For all my life (and I am not spring chicken) I noticed one thing: criticism, cynicism and pessimism sell. They are attractive. They compel us, because they are easy and cheap. There is no cost attached in becoming a victim. No cost in saying "that's not for me - I can't get it".

Optimism on the other hand and especially tech optimism is almost a slur nowadays. Very few voices support them, very few cheerleaders. And that is a shame - the whole world depends on these optimists. We need them to solve the problems facing our civilization. To have successful startups we need failed ones. Advances are not easy, they are damn hard and people willing to try are few and far in between and they need our support.

And finally in the last 20 years I met and interacted with hundreds (maybe thousands) of people in our field. The ones who TRIED - few successes but zero regrets. Even failures lead to positive outcomes in the end.

The only regrets and bitterness were predictably from the ones who for some reason or another were discouraged to try. They always have an excuse, some situation to point to that made them victims. But in the end it was a preexisting belief, an idea or opinion or mind virus that did the most damage to their you world-view.

Very few will lose trying to emulate a successful person. None will gain anything trying to follow coldtea's advice.

>For all my life (and I am not spring chicken) I noticed one thing: criticism, cynicism and pessimism sell. They are attractive.

Not as much as the multi-trillion dollar industry for "how to make it big" advice, business and startup hussle culture, magic bullets and/or grind p0rn, and so on, all built on optimism, and aiming at an ever renewable supply of fresh naives.