The Hazardous Lie of "Become an Entrepreneur"

The end of the fairytale bros riding rainbow unicorns.

Photo by Strvnge Films on Unsplash

Entrepreneurship is kinky.

College has messed with our brain and made it seem like the ultimate prize. Then intrapreneurship got popular.

That’s where you act as an entrepreneur at your job. You treat it like “you own the business.”

If anyone ever says “run it like it’s your own business,” sprint for the hills. It’s a scam. Likely a multi-level pyramid scheme designed by dudes in Hawaiian shirts sipping Piña coladas on Miami beach.

“Become an entrepreneur” is bad advice for most people.

It can secretly be a code word for “I’m better than you”

In my 20s I ran a highly successful startup.

Things got wild.

Sales guys doing coke off the desk during business hours. All-night benders in the office with many slabs of beer consumed. Strippers booked to come out and put on a show. I didn’t engage in most of this behavior – but I let it happen.

My behavior during office hours was the real problem.

I’d talk down to employees. I’d purposely spill coffee on them. I’d tell them how my office was 10X bigger than their cubicle.

I’d roll up in my BMW and blow exhaust in their face. We even installed fingerprint scanners on the doors to herd our sheep employees into line.

The poor bastards.

It still makes me sick talking about all of this tomfoolery.

But I’m guilty AF.

The title of entrepreneur gave me license to be a douche. I went from being rather humble to walking around with a giant ego. The girls in the office couldn’t stand me.

They never said anything. But the look in their eye screamed “you’re a disgusting jerk and no woman will ever date you.” They were right.

Women ran in the opposite direction.

The one girlfriend I had left me because I blocked her from playing soccer and seeing other guys. Now she’s a real estate tycoon. Go figure.

The truth is most people want to be entrepreneurs so they can quietly appear better than everyone else. Sad.

Entrepreneurship is bizarre

A close friend got a degree in entrepreneurship.

Whenever he describes what entrepreneurs do it sounds like bullsh*t.

We build companies. We don’t do the heavy lifting work. We need to sit and think. We do a lot of thinking, you know. We inspire the leaders who do the execution. We set the mission. We communicate to investors. But we do not do the actual work. That would be a waste of our talent.”

The amount of time I’ve heard entrepreneurs say they don’t do the work is baffling.

I’d say that’s a lame excuse to do no work and jerk off in your office. But that’s just me.

Without much execution is it really work? Therefore does the entrepreneur title even have any value?

Or is it basically just a title that says “my name is listed as the company owner so suck sh*t a-hole.” That’s what I think it is.

Most people don’t become rich entrepreneurs

The lie sold by Silicon Valley is if we can all just get into Y-Combinator’s accelerator program and get funded we’ll be stinking rich.

The reality is most entrepreneurs don’t get rich. Their companies fail. They fail.

What happens next is they end up back at a job trying to rise through the ranks so they can re-inflate their ego again, tell people what to do, and perhaps make enough money to try another dud business idea.

We’ve got a 99% chance of failing at entrepreneurship.

That’s because the fairytale is mostly bullsh*t. This isn’t what’s shared on Instagram or LinkedIn though. Nope.

They peddle the lie that entrepreneurship is the highway to the good life. How is having no money and being broke the good life?

The hustle everyday mindset quietly destroys minds

Burnout culture is woven into the entrepreneur nightmare.

To build a massive empire with loads of employees and a Jeff Bezos yacht takes a heck of a lot of energy.

You’re moving Mt Everests every single day.

Who the heck wants to do that? The danger is when the entrepreneur dream starts to become an obsession. There’s no way to avoid this point.

The myth is employees quit jobs to become entrepreneurs so they can have a better lifestyle. But employees work 40 hours a week.

Entrepreneurs work 110 hours a week. This fact is kept from most.

They see the Instagram photos of supposed entrepreneurs and assume it’s all cupcakes and pool parties.

What’s left out is these people are trust fund babies with rich daddies using entrepreneurship as a status.

Sure, they have a business. It’s not a business that can fail though.

If things go bad then their father can simply transfer money from his checking account to fund the next order of Busy Being Awesome roller skates. (Don’t tell them I told you.)

The cool status isn’t entrepreneurship. It’s an empty calendar.

Entrepreneurship becomes a drag

At the start it’s awesome.

You choose a business name. You print some business cards. You get some company t-shirts made to wear on podcasts, introducing the world to your business while an audience of four listens on their iPhones.

The shine wears off though.

Soon the drama of starting from nothing as a nobody with a company that has zero credibility kicks in. That’s when you start asking for favors.

You try to get your old work colleagues to open doors for you. It becomes begging as your savings account continues to deplete thanks to this genius entrepreneurship life.

Meet your new 9-5 boss

There comes a point where you’ll likely need investors. These bloodsuckers only care about one thing: money.

Quickly they go from investors to micro-managing bosses that can pull their money out at any time if they don’t like what you’re doing. I remember one investor I had.

He didn’t want us to do internet marketing. Nope. He insisted we do mailbox drops, even though we were an internet business.

“I’ll pull my money out if you don’t!”

Eventually the grandpa did. But damn that was some epic drama to deal with.

Investors sound cool until they try to tell you how to run your business without any prior knowledge.

Don’t get me started on the wank of having a board of directors either. They’ll destroy your annual lunch budget. They really are fat cats.

To think no one can tell you what to do as an entrepreneur is a delusion.

I have a business and I’m not an entrepreneur

It’s possible because I didn’t join the cult.

My business has zero employees. I have no intention of hiring teams of people and ordering them around as my slaves.

I’m a one-person business.

My way of life isn’t to extract as much money from the system as possible and buy a Lambo with a beach house in Santa Monica and a trophy wife lying on the bed in Victoria's Secret lingerie.

I only want to make enough money to live a modest lifestyle and get a small home where it’s not too noisy and I can write.

My ego is smaller that way. My head doesn’t get so big that I can’t get through the door of my local green smoothie shop.

I don’t want fame or riches because with it comes too much drama.

I’m looking to make F*ck Off money. Money I invest that allows me to say f*ck off to 99% of requests on my time.

There’s no label for this life. It’s definitely not entrepreneurship. There are no valuations, mergers, IPOs, or stock options.

Maybe it’s the creator economy. Maybe Web3 will come up with another label for it.

I like that there’s no label because labels limit us. They force us to become someone we’re not. They force life to become black and white when it’s in fact a bloody gorgeous rainbow.

All I know is I never want to be an entrepreneur again.

Maybe it’s time you rethink the entrepreneur fairytale the tech bros sell to fund their penthouse apartments with jacuzzis. Just saying.

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