I get asked this question a lot. From BigTech friends curious why I would pick a negative expected value career path (on average), family concerned that I am unemployable, and most often from investors curious if it’s worth it to keep talking to me. At the start of my founder journey, I didn’t have a good answer. Of course, I knew deep down why I wanted to be a founder. I desired the ability to influence society to bring about technological change. I wanted to have the power of Bill Gates and I saw entrepreneurship as the first step to getting that power. I knew my honest answer but telling everyone that I wanted to be a founder for the power felt too egotistical. So I did what other people who are lost do—copy successful role models. After watching interviews of successful founders I found that they all had the same public reason: passion. I decided to go with that answer as well.
After all, it wasn’t that big of a lie. I have a deep passion for software engineering and I had a lot of fun being an founder. If other successful founders got to where they are today with passion, then why can’t I? During co-founder interviews, I asked other founders this question. Everyone universally said passion. For the last 3 years, I was confident that I had the right motivations to be a founder. Well after winding down my startup, I can confidently say passion alone is the wrong motivation to start a company. Passion is the wrong motivation because it didn’t motivate me towards success.
The difference between good motivations and bad motivations is that good motivations push you towards success. Bad motivations can be achieved by failure. I believe there are two good motivations to being a founder—money or power. Money is a great motivator because that’s really the whole point of being a founder of a for profit entity—making money for shareholders. If you believe being a founder is your only shot at making a lot of money, then you will work your ass off on things you don’t want to do just to get to that end goal. Power is a side effect of making a lot of money. You will gain a lot of power and respect if you know “the secrets” to making a lot of money.
Money/power are great motivations because you will have to lose money/power to start your business. You will need to expend money to build a product and operate your business. You will need to expend power to recruit a team, rally investors, and find clients. If your business is successful you will gain money/power. If your business fails, you will lose it. With money/power as your motivators you will only enter markets where you feel like you have a good chance of making more money/power than you lose.
For founders that say this is obvious—congrats, you didn’t fall for the media smokescreen. For founders that say that I’m being far too cynical, I urge you to question why you want to be a founder if not for money/power. I’ll list the arguments that I had against money/power below.
“If money/power are the motivators, that doesn’t mean you have to start a business. On average working in BigTech will give you more money/power than starting a company.”
It’s true having money/power as motivators can point you into working as, say, a software engineer and if that is the best way for you to get money/power, then congrats go for it. For some people, though, they run into opportunities or are in situations where starting a business is the best way for them to get money/power. This is what makes a successful founder. This is why the commonly cited statistic that you make more money on average working in BigTech than founding a company is misleading. Averages ignore the hero’s circumstance. It’s true the average human is better off not starting a company, but that’s also true for nearly every high status profession (sports star, pop star, fund manager). You have to be exceptional to be successful and every good startup founder views themselves as either exceptional or having no choice. Otherwise why go through all the pain and suffering for a worse reward.
“Every successful founder talks about chasing their passions. Why would they lie to me?”
Because it’s the politically correct thing to say. People love a good fairytale and so that’s what these founders are selling. Looking at actions over words paints a different picture. Steve Jobs is a great example of a founder being on the record for doing it because of passion. Based on his actions, however, I can tell you that he craved power. He left Apple because he lost the power struggle. If it was simply passion for electronics, he would’ve stayed on to work on the skunkworks project he was offered.
“Being a founder for money/power feels so shallow. Shouldn’t I live for a greater cause? Like my passion for the environment or ending world hunger.”
You can totally live life for a greater cause like the environment or ending world hunger but that doesn’t mean the best way to solve those problems is by founding a for profit entity. The startup landscape is littered with failed green-tech projects not because of lack of passion but because of lack of business value. Part of my maturing is acknowledging that the pursuit of money/power is not shallow. To live a fulfilling life I don’t personally have to “save the world”. I’d much rather be an influential figure among other developers. I really want to encourage everyone to challenge what society deems as worthwhile and to instead pursue what you personally believe to be worthwhile.
Lie to Others, but be Honest with Yourself
I think it’s perfectly acceptable to have a politically correct external motivation, but lying to myself has done more harm than good. Having internal motivations that push me towards my image of success will make it easier for me to intuit the right moves. And if the right move isn’t to start a company, so be it. Noam Wasserman talks about this as the choice of Rich vs King. He believes that both motivations are fine, but to be successful you have to be consistent with your decisions.
Being consistent was something I struggled with a lot during my first company. I was scared to admit to myself that I was doing a startup for the power. I spent a lot of time looking into pure mercenary markets like alternative spirituality and e-commerce tooling. Those are great markets for mercenary founders interested in making money, but terrible for a missionary person that craves influence and power with developers. Understanding my motivations has pushed me instead to look into developer ecosystems—an area where I crave power and influence. It’s given me the confidence to buy an Apple Vision Pro and give that ecosystem a shot. I don’t know how I’m going to make something happen in the developer ecosystem space, but I’ll just keep being consistent and see where it takes me.