The Cost of Company Building
How are you calculating the costs and benefits of entrepreneurship?
TLDR: We’re often so focused on the financial reward at the end of the company building that we often miss the toll that it’s taking on our lives. At some point you have to ask yourself: Is it worth it?
You can listen to the full audio version of this post by clicking on the recording below:
In 2011, I was fresh out of college and navigating my way through my very first job at Salesforce. In those early days of my career, my plan was to follow all of the advice I had read about in success stories. The first step? Find a mentor.
At the end of one particular quarter, I was celebrating with the rest of the team during a happy hour. We had just crossed the 5,000 employee mark and hired a new Chief People Officer to take the company to the next level. She was smart, charismatic, approachable, seriously fit, and came from the fashion industry. She seemed to have it all.
So, I walked up to her (one of the few female leaders at the company) and asked just that, “How can you have it all?”
Her response came out faster than I had expected. She said, “You can’t.”
As a leader, you’ve chosen a path of big vision and often even bigger financing to deliver on that vision. Of course it comes with a great sense of responsibility and sacrifice, and it does cost you.
How do you calculate it?
We often calculate the cost-benefit of company building in terms of dollars and time. Whether that is your near-term salary, company valuations along the way, or ultimately those financial gains post exit after a decade or more of grinding, we do money math. But the currency you’re trading with isn’t just time and money. It’s the intangibles like fear, volatility, regret, loneliness at the top. It’s the cortisol that pumps through your adrenals, the fatigue that fogs your brain, and the strain put on the relationships around you. We know that company building requires superhuman effort, but when you put yourself under constant stress, anxiety, and fear, your body burns through its physiological resources faster. That stress turns into inflammation, and that inflammation over time turns into just about everything these days from diabetes to cancer.
Company building requires time, money, and a whole lot of effort, but does it really have to cost you your life? As a leader, the real currency you’re trading with is your health, and you’re probably spending it at a faster rate than you can even calculate.
Wherever you go, there you are.
Whether you like it or not, your personal and professional lives are inextricably interwoven. They are impossible to separate, because, as the saying goes, “wherever you go, there you are.” These short-sighted sacrifices in your professional life have long-term ramifications in your personal one. So let’s stop pretending the wear and tear you’re putting yourself through isn’t accumulating in your cells. Your mind may be protecting you in periods of chaos, but your body will be paying the price for it later.
As humans, we’re not actually wired for this pace of building, especially in today’s hyper-digital world. While we’ve certainly become more aware of the costs of entrepreneurship and operating at the executive-level, there is still a massive need for a culture shift. It’s true that the startup ecosystem and corporations at large are talking more openly about things like founder depression, substance-abuse, fertility issues, and burnout, but too few are actually prioritizing resources that support longevity while you build.
Is the cost worth it?
What’s the point of life if you’ve sacrificed too much of your human experience for a bigger bet? To be clear, I’m not talking about the bet that the company will be successful. I’m talking about the bet that your mind, body, and the people you love will be there on the other side of that success.
Now, let me be clear again. This is not an attempt to convince you not to build. Dream, start now, keep going! Our world only advances because of the people like you bold enough to do something that has never been done before. Instead, I’m challenging you to rethink how you build. The current cost is too high to keep going this way, at this intense of a clip. We also know better. We have too much information, resources, and advanced technology to allow company building to cost your life. Maybe instead of making big bets that your human hardware can withstand these modern environments, can you hedge your bet by rerunning your calculations?
When I think back to that conversation with my former Chief People Officer at Salesforce, I wish I asked a different question. I wish I had asked, “What have you prioritized at different stages of your career and when do you know when the trade-offs aren’t worth it?”
You see, I’ve come to learn that you can have it all, you just can’t have it all at the same time.
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