I can understand why the list of what they fell prey to varies so wildly, because the typical top two most common drugs, alcohol and marijuana, have essentially no intoxicating effect on my brain at all — they do one time per year, but the 'addiction' curve for me is far sharper than other people, and they won't work again for months after that first time. It's always been like this for me, before and after I was diagnosed and prescribed medication for ADHD.
Every one of them started with alcohol and/or marijuana, and after a very brief period of time, those had minimal or no effect whatsoever, so they escalated to a wide variety of more potent disassociative drugs. My mental list is: LSD, cocaine, nitrous, other inhalants. It isn't even a surprise anymore to see that someone with charisma and a really interesting view of the world end up failing as they try as hard as they can to get a break from their thoughts. I don't blame them. If I hadn't watched one of my friends self-destruct and die over this as a teenager, I'd probably have burned out my brain decades ago by now.
So I go through my life with no known intoxicants that work on me — of the set of intoxicants that are considered 'safe', anyways — and, bluntly, I would never wish this on anyone. I have an unusual brain that can interrupt addictive cycles with willpower, but until I learned this lesson, I repeatedly found myself caught in the same Hsieh-like loop of "if I just double down, I can finally disassociate enough to get an evening's rest from my thoughts and worries", thinking that maybe if I just consumed more, it might be enough. It never was, and I am lucky beyond belief to now be able to interrupt that cycle without external intervention, before I do harm to my life and body.
The pandemic has put crushing pressure on me, and strained my ability to bear reality to the limit, and I still worry that someday I'll end up like Hsieh, trapped in a cycle of addiction because I just wanted a one-day vacation away from it all and couldn't find it. I'm not a startup founder, and most of my friends weren't either. When I find myself wanting an escape from life for a day, it's not because my life is terrible, it's because my life is intense like the noon sun is bright. (Like Lantern, if you Know.)
It turns out that burnout is the one thing that's guaranteed to push my ability to bear the intensity of life to my limits, and in that I think there's a critical warning for founders, for workers, for anyone in our industry with the tendency to drink caffeine to calm down and to do the entire project the night before it's due. Managing burnout is your number one priority for staying alive, after the bare minimum of bodily basics, because when your burnout level overflows, it can easily and trivially send you into severe addiction and possible death, as happened to Hsieh here.
If you suffer the same kind of brain issues that I and those I knew did, if you think that ADHD may apply to you — even just if coffee slows you down - then I beg of you: Beware burnout. It is your greatest enemy, it can undermine your willpower and your defenses against escapism and futility, it can't be cured with money or intoxication or hard work towards a goal, and it can lead to you sucking your life away from a small metal canister in the blink of an eye, just trying to get a single instant away from it all.
Footnote: The desire to escape can find outlets in religious and cult-like experiences as well; one friend with severe burnout fell prey to "self help" seminars trying to heal from it. I wonder sometimes if this offers a glimpse into the rise of personality "cults" in our modern world.
Disclaimers: Yes, everyone has different experiences. Yes, not every ADHD brain is the same. Yes, burnout can affect normal people in this way too. But I'm not speaking to those circumstances here today. No, I don't have secret information about Hsieh, and maybe he spiraled in a familiar way for an unfamiliar reason. This is a reply to the story, not gossip about Hsieh.
I mean his “work 100 hour weeks to achieve success” days were long over. He was basically quasi-retired, and clearly had been checked out of his Zappos management role for some time.
This is much more a story of someone who has already achieved all the success in the world and seemed to turn to drugs as many do as an escape or search for greater meaning in his life to his detriment.
Two or three of those I've seen fall are exact fits for "I went from working hundred hour weeks to quasi-retirement", and they did not treat their burnout with the respect and healing I feel it requires. When they took away the overwork, the unhealed burnout smoldered and eventually caught fire and burned them, weeks or months later.
Is this what took down Hsieh? I haven't a clue, and it's unlikely I'll ever know, and I certainly don't intend to bother anyone to learn more about his circumstance. His friends are having a bad enough time as it is and I empathize too strongly to press for more knowledge.
Is Hsieh's story familiar from personal experience? Yes, absolutely. In the couple of press articles I've read, and a couple of quotes from a letter from a friend to him in one of them, there is certainly material enough to remind me of others I've known who worked themselves to the bone, sold it all and rested, and then a while later (a few months to a couple years) self-destructed.
I got the impression that he was a lone Atlas pushing a rock up a hill in Vegas, and the startup ecosystem he envisioned never really caught on. It doesn't surprise me that he moved to Utah at the end. They seemed to be accomplishing what he had been trying to do alone.
I didn't like the way Utah was moving though, and I left right before he got there.
What's your perception of why the pandemic has caused a shift in pressure for you?
I ask because, like you, I feel much more stressed, but I can't really put my finger on why because my job has mostly stayed the same (besides going remote). Is it all just because of a reduction in in-person social contact? Or is it something else? In the beginning of the pandemic I got into a sort of manic mode of "do more faster" which was clearly not sustainable and caused me to almost burn out. The funny thing is there was nothing external pushing me to go faster, just my own brain and patterns. Are you experiencing something similar?
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Contrast the exzappos comment with its top (grandchild) reply - which asserted firsthand knowledge and provided context with references to past public reports: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25236958
(it obviously helps that the replier is non-anonymous, but I’m not criticizing u/exzappos for being anonymous)
Point is, I found it just as baffling as to why so many felt compelled to explain away the strange elements of the initial story as I would if someone said something totally outlandish with no evidence as well.
It’s really important to talk about addiction and to help loosen the stigma around it. It’s also gross to flippantly gossip without any context or details, hours after someone has died, in a forum where people who were affected by the person are grieving. Both things can be true. The gossip in the comment can be true and it can get flagged for being in poor taste.
Furthermore, we could probably cope with addiction and other forms of mental illness better if we continue to talk about it more openly. It’s no better or worse than suffering from purely physical conditions like diabetes or cancer or obesity. There are things we can and should do to try to be healthy, but there are also other genetic and environmental factors that are out of our control. I think the article was good to be not judgmental of it, and hope others in similar situations do not fear that others will judge either.
"Research shows that 30 years ago, you had about 17 minutes to escape a house fire.
Today it's down to three or four minutes. The reason: Newer homes and the furniture inside them actually burn faster."
https://www.today.com/home/newer-homes-furniture-burn-faster...
But what building material can protect you from yourself? I think that's the whole point of the article.
Founders, you're not Peter Pan, your shadow stays with you no matter how many lost boys you surround yourself with. Such a tragedy that he was taken away from us too soon
If you could elaborate on your mention of "shadow", (perhaps "Explain Like I'm Five"-style), I'd appreciate it. But I'd understand if you don't care to.
Personal difficulties that you'd rather pretend to not exist like a drug addiction. People who run from their shadow avoid having an honest conversation with their self. An honest conversation requires one to confront personal difficulties head on, in order to final a (lasting) solution to their negative effects.
Nice, evenly and non-judgemental written piece.
"He experimented with a revolutionary—some would say anarchistic—version of a “holacracy” management philosophy, where no one at Zappos reported to anyone nor carried any titles. (It didn’t work: One out of seven employees took a buyout.)"
It didn't work? Really? Company was and is doing fine after 17% took advantage of a nice buyout.
The bias in the article is obvious - some clips:
"while Hsieh remained an extremely rich Peter Pan", or
his "fatal trait" of "not wanting to be alone"
Sure, it sounds like Tony was off the rails, and it ended in tragedy. But this hatchet job is not necessary. Just the facts please.
In September 2011 a group from Utah went to Vegas to start an entrepreneurial effort called "LaunchUp" I was going to go, but for some reason didn't.
A friend met Tony there and was recruited by Tony to head the Las Vegas startup ecosystem there.
I kept looking for a reason to meet him, and spent a month in Vegas back in 2017. I hung out on Fremont Street a lot, toured Zappos, and tried to contact him through every avenue I could, but couldn't meet him.
I became disheartened by the business and startup ecosystem in Utah, and began moving everything from Utah to Arkansas right at the time he was moving in.
It feels like we had a bunch of near misses and I can't help but think that things could have been different if we had connected.
