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January 31, 2013

Start-up Blues

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I drew this car­toon because a recent story in the news made me sad:

A lively and popu­lar figure of the start-up scene, Jody Sher­man com­mi­ted suicide.

I didn’t know the guy, but we had mutual friends, like Jason Cala­ca­nis and Tony Hsieh.

Jason sum­med it up well: “And it seems like folks are not ready to talk about that issue just yet. Which I can understand.”

This is the second star­tup sui­cide in a month, after poor ol’ Aaron Swartz. We are gene­ti­cally pro­gram­med to have our our tiny brains fried by the sui­cide of some­body we care about; wri­ting about it well is impos­sibe at the best of times. But here are some of my own mea­gre, insuf­fi­cient thoughts:

1. My dee­pest con­do­len­ces to Jody’s family, ese­cialy his wife and chil­dren. The sorrow must be horri­ble, simply horri­ble. I am so sorry, truly.

2. Once we’ve made our millions, reti­red and got­ten old and dec­re­pit, hey, then DEATH is not so scary an idea, but when one is still in one’s prime… Most of us doing the start-up thing are still in our prime, so natually DEATH is ama­zingly strange and alien to us.

3. The start-up life, for all the time we spend glo­rif­ying it, is a very tough road. Again, Jason says it well:

Perhaps we owe it to these three ama­zing humans to exa­mine if the pres­su­res of being a foun­der, the pres­sure of our community’s relent­less pur­suit of great­ness, in some way con­tri­bu­ted to their deaths?

I’ve always belie­ved that being a foun­der is an unhealthy pur­suit at times, and few have disa­greed — cer­tainly not those who have done it. Read any bio­graphy of a suc­cess­ful foun­der and you’ll find colla­te­ral damage around — and cer­tainly in — those individuals.

Star­tups are a full-contact sport. This is a good time for all of us to pause and think about why we’re doing this. And the impact it’s having on us and the peo­ple around us.

4. Me and my friends in the sart-up scene aren’t spring chic­kens any­more, for the most part. We’re the old guard now. And as Karma catches up with us and the hard choi­ces we made, our deaths are going to start get­ting a lot more common.

5. As I’m fond of saying, anything worth doing will cost you your life, even­tually. Best make sure it’s worth it, make sure it’s something your dee­pest self actually wants.

6. Yes, your dee­pest self, not just your glib, sexy, bullshit self.

7. This is it. Fight like hell. Godbless.

Tags: Aaron swartz, Jason Calacanis, Jody Sherman, Startups, Tony Hsieh

3 Responses to “Start-up Blues”

1. Amolo says:

   February 1, 2013 at 5:07 AM

   Hugh, I love your artic­les. You speak from the heart! That bit about ‘anything worth doing will cost you your life’ sounds scary but its encou­ra­ging to see what peo­ple like you have achie­ved. Thank you

   Reply
2. Bill Soistmann says:

   February 1, 2013 at 9:37 AM

   Thanks so much for this. I’ve been plan­ning to reach out to you about how one of your recent dra­wings fits in with something I am wor­king on. This one too is rela­ted to something else I’ve been thin­king a lot about lately.

   Reply
3. Allan Fox says:

   February 1, 2013 at 1:49 PM

   Thanks so much for this poig­nant post.

   Your work, which I’ve dis­co­ve­red only recently, have come to mean very much to me.

   Reply