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Depression: The Secret Struggle Startup Founders Won't Talk About 184

Posted by samzenpus from the cloudy-skies dept.
mattydread23 writes: In May, Cambrian Genomics CEO Austen Heinz committed suicide. The news stunned friends and family, and sparked a conversation about the growing problem of depression among startup founders. Some estimates say 30% of startup founders suffer from depression, but many are reluctant to talk about their struggle for fear of alienating investors and employees. This feature by Business Insider includes conversations with a friend of Heinz, plus many investors and other startup founders who are starting to talk about the problem and figure out how to make things better.
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Depression: The Secret Struggle Startup Founders Won't Talk About More

Depression: The Secret Struggle Startup Founders Won't Talk About

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  • Why talk? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by pubwvj ( 1045960 ) on Wednesday July 01, 2015 @05:29PM (#50028939)

    Why talk about it? We're busy being optimistic. One must be very optimistic to be a startup (any business pretty much) or a farmer. The rest get 9-to-5 jobs.

    • Yep, extreme optimism is just as much a part of the illness as extreme pessimism, both extremes are disconnected from reality.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by pubwvj ( 1045960 )

        It's a form of mania. It often swings between the extremes. The middle is no fun. Bye-bye polar. Some might consider it a fair price to pay for the highs.

        • You like that, try bipolar Type II. No highs - just irritation and agitation - but the lows are just the same. That one really sucks.

        • It's a form of mania. It often swings between the extremes. The middle is no fun. Bye-bye polar. Some might consider it a fair price to pay for the highs.

          The highs are just as bad for other people as the lows.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      The kind of forced optimism that CEOs of startups often have to show is actually one of the things that causes depression. They have to live a lie, where they tell everyone that their shitty platform which does the same thing as five other shitty platforms is going to be the next Facebook.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by pubwvj ( 1045960 )

        You seem very depressed.
        You have a pattern of negative posts.
        Would you like to talk about it?
        Maybe Dr. Eliza v3.0 can help.

      • The kind of forced optimism that CEOs of startups often have to show is actually one of the things that causes depression. They have to live a lie, where they tell everyone that their shitty platform which does the same thing as five other shitty platforms is going to be the next Facebook.

        That's only a problem if you lie to yourself. Lying to others is just business.

        • But, really, there has to be a degree of cognitive dissonance between the hope you'll do well and be super rich ... and the actual reality that, it's a tough slog, you might not get there, and you might have to trade away some equity to someone else to get there ... in which case your payout might not be as big as you hoped.

          The difference between con-man and entrepreneur can be a thin line.

          I've known a few people who fancied themselves the latter, but had worked themselves into such a feverish pitch trying

  • Secret struggle...

    Thanks a hell of a lot. Now it's no longer a secret!

  • The majority of startups will fail. You have to know that going in, that the odds are very much against you.

    I just can’t BELIEVE the things that have gotten funding. Who “invests” $5M in a luxury watch site? I thought there were just a lot of bad ideas out there, but I think there are a lot of unsophisticated investors too.

    Does anyone ever ask any serious questions? What happens if the government classifies Uber’s drivers as employeess, and not contractors? What happens if advertisin

    • I think the key to avoiding depression is to have a good idea from the start, not something that relies on advertising to make money

      You're confusing "likelihood of success" with "likelihood of continued success". There were a lot of competitors to be eBay, Netflix or Amazon. Most startups will fail. Those that eventually succeed will often look like they are going to fail. Devoting 1/5 of your productive life to something that fails is pretty depressing.

    • Re:It’s chess, not checkers (Score:4, Insightful)

      by serviscope_minor ( 664417 ) on Thursday July 02, 2015 @03:33AM (#50031203) Journal

      I just canâ(TM)t BELIEVE the things that have gotten funding. Who âoeinvestsâ $5M in a luxury watch site? I thought there were just a lot of bad ideas out there, but I think there are a lot of unsophisticated investors too.

      This is why it's depressing being in s startup. Let's say you've got a crack team of 4 co-founders and have not only come up with a good idea but built a product round it, sure it will get better in future but it works now. Let's say you're all grown-ups and actually considered the market before embarking on this and have found that yet there is a niche and a demand. Maybe you've even managed to sell a few units and get people interested, but now need money to grow.

      So you go looking for invesment (well you maybe were all along) because you've just invested 4 person years for no pay.

      And first you can't get any so you decide to look around at what is getting finded. And holy Jesus Christ on a moped what the ever living fuck who the damn hell ever though it was a good idea to fund those guys? So you have a product that's useful and there's still no competition and now the 25th selfie drone company, going into an already crowed area has just raised some insane amount. As has another facebook/uber wannabe clearly doomed for failure.

      And then some moron of an "angel" comes along who decides that a 500% discount rate is what he wants so that if you ever do get VC funding, not only does he own the entire company, but he owns you, your childred and your children's children, your ever living soul and your pet hamster.

      Meanwhile money is getting tight and you get back to pitching. Nada. But hey, Uber is now worth more than the combined annual revenue of the entire global taxi industry and then some.

      Then these guys net $2,500,000

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

      And now an app which does fucking NOTHING except send the message "yo" to people with the same app installed is valued at $3.3 per user? WHAT THE FUCK? You funded that and you won't fund me? Are you mad?

      And that is, I believe, why it's depressing.

  • "Cambrian Genomics" (Score:3)

    by mujadaddy ( 1238164 ) on Wednesday July 01, 2015 @05:35PM (#50028981)

    Cambrian Genomics

    ...was he depressed that making dinosaurs was harder than he'd been lead to believe?

  • Depression? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by slashmydots ( 2189826 ) on Wednesday July 01, 2015 @05:42PM (#50029031)
    Depression? Who has time for that?! I've got customers out the door, tax forms to do, end of month accounting, interviews. You'll have to schedule depression with my secretary. Mornings are kinda tight for me though.

  • Quite understandable. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by 140Mandak262Jamuna ( 970587 ) on Wednesday July 01, 2015 @05:57PM (#50029121) Journal
    These people bet their lives on a very risky venture. They must have higher than normal anxiety. It is only natural. Most of the startups fail. A few succeed spectacularly and a few more give non trivial returns. But majority of them face the prospect of closing shop and getting into the daily grind, but five or ten years behind their batch mates. It would be depressing.

    Also 7% being depressed in general population is definitely an underestimate. Till Obamacare came along some 40 million Americans had no access to healthcare. (Now that number is believed to be 25 million). Among the rest mental health screening is not covered for most of the lower end plans. Further given the taboo associated with mental illness even those with access do not get checked for depression. It is possible I myself would be diagnosed with depression, if I give the shrinks half a chance. Tech founders typically have enough resources to make it to college. They would get tested more than general population.

    I think depression is more prevalent than assumed. And logically there are lots of reasons why most people, young ones more than others, should be depressed.

    • From TFA:

      A recent study by Dr. Michael Freeman, a clinical professor at UCSF and an entrepreneur as well, was one of the first of its kind to link higher rates of mental health issues to entrepreneurship.

      Of the 242 entrepreneurs surveyed, 49% reported having a mental-health condition. Depression was the No. 1 reported condition among them and was present in 30% of all entrepreneurs, followed by ADHD (29%) and anxiety problems (27%). That's a much higher percentage than the US population at large, where only about 7% identify as depressed.

      More surprising was the incidence of mental health in the families of entrepreneurs: 72% said they either had mental-health problems themselves or in their immediate family.

      A founder who has no history of mental illness from a family with no history either "is the exception, not the rule," Freeman said.

      Also, from the study mentioned:
      http://www.michaelafreemanmd.c... [michaelafreemanmd.com]

      Little is known about mental health conditions among the families of entrepreneurs. Of some relevance, though, is the fact that previous research has shown that first and second-degree family members of bipolar probands are high achievers across several domains that are important for entrepreneurship. Higier and her colleagues found that when compared to bipolar probands and normal controls, the unaffected identical twins of people with bipolar disorder demonstrate superior cognitive and interpersonal traits that would seem highly important for entrepreneurship, including enhanced social ease, confidence, assertiveness, intelligence, verbal learning, verbal fluency, extraversion, sociability, optimism, and resilience [89].

      Coryell et al. found that the first-degree relatives of bipolar probands, including relatives with bipolar spectrum conditions, had significantly higher educational and occupational achievement than the close family members of people with other mental health conditions [72]. Other studies conducted over the last 100 years have reached similar conclusions [73, 74, 76, 90-92].
      Creativity and innovativeness are foundational aptitudes of entrepreneurs. The close family members of bipolar probands have been shown to have high levels of creativity [23, 68]. First-degree relatives of people with bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, anorexia nervosa, and autism have been shown to be overrepresented in the scientific and artistic occupations [66]. Male relatives of people with schizophrenia were shown to be overrepresented in a listing of prominent people [93].

      Also, ALSO, from the study:

      Reviewed in conjunction with the results displayed Figure 1, 72% of the entrepreneurs in this sample either reported a personal mental health history (49%) or were asymptomatic yet reported a family mental health history (23%). By contrast, 48% of the comparison participants in this sample reported a personal mental health history (32%) or were asymptomatic yet reported a family mental health history (16%).

      There IS also a PRETTY BIG issue with it being a self-reporting study and with the composition and the design of the control group.

      Control was created by surveying "76 MBA student and faculty pool participants, and 149 psychology students", then mixing those participants with self-reported "entrepreneurs".
      Then, out of the total sum of 335 participants (meaning that 110 were actually pooled from "actual entre

  • Bad science? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Demonoid-Penguin ( 1669014 ) on Wednesday July 01, 2015 @06:15PM (#50029255) Homepage

    What percentage of people who begin startups have a history of depression?

    I know that some years ago a doctor quizzed me about depression.

    • GP "Do you ever get depressed?"

    • Me "Well... yes, sometimes" "Isn't that normal?"

      GP "It's not healthy" "Do you ever feel sad about events outside of your control?"

      Me "For instance?"

      GP. "Do events in other countries ever make you feel sad?"

      Me "Yes" "Seems normal to me that knowing other people are suffering doesn't make me happy"

    The GP then tried to prescribe me Xanax - which just made me feel depressed (no - I never took Xanax). So I have a history of depression (there's more than that incident - I do have "black days" where I want to stay in bed and avoid the world). Whether that's serious or normal doesn't change the fact that I've started a number of successful new businesses, and as part of the process I've often neglected my diet, been extremely stressed, and suffered from extreme lack of sleep. Others with similar business history report the same thing - periods of optimism, energy and the feeling that the brain (and the mouth) are at their optimum, followed by periods when I get words wrong, struggle to get out of bed, feel mentally sluggish, and have difficulty believing things will "go well".
    Clearly I haven't committed suicide, but was it the startups that caused the "depression" - or the "side-effects" of "depression" ("extreme" optimism and "energy") that "impelled" the desire to startup a new business venture?

    My "suspicion" is that starting any new business involves mixed emotions. Losses loom larger than gains - and despite initial optimism there will always be periods of doubt. It kind of balances out, no ups without downs.

    Anything new involves risks - and to many the risks appear larger as the involvement shifts from dipping your toes to taking a plunge. Terms like "bi-polar" and "manic" get bandied about when describing people who are successful at taking risks but I've seen little to show that's a result of starting a new/novel venture. Perhaps I'm too depressed to look in the right places?

    Note: after the first couple of experiences the process is much easier to deal with as you can look back on previous occasions when it felt like the sun would never shine again - and know that good things, while often hard to imagine - are just as likely outcomes as the bad things that are much easier to imagine. That seems normal to me.

    • Before some armchair asshat brands you as bipolar, consider that depression is a natural result of effectively burning out the anxiety receptors/generators.

      Too much stress, and you either lack the stress hormone generation, or you are desensitized to its effects.

      Untreated anxiety results in depression. For some, that means a trip to the doc for some meds. For others, it means time to do something exciting, like start a new company.

      Serial startups may be self medication. It may seem like you are coping we

      • Before some armchair asshat brands you as bipolar, consider that depression is a natural result of effectively burning out the anxiety receptors/generators.

        Thanks - but I've never been labeled bi-polar, or manic-depressant (well, once or twice). Over-enthuasiastic, yes, and also accused of "thinking too much" - neither of which labels worry me (nor smart-arse, especially considering the antithesis).

        Too much stress, and you either lack the stress hormone generation, or you are desensitized to its effects.

        Oh I stress. And I worry. But neither consume me. A certain amount of stress is good, and worry is just a sign that some risk needs to be managed - beyond that I'm not concerned.

        Untreated anxiety results in depression. For some, that means a trip to the doc for some meds. For others, it means time to do something exciting, like start a new company.

        Agreed - though I suspect the medical "solution" is the result of not properly addressin

    • Stress can be depressing, and creativity correlates with chronic depression. No surprise that depressed people could have a great idea to turn into a startup, or that the stress of doing so could express as depression. In the case of BiPolar disorder, that manic phase has obvious advantages for an entrepreneur, but people with BPD rarely consider themselves depressed.

      As a personal note - excessive, semi-random use of rhetorical/grammatical tools like "scare quotes" also correlates to BPD. Combine that wi

      • Stress can be depressing, and creativity correlates with chronic depression. No surprise that depressed people could have a great idea to turn into a startup, or that the stress of doing so could express as depression. In the case of BiPolar disorder, that manic phase has obvious advantages for an entrepreneur, but people with BPD rarely consider themselves depressed.

        And yet... I do freely admit to often having been depressed. Why do you sound like the childhood shrink who diagnosed me as hyperactive - while the very book he was quoting from noted that a key symptom was "thrive on lack of sleep". I like my sleep, always have.

        As a personal note - excessive, semi-random use of rhetorical/grammatical tools like "scare quotes" also correlates to BPD.

        Excessive? Semi-random? You don't read like much of a psychiatrist or a semiotician

        Combine that with starting a number of successful businesses during periods of high-energy, optimism and a sense of operating at a mental optimum, along with phases of crippling depression, and you've pretty much announced that you have BPD. I'll be the armchair asshat who says it - you just described the symptoms perfectly. No criticism, no shaming, I'm just going to recommend you repeat that to a psychiatrist.

        Yeah - you are an asshat. You sound like one of those "I have a problem but 10 visits to a shrink cured me - now I'm an expert in spotting the specks in other people

        • Hey, I'm not trying to be a jerk about it. I'm just telling you what I see, take it or leave it.

          But your use of scare quotes is still ridiculous.

  • Unhealthy society. Not just in business or tech. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by aussersterne ( 212916 ) on Wednesday July 01, 2015 @06:59PM (#50029509) Homepage

    This isn't just about startups, this is across U.S. society—there is zero work-life balance.

    Sure, every other company proclaims how great they are WRT work-life balance, but it's pure bullshit.

    During hiring (for employees) and/or funding (for startups), if you give any evidence that you will ever put anything before the company (family, health, whatever, it doesn't matter) in ANY way, or ever draw a line in the sand about hours/commitment at ANY number, you are totally noncompetitive/nonfundable (they won't use these words) and won't be hired/be funded. If there is any evidence in your CV, online persona, or history that you have ever done any of these things, you won't be hired/funded.

    Even after employment/funding, you have to keep this up. Sure, you may be asked (or even pressed) to "slow down," but it's superficial. The moment you do, positive evaluations/promotions/funding dries up; there is a perception that you're "not serious," "not committed," "not a good risk," or simply "not as capable/investment-worthy" as those *other* supermen/women that work 100+ hours a week (at least) and always put work first.

    Yes, they want you to take a break, take care of yourself, and balance your life. But hey, if someone else delivers more value or growth more quickly... Well, they'd be nuts not to go with them instead, and hope you stay healthy in the meantime, all the best.

    So, in the interest of your self/family/relationships you try to build a career that precisely demands that in order to keep it, you destroy your self/family/relationships. Depression is easy to fall into when your life will fall apart no matter what you do.

    • Re:Unhealthy society. Not just in business or tech (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Bite The Pillow ( 3087109 ) on Wednesday July 01, 2015 @08:57PM (#50030053)

      I have experience since 2002 with 4 different Fortune 150 or less businesses, and not once seen anything like this.

      I *have* seen people saying "I'm too busy" and working exactly 40 hours, but you can't justify hiring more people when you are getting 90% of the work done in 40 hours. Maybe if you have more than 10 people to cover a single role, but even large companies tend towards smaller teams, perhaps with more managers than are necessary. So you generally don't have enough work to justify a new hire.

      I also know people who worked at other Fortune 500 or less companies, at least 10 with enough detail to be sure that they have not seen anything like what you describe.

      I'm not saying you're wrong, but I do think you're in the wrong job market if you think this is bullshit.

      Someone else delivers more value or growth, that's a problem with either your skill set or their desire to burn out. And I would not want to hire someone who looks like they will be a burnout in 5 years.

      Go job hunting now, and get out of whatever network you are in, because you sound trapped by your own ignorance.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by BVis ( 267028 )

        And I would not want to hire someone who looks like they will be a burnout in 5 years.

        Of course you wouldn't. They obviously don't work hard enough. You want the folks that you can work into the ground in 6 months or so, then fire them for having human reactions to extreme overwork and burnout, and replace them with someone else who makes less money. Lather rinse repeat. Take a bath in all the money that you've made off of others' hard work and sacrifice. It's the American way.

    • One has to do more than your average bear to build a business from the ground up, how is that a surprise in any way? If it were easy, everybody would be doing it and it wouldn't be discussed here right now. I started up my own businesses but always self funded / got a client for the product. To do that I put 10 years of savings and years of work on the line, that is not an easy thing to do. But if I were unwilling to do it myself, how could I ever expect somebody else to do it on my behalf?

  • Commonsense would tell you than that the level of responsibility, risk, work-load and obsession assumed by a real entrepreneur would incline them to exhaustion, likely insomnia, and depression. But that's in retrospect. Initially there is the excitement and, when things seem to be accelerating, there can be a real buzz factor. But it sort of makes sense that the downside of the upside can be - and likely usually IS - as extreme as the buzz when things go well. In general, I think the average employee ha
  • I have Bipolar and it really ruined my life. I'm alive, but what kind of life is it? I guess on the up side I'm better off than many people in third world countries.

  • It's 30% of everyone (Score:3)

    by reve_etrange ( 2377702 ) on Thursday July 02, 2015 @03:34AM (#50031211)

    30% is just about the average in the Western world - nothing special about this particular group in this regard. It's a severely under appreciated problem when you consider the immense cost [nih.gov] in DALY or YLD.

    World Health Organization (WHO) states that depression is the leading cause of disability as measured by Years Lived with Disability (YLDs) and the fourth leading contributor to the global burden of disease.

  • You know what correlates strongly with depression? (Score:3)

    by sabbede ( 2678435 ) on Thursday July 02, 2015 @06:18AM (#50031601)
    Stress. Could just be that 30% of people faced with high levels of stress react by sinking into depression. I know it happens to me.
  • My theory: Sometimes early in life a person starts to experience anxiety, and this person is also gifted at analytical thought. The deeper they go into analytical thought, the more they escape the anxiety. "Geekness" becomes part of the person's identity. They become very skilled at some things. Some go on to create a company where work long hours, and not only abuse, but take pleasure in abusing those who work for them. Since our capitalist system rewards profit at any cost, these people are held up

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