Why I'm Choosing to Be an Ambitious Dad, Not Just an Ambitious Builder
Being Ambitious and Being a Dad
Nicholas Charriere, a YC alum and father of two, wrestles with the tension between ambition and parenting. He observes that many great founders were terrible parents, and rejects the choice between the two. Instead, he redefines ambition to include being a great dad, and shares his strategy for maximizing time with his kids while still building great things.
I am ambitious: I wake up every morning with a burning fire in my stomach to build awesome things.
- marssaxman
The passionate hunger to do something significant and meaningful with my life was a major reason I took care never to have any children. Having grown up in a large family within a religious subculture full of other large families, the amount of time and attention children consume was crystal clear from a young age, and I knew that I was going to need every scrap of energy I could spare for the work I wanted to do.
Years later, after I had to accept the failure of my ambitions, there was an opportunity to become the dad of a kid who needed one. So here I am being a dad after all, and it's been a good experience. Difficult, of course, and often frustrating, but worthwhile; I have no regrets - neither about this choice, nor the one I made when I was young.
- HelloUsername
This person is gonna be burnout soon. If you have no clue why I would say this after reading this article, you might burnout soon as well..
- qooiii2
"Behind every great man there's a great woman." I thought I was killing it at work and as a dad when I was answering emails about complex bugs while hiking with my first kid riding in a backpack. But then I quit working to be a full-time dad for kid #2 and found out how much work my partner had been doing that I didn't know about. I suddenly understood why so many of the men at my former workplace had been divorced. So be ambitious, but check in with your partner and make sure they are on the same page.
- katzgrau
YC reject so I bootstrapped and was thankfully able to hit profitability before my first kid showed up. I’ve now got two. I also have dreams bigger than ever.
In fact, writing this while sitting on the couch with the kids watching Muppet Treasure Island while my kids are wearing pirate hats and waving foam swords.
I’m still extremely productive and prolific. Probably less compared with before. But before, I had friends and TV shows subtracting from my time.
Today, my life priorities are kids, work and sleep.
There is no Netflix. There are no hobbies. No downtime. No friends unless I happen to like my kids friends parents.
I’m up at 5:30/6 and get 90 mins of focused work in. Skip breakfast. Then workout and walk/bike with the kids. Then ready for work at 10 - and thankfully my office is two blocks away. Skip lunch. Home at 5/5:30. Dinner with kids and play. Work from 8-10. Every single day.
I love my kids, work and learning is fun, and I value sleep. Everything else is a nice to have.
The way I see it, when I’m 100 years old I won’t regret drag on my ambitions because I had kids. In fact I’ll probably think the ambitions were nice but kind of pointless in the end anyway. I will see the kids as important and meaningful, and will write a life story where I was the best dad I could be and still hustled like hell.
- ElProlactin
The author seems self-aware and I think there's a lot of good observations in this post.
At the same time, I think ambition needs to be paired with humility and acceptance of you can't have it all.
There's no perfect life. You can't optimize everything such that you achieve a hypothesized balance between all the things that are competing for your time and energy. In the final analysis, most people, if given the chance to reflect before they die, would choose more time with the people they care about than more time working, even if, in the moment, they felt they were doing a good job balancing the two.
- xp84
I have a good friend who has a special needs kid and we've discussed his struggles at length - suffice it to say that it takes an order of magnitude more time and attention than what's described here.
The thing is, you of course don't get tipped off that you've been selected for that particular curse (and yes, I'd say it's a curse. It's not some inspiring after-school special thing, it's unfair as f*k to all involved).
The point of this is, I suppose, it's okay to choose not to have kids if you don't feel like gambling, because it turns out, you are. And I say this as someone who is very in favor of having kids and who worries about the looming population collapse in all developed countries.
- mholt
"Be ambitious enough to be an ambitious dad." - agreed! Being an ambitious dad IS exhausting. And the successful people telling you that you can't be a present, ambitious dad and be successful -- that you have to trade successful fatherhood for professional success -- are weak. They are not heroes.
The real heroes are the ones ambitiously raising the next generation while changing the world right now. That's what I aspire to be... and those are my role models. Not the ones who abandon their kids or wife to pursue their own dreams and make excessive amounts of money.
If you really can only muster enough time or energy to be ambitious about one thing, be ambitious within your home/family.
- devalexwells
Just wanted to say thank you for this. In particular, the part where often it seems the "Founder mode" icons some evangelize (seem to) neglect their children and/or effectively put childrearing entirely on their partner.
I wish I had a good term (or some other concise way) to reject/criticize this aspect of tech culture.
I say founders above but I see it happen in lots of my peers who are simply workaholics. The closest saying I have (which I repeat often) is:
"The only people who will remember you worked late are your kids."
- Xcelerate
Having extreme career success (like the kind referred to in the article) is basically a lottery ticket. I spend a lot of time with my kids, because I figure even if I halve my chances of winning the lottery, well, the odds haven’t changed that much, all considered.
- blobbers
I'm shocked by the amount of time people who don't have kids waste.
So while PG may believe that people may have their "act already together" pre-kids, I sort of look at the amount of time people without kids waste and think "if only I had that much free time..."