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Comment by jayparth | Hacker News Reader

The guy who wrote this piece is speaking from the perspective of an entrepreneur himself. Presumably, he would like dedication and focus from his employees. When I've worked at startups, that's what's been expected from me. This is why he's saying this bubble "causes great startups to fail."

Aside from that, I've found that generally in my life, I can only do three things well at any given time. Health, work, relationships, other goals... It takes mental energy to make decisions and process things, and even you are still spending the same amount of time on something. So yes, you can spend your time elsewhere, but the fact that you have a second full time job is highly correlated with you doing your first one worse. Are you claiming that your productivity at work is going to be the same if you have a side project or not? I definitely think there's a clear difference, having done it at one time.

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If he, as an employer and entrepreneur, feels he's not getting his money's worth out of an employee, he should just fire that employee. If he is getting his money's worth, he should stop complaining.

But trying to get more effort for the same money by anathematizing side projects breaks encapsulation on the employee/employer relationship. It's obnoxious and involves matters that are (literally) none of his business (at least in California).

I assume would fire an employee that's underperforming.

You haven't actually refuted the point of this article. You can do one thing better than two. If you believe in your startup, then you'll do it better working on it fulltime. Else, if you believe in the startup you're working for, then just focus on that. You will probably get better outcomes on either front.

This isn't a legal argument, it's general advice. He also didn't say you can't do a full-time job and a startup on the side. He said it's hard to excel at your job when you're doing a startup on the side.

Sure, you can do one thing better than two, but that doesn't mean the optimal trade-off is going all-in on one or the other.

If your side-project has a low probability of a high reward, then having a steady paycheck from a job is a good floor to have under you, if you're not floating around on a cushion of wealth. The author closes with "I hope you have what it takes to commit and become a real entrepreneur" but the reality is "what it takes" is to a large extent money. If you don't have it, you need to get it from your day job.

The problem with this delusional author and others like him is that he doesn't realize that he's not entitled to that dedication and focus. He's not paying for it. He's clearly not valuing it. I can say this with confidence because the number of businesses I've seen that do value their employees and compensate them enough to demand such attention and focus are asymptotic to zero. The real question here is why are these delusions of his taken seriously?

I don't really know, all of my side projects have been of the just-for-fun variety so I guess it's fair to say I can't relate.

Yeah, that makes sense. There are definitely different types of side projects, not all are "startups". Also, I don't think doing a start-up on the side is bad if you work at a job that is 9-5. But this guy is saying dedicate to whatever you really care about- you should be working on at most one "startup" at a time if you would like to create a "startup" in the traditional sense.

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