"We are talking about maybe 2 or 3 years of your life, or maybe 4 at a stretch."
I'm on startup #4 in 8 years. Every entrepreneur that I know is as hopelessly addicted to startups as I am. (Granted, there may be self-selection at work.)
Remember: Groupon going from $0 - $3B in two years is the exception. For every Andrew Mason, there are 10,000 chumps like me who spend 10 or 15 or 20 years at a startup. And the very nature of a startup means that you don't know when the "uniquely stressful" period is going to be over.
So the advice to have kids before or after some special 2-year Goldilocks zone strikes me as very naive. Your average startup is far too messy for that kind of precision life planning.
I'm on startup #4 in 8 years. Every entrepreneur that I know is as hopelessly addicted to startups as I am. (Granted, there may be self-selection at work.)
Remember: Groupon going from $0 - $3B in two years is the exception. For every Andrew Mason, there are 10,000 chumps like me who spend 10 or 15 or 20 years at a startup. And the very nature of a startup means that you don't know when the "uniquely stressful" period is going to be over.
So the advice to have kids before or after some special 2-year Goldilocks zone strikes me as very naive. Your average startup is far too messy for that kind of precision life planning.