Why I don’t want to be a founder

These days it seems fashionable to be a startup founder. Everyone around me is either one or trying to be one. When I go to a party in Silicon Valley, virtually everyone I meet starts their self introduction with “I have an AI startup that does X”, and then launches into a well-rehearsed elevator pitch about why their startup will change the world.

To be honest, I’m so sick of it. The world doesn’t need that many startups.

Almost every day someone asks me: “do you wanna start your own thing someday?” And people are always surprised when they hear my answer: No, at least not in the next 10 years.

There are so many VCs out there extolling the virtue of entrepreneurship and encouraging people to start their own thing. I have the opposite view.

Here’s why:

1. Most people start companies for the wrong reasons.

Chief among them is “I don’t want to work for someone else.”

Because a lot of friends in my circle went to elite Ivy League schools, this is a pattern that I see often: “Just because I went to an elite college, I’m too good to work for anyone else. I should become a founder because I deserve to.” Some people just wanna be able to put fancy titles like “founder/CEO” or “Forbes 30 under 30” on their LinkedIn. Very often people start companies because they don’t like their bosses or they just in general don’t want to be bossed around.

I think this is a lot of hubris. Working for someone else is a skill you have to learn if you wanna be a founder. A large part of being a founder is being a good manager. If you’ve never been managed before, you can hardly learn what makes a good or bad manager. Being on the other side teaches valuable lessons on how to run a team, or how team members would like to be run.

Others start companies to make money. But there are so many easier ways to make money than launching a venture-backed startup. You’ll be losing money for years and the chance of exiting is extremely slim.

To me personally, the only reason to start a startup is: You see a big problem in the world that many many people have, and you personally feel that pain and know a lot of people who feel that pain. You have a unique solution that might be the best out there, supported by unique insight into the market. You know a lot of talented people who are willing and capable of helping you build that solution.

Eric Yuan of Zoom is the best example (I interviewed him on a podcast in 2018). He was the VP of engineering at Cisco, when he realized Cisco’s software was crappy and customers weren’t happy. By that time he had decades of experience in the collaboration software space, and he knew the customers and their pain points. Since he couldn’t push the changes he wanted in Cisco, he then decides to leave Cisco to build his own. More than 40 Cisco engineers followed him to join his new venture.

2. Most people vastly underestimate what it takes to build a startup.

Of course, you need to know investors to raise money. But you need not just venture capital; more than anything, you need human and social capital.

You need to be able to name at least 10 people who are willing to work with you and follow your leadership, through thick and thin. (Or, in Eric’s case, 40)

You need to be able to name at least 20 people who are willing to be your early customers/evangelists.

When you’re first starting out, your product’s benefit isn’t obvious and there’s no social proof from existing customers. So you need people who are willing to take a leap of faith in you.

It takes a lot of time and work to build that network and reputation. Even though I know a lot of people, I can’t say that I can boast the above. It will probably take me at least another 5-10 years to get there.

You need to be able to understand an industry inside out. You need to have business acumen and strategic foresight. Both can take decades of experience and training. There’s simply no shortcut.

Sheer hutzpah and grit alone are not gonna make you a successful founder. Knowledge, resources, and connections are crucial.

3. Most people vastly overestimate the lifestyle of a startup founder

When people envision “startup founders”, they often conjure up images of Steve Jobs giving a keynote on stage, Mark Zuckerberg becoming a young billionaire, Elon Musk launching rockets into space…

But one thing about celebrities is that we tend to only see their bright sides, whereas the parts of their lives that we don’t see are most often filled with pain, loneliness, and darkness.

When you’re an entrepreneur, there might be 1% of the time when you’re really happy and hopeful, but the rest is all pain. This is what I consistently hear from friends around me who are building companies.

Building a startup is a hard, hard life.

Your personal health might be sacrificed. Your family might be broken. You might become depressed and desperate. You could lose all your money. Shit is gonna happen all the time.

The mental fortitude, tenacity, and relentless drive required to be an entrepreneur is beyond anyone’s imagination.

Most startups are neither complete successes nor failures. They just become mediocre and fade into obscurity. They stop growing, but are also not dead. You might get bored and wanna do something else, but you’re stuck because your investors are holding you accountable.

If you don’t wanna work for other people and actually want a life, you can be a freelancer or a small business owner. Don’t be a venture-backed startup founder.

4. Most people start their companies too young.

When I tell people that I feel “I’m not ready” to launch my own startup, they always tell me “Oh, you’re never ready”.

That might be true, but there are various degrees of readiness.

I strongly oppose to starting companies in one’s twenties. When you’re fresh out of college, you simply don’t have the knowledge, resources, and connections it takes. (I’m so sick of college dropouts. Just finish your degree and get a real job.)

Of course, there are exceptions like Facebook and others. But people remember these precisely because successful young founders are exceptions, not the norm. A Harvard Business Review study found that the average age of a successful startup founder is 45.

The researchers wrote, “Work experience plays a critical role. Relative to founders with no relevant experience, those with at least three years of prior work experience in the same narrow industry as their startup were 85% more likely to launch a highly successful startup.”

For the next 5-10 years of my career, I just wanna work for brilliant individuals and learn from them. Instead of entrepreneurship, think apprenticeship. I don’t care about the money or the title; I just want to learn and grow.

Don’t start a company for the sake of starting a company.