Colin Marshall and I recently produced a double-barreled interview devouring everything from the entrepreneurial process to art-making to the accumulation of “fuck you money.” It’s the deepest brain dump I’ve ever done regarding “why I do what I do,” and took someone as poignant as Colin to ask the right questions. The piece is long, but I think it will keep your attention. Here is a snippet of Colin discussing the Disease:
I suspected that Entrepreneur’s Disease might be not just a correlated affliction, but a condition springing out of the very nature of the entrepreneur itself. I’ve heard over and over again that “startups will consume your life. No, really, they’ll totally consume your life, and you can’t even envision the extent of the utter completeness with which every non-startup aspect of your existence will be decimated and the earth beneath it salted.” Sounds like the victims of Entrepreneur’s Disease have not just heard that but embraced it, internalized it and loved it.
As unappealing as the life of someone in the heady midst of Entrepreneur’s Disease might superficially sound to me — and probably sounds to many readers — I must admit my unquashable attractions to (a) bold, audacious moves, (b) complete self-determination, whether it leads to success or failure, (c) endeavors the odds are against and (d) the amassing of fuck-you money. Especially (d). So I probably front like I understand entrepreneurship less than I actually do.
Colin has become one of my favorite voices on the internet and is an emerging star through his four quadrants: broadcasting / interviewing, writing / essayism, film / video and sound / music. Subscribe to his blog and listen to his interviews if you don’t already do so. Here are a handful of my favorite pieces and respective quotes:
“I’ve realized that charting one’s own course in terms of other, previously-charted courses hurts as much as it helps. As much as claiming that you’re working toward becoming like Joe Icon satisfies others’ questions about your slightly unconventional aspirations, it’s no recipe for originality.”
“I’d submit that this all comes down to clarity, the condition that keeps the junk outside the brain’s purview and the meaningful stuff inside. Clarity demands the absence of sonic, visual, informational or personal noise.”
“I also prefer a multiplicity of small, minimally-designed spaces, both aesthetically and intellectually. I fear not that my next place will have too little room, but too much; I worry not that I will have too few possessions to my name, but too many. My dream is to have several available dwellings, absolutely no larger than I require, in select locations across the globe.”
“To reiterate what’s been written before: don’t think what they thought, think how they thought. Don’t do what it does, do it how it does it. Don’t think of what it’s about; think of how it’s about it.”
“I call this “the buffer.” In this specific case I mean the financial bulwark between you and the dole line, but the importance of the buffer in all resources cannot be denied. Amassing a sizable amount of cash on hand for the proverbial rainy day, coloquially referred to as “fuck-you money” (FYM) — not an expression original to me, though I do use it all the time — is a goal toward which I work.”
I also like his interviews with Philalawyer, Merlin Mann, Ben Casnocha and Andy Mckenzie.