It's really hard for me to understand that people who have the chance to achieve basic financial independence (say $1M net worth) don't take that chance and make sure to stay financially independent forever.
If you do that, you're almost guaranteed to stay in the top 2% globally for the rest of your life. You've made it in life, at least financially.
The approach of not taking advantage of the lucky and privileged situations exposes you to a huge risk that your NW will go down to zero and you never get that chance again.
I think much of this comes down to wanting to be a type of person vs. wanting to do the actual thing.
It’s easy to be consumed by “I’m the wealthy San Francisco founder guy” and doing everything that lifestyle requires, including things that may not be good for you.
Bit of an aside but I found it somewhat amusing that one example the author uses of Jim’s financial recklessness was getting into home brewing.
Home brewing is one of the cheaper hobbies available (though like all hobbies you can spend as much as you want). The only real requirements are a bucket and a pot.
Same with a $10k tree slicer, when the actually expensive alternatives that really get people in trouble are day trading, real estate, car collecting, divorce, and starting new businesses that fail.
it’s infinitely easier to become an alcoholic by buying alcohol at a grocery store. brewing is pretty much the least direct most delayed gratification way to get drunk. i guess it can be pretty cheap if you optimize for that but it sounds like jim made enough money and high flying friends it’s unlikely to be major factor.
I don’t trust anyone who has the general, abstract goal of being a “founder”. If there’s no great idea to go with it, it just seems like vanity. And sure it does work out really well anyway sometimes, but it’s just something I can’t get behind aesthetically.
Founder culture definitely has fraternity vibes - people with no other discernable talent other than being above average looking and having connections with other similar people end up in positions they have no real idea how to do.
In other words, there are a lot of people "playing startup" in the valley - some of the VC money flows too easily and there is always going to be an ecosystem of people to try to put it to work.
I mostly stayed clear of the SV world while building and exiting my startup, but people like this came and went through my network constantly. They were always easy to pick out based on how much they glorified certain SV personalities and were desperate for their approval.
Interesting. I am sure there are Jims outside of startup world too. There will be finance Jims and entertainment Jims.
Is having a couple of pets and a ridiculous table lifestyle creep. Maybe. I think of lifestyle creep more in terms of you are not saving any money at all.
I think that comment is more telling of what is expected of founders and engineers. At least from authors point of view.
No life allowed. Definitely don't reproduce. You work, and work so you can work more.
You really have to believe your own narrative to do well as a startup founder, even when evidence is initially scant. This likely also has a tendency to slide into self-delusion.
There are different kinds of founders in Silicon Valley now. Some are more like founders from the previous generation, like Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. Others are more like Elizabeth Holmes and Adam Neumann.
There are lots of earnest, sincere, and interesting founders. There are also lots who probably would've been happier on Wall Street.
This gets to a point my dad always made when I was neck deep in startups; so many of them felt unserious. People go to the most expensive west coast city, raise money, and then move to the next most expensive east coast city and open a second office. A lot of founders are clearly inexperienced, and to defend their inexperience, hire under experienced teams. It all sort of gets back to the root of the issue, which is that the hardest part is never the engineering, it’s networking and finding product market fit. Finding people who actually get up and do meaningful things is hard, and so Jim’s sneak in under the guise of being an outsider who understands a market and can make things happen.
>and to defend their inexperience, hire under experienced teams
It's also a bit of "I like you because you're like me" thing plus some "it's useful to me that you're like that".
I've seen plenty of startups where the CEO/CTO has been trained to under one specific stereotype (common ones these days are: the asian twink, the athlete, the nootropics guy, etc.), and then lots of their friends/hires happen to be of the same or adjacent/compatible stereotypes.
woah woah... a bartender becomes the head of engineering at a high flying start up? This isn't the .com. Did the bartender also go to MIT?
Drug fueled founder parties? Orgies? I've clearly been doing silicon valley wrong. Or right, depending on your perspective... but not this? I've seen board game fueled parties where maybe one or two people do drugs, but it remains very nerdy? And no sex parties. Mostly sausage parties?
... so yeah. Do people really know Jims? Because I just read posts about them.
I've met the type. But usually, they're on the marketing side, not the ones who develop something. I knew one who blew through 8 figures and ended up an alcoholic, then dead.
The startup market rewards first to market and first to scale. This creates a game of "chicken", where the competitors spend like crazy trying to achieve a near monopoly. That's why some of the fake-it-til-you-make-it crowd gets ahead.
But most of them crash. The historical success rate for VC-funded startups is only about 1 in 10.
Pretty sure my choosing to work for companies ran by stable sane people is responsible for the complete lack of drug fueled orgy invites on my calendar.
Actually the one drugs + stripper party I was invited to I left because it was so damn sad and pathetic I left after a few minutes. A bunch of geeks who got rich using money to do an impersonation of the crazy lifestyle reality TV taught them they were supposed to be having.
I left the party and went back to playing board games in another wing of the hotel.
More prison gay than anything else. I'd go down on a man for a million dollar OpenAI offer even though I'm into women. I don't think commenters here realize how desperate people can become for money.
We will look back at the easy access to amphetamines - especially for children - in a similar light to the opioid epidemic. To be fair, I think they are less harmful than many opiates, but they are still serious drugs and usage has ~doubled in the last 10 years [1]. Anecdotally, it feels so common/casual for people - adults and schoolchildren - to be taking adderall, vyvanse, concerta, etc. Over 20 million subscriptions in the US [1] means thats something like 5-10% of the adult population.
Or the only thing they do in life is come to the office and then mix life with work so effectively it’s a combination of hanging out with friends, eating free food, and working, but it all goes into the work bucket when claims are made about how much they work.
Nothing wrong with that per se, I basically did that in grad school. It’s completely different than actually grinding 100 hours a week though. Also tough to be a part of if you have a life or family outside work.
Yep, that's what I thought too. I contrast it with an accident and emergency consultant I know in the UK. He actually is grinding 70 hours a week and not compensated for it. He works long hours because there aren't enough staff to cover the reality of what's needed.
If you do that, you're almost guaranteed to stay in the top 2% globally for the rest of your life. You've made it in life, at least financially.
The approach of not taking advantage of the lucky and privileged situations exposes you to a huge risk that your NW will go down to zero and you never get that chance again.
It’s easy to be consumed by “I’m the wealthy San Francisco founder guy” and doing everything that lifestyle requires, including things that may not be good for you.
Home brewing is one of the cheaper hobbies available (though like all hobbies you can spend as much as you want). The only real requirements are a bucket and a pot.
In other words, there are a lot of people "playing startup" in the valley - some of the VC money flows too easily and there is always going to be an ecosystem of people to try to put it to work.
Is having a couple of pets and a ridiculous table lifestyle creep. Maybe. I think of lifestyle creep more in terms of you are not saving any money at all.
I think that comment is more telling of what is expected of founders and engineers. At least from authors point of view.
No life allowed. Definitely don't reproduce. You work, and work so you can work more.
There are lots of earnest, sincere, and interesting founders. There are also lots who probably would've been happier on Wall Street.
It's also a bit of "I like you because you're like me" thing plus some "it's useful to me that you're like that".
I've seen plenty of startups where the CEO/CTO has been trained to under one specific stereotype (common ones these days are: the asian twink, the athlete, the nootropics guy, etc.), and then lots of their friends/hires happen to be of the same or adjacent/compatible stereotypes.
Drug fueled founder parties? Orgies? I've clearly been doing silicon valley wrong. Or right, depending on your perspective... but not this? I've seen board game fueled parties where maybe one or two people do drugs, but it remains very nerdy? And no sex parties. Mostly sausage parties?
... so yeah. Do people really know Jims? Because I just read posts about them.
The startup market rewards first to market and first to scale. This creates a game of "chicken", where the competitors spend like crazy trying to achieve a near monopoly. That's why some of the fake-it-til-you-make-it crowd gets ahead. But most of them crash. The historical success rate for VC-funded startups is only about 1 in 10.
Actually the one drugs + stripper party I was invited to I left because it was so damn sad and pathetic I left after a few minutes. A bunch of geeks who got rich using money to do an impersonation of the crazy lifestyle reality TV taught them they were supposed to be having.
I left the party and went back to playing board games in another wing of the hotel.
Clearly you weren't cool enough to get into the drug-fuelled OpenAI gay sex orgies.
What?! Source?
More prison gay than anything else. I'd go down on a man for a million dollar OpenAI offer even though I'm into women. I don't think commenters here realize how desperate people can become for money.
This is a bigger problem in Silicon Valley right now than anyone seems ready to acknowledge.
1. https://www.fda.gov/drugs/drug-safety-communications/fda-upd...
Nothing wrong with that per se, I basically did that in grad school. It’s completely different than actually grinding 100 hours a week though. Also tough to be a part of if you have a life or family outside work.