Thanks for sharing. My wife is a big photography enthusiast, and I think we may have both applied to work for Photojojo in the past. :) Anyway, I wanted to say that I am incredibly impressed by this. It's not every day that I hear the story of someone setting out to build a sustainable company^; and, from what limited perspective I have, you seem to have succeeded.
Bravo, sir; bravo. I wish you all the best.
^edit: So I'm not misinterpreted here, by "sustainable company" I mean one whose goal is to grow slowly and profitably on its own, not quickly in hopes of an IPO or acquisition. Those companies have their place, and it's a good place. I just like to hear the other stories too.
Congrats for making it through the valley of death unscathed. When I finish a massive project I descend into depression for months. I can't move. Then, I come out and am ready to give birth to the next great idea.
Frankly, you landed that plane so gracefully that I'm in awe. You're an inspiration to me.
Maybe I missed something in this article, but did the employees know? Or did they essentially get their labor sold off to another boss a year ago and were none the wiser? Can such a thing even be done, legally speaking (maybe if the poster were the sole owner)?
Is it literally true that he didn't tell anyone for a year?
Understood! Sorry, my programmer-brain took those words pretty literally. Great story, by the way, and I've always loved Photojojo (and think companies like e.g. Pinterest have a lot to thank it for in the design department).
> I told them that […] I faced two facts:
> First, I had to pack up and leave California […]
> Second, I had no backup plan […]
Neither of which is "I have sold the company". A few paragraphs later we see "But I’d kept all this secret."
So if he shared his diagnosis and the lack of backup plan, that is the "all this" that remained secret? The writing didn't seem clear to me on this point.
Peoples' decision to work is about more than just "are you paying me money?"
If my company got sold to e.g. the Family Research Council, I'd like to know that my work is now benefiting an organization I vehemently oppose. Obviously an employment contract might spell out whether I must be privy to such a sale, but I was wondering whether disclosure is compulsory even in the absence of such a guarantee in an employment contract.
By the same token, do you feel compelled to tell your employer when you are interviewing for other jobs, talking to recruiters, or simply bouncing ideas off friends/potential business partners for a company you may start?
The author has responded and clarified that of course everyone knew as soon as the deal was finalized, so my whole point is moot.
The analogous case is not when you're interviewing for other jobs, but when you have taken one. At that point, yes, I feel compelled to tell my current employer.
If some sort of shareholder vote were necessary to sell, then they'd need to know ahead of time. If not, the sale could happen, but employees should know immediately thereafter. And it sounds like they did!
Glad to see you alive, battling, and bucketlisting, Amit. As a huge fan of Photojojo (considered applying a few times even), I am happy see that it will be in capable hands that you trust.
Make every second count and leave that shutter wide open. :)
Glad you have a bucket list and are ticking off items in there. Hope you have the time to get them completed.
You only have one life. Make it count. Tomorrow may never come. Take care of yourself and your family first. Don't keep important things pending if you can help it. Don't leave home in a bad mood or saying things to your SO that you will regret if you don't get the opportunity to remedy.
Also, try and take life insurance when you are young, healthy and are not assailed by chronic ailments. Your family will appreciate the security that you provide after you are gone.
When we are young, we feel invincible and forget the long range picture.
Often lately, I have been hearing many people suffering from cancer especially in US. What might be the reason for this? Why are so many people in US affected by cancer?
1) People aren't dying of other stuff. Stuff that used to cause massive amounts of death just isn't as likely anymore. Infections are now routinely cured with antibiotics. Vaccines prevent deadly disease. Hygiene and health and safety standards across the board reduce death from other causes dramatically - there has been an increase in laws regarding health and safety in every facet of life.
People are living longer. The older you are the more likely you are to have cancer. It is hypothesized that given enough time everyone develops some kind of cancer even if microscopic (more on that later)
Automobile fatalities (the thing most likely to kill young adults) are down dramatically. This is due to safer cars and a decrease of things like DUIs due to public awareness and a huge increase in prosecution. My grandpa told me in the 70s police would routinely pull him over, see he was drunk, and tell him just to go home. New safety features are required almost every year on automobiles. People take infant car seats very seriously nowadays. When I was a kid as soon as I could sit upright by myself I was out of the car seat.
2)There's not a lot we don't know about cancer still. We know that it is a combination of genes and environment that cause it and there are things you can do to lessen your likelihood of getting it such as not smoking... but overall we haven't done a whole lot to prevent most types of cancer and still have a lot to go in completely understanding it. Which specific genes and which specific environmental factors are still somewhat of a mystery, I mean we know some stuff but still not enough. Some types like cervical cancer are largely (but not completely) preventable with routine pap tests but that's the exception.
3) Increased screening leads to an increase in detection of benign and asymptomatic cancer. This turns people into cancer patients who wouldn't have otherwise been cancer patients without screening. This is kinda a new thing. We used to believe that cancer runs one course - that it started at stage 1 and grew continuously until it spread all over your body and killed you - so catching cancer while it is small and treatable will prevent it from spreading and becoming deadly. We are learning from experience that isn't always the case, some can develop so slowly that there's no way it will cause problems in your lifetime. Take prostate cancer for example - the PSA test is a blood test that was developed to detect asymptomatic prostate cancer. The PSA test is no longer recommended because it lead to an increase in cancer diagnoses but a very modest corresponding decrease in cancer related deaths. That tells us that some men who would be diagnosed with prostate cancer if they had the PSA test wouldn't ever be diagnosed without it. Routine mammograms have detected thousands more very early stage cancer (Ductal Carcinoma In Situ) than ever before. The numbers tell us some of these new diagnoses wouldn't have progressed (and maybe would have regressed). Everything requires treatment though because we don't know which small tumor will become deadly and which one won't. More info on this is here:
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/05/11/overkill-atul-g...
>we’ve assumed, he says, that cancers are all like rabbits that you want to catch before they escape the barnyard pen. But some are more like birds—the most aggressive cancers have already taken flight before you can discover them, which is why some people still die from cancer, despite early detection. And lots are more like turtles. They aren’t going anywhere. Removing them won’t make any difference.
>Over the past two decades, we’ve tripled the number of thyroid cancers we detect and remove in the United States, but we haven’t reduced the death rate at all. In South Korea, widespread ultrasound screening has led to a fifteen-fold increase in detection of small thyroid cancers. Thyroid cancer is now the No. 1 cancer diagnosed and treated in that country. But, as Welch points out, the death rate hasn’t dropped one iota there, either. (Meanwhile, the number of people with permanent complications from thyroid surgery has skyrocketed.) It’s all over-diagnosis. We’re just catching turtles.
The other thing is you may just be hearing about it more or it might just be talked about more than it used to be.
That in line with my long held and unpopular thought that really our bodies are rife with mutated and somewhat broken colonies of cells. The idea that you have a slow build up of mutations which finally runaway once the tumor has gotten large is probably just one scenario and perhaps much less common than people want to believe. Very possible you have a the right mutation in a microscopic colony of abnormal cells, and it'll start metastasizing right away. Other cells, will maybe form non-invasive and often self-limiting tumors.
And yeah, thyroid cancer and prostate cancers are way way over diagnosed and over treated to no positive effect.
Your third point is really interesting. Personally, I'd love to know if I had cancer one way or another. Even if the advice was "let's watch this, and it may not turn into anything" the mere fact that it is known to exist can make sure my doctor is monitoring everything they can to do their best to get ahead of things if it starts going down a bad path.
I'd rather have the knowledge than not, but I know that doesn't always make sense from a large statistical POV.
Simply knowing you have a certain type of cancer though could also prevent misdiagnosis for other things with similar/related symptoms. Beyond that, if I knew I had a certain type of cancer, you can bet your ass I'd do whatever my doctor recommended to reduce my risk for the future. So it could be a great way to convince people to live a healthier lifestyle (albeit out of fear) which I'd be willing to bet would cause them to live longer potentially than if they had not made lifestyle changes.
You would think you would want to know but that leads to a lot of overtreatment which is not only bad for you personally it is bad for everyone because it raises healthcare costs.
>So it could be a great way to convince people to live a healthier lifestyle (albeit out of fear)
That fear can't be discounted. Anxiety leads people to have symptoms of anxiety - which are very significant from a medical point of view and a quality of life point of view.
>Another doctor wrote about the opposite experience: his patient had insisted on testing. He was diagnosed with low-grade localized cancer, the kind that can be observed without treating. But he couldn’t face living with the knowledge that he was harboring an untreated cancer. He was afraid of surgery and opted for radiation treatment. He developed radiation proctitis and had rectal pain and bleeding for years. He became impotent and lost bladder control. He told his doctor he would rather be dead than live wearing adult diapers.
>Prostate cancer is very common but isn’t always harmful. It is found in 80% of autopsies where the men died of something else. Many more men die with prostate cancer than because of it.
Knowledge is great, but it (usually) comes at a cost. If having the test has a 2% chance of hurting you, and the knowledge gained by the test only has a 1% chance of helping you, it makes sense not to take the test.
Great post! Just wanted to point out a typo in case it confuses anyone - you wrote "There's not a lot we don't know about cancer still," but meant the opposite.
Giant font is giant. Is this some kind of style decision I am unaware of. It is hard to read unless the window is maximized. What is mobile experience like?
Large typography is trending. Personally I love it because I have a 30inch monitor that sits further back. It's way better for the eyes and just feels more natural.
re: Gender-specific pronouns for inanimates - English is weird. It sounds right to my ear as "she", but the opposite to others. Historically if a gender is required, male is used, but some find that offensive. On the other hand, certain inanimate objects (countries, vehicles of many kinds) are referred to as "she" simply because of tradition.
My girlfriend is learning a little Hindi right now and she finds it maddening that nouns are gendered male or female seemingly at random. I can tell her which is which, but as far as I know there's no system. Some are just male, some are female.
Anyway, "it" sounded weird in that sentence. I should have just rewritten it. :)
Yeah, I tried finding links to go with my comment, but information I found was varied and often contradictory. English is definitely weird. I was just curious what others thought (while hopefully not derailing the comments). "It" sounds way more appropriate to me. Anyway, back to the actual content...
"she" is also often used when referring to countries, though the only reason for it (and for vehicles) that I've found is tradition. English is strange.
I used a gendered pronoun in the second sentence to create mystery in the lede (if didn't already know it was about a company being sold when you hit the post, you don't mind out until further down) and go back to "it" afterward.
I am neither a sailor nor into classic cars but I refer to all boats and all vehicles (not just ones I own or feel affinity towards) as "she." Always, always, always.
"She's my baby" is a common expression for anything that you value highly - I could totally see someone referring to their company with female pronouns. Feels very natural to my ear.
I don't think the people who found successful startups are the type who agonize over all the possible minutiae that could be percieved as offensive to someone, somewhere.
Some languages use pronouns differently. Dutch people sometimes use "he" or "she" when referring to objects even when speaking English, because they are used to doing that in Dutch. So it could be that English is not his first language.
He's hetero and women are the object of his intimate love. It's natural for him to attach female gender to the focal points of his love. In other words, if you respect LGBT rights, you also have to respect hetero rights. Not making a political stance here. Just stating the obvious IMO.
It is. And that kind of obsession can lead to disasters for human relationships. It's very complicated. I'm sure if there was a way to have sex with their startups they would.
Bravo, sir; bravo. I wish you all the best.
^edit: So I'm not misinterpreted here, by "sustainable company" I mean one whose goal is to grow slowly and profitably on its own, not quickly in hopes of an IPO or acquisition. Those companies have their place, and it's a good place. I just like to hear the other stories too.