Click through on the image to be taken to a small selection of A4 posters designed to highlight the toxicity of startup culture. These were made by Tom Scott.
I think it was the late nineties when I attended a business startup programme and was told that “lifestyle” businesses are not good businesses. I was told that it wasn’t a good thing to aim for. And yet I couldn’t quite understand why.
The last ten years that I’ve been on the edges of the startup and investment communities have confirmed that this attitude is prevalent because of a few blue birds – a few companies who take investment and make a large fortune for a few founders and investors. The culture denies the reality that the economy is actually made up of lifestyle businesses; these are the shops and makers and services that we see and use every day. The owners of these businesses can live very comfortably, they can afford the luxuries of life and they’re not failures just because they haven’t made a 20x multiple of an investment.
Startup culture is and always has been toxic. Don’t judge others because of your limited perception of their actions and ambitions. And go easy on yourself if you’re not the stature of Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg at their tender years.