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Comment by yevpats | Hacker News Reader

RIP. It's really sad. Mental health problems are often dismissed or not caught in time.

I read his book "Delivering Happiness" after I heard about his death and before reading this article about mental health problems. As I read it I saw some interesting stories and ideas about the businesses that he built but I also read stories which put way too much focus (imho) on various nights and parties which don't really relate to entrepreneurship or business. The first thing that popped into my mind is depression, drugs and alcohol overuse.

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> The first thing that popped into my mind is depression, drugs and alcohol overuse.

Same. A shadow story that eclipses the text.

"Delivering Happiness" is explicitly about delivering happiness. The subtext or implicit story is about someone who could not find happiness for himself. It's worth re-reading in the context of his passing. RIP.

> put way too much focus (imho) on various nights and parties which don't really relate to entrepreneurship or business.

“Work hard, party hard” is an extremely common aspect of startup culture. I personally suspect that startups tend to draw in risk takers, which explains the prevalence of over-drinking in many (but not all) startups.

How is drinking risk taking? I was in groups that where drinking was super normalized and never ever perceived it to be dangerous. Plus, anxious fearful people do drink too, it makes them feel better.

I mean, I avoided drinking near to some specific individuals (I am woman), but I perceived those individuals to be unsafe. Drinking itself did not constituted risk taking for me.

Drinking is normalized in my entire country, but its still pretty obvious you're literally poisoning yourself with alcohol. That much I understood even as a teen.

Well, drinking is normalized in my entire country and dont refer to it as "literally poisoning yourself".

I mean, some of abstinents who are strongly against alcohol sometimes do. As an attempt to make others stop drinking. And given that the drinking is normalized, they are small minority. I mean, they are small minority of abstinent too. Most abstinents are kind of content when no one is trying to force them to drink.

What is your claim?

Drinking is normal in your culture —> drinking is not risky in your culture ?

This is patently false; drinking carries risks in any context, perhaps even moreso in environments which fail to recognize its potential for harm

My claim is that in culture where drinking is normalized, people dont perceive drinking risky. Consequently, drinking as activity is not all that much biased toward "risk takers".

It does not really matter how much risk it "objectively" puts you through. It attracts risk takers only if people consider it risky.

would you say that a significant fraction of people in any culture agree that there are many activities for which drinking and then doing that activity would be considered risky?

Even in cultures where regular drinking is normalized, it’s typical understood that there’s a difference between having drinks and binge drinking. “Work hard, party hard” heavily implies the latter, as it’s indicating that the person doing it will party more than is socially normal, and is proud of that.

Also, I’m an American, and I’m largely commenting on both American culture and American startup culture; both of which I’ve participated in. My observations about this are relevant for Zappos, a startup based out of Las Vegas, but might not be relevant for say EPAM in Minsk.

Over-drinking is risk taking, OP explicitly mentioned that, not just "drinking".

It's risk taking because over-drinking is by definition going over your limits with alcohol and I assume we all know the behaviours that this can bring with.

> Which don't really relate to entrepreneurship or business

To some extend, but startup events generally combine exactly those things (without the drugs, depending on where it is).

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