Startup Psychosis: Why Entrepreneurs Suffer from Extensive Mental Illness.
I’ve coached and mentored hundreds of startups over the last 15 years and started a few of my own. One unavoidable truth is that every founder I’ve met — without exception — has a story of mental illness or other major psychological problem that has befallen them. I’ve started to refer to this constellation of issues as “Startup Psychosis.”
My story is the same. I’ve been so depressed I couldn’t get out of bed and considered suicide a few times. Cut to a couple of weeks later and I’m staying up for 30+ hours in a manic fugue, closing a round of funding or giving an (excellent, mind you) interview to Anderson Cooper. The extremes are mind-boggling.
Many entrepreneurs turn to drugs to manage their anxiety, and the scale of abuse in our industry is truly staggering. I’ve watched countless friends take Adderall and cocaine to stay up and be productive, while slamming down handfuls of sleeping pills and painkillers to take the edge off. Still others love to throw themselves into extreme diets (Soylent, anyone?), extreme exercise or extreme meditation (yes, this is a thing) to counter the voices that haunt them. And though drugs are not my thing, I’ve used sex and love to medicate my professional neuroses. Ultimately, they may not be that different.
