Asked whether founders can have a life outside the company, Senra first says yes, then turns to the opposite case: a business-empire builder whose autobiography was written as a warning. The quote is Senra retelling that book.
…this is at a necessity. You know, if you immigrate here from Korea and you can't get a high-paying job, then you might want to start, you know, a restaurant or a car, like start washing cars or doing something that anything that you can do on your own without permission, I think is the key there.
Question number two comes from a listener who emailed us: A lot of founders seem to have given up their health, marriage, or kids for their company. Is it possible to build something big and also have a life outside it? Dude.
…success. There's this book by this guy named Larry Miller, and it's called Driven in Autobiography. He was writing it when he died. Larry Miller was the richest entrepreneur in Utah. The average Utah citizen could not go a day without spending a dollar in one of his businesses. So he owned anything from car dealerships to movie theaters to restaurants. He just owned a ton of businesses. And he wrote that book as a cautionary tale because he ignored his health. It was such poor health as he's writing the book. They're literally having to chop off parts of his body. He's having because his circulation is so bad. Diabetes. It's so bad. And then he talks about, hey, I don't know who my kids are. I don't have a relationship with my wife. And it's a devastating, devastating story. He's writing. He's like, I'm in a 30,000 square foot house on top of a…
Hmm. Yeah. So through the lens of an entrepreneur, look, I often joke that, and this is true, from the age of 22 to 42 for 20 years, maybe even 25 years, other than a two-year respite in business school, I did nothing but work. I pretended to have hobbies, but I didn't. Occasionally I would work…
Yeah, actually, I have a question for you, Scott, before we move on. Why do you think, why did you say that it cost it cost your hair and your first marriage, and it's worth
it? I have an extraordinary life now. I'm relevant. I get to do whatever I want. I get to spend a ton of time with my kids. I have an absence of stress, which makes my partnership stronger, my friendship stronger. I can walk the walk and give money away. I just have a wonderful, rich life right…