Are entrepreneurs prostitutes?

Went to Design 2.0 last night. A few years ago it would have been more relevant to my day-to-day work, but I actually found it even more valuable now than I would have then. Getting an outside perspective is a wonderful thing.

The most heated moment was when Natalie began to say that much of a designers work is actually prostitution - since they are selling themselves for work they would otherwise be disgusted to do.

This is a common refrain in Industrial Design where a once proud designer is asked to design yet another unglamorous object for a completely unappreciative client. Architects design McMansion homes, graphic designers do gas station websites, and game designers get crappy titles based on crappy movies. It's the fight between idealism vs compromise, or indivudalism vs collectivism, as Ayn Rand would put it:

“A man who works for the sake of others is a slave." "And what, incidentally, do you suppose integrity is? The ability not to pick a watch out of your neighbor's pocket? No, it's not as easy as that. If that were all, I'd say ninety-five percent of humanity were honest, upright men. Only, as you can see, they aren’t. Integrity is the ability to stand by an idea.” The Fountainhead

Replace "building" with building a business, and this is something that entrepreneurs face this constantly. You have a vision, and it is impossible to bring that vision to fruition without bending others to that vision. It's very hard to stick to that vision in the face of friends, possible co-founders, engineers, marketers, and especially angels/VCs.

The first startup I worked for I watched as the first-time CEO had this very problem. We had a vision and prepared a business plan, had a presentation, and launched our product. That presentation changed almost every week based not on a change in his beliefs, but on the most recent piece of feedback from a VC. He wanted the company to be successful so much that I think he lost sight of what the company was supposed to be in the first place.

John Maeda, as always, had a witty response. His father was a cook, and his father loved to cook. He enjoyed cooking so much that it didn't matter what he was cooking, or who it was for. It made him happy to prepare food. Does being a cook make him a prostitute?

This does not mean to stick steadfast to your vision against all logic, which is another problem first-time founders have. It is incredibly important to be able to take advice, be convinced of something, and alter that vision. But that should be on the merits of the advice not the person giving it.

There is always a lot of pressure to alter your vision to some else's whims. The question you have to keep asking yourself is whether that decision is in bad faith to yourself.

Technorati Tags: startups, entrepreneurship, design, vision, core77, design 2.0

Comments

[Steve Meretz]

I want to post this up on my mirror to read again every couple of weeks. It's very easy to be swayed for the wrong reason - and we all need regular reminders to stay "on the path."

That is perhaps why our society lauds the maverick hero who keeps going despite all odds - because it is a part of ourselves we all hope to try and retain.

[Michael Heraghty]

I enjoyed the Fountainhead, and I understand what you're saying.

BUT if you refuse to take that gas station web design job because it compromises your principles, how do you pay the rent?

[Nabeel]

If I were preaching Objectivism I would probably say you need to work in a rock quary and never subjigate your creative efforts until the right project comes along.

But that doesn't seem to accomplish much other than frustration and perhaps a nice tan.

It is necessary sometimes to accept doing something you don't really believe in just to make ends meet. And the first time you accept it perhaps you say to yourself that this one doesn't really count, it's just for the money/fame/success/name/etc.

The danger is that it is far too easy, after taking that first step, to find yourself continueing down that path until you have forgetten what you were so passionate about doing in the first place.