Ask HN: What is the dark side of working at a successful startup?

Re:Ask HN: What is the dark side of working at a successful ... by rdco on Monday September 17, 2018 @11:05AM (#18006576)

>some of the happiest people are farmers

Farmers and soldiers have notoriously high suicide rates. One explanation is that it's caused by a lack of control. From that perspective, it's certainly frustrating to watch your company succumb to inefficiencies (e.g. politics), but as a white collar worker, it's much easier to solve than for farmers. White collar worker can move laterally to a new job or upward, but farmers are looking at selling the family farm (social/career implosion) or controling the weather (impossible).

>Simple and a slower life is not such a terrible thing.

Agreed.

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Re:Ask HN: What is the dark side of working at a successful ... by JBlue42 on Friday September 21, 2018 @12:22AM (#18037129)

For some reason, your post reminded me of this bookmark I go back to:

https://www.brainpickings.org/2013/05/09/daniel-pink-drive-r...

"In Drive, Pink goes on to illustrate why the traditional carrots-and-sticks paradigm of extrinsic reward and punishment doesn’t work, pointing instead to his trifecta of intrinsic motivators: Autonomy, or the desire to be self-directed; Mastery, or the itch to keep improving at something that’s important to us; and Purpose, the sense that what we do produces something transcendent or serves something meaningful beyond than ourselves."

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