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Comment by kn0thing | Hacker News Reader

I didn't write it for pity and I hope it didn't come across that way. I left reddit nearly a year ago now. And I thought the one thing missing from the multitude of 'reasons to start a startup' posts was that it could actually be an incredibly beneficial personal decision - especially in times of dealing with the "normal, perfectly mundane, plain ol' human condition" that affects us all.

I also don't think I'd have done nearly as many of those alien doodles or invested nearly as many hours as I did in reddit and the community had it not been an outlet for everything else. In that regard, I think it has a lot to do with reddit.

Starting a startup with Steve was one of the best decisions I could've made, just for a very unexpected reason. I hope it convinces a few others that it's worth taking the plunge.

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I just don't see how its applicable to connect your experience with the fact that you started reddit .. I mean, fair enough, you have a lot of Internet celebrity credits, but you're spending them by telling the world details about your life that have no real bearing on your profession.

The moral of the story? I guess it is that you should always try to persist in life no matter what gets thrown at you. I just found myself realizing, in the middle of your post, that I was spending my life reading about someone I don't even vaguely know, talking about how sad they were that their dog died. Is this really what its all about?

I am just really cringing for you right now... I know you don't really mean this, you just picked a bad article to quit reading right in the middle of before making a comment.

Edit: per the commenter's followup, I withdraw my benefit-of-the-doubt.

His personal life very much had bearings on his professional life. People are very much affected at work by what they do outside of it, and vice versa. Positively speaking, the tough times in his personal life may have proven to be the sort of motivation that inspires people to do great things. Negatively speaking, perhaps if he'd been able to spend more time working on Reddit at the start, they'd be in an even better off position than they are now. But we'll never know.

Regardless, while it is more extremely apparent in a startup, people's personal lives leak into their professional lives and vice versa. Something as small as the breakfast that you ate (or didn't) this morning affects your decisions and capabilities. When it comes to the bigger events in life, like family deaths, the repercussions in people's professional lives are quite significant. Hell, studies have shown that when men perform jobs that are too easy for them, their testosterone levels drop. That's a clearcut case of seemingly insignificant professional decision leaking into your personal life as testosterone levels affect so many personal choices.

Is it what it's all about? Hmmm. Did you take anything away from reading it that will help you in the future?

If so, context doesn't matter much, but you gained something positive, no matter how small.

Maybe you realized that everyone has hard times, and you don't feel it merits public discussion. However, it got you to read the post and not only that, but to comment on it as well. It's undeniable the post impacted you in some way. You will take something new away from that post, be it good, bad, or indifferent. Either way, in an ever so small way, you have been changed. What you do with that change is up to you, but in most cases I find it leads to positive change.

Your personal life is deeply entwined with your work. It's shortsighted to think otherwise.

Are you disillusioned with the current status of programming/IT/tech in general?

I cant say if I'm reading this right, but it really sounds like you're suffering a crisis of confidence in your decision to spend your time / career in tech (tech just being a broad catchall). I might be making a leap, but to me your tone of frustration and harshness ring familiar and its an open secret that a lot of us hit this brick wall at one point or another.

Cliche as hell but, "everything happens for a reason", or at least, it tends to work out that way.

I'm truly sorry for the troubles you experienced; I'm truly jealous of the positive aspects that resulted from your troubles.

I have a feeling you wouldn't change a thing given the opportunity. I don't sense much regret in your post; that's an amazing position to have been able to get to.

Good luck with everything you embark on in the future.

Please don't say "everything happens for a reason". It's a worthless post-hoc rationalization. There is no conceivable outcome that could be worth watching someone go through shit like that.

I don't know what the GP meant by it, but "everything happens for a reason" can be of comfort when people are going through hard times. Connecting to purpose of some kind can help people find strength. It might not resonate for you, but it doesn't mean it can't help someone, sometime.

You are correct, it does not resonate with me. But even worse, it makes me think you (the rhetorical you, of course, not YOU personally) are trying to invalidate the anger/sadness/grief that I feel. People go through some incredibly shitty times, and for you to walk into that and say "hey, look for the bright side!" is not helpful.

> Connecting to purpose of some kind can help people find strength.

Sure, it can, but I doubt they need you to point it out. The reason it's a cliche is because everybody's heard it before.

So, OK, there's a chance you might say it to someone and it genuinely comforts them. But there's also a pretty good chance you're just going to alienate them. Up to you.

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