big difference. For these high-stress jobs you get paid lots and lots of money.

You don't get paid anything to do a startup, you might even do it for 2 years and NOTHING will come out of it.

Another good take on a similar situation: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/07/why-peps...

As a new dad with a busy job I've found the pain point balancing work/family to be crises that occur semi regularly like kid sick and can't go to childcare, major bug discovered prior to launch, etc. As Tad notes the planned obligations can be managed to balance your personal choice of importance between family and career, but for me in practice it is the unexpected or urgent that can upset that balance.

Balancing things that are urgent now vs things that are important is very difficult in practice. Long term having a good relationship with your spouse and kids is much more important than fixing that bug for customer, but that bug may be very urgent so you stay later to fix it tonight.

Trying to keep the urgent from trumping the important in the priority queue is a constant challenge in my life as I now have more important things.

I completely agree with Tad on the over communicating.

The only other things I have found helpful are to: 1) Set expectations realistically - people can be ecstatic or completely disappointed with the same result depending on what you tell them to expect. 2) I don't scale very well, focus on measuring metrics rather than micromanaging and then delegate to others.

Fantastic additions. Urgent vs. Important is a great framework.

Thanks, best of luck to us all balancing in a world that is all about maximizing.

> If you expect to have a balanced-family-life and still also out-work / out-hustle 20-year olds or 40+ year olds (older kids) that are out for your blood you are setting yourself up for failure.

This seems to imply the only way to out work 20 or 40 year olds is with time and because of your family you won't have time but that's not true. Hard work is only part of it. It sucks in your situation you had to chose and sacrifice your family but I do not believe that has to be typical of all Y Combinator applicants.

I love these kind of articles, period.

As a dad (son just turned two, daughter's 8 month old) in a similar situation, family wise, it's nice to read about other people being successful (and less risk averse..) in their professional life.

Granted, your story sounds more realistic. That's what I think whenever the 'Could I do something like this' wish comes up. But for now I'll choose to believe that Tad can make it work. Both for him and because I'd love to be able to do the same thing..

What matters most is that he attempted it and shares his experience with the community. The United States has a severe problem with life vs. profession, and it would do a lot of good to push towards the former. Right now it's taboo and maybe in some circles laughable to attempt to raise a family while starting a company. Hopefully in generations to come, it won't be.

I was inpsired by his story.

That's the struggle. And, you've called it out precisely. There will be some extremely tough choices. Hopefully it doesn't come to a choice where the business is at risk due to a family decision (or vice versa). But, you've got to stay mindful of that fact. That's why I liked the juggling "Rubber" or "Glass" balls metaphor from my previous CEO.

I get it.

And my experience is my own.

As others have said in this thread "I could have made other choices"

But when you are way down the river, playing with other people's money, and with dozens of employees counting on you these "choices" starts feeling like foregone conclusions.

If you want to be a start-up guy, if you want to build a large business, prepare yourself for the realities that are going to come with that.

I have been lucky enough to change my situation over the past 2-years, but there would be no business today to "hire sales guys" etc if I hadn't done the work myself when it counted.

You have correctly identified tradeoffs. All of life has them, but having a family brings many of them into focus. Each person has to decide what works for them and their family. I'm glad that people are starting to talk about this plainly and openly.