Quizz

As an experiment in human limits, great. As a sustainable and effective way of running your business, absolutely terrible. Keep in mind the following (assuming you are a normal human being and do not have special powers, like Jack Dorsey): 1. The human mind can only maintain sustained focus at the highest levels for a limited amount of time each day, which is why in a typical work day, performance drops significantly after 3PM.

2. When tired or exhausted, your mind will default to system 1 thinking (using Nobel winner Kahneman's description for fast, intuitive, emotional and automatic decision-making process because it requires less energy; from his book Thinking Fast, and Slow) which is normally bad for start-ups that require intense focus and deep insight.

Accept that the human mind works very well in matters requiring problem solving skills and creative deliberation for 4-5 hours, the other 4-5 hours leave for less intense duties (responding to routine email, basic accounting, staff meetings, exercise, playing with the kids, etc.). To push your mental focus so hard will render you a complete zombie by nighttime and your significant other will leave you, make no doubt about it, because it would be like talking to a wall that just nods and blinks. I know, been there, done that, both as the zombie and on the receiving end of a zombie.

Simply put, 16 hour work days will destroy your family and wreck havoc on your creative process. Although it may be great for those engaged in routine debugging that is almost automated and rythmic, I simply don't see this approach to work as useful for anybody in a position requiring problem solving or creative focus.

Terrible advice - quitting your job to be a founder does NOT instill you with the necessary skills and mindset to be a successful founder. The skills required to succeed as a founder does not appear just because you call yourself a "founder". Things like negotiating with difficult co-workers, identifying what defines good team work chemistry, charming your boss, charming your underlings, etc., are all challenges better encountered in your current work environment than when you start your company (and screw it up due to lack of experience).

Jumping into the water before learning how to swim because somebody said "hey, the best way to learn how to swim is to just do it - that's how I did it!!"

The most difficult challenge for young adults inexperienced in the adult world of employment/business (corporate politics, backstabbing vendors, non-paying customers, unscrupulous business partners, etc.) is separating the noise. I believe this post (although well meaning) is "noise" that will harm more than help.

A better title would be "The Secret to Keeping Kids from Complacency"

Any plans to open similar schools in other major metro areas like Los Angeles/Orange County, Las Vegas, Atlanta, etc.? I'm assuming the biggest obstacle is finding qualified instructors.

Wouldn't that 12.5% be a business expense deductible against the gross income anyway? Ask a tax expert, but these costs are "business expenses" and should be deductible.

BIG BIG slippery slope here and I'm glad you raised it. When it comes to insurance, "plausible deniability" is the best policy because they can deny coverage for so many petty reasons. I believe Obamacare is supposed to address some of these issues, but not certain. Nevertheless, insurance companies would certainly move for genetic sequencing prior to issuing a policy at some point in the future, it just makes too much business sense for them. Which is why health insurance should be non-profit - to take away the profit motive that corrupts health care.

With this discussion in mind, a concrete case study is "When should RIM have pivoted?" When should they have invested most of their R&D into a developer friendly ecosystem and committed to a well defined strategy like Samsung (a hardware company), Google (ad platform company) or Apple (hardware and content platform) company? I believe RIM is most similar to Apple, but would die a slow death from hardware development costs without the volume support, so should have pivoted and merged with NOKIA while both were strong to leverage RIM's enterprise software expertise with NOKIA's hardware development/manufacturing scale. The pivot occurs when you do the numbers and realize that to master both hardware and software is a rare feat of skill not worth embarking on unless you believe you can beat Apple at its own game.