I'll try to articulate this as best I can. There's a sense of honor and prestige for doing things the hard way. If someone internalized this advice of "startups are hard, don't make a startup", then they simply don't do it. Yet, there is a subconscious measuring stick that tells us the ones who do make a company are somehow better humans. But if you are the ones that see and understand the immensely hard work before ever attempting it, doesn't that make you the smart ones?
So if it's not about realistically predicting the level of work, then it's about prestige or money or whatever. And by that (very shoddy) logic, smart in some ways != money and prestige.
You pose excellent follow up question to Jensen! I wonder if it is a Jensen nod to survivorship bias. A more complete picture would include some discussion from the Acquired podcast guys on who failed and why.
Loved this article - especially relevant as tech startups are exiting a period of “free money” and facing a much harder path to an exit or additional funding round. Time to do the work!
I’m curious about the experience of founders based on their previous role prior to founding. If you are managing yourself (no boss) leading and managing others, raising money, building a product, doing sales and marketing, all at once all for the first time of course that’s insanely hard. I’m picturing a straight out of college founder. However if you have trained for founding by doing various diverse roles and have atleast some experience leading / managing seems like that would make it a little easier for most people. Of course it also matters a lot who you are around. Are you around other founders that complain all the time about how hard things are? Founding will be harder for you too. Same with hiring the wrong people, etc.
my favorite thing about BeReal was when LinkedIn news started handwringing about how it would never make money. I hope they never try to make money. I hope it's a fun little side project for them that's always this shitty little app that takes forever to take pics and posts them in a really lackluster feed. it's so fun. i also wish for rainbows and unicorns and no one to have to work for a living :angel_face_emoji:
Why are we still surprised that startups are hard?
Just want to say thank you for the Hard Work™ you put into your writing. Your style is hilarious and makes me laugh every time.
I'll try to articulate this as best I can. There's a sense of honor and prestige for doing things the hard way. If someone internalized this advice of "startups are hard, don't make a startup", then they simply don't do it. Yet, there is a subconscious measuring stick that tells us the ones who do make a company are somehow better humans. But if you are the ones that see and understand the immensely hard work before ever attempting it, doesn't that make you the smart ones?
So if it's not about realistically predicting the level of work, then it's about prestige or money or whatever. And by that (very shoddy) logic, smart in some ways != money and prestige.
You had me at "dealing with Trinet, helping employees deal with Trinet"
You pose excellent follow up question to Jensen! I wonder if it is a Jensen nod to survivorship bias. A more complete picture would include some discussion from the Acquired podcast guys on who failed and why.
Loved this article - especially relevant as tech startups are exiting a period of “free money” and facing a much harder path to an exit or additional funding round. Time to do the work!
Yep
I’m curious about the experience of founders based on their previous role prior to founding. If you are managing yourself (no boss) leading and managing others, raising money, building a product, doing sales and marketing, all at once all for the first time of course that’s insanely hard. I’m picturing a straight out of college founder. However if you have trained for founding by doing various diverse roles and have atleast some experience leading / managing seems like that would make it a little easier for most people. Of course it also matters a lot who you are around. Are you around other founders that complain all the time about how hard things are? Founding will be harder for you too. Same with hiring the wrong people, etc.
my favorite thing about BeReal was when LinkedIn news started handwringing about how it would never make money. I hope they never try to make money. I hope it's a fun little side project for them that's always this shitty little app that takes forever to take pics and posts them in a really lackluster feed. it's so fun. i also wish for rainbows and unicorns and no one to have to work for a living :angel_face_emoji: