This week the reflection raised by Graham is quite multifaceted, even more so than normal. There are too many topics to cover, so I will focus on the first essay.
First and foremost, someone with a successful startup is reasonably educated in being able to say what it takes to make a successful startup. Graham’s advice for the act of making such a bet and his general vision for making money is quite apt. Within the context he speaks of, I wager he knows more than those that have not tried. However, I feel like his discussion skips on something. While yes, there are some obviously disingenuous claims regarding wealth created ex nihilo or that no one ought to be upset at wealth disparity (worse yet, he goes on to support libertarianism of all things), I want to narrow on an implication in his discussion. When it comes to his understanding of success it is clearly utilitarian, he even alludes to expected utility theory in the second essay. He comprehends that people rationally will attribute different values to their options depending on their beliefs and desires. However, at the same time, he speaks as if everyone wants the same type of success he imagines.
Because of his target audience and the subject at hand, it is natural what the first essay aims for. Regardless, it is odd that at no point is there a stop to ask the big why and, even more strangely, the bigger how questions. Not in terms of how to practically generate wealth or why one could consider quitting a job, that much he covers well. But what is the goal? Yes, money, but what happens next? What happens in the day to day? If you could make your life a living hell for four years to guarantee a comfortable forty downstream, is that trade fair? Certainly for some, indubitably Graham, but I wonder if such a thing can be generalized.
When I ask myself whether I would take that deal, I find it very reductive. What does it even mean? In the context of startups, I cannot imagine doing such a journey. Yet that is not because I lack confidence in my capacities or persistence, nor am I missing an important component of curiosity – it is because such a life feels to come at much too great of a daily cost. Your present life is your life, it is all you have. I can be passionate and have fun in my daily life, but sacrificing all stability and sanity and sleep, addictively pouring all obsession into a single thing… such a life does not suit me. Perhaps, that means that I will never do something Great according to Graham’s considerations. Indeed, I will not make the next Apple or Google. Does that make my life not worthwhile? My efforts and cares tossed to the side? He doesn’t explicitly make this claim, but the conglomeration of success into the corporate or entrepreneurial implies this is the result.
Nevertheless, it was never my intention to make the next Apple or Google. I can’t, but I would not care to do so if I could. I do not deem my life to be a failure simply because I did not pour every ounce of my soul into my profession. I do not live to work, I work to live. That does not mean those who choose the Great path are wrong, even if they do fail. Rather, I take offense at the idea that a path where one stops chasing the golden ladders is ill-informed or irrational. We are so obsessed with producing wealth and the idea of those who do, the legends and mythos of the world of capital. But, why? What is the objective of lending it all to that abstraction, even calling it a dream? Early retirement? Comfortable life? You can achieve those things without being extraordinary in this very particular sense. It all depends on your expectations and demands.
I don’t demand much of life, other than what I can get from it. I will not lie down and crawl in face of injustice, but I can distinguish myself from my tools. When one loses themselves in them, you forget all else that is more important. Relationships, health, passions and more are among them, but the most important is your individual sense of self. Who you are as a person should never be determined by your literal material work. This claim holds in the capitalist work Graham speaks of, in the accrual of money (yes, at the cost of others). Your identity – which defines your beliefs, desires, and utilities – must untangle itself from your labor, because your identity precedes all semblance of employment. You had your very own hopes and dreams before you knew of money, or Venture Capital, or LinkedIn. I believe it should be kept this way. These artificial constructs are useful to lead our lives, but they ought to never overwrite our selfhood. The price of reflection and awareness will take much, much more from your life than the tragedy of being one of the failed commoners.
I believe there is much wisdom in the life of a conscious commoner.