Don't take your health and lifestyle advice from start-up founders, episode 36.
Elizabeth Holmes writes the same kind of nonsense.
It's just an attempt to pass themselves off as exceptional beings who owe their success solely to their talent and iron discipline.
I don't know anyone who can keep going in the long term by neglecting their sleep and their physical and mental health.
Sharlin · 3m ago
It's incredible that we're at the point where people here actually feel the need to argue that sleep and fun are important. As if that was something not self-evident.
mrtksn · 4m ago
This sounds like abuse. Give them the money to satisfy their ego, take their lives away and multiply your your wealth?
Then they hate the society, don’t have moral compass and relentlessly keep trying to increase control and resources for even more ego stuff.
Sounds very unhealthy to me. Fits with the observation that numbers are all time high but everyone hates their lives and trying to destroy the system(whatever they perceive it as). Suboptimal practices are better as they leave some life on the table.
thw_9a83c · 1m ago
AI Startup founders have a winning formula: No Booze, No Sleep, No Fun... for their employees.
bontaq · 9m ago
Seems generally worse for the world if we want to force everyone to work 24/7 with no joy or interests outside of work. Ah well. Do you think they can recognize it? I don't think any of these companies will have anything interesting to say, last ten years, or improve lives.
It mostly looks like an act to me, a cargo cult where if they offer up enough "work" they'll be rewarded, disregarding any usefulness.
godsinhisheaven · 8m ago
Cutting alcohol out of my life was one of the best decisions I ever made. Better health and more money in my wallet at the end of the week. But come on you gotta sleep, and you gotta have some fun, call it decompression if you want to be serious about it.
ada1981 · 11m ago
No Booze is the only item on this list that is helpful (as someone who has been the personal coach to Unicorn Founders over the last 20+ years, currently with a waitlist).
For certain, the elimination of all alcohol will help everyone achieve more in life. If this triggers you, consider you may have a drug problem.
No Sleep kills your energy and productivity. You need proper sleep to be your best. Could you imagine an NBA player saying the secret to winning an NBA championship is not sleeping and working out all night?
Mastering leadership will get you time back, and prioritizing self care time so you can go hard is the winning combo.
No Fun. Again, you need to recharge, find creative inspiration, have healthy relationships.
Overall, it is a very negative signal if founders are doing #2 & #3. It signals they are trying to cosplay looking like what they think success looks like.
The reason I have a job is because the actual most successful unicorn founders understand they need world class support, coaching, and self care to really build something incredible.
codeduck · 30s ago
> For certain, the elimination of all alcohol will help everyone achieve more in life. If this triggers you, consider you may have a drug problem.
Oh please. What a puritanical take. There is nothing wrong with the moderate consumption of alcohol - a glass of wine a week is hardly dependency.
aredox · 5m ago
Sacrifice the better years of your life and any real life experience to bet it all on some stroke of luck.
This is perfectly sane and completely different from gambling, right. "I am smarter than the others". This won't result on a pile of completely empty husks full of neuroses. There is still room on the streets for more homeless people.
acosmism · 6m ago
[delayed]
theideaofcoffee · 7m ago
It's the same tired trope that they trotted out in the .com boom. Same trope resurrected in whatever the recovery of the '08 recession was. And now since AI is the big hot thing, they'll bandy about the same mythic, stoic, ascetic founder baloney. "Get rich by giving up everything about yourself." It's just sad how so many are so taken in by it. "But no, I'll be one of the different ones" says ten thousand others. Fine, whatever, you do you. I guess we'll all have to be subject to the same navel-gazing when 99.999% crash and burn about how much I was changed, or we were so close but I'll never give up the mission or other hogwash that every other one of these delusional "founders" fall back on. They'll just go onto the next scam.
The correction can't come fast enough so the real, actual value-producers are left standing.
It's just an attempt to pass themselves off as exceptional beings who owe their success solely to their talent and iron discipline.
I don't know anyone who can keep going in the long term by neglecting their sleep and their physical and mental health.
Then they hate the society, don’t have moral compass and relentlessly keep trying to increase control and resources for even more ego stuff.
Sounds very unhealthy to me. Fits with the observation that numbers are all time high but everyone hates their lives and trying to destroy the system(whatever they perceive it as). Suboptimal practices are better as they leave some life on the table.
It mostly looks like an act to me, a cargo cult where if they offer up enough "work" they'll be rewarded, disregarding any usefulness.
For certain, the elimination of all alcohol will help everyone achieve more in life. If this triggers you, consider you may have a drug problem.
No Sleep kills your energy and productivity. You need proper sleep to be your best. Could you imagine an NBA player saying the secret to winning an NBA championship is not sleeping and working out all night?
Mastering leadership will get you time back, and prioritizing self care time so you can go hard is the winning combo.
No Fun. Again, you need to recharge, find creative inspiration, have healthy relationships.
Overall, it is a very negative signal if founders are doing #2 & #3. It signals they are trying to cosplay looking like what they think success looks like.
The reason I have a job is because the actual most successful unicorn founders understand they need world class support, coaching, and self care to really build something incredible.
Oh please. What a puritanical take. There is nothing wrong with the moderate consumption of alcohol - a glass of wine a week is hardly dependency.
This is perfectly sane and completely different from gambling, right. "I am smarter than the others". This won't result on a pile of completely empty husks full of neuroses. There is still room on the streets for more homeless people.
The correction can't come fast enough so the real, actual value-producers are left standing.