crazy_ant

Disclosure: I've been living in Japan for half a decade now.

There are a number of interplaying and compounding factors that are responsible for creating this situation. I will list a few in no particular order.

- The hours are absolutely insane. My partner rarely leaves her office before 10pm, and by the time she does, she is completely exhausted and unable to do anything other than hit the sack. This type of situation is extremely prevalent and generally affects both men and women. It is no wonder that young people have no time to socialize, go out and meet potential partners when they spend 90% of their waking hours working or otherwise subordinating to this insane work cult.

- Japan is a country of predefined roles and expectations, and at different ages people are fully expected to meet certain benchmarks and seamlessly transition into new roles. One such role is that of a provider, and men are expected to be able to become full-time breadwinners by the time they hit 30. With the economy being what it is and the traditional Japanese notion of lifetime employment being a thing of the past, a lot of men aren't able to live up to these expectations and simply drop out of the dating pool. Some of it is involuntary, since Japanese women tend to maintain very high expectations as to what a man needs to be able to provide.

- Sex is generally highly available and there are all kinds of parlors, services, salons, middlemen and clubs catering to both men and women. It's cheap, legal and safe, thereby creating a disincentive for people to attempt and engage in the old fashioned mating process. On top of that - and this is going to sound completely nuts to those who aren't familiar with the country - there are full-time gigolos, both foreign and domestic, whose only life goal seems to be getting as many notches as possible. They approach women on the street, in bookstores, train stations, malls, you name it. I know a few of these characters and many of them have notches in the 3 figure range and juggle up to 7 women at a time. It's all they ever do, and I suspect that they tie up a huge number of women at any given point in time. I can't say I've noticed the same phenomenon in any other country.

- The local culture isn't exactly touchy-feely and even when people date, it's something they do because it's what young people are supposed and expected to do, not because they like their partner or dating in particular. Just a curiosity I've noticed with many couples.

Obviously, the situation is very complex and cannot be explained with a simple narrative, but I hope this helps clarify things a little.

Hold on a second. Are you trying to say that a ride-sharing app for cats is of zero or negative value to mankind? That professional bullshit artists and narcissists calling themselves "founders" and "hackers" don't measure up to the old guard who built real innovations such as microprocessors? Blasphemy.

Absolutely. That's why we are bootstrapping here, despite being offered funding in the past (unsolicited, I might add). For someone who is trying to build a healthy lifestyle business, accepting money from a VC is equivalent to agreeing to having a boss.

When entrepreneurs who have accepted funding are not able to meet certain targets, they routinely get sidelined and/or replaced. I don't know why so many people here pretend that's not the case.

You must have never heard of situations where a founder gets pushed out of their company by the VC because they are not meeting certain targets.

It has nothing to do with morality, it has to do with building a sustainable business while retaining full ownership. The notion that you absolutely need to accept funding is getting tired because it's not supported by facts and grounded in reality.

I am currently bootstrapping a business and I have been approached by VCs who asked me to please take their money. I have turned them down because, as I politely told them, I don't need it, AND I am not looking to simply flip the company some day (no sane investor will invest unless the company can be sold in some form and they get their money back). Some people may also wish to avoid having a boss, and if you think your VC is not your boss in some capacity at least, you're in for a rude awakening.

Calling someone's decision to avoid raising money irrational and attaching labels (morality?) is presumptuous. There are certain goals that are incompatible with accepting funding, such as: operating a lifestyle business, not reporting to anyone, freedom etc. I am not sure what's so difficult to understand about that.

I fully agree with you. The issue is not people like you and me, it's 22 year old kids who are willing to work 16 hours a day and undercut everyone else.

>The expectation is salaried employees put in ungodly hours.

I am not US based and I've always wondered about this. In virtually every other western country, it doesn't matter if you're "salaried" or not - your employer is legally prohibited from not paying overtime. If your employment contract says you work 9-5, then anything outside those hours must be compensated, often at a higher rate (1.2x-1.5x is not uncommon in many European countries).

In the context of the US labor law, does being "salaried" functionally equal "being required to work unlimited overtime"?

>I'm not being facetious, but this might be a personal problem (not being able to get your mind off of work). For people who experience this, something like meditation might help, seriously. I certainly wouldn't fault an employer.

It's not that most people can't take their mind off of work, it's that they often have to meet various unrealistic deadlines, or else. It's not their own choice, insofar as they want to keep their job.

That's cute but not how the world works. Employers will rarely explicitly ask you to do free overtime because that's illegal in many jurisdictions. What happens instead is this: an unrealistic deadline will be imposed and you will be expected to meet it. How you will go about doing that is up to you, but it usually assumes working overtime if you want to keep your job.