Disclosure: I've been living in Japan for half a decade now.
There are a number of interplaying and compounding factors that are responsible for creating this situation. I will list a few in no particular order.
- The hours are absolutely insane. My partner rarely leaves her office before 10pm, and by the time she does, she is completely exhausted and unable to do anything other than hit the sack. This type of situation is extremely prevalent and generally affects both men and women. It is no wonder that young people have no time to socialize, go out and meet potential partners when they spend 90% of their waking hours working or otherwise subordinating to this insane work cult.
- Japan is a country of predefined roles and expectations, and at different ages people are fully expected to meet certain benchmarks and seamlessly transition into new roles. One such role is that of a provider, and men are expected to be able to become full-time breadwinners by the time they hit 30. With the economy being what it is and the traditional Japanese notion of lifetime employment being a thing of the past, a lot of men aren't able to live up to these expectations and simply drop out of the dating pool. Some of it is involuntary, since Japanese women tend to maintain very high expectations as to what a man needs to be able to provide.
- Sex is generally highly available and there are all kinds of parlors, services, salons, middlemen and clubs catering to both men and women. It's cheap, legal and safe, thereby creating a disincentive for people to attempt and engage in the old fashioned mating process. On top of that - and this is going to sound completely nuts to those who aren't familiar with the country - there are full-time gigolos, both foreign and domestic, whose only life goal seems to be getting as many notches as possible. They approach women on the street, in bookstores, train stations, malls, you name it. I know a few of these characters and many of them have notches in the 3 figure range and juggle up to 7 women at a time. It's all they ever do, and I suspect that they tie up a huge number of women at any given point in time. I can't say I've noticed the same phenomenon in any other country.
- The local culture isn't exactly touchy-feely and even when people date, it's something they do because it's what young people are supposed and expected to do, not because they like their partner or dating in particular. Just a curiosity I've noticed with many couples.
Obviously, the situation is very complex and cannot be explained with a simple narrative, but I hope this helps clarify things a little.
Hold on a second. Are you trying to say that a ride-sharing app for cats is of zero or negative value to mankind? That professional bullshit artists and narcissists calling themselves "founders" and "hackers" don't measure up to the old guard who built real innovations such as microprocessors? Blasphemy.
Absolutely. That's why we are bootstrapping here, despite being offered funding in the past (unsolicited, I might add). For someone who is trying to build a healthy lifestyle business, accepting money from a VC is equivalent to agreeing to having a boss.
When entrepreneurs who have accepted funding are not able to meet certain targets, they routinely get sidelined and/or replaced. I don't know why so many people here pretend that's not the case.
It has nothing to do with morality, it has to do with building a sustainable business while retaining full ownership. The notion that you absolutely need to accept funding is getting tired because it's not supported by facts and grounded in reality.
I am currently bootstrapping a business and I have been approached by VCs who asked me to please take their money. I have turned them down because, as I politely told them, I don't need it, AND I am not looking to simply flip the company some day (no sane investor will invest unless the company can be sold in some form and they get their money back). Some people may also wish to avoid having a boss, and if you think your VC is not your boss in some capacity at least, you're in for a rude awakening.
Calling someone's decision to avoid raising money irrational and attaching labels (morality?) is presumptuous. There are certain goals that are incompatible with accepting funding, such as: operating a lifestyle business, not reporting to anyone, freedom etc. I am not sure what's so difficult to understand about that.
> Calling someone's decision to avoid raising money irrational and attaching labels (morality?) is presumptuous.
It happens because either they had to make the decision and they accepted the money, worked for someone who has, or they are the VC who are offering the money and looking for deals. People usually project whatever they did as being a rational, right decion, and those who don't don't agree as being irrational.
Also, this forum is probably one of the most biased forums when it comes to startup "things", so I wouldn't get too upset about stuff you read here.
> There are certain goals that are incompatible with accepting funding, such as: operating a lifestyle business, not reporting to anyone, freedom etc. I am not sure what's so difficult to understand about that.
Nothing wrong with it at all; but keep in mind you are posting on the message boards of an organization (YCombinator) that is deeply invested in the Silicon Valley venture ecosystem. The "growth at all costs" mentality is bound to be quite prevalent among the posters on here as a result. It's just the audience that HN draws.
It's irrational for someone running a startup to be categorically against raising money. It's not for someone running a lifestyle business. A lifestyle business is not a startup.
A startup is a new business. It's not anything special.
It looks like you are falling for propaganda. When someone wants to purchase a car or a home, there's such a momentum behind the idea of financing that a customer who uses their own savings is viewed as odd... perhaps even a money launderer, yet it's perfectly normal.
I mention that because there's a similar momentum behind business financing. If you build software for a living, then you can build a new business with no overheads, no ties, no time limits, no favours, no budgets, no business plan and low risk. It's pure freedom to do what you want.
A successful startup in the eyes of VCs grows fast. It has to, so VCs have some hope of making a non-stupid return. Which is why we get all the drama around unicorns etc etc and more etc.
Does that mean that you, as a founder, have any obligation to play that game?
No. You. Do. Not.
If you choose not to, that's very much your choice. It gives you a number of advantages, including no loss of control over direction or everyday running, a very much lower danger of being fired from your own project, and a wider choice of potential investment sources when you've been running profitably for a while. (Are VCs the only money source in town? Not even close.)
And if you have a solid business model, it significantly raises your prospects of still having a business - and a job - when the unicorn hunter scene crashes and burns around you.
Which it inevitably will - possibly quite soon.
The disadvantage? If the business is seriously viable with many real customers and profits and such, you may to have to settle for being a multimillionaire instead of a billionaire.
African proverb: "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together."
Startups are designed to go fast and cash out. The founders make a fortune and move on to something else, life doesn't really change for anyone else. A business with real longevity will go more slowly but everyone in the business will share in the ride.
The corner store and Snapchat are both businesses but they aren't the same. Saying this isn't the same as saying that startups are better, just that they are different.
Actually, in this market, it's smarter to take out a home mortgage, and invest the remainder. Mortgage rates are low. If it were the opposite, and mortgage rates were high, you'd have an argument, but that hasn't been the case in decades.
It's true in this market, but not true if, for example, the stock market crashes and/or we have a deflationary depression.
Not saying that's particularly likely, but avoiding debt does remove risk in such scenarios--if you never take on debt you can never go bankrupt, even if your upside is also lower. People make different choices about how to balance risk, reduce stress, etc. It only looks irrational when one person imposes their values on the decisions of another.
>The expectation is salaried employees put in ungodly hours.
I am not US based and I've always wondered about this. In virtually every other western country, it doesn't matter if you're "salaried" or not - your employer is legally prohibited from not paying overtime. If your employment contract says you work 9-5, then anything outside those hours must be compensated, often at a higher rate (1.2x-1.5x is not uncommon in many European countries).
In the context of the US labor law, does being "salaried" functionally equal "being required to work unlimited overtime"?
There's two classes of employees in US labor law, exempt and non-exempt. It's called exempt/non-exempt because a class of employees is exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act which defines rules for overtime.
To be exempt you have to be paid on a salary basis, you have to make over a certain wage (which, until a few months ago, was a comically low $23,600/yr), and have certain job duties.
These job duties that are required are defined in the FLSA. There's executive employees, administrative employees, professional employees, computer employees, and outside sales employees. The text is here: http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?tpl=/ecfrbrowse/Title29...
In general, most salaried employees do not regularly work unpaid overtime in the US. For example, the one time I ever worked overtime in my software engineering career it was paid overtime (paid at my normal salary). I had a friend who was an (I think?) accountant and she had to work on her vacation otherwise she'd fall behind. Some workplaces are abusive and the law allows it for some classes of employees but it's not the norm outside of the bay area software industry.
The US has overtime laws as well, but certain types of job are exempt from them. I don't know all the details of the law but in practice, basically all white-collar jobs are exempt.
>I'm not being facetious, but this might be a personal problem (not being able to get your mind off of work). For people who experience this, something like meditation might help, seriously. I certainly wouldn't fault an employer.
It's not that most people can't take their mind off of work, it's that they often have to meet various unrealistic deadlines, or else. It's not their own choice, insofar as they want to keep their job.
That would be their manager's problem. Go home at end-of-business. If they fire people for, um, working during working hours, they'll be going under from the churn in short order anyway. It's not like there's an oversupply of developer capacity - obviously, seeing as how they keep scheduling 60+ hours of work every week!
That's cute but not how the world works. Employers will rarely explicitly ask you to do free overtime because that's illegal in many jurisdictions. What happens instead is this: an unrealistic deadline will be imposed and you will be expected to meet it. How you will go about doing that is up to you, but it usually assumes working overtime if you want to keep your job.
I fully agree with you. The issue is not people like you and me, it's 22 year old kids who are willing to work 16 hours a day and undercut everyone else.
There are a number of interplaying and compounding factors that are responsible for creating this situation. I will list a few in no particular order.
- The hours are absolutely insane. My partner rarely leaves her office before 10pm, and by the time she does, she is completely exhausted and unable to do anything other than hit the sack. This type of situation is extremely prevalent and generally affects both men and women. It is no wonder that young people have no time to socialize, go out and meet potential partners when they spend 90% of their waking hours working or otherwise subordinating to this insane work cult.
- Japan is a country of predefined roles and expectations, and at different ages people are fully expected to meet certain benchmarks and seamlessly transition into new roles. One such role is that of a provider, and men are expected to be able to become full-time breadwinners by the time they hit 30. With the economy being what it is and the traditional Japanese notion of lifetime employment being a thing of the past, a lot of men aren't able to live up to these expectations and simply drop out of the dating pool. Some of it is involuntary, since Japanese women tend to maintain very high expectations as to what a man needs to be able to provide.
- Sex is generally highly available and there are all kinds of parlors, services, salons, middlemen and clubs catering to both men and women. It's cheap, legal and safe, thereby creating a disincentive for people to attempt and engage in the old fashioned mating process. On top of that - and this is going to sound completely nuts to those who aren't familiar with the country - there are full-time gigolos, both foreign and domestic, whose only life goal seems to be getting as many notches as possible. They approach women on the street, in bookstores, train stations, malls, you name it. I know a few of these characters and many of them have notches in the 3 figure range and juggle up to 7 women at a time. It's all they ever do, and I suspect that they tie up a huge number of women at any given point in time. I can't say I've noticed the same phenomenon in any other country.
- The local culture isn't exactly touchy-feely and even when people date, it's something they do because it's what young people are supposed and expected to do, not because they like their partner or dating in particular. Just a curiosity I've noticed with many couples.
Obviously, the situation is very complex and cannot be explained with a simple narrative, but I hope this helps clarify things a little.