I've now watched several dudes go through this process by following their blogs:
1) Build a small to medium size following writing about technical or entrepreneurial stuff
2) Make it to some kind of financial success (sell a company, advance at a big tech org)
3/4) Reflect and find yourself unhappy and make big personal life changes, leaving your wife/partner and leaving your company
5) Adopt an increasingly effusive, emotional, and untethered style of writing and living ("today I cried my way to a beautiful and uncomfortable conversation after a three-day retreat on an island with other former tech workers. Also I tried some drugs. I can't wait to reflect more!")
I guess this is kind of unkind, there are plenty of worse ways of living. And TFA is not fully an example of it. But it's strange to see it play out repeatedly. Maybe some component of emotional repression is more common in software people and when financial constraints fall away it presents itself as the next thing to optimize, or maybe nobody writes blog posts about living a conventional life committed to a small group of people, but it almost feels like a cliche at this point.
1) Build a small to medium size following writing about technical or entrepreneurial stuff
2) Make it to some kind of financial success (sell a company, advance at a big tech org)
3/4) Reflect and find yourself unhappy and make big personal life changes, leaving your wife/partner and leaving your company
5) Adopt an increasingly effusive, emotional, and untethered style of writing and living ("today I cried my way to a beautiful and uncomfortable conversation after a three-day retreat on an island with other former tech workers. Also I tried some drugs. I can't wait to reflect more!")
I guess this is kind of unkind, there are plenty of worse ways of living. And TFA is not fully an example of it. But it's strange to see it play out repeatedly. Maybe some component of emotional repression is more common in software people and when financial constraints fall away it presents itself as the next thing to optimize, or maybe nobody writes blog posts about living a conventional life committed to a small group of people, but it almost feels like a cliche at this point.