carpeaqua

Alex Payne, formerly of Twitter and now of BankSimple, has an interesting opinion on what our duty is as entrepreneurs. You should go read the whole thing before going forward.

Finished? OK.

Alex’s main point as I understand it is that building a company solely to support yourself is doing a disservice to humanity and a waste of your talents. As entrepreneurs and software developers we should be spending every waking moment thinking about how we can have an impact on a larger scale.

No thanks.

I run a successful “micro-business” as Alex calls it. Second Gear has been in business for nearly five years, is profitable and supports me, my wife and my dog. My apps have been downloaded tens of thousands of times and I thank every single customer who has made my dream a reality. Despite Second Gear’s financial successes, I have absolutely zero ambition to expand into the next Panic, OmniGroup or Apple. As long as I can pay my bills, eat well and keep some money in the bank, I consider myself successful and happy.

Says Payne:

At the core of the pro-“micro business” argument is an idea that I find hard to swallow: that merely being happy should be purpose enough for a person.

If you think that being truly happy is easy, you are probably miserable and looking for a way to justify your own unhappiness. So many people go through life unhappy because of their work situation, a failing marriage or a variety of other problems. If they are able to find happiness by eliminating the things that are bringing them down and building the product or service they’ve always dreamed of, who is to fault them for it?

He continues:

A “micro business” whose primary mission is providing for the solo founder (or a very small group of founders), is not, I believe, an adequate structure for doing business in a world that desperately needs the help of entrepreneurs. In blunt terms of value creation and extraction, it is a break-even proposition at best.

I have absolutely zero obligation to anyone outside of myself. I choose to do what makes me happy and to associate with those that enrich my lives in positive ways. Sense of duty is for those in the military or Peace Corps, not software development.

To say that I am wasting my life because I don’t subscribe to the notion that I should spend every waking moment of my life trying to change the world is wrong and reeks of Silicon Valley elitism.¹ No matter what career path you choose, large or small, if you aspire to be a good person and a positive force in the world, you will have achieved success.

He concludes:

Start a big business. Start a small business. Just think beyond yourself. When you look back on your life, do you want to be the person who got by and lived for your own happiness, or the person who brought happiness, security, and prosperity to countless others? Even if you tried for the latter and failed, surely that’s no waste of a life.

If Alex feels he has to martyr himself for the greater good of those who live a digital life beyond him, that’s fantastic. I don’t want to judge the path he chooses to take his career. By the same token, I don’t think he has the right to do the same for me and the millions of people around the world who have done just fine wasting their life.

Do something, anything, because it makes you happy. Don’t do it because you feel like you owe it to the world. You don’t.