[richardjordan]

The broad point here is a very important one.

I came to Silicon Valley in my late 20s. I'd already had a lot of relationship ups and downs. I got married not long after getting here. I'm now, um, older...

It's great for folks who are fresh out of college that a bunch of middle-aged VCs who missed the boat on Zuckerberg because after the dot.com boom they were "playing it safe" backing their MBA buddies in startups which went nowhere, are now desperately trying to shut the stable door after the horse has bolted and find the next Zuckerberg by investing in very young entrepreneurs. It's great. There is some brilliant innovative consumer apps that have come from this - diamonds in a pile of rhinestones admittedly, but they're real.

When I was 22 and my best friend were 21 we were being laughed out of every funding source we could find by suggesting that (this is in 1993/4 mind you) we set up an "Internet Service Provider" because we were European Physicists when the world wide web was created by and for European Physicists and we thought it was going to be big. "What is this Internet thing? ...It's an American fad, going nowhere... you're just two young techies with no business experience... etc." I am genuinely glad the environment is better today than it was then.

However (yeah there's a but)... it's breeding a generation of young technical talent burnt out on mediocre over-angel-funded startups with little real world life or experience. It's not that either end of the spectrum is right - it's that we've gone too far past a happy medium.

I used to run an internship program and I'd advise the young undergrads that they should get out and do the things they want to do after college, take risks, travel while you can and while you're young. So long as you have a good narrative, have learned a lot from your experiences, and take the opportunity to grow up and gain perspective on the world, people will forgive almost anything before you're thirtieth birthday so long as you're prepared to knuckle down and focus by then.

I don't think that's true today. We've created an environment where to be a first time entrepreneur over thirty is seen as questionable. By 40 even with experience if you haven't already had a home run it's VERY difficult to get financial backing right now. This is irrational of course. The idea that real world experience dulls your blade which would otherwise have been fresh, right out of college, is silly.

I am happy that I didn't spend my 20s just getting burned out. After we couldn't get our startup off the ground, we finished our degrees, did some real world work, got some life experience, and I don't think either of us was worse for it as a person.

I meet a lot of people looking around in their thirties and realizing, like this article says, that they've never really learned the broad range of interpersonal skills and relationship skills outside of the startup bubble.

Do what you love to do for work. Absolutely. But don't lay on your death bed wishing you'd worked less and loved more. Really. Don't do that.

[yesimahuman]

I've found I travel and do more interesting things running a company than when I had a normal job or when I was a student. And the freedom of running an internet company means I could do it anywhere I want and still get paid (though to be honest, I don't utilize that much yet).

[spullara]

Cold, Mexican tile.

[throwaway]

> But don't lay on your death bed wishing you'd worked less and loved more.

The advice in the original article is not new. In fact it is the default advice that is given to all, very unlike what the OP has mentioned. I haven't seen any person with experience mention that personal life is a sink. It could be an advice that is ignored the most, but it definitely is the advice that is also given most frequently.

The term 'Workaholic', is a negative even in its name. And I don't believe anyone, who has done even the slightest of introspection, consider being a workaholic to be the most optimal condition for them. They might love their work, I do as well, but I think the intensity is often due to either grandness of their objectives or due to lack of alternatives. Given then humans have a propensity to overestimate the impact of the our own work, they also tend to underestimate the comparative value of things that do not directly and visibly help in achieving that goal they desire so dearly. And what they desire is not always what is considered acceptable or good, but what is considered extraordinary and different. We have seldom celebrated people for having a balanced life. The most important aspect of people whom we have admired, as a community, is never the balance that they have in their person and professional life, it is their impact on the world - the size of the dent they created. Hence, even though some of us know they might not make it, they hope that if they work just an hour more a day at the expense of existence of a personal life - it might increase their chances. They are ready to lose it all but never to be ordinary. These are the risk takers who have a choice at having a relationship but choose not to take it. For they fear they might die in mediocrity.

And then we also have the other kind, those who don't have a choice. Work being what gives them some hope of acceptance. Some relevance. I often think that one way of thinking of our primary motive is that we want to have some relevance, that we want to be remembered when we die, we want to be missed when we are missing. We want to be either extremely very relevant to a few people or be at least be somewhat relevant to masses. We do see the value of love and the value of all the very personal relationships that we have, successul or unsuccessful. We might even value them more than the relevance that we get in lives of many through our work. However, some of us are too unfortunate in the pursuit. And too afraid. And to bring some luck to our misfortune, work seems to be a safe choice. A choice is to work, for the rewards are largely under our own control and independent of how we look. Work is a safe haven in a world that has marked us to be unattractive and unworthy of affection. Of course those of us who feel this way, are at fault. We could change the way we dress, go to gym and travel; basically do things that we don't enjoy to get a chance at a game that we suck at. But we sometimes think, "fk it all, I will just work" for that at least might bring some minimum guaranteed rewards. We are the risk averse who fear we might get nothing but disappointment, again, if we pursue something personal and lovely in life.