Adderall Has a Tech Industry Problem

This piece spoke to me in a lot of ways. I’m not an adderall (or similar) user, but as a startup co-founder I can totally see the appeal of it that drives others—people much like myself—to it.

The first thing that stood out to me was the normalization of this in the San Francisco/Silicon Valley culture, which casually overlooks or ignores the risks involved. Not one person I know in tech who's taken it recreationally has ever made mention of the risks, perhaps because they don't think they experience any side-effects (or they're not impeding enough for them to care).

Then, the pressure of being the "10x" performer is very real; hero programmer or startup co-founder, you're weirdly expected by the tech environment—rarely by individuals, in fact—to be able to pull off amazing productivity and quality. Especially as a startup founder, this pressure—if you're susceptible to it—can lead to a very pro-work, anti-social [activities] feeling, which is isolating and subtly demoralizing on an [inter-]personal level.

Lastly, the part in the piece about reasons people use to self-diagnose away any symptoms of ADHD and argue (again, to themselves) that they don't have ADHD spoke to me in a very eye-opening manner. I've done all of those things, and have felt miserable over them. Now, my 'symptoms' could still be caused by the stress of being a startup founder, but this piece set me on the course to explore and treat it as potentially a real condition I can get medication for. Or, find out it's not that (for me), and have the comfort of knowing this is something I can reduce by reducing my stress. Either way, I'm immensely grateful for this piece.

I'm curious about the actual statistics of ADD/ADHD drug abuse in the tech community. I do have friends that have started taking Adderall but stopped quickly, or only take it rarely, because of negative effects. By negative effects I mean it made work and relationships harder, not just adverse side effects of the drugs.