There’s a fairytale that surrounds the technology industry. The idea that anyone can rise up from anonymity to take the whole world in their palm. We have geniuses. We have ninjas. We have rock stars.

We even have our own promised land.

Silicon Valley, looking west over northern San Jose, from Wikipedia.org

The story goes that if you have a desk, a dream and a dorm room, you can start a billion dollar empire all on your own.

That’s how Steve did it, after all. Zuck, too. Right?

I wholeheartedly agree that these examples make for good stories. They’re great for the publicity of their companies. David rose up against any number of Goliaths, and won.

But how true are these stories? How much of what we’re told is good marketing and how much is selective recollection?

Fact or fiction?

Unfortunately, these stories that deify the idea of a lone founder as the unrecognised genius, toiling away in anonymity at their singular vision are at best disingenuous, and at their worst downright false. It also romances away the hard work of a great many people that were involved along the way.

A company, if successful, will more likely than not grow it’s head count as it grows it’s revenue and/or user base. I use the examples below of well known technology success stories being started by teams of people contrary to the common narrative of the sole founder “doing it all”. In no way are the examples intended to diminish the contributions of people that arrived after that starting team.

Microsoft, as an example, was started by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in 1975, originally to sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800. Steve Ballmer, a college friend of the two, would join the company five years later in 1980.

Paul Allen, Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates in the early days of Microsoft

It was only after these early years that MS-DOS would really establish the company as a major player in the nascent software industry, before Windows sent its’ stock price into the stratosphere.

John Wayne aka “The Duke”, Hollywood legend. Not Ron Wayne, Apple co-founder.

Apple, for example, was started by shrewdly selling an original kit prepared by Steve Wozniak from Steve Jobs’ garage. They also had the help of Ron Wayne in the early days (who famously sold his share of the company back to Jobs and Wozniak in 1977 for $800. Oops.).

The company would later be involved in boardroom battles that would see Jobs exit the company for over 10 years, and Apple come within spitting distance of bankruptcy, before attaining the highest valuation of any company in history.

Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook in 2003 with the help of Dustin Moskovitz, Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum and Chris Hughes, under contentious circumstances that involved an accusation that the idea for the site was stolen from HarvardConnection.com, a project which Zuckerberg had been hired to build (this matter was later settled out of court in 2008).

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO

Later, Saverin and Facebook would sue each other over the dilution of Saverin’s stake, and disagreement over his status as a co-founder. This too was later settled out of court.

Today, Facebook has a market capitalization of over $400B USD, but it’s worth remembering the journey it has taken to get there.

Evan Spiegel, Snapchat CEO (in an eerily similar photograph to the one above)

Snapchat’s history is even more contentious than the others. Both Evan Spiegel and Reggie Brown have claimed to be the original creators of the app. Brown contested that he brought the idea to Spiegel due to his previous business experience, who in turn approached Bobby Murphy to handle the coding aspects. Again, settled out of court.

These are only the winners

These are only a few examples of companies that managed to grow to incredible heights of popularity and billion-dollar-plus valuations. The unicorns, as they’re called these days, and what’s gone on in their history on the road to getting there. In short, it’s been far from an easy ride, not one of these examples were solo endeavours, and these are among the biggest of the success stories.

I’m afraid I’m the bearer of bad news..

The long-term success rate for startup companies has been quoted in different places as 10%, 20% and even up to 40%, but in general it’s accepted that the majority of companies don’t pan out in the long run. Of those that do, virtually none have anything like the success of those described above.

The reason I’m writing this, and the point I want to share with you, is that in large part the idea of the individual that builds the multi-billion dollar mega-corporation on their own in short order is a fantasy made to tell an interesting story.

I don’t write this to burst anyone’s bubble. I don’t say these things to discourage anyone from pursuing their goals or their dreams.

The only message I want to convey is that if you’re considering entering the technology industry for easy, fast money and maybe a private jet in your future, you’re almost certainly wasting your time. A lottery ticket is a way safer bet with far less heartache on the back-end.

As counter-intuitive as it sounds, money is a terrible criteria on which to base your life’s work, as that money may not even exist in the first place.

The CEO and the serfs

As an example from my own experience, I used to have a friend who brought me “amazing ideas” and asked me to do the technical work for them. We’ll be partners, says they. I’ll be their tech guy. They’ll be the CEO.

Now, I’m not knocking non-technical folks that are contributing to the industry. There’s most certainly a place for that, and that work has undeniable value. That’s not what this is.

In this case the crux of these ideas was always a poorly, quickly conceived get-rich-quick scheme in mobile app form. They would be the visionary, I would be the chief of an army of serfs that would assemble their empire.

I would politely nod, give a passive smile, and change the subject.

Because it wasn’t their fault. This is what they had been lead to believe about the technology industry. It’s big risks and big personalities. This is how it works.

If I could reach out to that friend again, I would handle things differently. I know I would, because letting them continue to believe in the mythology wasn’t doing them any favours.

Are you freaking kidding me!?

That’s what I should have said, obviously.

I love this stuff.

That’s obvious to anyone that knows me. This is not:

I need you to as well.

And that’s the problem. Not the lack of experience, and not the questionable ideas.

“You know, some people say life is short and that you could get hit by a bus at any moment and that you have to live each day like it’s your last. Bullshit. Life is long. You’re probably not gonna get hit by a bus. And you’re gonna have to live with the choices you make for the next fifty years.” — Chris Rock

I love this industry. Viscerally. If we’re going to spend what could easily roll into years working together then I need to know the folks I’ve thrown my lot in with love it as much as I do, otherwise what are we even wasting our time doing here?

I’ve worked with people that are just starting out, and I’ve been on projects with 30 year veterans that have earned more qualifications than they even remember doing (yes, literally). I’ve worked with self-described Ninjas, Rockstars, Gurus and even a few Masters. And it’s all… nonsense.

Passion trumps all else. It’s been said that if you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life. I can’t claim that’s always true, but neither can I imagine doing anything else. The most fun I’ve had in my working life has been alongside folks that still have the same honest-to-goodness joy for the work that they had the first time their hands crossed a keyboard.

Find what you love, and do that. Chris Rock is right about the rest.