Ten pros and cons of starting a startup

September 3, 2020

Should you become an entrepreneur? Here's the honest truth (as I see it). 1. Autonomy Pro: you're the boss and decide what to do. Con: you HAVE to always decide what to do. There will be a huge array of options at any given moment, and you'll never know for sure which to work on. You can seek advice, but ultimately YOU are the one who must decide. 2. Lifestyle Pro: since you're the boss, you'll have flexibility in your hours. Cons: you'll inevitably be working a lot of...

Four tiny parables about starting a company

December 22, 2018

TLDR: become a looper of questions to know how to program the machine that will polish the stone while you outlast the jungle. 1. Looping the Question “What don’t I know that I must know?” This Meta Question is your obsession. The answer to that Meta Question is itself a question, and it leads you to create your first data loop (say, conducting a series of interviews with experts). After sucking down much of what it has to teach you, you’re hearing the same answers again and again. Da...

13 Ways Some Companies Make Money While Causing Harm

October 17, 2017

I’ve often heard it said that if people buy the product a company or startup is selling, then the company must be creating value in the world. After all, why would someone buy a product if it were not creating value? It would be really nice if this were a valid argument (since then more units sold means more societal benefit). Unfortunately, it’s not. I like entrepreneurship a great deal and think on net it has added huge amounts of benefit to the world. In fact, I'm an entrepreneur myself. But...