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Is envy a good thing?

18 points by marrone ↗ HN
A lot of Web 2.0 news circulates around who is getting bought by whom for how much. A lot of people see this and envision the same success for themselves. A lot of these same people are creating startups.

My question is this: is envy a good thing? I mean we are talking about the American Dream after all, the web is the new land of opportunity for many people, and a lot of us look to it as our chance to become rich and successful. But is this envy good or bad? Do we focus too much on getting acquired, rather than starting something you love and possibly being able to make a living off of it? The YC application even asks who you think would be the most likely to acquire you.

PG has said many times, that during his Viaweb days all he wanted to do was make something good. What are your thoughts?

P.S. This blew me away a few months back. In my Mens Health magazine, the results to a survey on the average guy's fantasy profession: 1. Professional athlete, 2. Movie Star, 3. Internet start-up millionaire, 4. Rock and Roll star, 5. Playboy photographer ... in that order! Yes internet start-up made it ahead of taking pictures of hot naked women all day, and being a rock and roll singer! Oh how the times have changed...

25 comments

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palish
6. To make cool things that people enjoy while not caring about money past a house.

The only reason I'm pursuing financial security is to be free of the 9-5 so that I can focus on creating interesting things.

jsnx
> My question is this: is envy a good thing?

Well, envy causes suffering, and suffering is bad; so no, envy is not good. You can not want something so badly that you get it. It's true that chance favors the prepared mind, but not always.

What can you do to be happy now? It's not that hard. There is honor and pleasure in cutting an onion well.

samson
I don't think it matters what your initial spark is to get you started. Whether its envy or inspiration, as long as your doing it and enjoying it.

If months after getting your project up, and the first thing you can say to someone who asks you why your doing it? And you respond like "for Google to buy me", then maybe your envy has become a bad thing, or at least its made you kinda shallow.

Otherwise there's nothing wrong with reading that youtube buyout article and then choosing the next day to spend the day thinking of an idea you'd be happy with pursuing over the next couple of months.

Neoryder
I think as with most things it depends. Envy is closely related to pride , and if envy/pride drives us to create beautiful products to always push outside our comfort zones to make something beautiful/useful then I am all for it., But if with, I daresay most people ,envy drives them to do things beyond what decent people do.

IN short figure out how envy affects you. Honestly assess yourself and act accordingly.

binnymathews
I agree - if you are so passionate about an idea and its actually going to take some kind of envy to go ahead and implement it, then so be it.
steve
With every line of code I write, I stay focused on the day that I will achieve greatness and crush all others. At this rate I'm set to completely burn out in my mid 20's but I can take that risk.
DanielBMarkham
Two issues:

1) What motivates you? For some, it's desire. For others, it's fear. Envy is a form of desire. Doing anything with all your soul -- pouring yourself into something -- is your job in life as far as I'm concerned. Pick whatever works for you. Whatever keeps you moving.

2) It also depends on what you envy. I envy people that have made a positive difference in people's lives. Other things seem kind of stupid to me, like money and fame. You can inherit money, or trick somebody out of it, so while it's nice, it's more like the scoreboard on a basketball game. You don't play basketball by looking at the scoreboard. Fame is too much a crap shoot. Plus I'd rather have freedom to invent and innovate than having the world watching my every move.

eusman
there are sooo many issues and feelings to handle during a startup to have time for a such destructful emotion like envyness
rrival
This is business. Envy is a distraction. Being able to see the paths someone else took to get somewhere shouldn't serve as the primary inspiration or impetus to pursue your ideas. Those paths are more than likely not opportunities for your success.

If "some 24 year old kid from illinois just sold his <2 year old video site for more than 1.5b!" gets you past the "wow maybe I could actually do this" hurdle without inflating your ego to the point of forecasting your certain success then it's been a positive thing for your personal progress.

Ymmv. Do it, fail, learn, repeat as necessary. Try not to let anecdotal successes inspire visions of grandeur.

rokhayakebe
Yes it is. It is actually a gr8 thing. Being envious is nothing but desiring the same thing someone else has. Of course I want what the sergey and Larry have. I certainly want what the zentel guys have. I also want what the anywhere FM guys have. But it is not that I want their product or money, but I want to be where they are. I certainly do not want them not to have what they have. Now that would have been horrible. As long as you want to have the same as the other guy without taking away from his success then it is ok to want it. Actually I would advise you to wake up every morning and tell yourself I am going to build a company that people want just like anywhere.FM and zenter and delicious and flickr and all the other successes did. I can recall PG saying to us being successful mean getting the founders rich
staunch
Work for my entire adult life in forced mediocrity just to keep my head above water or spend a small number of years working super hard to buy my freedom? An easy decision for me.

I'd hack even if there was no money in it and I'd run a business to get rich even if I couldn't do it hacking. I happen to be alive in a time when I'm lucky enough to combine the two.

Envy may enter into my mind on occasion when I look at others who have achieved what I'm aiming for, but most of the time it's just purely and hugely inspiring.

davidw
> or spend a small number of years working super hard to buy my freedom? An easy decision for me.

I think that particular idea from PG's essay is... not quite right. It worked for him, but plenty of people work super hard and end up with nothing after a few years, so it's not really like it's an automatic benefit of doing as much as you can in a given time frame.

staunch
It's hardly a PG specific idea that you can work harder for yourself and make a lot more money. It's definitely not a sure thing that you'll succeed quickly, but if you're wiling to try really hard until you do you have a very good shot.

It worked for my grandfather as a farmer and my father as an artist. There's no reason it shouldn't work for me with technology.

davidw
There's doubtless a relationship between work input and output, but what I thought you were referring to was this:

http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html

"Economically, you can think of a startup as a way to compress your whole working life into a few years. Instead of working at a low intensity for forty years, you work as hard as you possibly can for four."

staunch
I do think that's a simplistic, but accurate, description of many successful startups.
davidw
I think it's also accurate regarding many unsuccessful startups, and therein lies the problem...
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thomasp
You are shooting down a strawman. The choice is not always or even mostly between "working entire life in forced mediocrity" vs "buying freedom". I have worked in a job, and I now own a successful business (and so I am reasonably wealthy) and I have actually enjoyed both. I was happy in my job, was paid decently, and I did some really interesting work. Then why I did I leave? The desire to be closer to family, that was the first motivation and a sense of adventure. Most of my former colleagues from where I worked (after 10+ years on the job) are quite happy too, and some of them have 20-30 patents to their name.

And statistically speaking, most Americans actually report being happy in their jobs. Anecdotally, I know many of my own employees turn down a lot of headhunter calls, often offering a lot more money - I assume that is about as real a test as it gets that they are happy in what they are doing.

This is not to tell you what is right for you. If you want to start a business (like I did) by all means, go ahead. I am just saying reality is a lot more nuanced, and a lot more complex.

palish
I'd bet there were happy slaves, too.

A corporate job is slavery:

"Slavery is a condition of control over a person against their will, enforced by violence or other forms of coercion. Slavery almost always occurs for the purpose of securing the labor of the person concerned."

This is grimly apparent to me since I'm typing this out at work on a weekend. There's a big demo is on Tuesday and I'd better have my part done, or else. I'd give anything to have just enough money to work on my own projects instead.

People do find satisfaction in working for someone, but why in the world wouldn't you want to decide what to work on?

Anyway, the 1 million line project has finished compiling (after 15 minutes and 20 build helpers). Back to work..

palish
Would anyone mind refuting anything I've said here?
staunch
I didn't down vote (I up'd to balance it :D) but I think it's a bit much to compare corporate work relationship to slavery. Real slavery is a huge step away from "wage slavery". I think we can discuss how much corporate jobs suck without the need to compare it to people who have it much worse.

Wage slaves are mostly slaves of their own mind. That's a big difference from having a ball and chain around your ankles.

centipede
Somebody gives you money for something you do. It's the same basic formula for startups and employees. Your definiton can not tell them apart.

BTW: That's only a theoretical counter-argument to a theoretical argument. I understand that in reality startups are vastly different from being employed.

vlad
I was just lying down, thinking about it now and for the past few days. I like the questions about ego that have been posted this week.
cglee
Good as in an objective, moral goodness, or good as in may make you more money?

If it's the former, then no. If it's the latter, then maybe.

Most of us are working on projects that are amoral in nature, therefore, just have fun along the way and don't hurt anyone.