From the linked article:
"The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads."
I think some engineers, I hope all, cringe thinking about this.
I do agree with you about the "greener" grass on the other side. I think humans are wired to always feel bad and doubt when they are given a choice.
I personally wouldn't live with my self working for someone else's dreams :)
This blind spot is the undercurrent to his whole essay. While there are definitely startup founders who can experience regret of an alternative life, the author completely ignores the opposite situation: the play-it-safe employee who has "friends & family" but has demons of "unfulfilled potential" constantly gnawing at him.
>, you should probably spend more time learning about your own brain, and trying to form enduring friendships, and less time worrying about money and start-ups and equity and things.
This assumes that one cannot create enduring friendships while in the act of building startups. People can pursue goals of becoming a Navy SEAL, climb Mt Everest, hunt for the Higgs-Boson, etc and cultivate friendships while spending time on activities that require intense focus.
>For whatever reason — maybe it’s generational — today’s founders feel the need to be the hero of their own inner narratives. For them, start-ups embody a kind of happy confluence of making a lot of money, changing the world, showing everyone how smart and wonderful they are, and, ultimately, becoming their awesome true authentic selves.
The author has a dismissive tone using phrases like "for whatever reason", "showing everyone how smart and wonderful they are", and "becoming their awesome selves". Sure, manipulate the reader by only describing caricatures of egotism.
The author doesn't mention the other legitimate sentiments such as, "I don't to be a cog in someone else's wheel", or "I don't want to optimize algorithms to make people click on ads"[1]
The author doesn't seem to acknowledge the existence of people who will not be fulfilled with friends unless they are satisfied with what they are doing with their life. A similar scenario is a family man who isn't fulfilled by settling into a domestic routine. He has children; at best, he loves them but at worst, he's apathetic and sees them as constant reminders of ambitions that were killed. The girlfriend/wife unexpectedly got pregnant and now he feels trapped.
[1]http://www.fastcompany.com/3008436/takeaway/why-data-god-jef...