Becomming a Founder

I’m leaving Facebook to become a founder.

I’ve been an Oculus fan for half a decade so it was a dream come true to work for Facebook Reality Labs. I’ve been well treated, almost spoiled.

Facebook truly is a great place to work. My desire to ‘do things right’ and obsess on producivity have been nourished and developed by management here. I’ve grown into a leader and de-defacto TL in a few areas and that’s been rewarding. I am so grateful for the opportunity.

Still, I came into FRL with specific aims and it’s time to tackle my long term goal of being a founder head on. Afterall, if you could accomplish your long term goal sooner rather than later, wouldn’t you do it?

Why Now?

So, why now? I now have the self-confidence to pull the trigger.

That’s it!

That confidence didn’t come out of nowhere though!

I’ve been systematically (over) preparing for the past 5 years in a few ways:

• becomming a strong engineer through my work
• looking for gaps at the edge of a new field e.g. I joined Journey specifically to get exposed to the breadth of VR for example, and prior to that I worked in molecular diagnostics. But I also study ecclectically, things like cyrpto a few years back, synthethic biology, and most recently quantum computing through MIT’s professional series
• developing courage because I know I have to get uncomfortable and so I’ve made a point to seek discomfort. I hate running so I started running marathons. Thrill rides make me afraid so I always do them at theme parks – I make sure to do all of the biggest and scariest ones. Jumping out of a plane? That’s scary, so I did it a few times. A backflip is scary, so I taught myself to do one (it only took three hours). This matters because I am training my mind to override my instinctual fear. Afterall, the scariest and most uncertain moments are ahead of me. I need to be ready for them. Deciding to leave FB is the latest override by my mind over my fear.
• this should shine through my actions over time but I make a point to act with integrity. I always do the ‘right’ thing even if no one would know I hadn’t, because I want it baked into my identity. I won’t compromise the golden rule to ‘get ahead’.

So, the decision to found was gestating and now it’s gotten a delivery date.

What pushed me over the edge? A recurring loop.

An Open Loop: All (Wo)Men Must Die

I think about death a lot. I keep a calendar of my life expectancy on the wall and check off the weeks counting down to my likely death.

People think I’m morbid, but that’s not right. I simply want to spend the most precious resource I have wisely and that necessitates knowing how much time I have. I think it’s crazy not to do this.

Mostly, it gives me a sense of urgency to pull my death forward since that is my greatest constraint. I think about how mankind might die to frame what I could do to help.

sidebar: it drives me a little bonkers how complacent we are to aging. Seriously, aging kills everyone when there is no objective reason a human needs to end any more than a car needs to end. We are a wet pile of tiny carbon robots called cells, there is no reason we can’t service those machines and make a human body potentially last forever. It’s technically hard but not impossible! I hate that when we think about saving lives we tend to react to and band aid small problems rather then fundamentally addressing root causes of problems. If I was the US dictator funding fundamental biological research would be a top priority.

Anyway, why does this matter? Every week, I’m thinking:

Manager Mike:

“You’re end goal is to be a founder, you’re closer to death everyday, why aren’t you founding now?”

Worker Mike:

“Lots of reasons:

• I don’t know what I don’t know, I should apprentice under someone experienced at a small startup first.
• I don’t have enough experience, I haven’t really built a product from the ground up.
• I don’t have any special domain knowledge relative to other experts in a particular domain.
• I don’t have a cofounder.
• I haven’t identified an amazing idea yet, I need to investigate more and identify more gaps.
• I don’t want to fail and be completely broke.

Manager Mike:

“Hmm, okay that seems like a pretty good set of objections, lets go work at another company/startup/take a course/etc. and I’ll circle back”

The only Prereq is Courage

I accomplished my original aims of a) becomming a strong engineer and b) exploring opportunities at the edge of several new fields.

What was holding me back was fear.

These two things pushed me over the edge: 1) Reframing. I took the startup school course at Ycombinator and it made me realize I may be overpreparing, afterall if a kid can start a company, what’s really stopping me? 2) Safety. I realized I have enough savings/liquidity for 5-10+ years depending on where and how I live (that’s before loans, support from my SO, etc.)

This prompted me to re-examine why I was deferring. Taking another look at those objections ‘Worker Mike’ had listed:

• I don’t know what I don’t know. That’s fine, it’s not like what I don’t know will kill me. Apprenticing is a good idea but it means X more years of deferment, is it really worth it? I can work around it. I could partner with someone with experience or learn JIT.
• I don’t have the XP. Experience founding companies can only come from founding companies
• I don’t have special skills. I wonder how many people have the same cross section of synthetic biology, software, blockchain, electrical engineering, quantum computing, and/or other skills that I have? Sure I may not be the world’s expert in what I study but surely there is something at the cross section of my interests where I can provide value
• I don’t have a cofounder but I can find one, and there are even founders in my network interested in working with me
• I don’t have an amazing idea, but so what? Ideas are cheap as dirt, Ycombinator will even take folks without a ready idea
• I won’t be broke, I have 5-10 years of living expenses and there are infinite ideas I could tackle with nothing but my brain and a laptop – worst case I know my SO will support me if it really came down to it… but I don’t even need that, I have literally unlimited job opportunity, I can crush interviews because I’ve done it before in multiple cycles, I’ve cracked the ‘top’ companies and startup and have had dozens of offers… what am I really afraid of here?

When I look at this, with fresh eyes, objections that may have been warranted once, just don’t hold up anymore. The sneaky objection behind aall of these… boils down to fear. I’m afraid. Of uncertainty? of responsibility? Of looking foolish? What exactly am I afraid of anyway?

When I confront this anxiety I find nothing but smoke with no fire. Anxiety and fear aren’t a valid objection. I must be channeling the fears of society, leaving a safe job, in the top X% to go chase an uncertain reward.

The worst case is I spend some money I can afford to lose and have a nervous breakdown. That’s not so bad, really, that’s a growth opportunity.

Every day of deferment is a loss against future earnings. Time to get started.