<story><title>Why I Dropped Out Of YC</title><url>http://wikichen.is/writing/why-i-dropped-out-of-yc/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>birken</author><text>Look, startups suck.  Failed startups suck.  Successful startups suck.  Silicon Valley sucks.  But so does working regular jobs, and so do a lot of things.  The problem here is probably that you had the wrong expectations, and then when reality hit, it hit really hard.&lt;p&gt;If you want to play the game, you better be mentally prepared for dealing with a lot of shit.  Egos are going to clash.  Friendships are going to be strained.  Stress is going to occur.  To use one of my favorite quotes my dad always said to me, &amp;quot;that is life in the big city&amp;quot;.  Startups are not romantic -- they are a slog.&lt;p&gt;But... if you are building something you want to build, it can be worth it.  Just don&amp;#x27;t expect it to be easy.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>hnriot</author><text>Startups don&amp;#x27;t suck! After having worked at plenty over the years I don&amp;#x27;t agree at all. I guess it depends how you respond to change and volatility. Some people find comfort in things staying the same, but I enjoy the high rate of change in startups. I enjoy the pace, sometimes it can be stressful but after a few you don&amp;#x27;t get too worried - investors come and go, products come and go, fortunes comes and go. It&amp;#x27;s not the destination that matters, if all you&amp;#x27;re focused on is the exit then you&amp;#x27;ll miss the fun. For me it&amp;#x27;s about staying current. After being a software dev for 25 years I still absolutely love the latest jquery widget, or that Factorie has just hit 1.0 and I can do Dependency Parsing in Scala, or that Pig can now talk to Spark, etc.. To enjoy startups you have to love technology. It&amp;#x27;s like dating, if all you&amp;#x27;re thinking about is getting the girl into bed it won&amp;#x27;t end well, if instead you enjoy the conversation and are genuinely having a good time then ... who knows.</text></comment>
<story><title>Why I Dropped Out Of YC</title><url>http://wikichen.is/writing/why-i-dropped-out-of-yc/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>birken</author><text>Look, startups suck.  Failed startups suck.  Successful startups suck.  Silicon Valley sucks.  But so does working regular jobs, and so do a lot of things.  The problem here is probably that you had the wrong expectations, and then when reality hit, it hit really hard.&lt;p&gt;If you want to play the game, you better be mentally prepared for dealing with a lot of shit.  Egos are going to clash.  Friendships are going to be strained.  Stress is going to occur.  To use one of my favorite quotes my dad always said to me, &amp;quot;that is life in the big city&amp;quot;.  Startups are not romantic -- they are a slog.&lt;p&gt;But... if you are building something you want to build, it can be worth it.  Just don&amp;#x27;t expect it to be easy.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>founder4fun</author><text>Indeed this shit is not easy!&lt;p&gt;One day your on a huge blog&amp;#x2F;well known publication and your traffic is going nuts.  The next day its all gone.&lt;p&gt;One day your celebrating your investment&amp;#x2F;funding win.  The next your struggling to find more money and or accept it&amp;#x27;s not going to happen.&lt;p&gt;One day your invited to demo your latest tech to one of the big tech firms thinking it&amp;#x27;s your big win you&amp;#x27;ve worked years for.  The next you realize&amp;#x2F;wonder damn did they just steal our hard work - why did they treat us like garbage?&lt;p&gt;So many ups and downs.  Sometimes you just want to give up, but you don&amp;#x27;t because this what you love to do and if you stop&amp;#x2F;give up on one tech idea you&amp;#x27;ll get restless and do another!</text></comment>