Should I start a startup?

So I think that there are two reasons. One, I talk to a lot of smart technical people Yeah. Who I think sometimes feel like they should start a startup but they're conflicted because they either don't know if they have a good idea, don't have an idea, don't have a team. And I think they're really trying to figure out like what should I do with my life, you know?

Like what what should my real career path be? And when I first started giving people advice, I think that I really assumed that because you could start a startup, you should start a startup. Mhmm. You know, if you have the money to afford, if you have the time, if you have the ability, you should be doing it. I quickly realized working at YC that's a bad idea.

And I think what I quickly realized is that there's probably like three sets of people. Okay. There's probably the set of people who the only thing they can really do is work in a radically entrepreneurial job. Yeah. Like literally, like they will not enjoy their life inside of a big company, inside of big bureaucracy.

Like and I think like back in the day, those are the kinds of people who start small businesses. Uh-huh. And so there's that type of people and like they're relatively few and far between. Like I wouldn't be surprised if that's only like 1% of the population. Yeah. The second group of people are the people who are on the fence. Mhmm.

They want to be really challenged by work but they can easily apply themselves in either a entrepreneurial world or in a big company world. And I think those people are the ones where like they have some choices to make. Yeah. You know? Yeah. I think a lot of people confuse themselves for this group. When in reality, think this group is also probably pretty small. And then there's the last group.

Pretty small. How small? Like, I bet I bet 1%. Like, I bet there's only really so far. Yeah. Like, I think it's a really small group who can actually be equally capable in either in either role as a founder or as a really effective person inside of a big company. Uh-huh. And I think you do see this.

Like, I think you do see like founders who get acquired who are actually a really functional inside of big companies and vice versa. Right? Exactly go out and start companies and they do well. But few and far between. I think the last group and by far the biggest group are the people who are gonna operate best within a large company.

And like the mindset of this type of person is type of person, at least from what I've seen is like they want a system to optimize. Like they want an existing system, an existing path, an existing set of rules they can operate and play play by. And like what's interesting is that like almost everything up to this point in your life kinda has that. Yeah. Right?

Like kindergarten through 12 has this, even college has this and they kinda wanna continue that. Mhmm. Someone else defines what's an a and what's an f and then I optimize. Right? And I don't think that there's any like moral judgment to be passed. Like I think that like if most people didn't feel that way, the world wouldn't work. So it's like a good thing.

But there's a smugger of people who feel like I want to make the rules. Yeah. I don't want to follow them. Yeah. And so I think that like when someone's thinking about whether they should start startup, they should really be intellectually honest with themselves about which of these groups they're in. And anyone who's trying to kind of guilt trip them into one group or another, right?

Like it goes both ways. Like I in the past would guilt trip people to do a found to be a founder. Yep. A lot of people parents will guilt trip them into being a big company or being a doctor or yada yada yada. I just think like this is one of these things where you have to actually have some personal.

you have to go deep and really understand. Yeah. Did you ever read the book The E Myth? No. Haven't. Have you heard of this book? No. No.

No. So I read it in college, so it's been a while. But basically, the concept was a lot of people who are, you could say craftsmen. Yep. So, in our context, like a developer. Yep. Often think that they want to become entrepreneurs. Mhmm.

So they could do just their craft and just the way they want to, but they don't realize that as soon as they enter the entrepreneurial realm Yeah. Most of their jobs no longer that. And so I think I think this is a common thing why these indie hackers are so like, people love them so much. It's interesting point. Because like artists and craftsman doesn't equal founder, isn't it?

And even more so what's so sad is that.

as a founder, almost by definition, the thing that you're good at is the thing that you stop doing. Oh, yeah. And like you have to keep on doing things that you suck at. Yeah.

Be totally okay with it. Yeah. No. It's rare that the founder who's really good at something can like delegate so well that the thing they love is still the thing they do. Yeah. Forever. Really, really, really hard. So, okay.

You you get to this at the end. What are the questions, you know, that we've had some time since you wrote this one. Yep. So what what are the questions that you ask yourself when you have to decide if you're in that, you know, 2% of people?

I can answer this for myself better. The questions that I asked myself was where am I at my best? Mhmm. And where do I feel like I'm organically applying effort? Like, I'm 100% self motivated. And, like, I think anyone who is 22 to 25 has enough life experience to know.

And certainly anyone who's 30 or 30 definitely has enough life experience to know, you know, in what types of situations am I just naturally extremely motivated. The other kind of question I ask which is like an extension of this is like, if I think about the moments where I outperformed, so not only was I really extremely motivated, but actually like delivered the best results. I did the best.

Where does that happen? Mhmm. Mhmm. And like when I think about those moments for myself, like they never really happened in the truly structured things. Like in the k to 12 setting I did final that stuff, of course. Right? Did all the classes and got all the grades. But it wasn't when I was like really like kicking in the high gear.

Yeah. So I think if you're like super honest with me, when do you really kick it into high gear? That's when like you can start asking this question of yourself like, okay, who who should I be? And and what career track should I take? I think that, like, one tricky bit here is you have to be really careful about taking advice from biased people. So I. E. Everyone.

Yeah. Right? Like when I was giving founders this advice originally I was so biased. Was like, well I'm at YC, I want you to be a founder like you should be a founder. Right? I was giving you advice, I was, you know, previously giving advice was very self serving. I think that like a lot of young people are looking for advice givers and are not doing a good job of identifying bias.

And so I see a lot of people who are generally believing the information that they get from either their peers or from companies that they work at. And like they don't realize those people are biased. You know, perfect example, my brother's at MIT right now. The most prestigious jobs are jobs at Facebook and Google. Mhmm. That prestige has actually very little to do with any facts.

Like it actually reminds me of like when I was in high school and like the crew that I was in the like job everyone wanted to do was be a lawyer. And because we were all like government kids so everyone would be a lawyer. But then if you ask people like do you actually want to do the work of a lawyer every day they'll be like no, of course not. Right? Yeah. And just make a bunch of money. Yeah.

And like I wanna like, you know, change the laws and I wanna like debate the constitution and write all these things. It's like, yeah. But do you actually wanna do the lawyer work? You're like describing model UN. Right? Yeah. Exactly. Model UN in a T.

Right? Yeah. And so I think like similarly when I talk to my brother and I like go to MIT, meet all these people who have this who created this imaginary world where when they get to go to Google, they're gonna be on the machine learning team and they're going to have high impact from day one. And like needless to say Google loves to pitch this story, right? And like people love to eat it.

But the reality is when you're on the other side that's often very rarely the case. Yeah. And so what I would just what I would encourage people to do having been an offender myself is to just really look for the bias in the person who's presenting you with options and advice.

Like understand where their biases are and understand that like Google is operating a machine and the machine has multiple purposes. One purpose is to get the smartest people to work on the hardest tasks. Mhmm. But the other purpose is to get people who are smart and talented so that they're not working for Google's competitors.

And then the last purpose is to get people who are smart and talented so they're not creating companies that will compete with Google. Yeah. And everyone understands the first one and they don't think about two and three. No. Not at all. And also when when I find college kids and I'm I'm totally offender of this as well.

They seek people for advice until the person gives them advice that corroborates with what they wanna hear. Yep. So you just look around and you're like, yep. Sometimes it feels like you got you got to do some living. Like you can only listen to advice for so long. Well, and I think the peer advice thing is actually really tricky. It's really hard to go from.

like I'd argue that like in school especially like k to 12, a lot of peer advice is very helpful. Yeah. Like I learned how to apply to a good school from my peers. Like my parents hadn't done it in years. Right? Yeah. I learned which classes to take, which teachers were good. Right?

Like my peers were this like great intelligence source for so long and then it turns out that like Yeah. With career advice they almost are they're horrible. And I think it's so hard to go from, like, a situation where someone goes from a good source of information to a bad source of information so fast. Yeah. But, like, that's what happens in college.

Like, your peers are no longer because, like, I think what the reality is is that, like, in many ways, there's a simple track and a simple set of rails Yeah. All the way up through college. Of course. And then college it goes from like one track to a thousand tracks. Yeah. And like your peers don't even know anything about any of the thousand tracks.

So suddenly they're like not the experts anymore. Suddenly the kid who's like one year ahead of you really just doesn't actually know anything more than you do. No. But like your whole old system is still there. Your old system of like relying on that is still there and it's what's funny is the big companies know this. Like, that's the cool thing is that Oh, yeah.

They are actually relying on you having poor sources of information. Like, I I everything that a big company does to attract a college kid is 100% orchestrated. Mhmm.

Yeah. I mean, there there is an information gap there. Yes. Yeah. And that's how the business works. Which, I mean, it's fine. Again, like, you can go and have fun at these jobs. You can go and feel Of course.

Purposeful. What I'd argue, like, for most people that is the job they should take. Yeah.

But like, man, if you're one of those different people,.

don't believe the hype. I mean, this is kind of harsh and Yeah. I don't know if it's a % accurate, but my impression is that the world just kind of tends toward wanting you to be average. Yep. You ask someone for advice, they're like, these are the known outcomes based on all the inputs you just gave me. You should go work at this company. And I wouldn't say average.

I would say like wants to put you in a box. Sure. Could be a very productive box. Right? It could be like ridiculously productive box, but like a well.

laid out, well understood box. Like, plug you in somewhere and move on. Yeah. And that doesn't work for some people. Yeah. Yeah. Or more importantly, like, for some people, that's not how you get their best. For some people, it's almost a guarantee you won't get their best in that environment.

And so yeah. So what's so weird is, like, we're not talking about, like, do you see a good business opportunity? Or do you see do you do you have, like, this, like, burning problem? Like, those things are important. But, man, if you are not irrationally motivated to do startups and be entrepreneurial like it's going to be frustrating and you're not gonna understand the risk reward. Yeah.

Because like from a pure money making perspective, it's probably better to take the job at Google. It's definitely safer. Definitely safer. Yeah. But from a like,.

will I enjoy my life perspective? Right. Like that's the one where like for some people, absolutely not. Right. Yeah. But on the other hand, I'd just say try it out, see how you feel. Like you can do plenty of projects in college. They can.

And see if see how it works. Yeah. Yeah. Cool.