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Re:Silicon Valley's best kept secret: Founder liquidity by Finbarr on Wednesday June 12, 2024 @10:02AM (#40658285)
Nobody is forced to become a founder. A lot of people are naive to the sheer level of stress involved, and think it’s going to be easier than it actually is. You don’t find out just how stressful it is until you’re already super committed, have raised money, have employees, and there’s no easy way out without screwing a whole bunch of people over.

Founders tend to only talk about the good things happening at their companies, and tech press tends to focus on the successes. These things contribute to more people starting companies.

Re:Silicon Valley's best kept secret: Founder liquidity by ipaddr on Wednesday June 12, 2024 @11:33AM (#40659248)
If you can't stomach screwing people over you shouldn't be a CEO.
Re:Silicon Valley's best kept secret: Founder liquidity by ukuina on Thursday June 13, 2024 @01:52AM (#40666347)
This long-running narrative that you have to be a sociopath to be a CEO is false.
Re:Silicon Valley's best kept secret: Founder liquidity by kelnos on Thursday June 13, 2024 @04:45AM (#40667337)
> tech press tends to focus on the successes.

On the flip side, though, any regular HN reader has likely seen dozens of accounts written by startup founders whose companies have failed. And there's quite a bit of overlap between the set of HN readers and the set of past, current, and likely-future startup founders.

Re:Silicon Valley's best kept secret: Founder liquidity by Finbarr on Thursday June 13, 2024 @11:59AM (#40671264)
Yes and optimism bias leads people to believe they won’t experience those negative events. Everyone must believe they are going to do better than the median outcome when they start a company.