this is very thoughtful stuff—especially the nuances of the psychological and social costs of being at the helm of something. https://twitter.com/SylvanaquaFarms/status/1339876771676696578

There's obviously a lot of gatekeeping (and family wealth) surrounding who has enough assets to invest in a thing. But unless you are truly without conscience, the emotional demands of the ownership of something can be much more brutal than any investment loss you're at risk to.

The first time I was up late on the 30th figuring out how to make payroll on the 31st (esp when it's for friends & colleagues) fundamentally changed my outlook on business. And there is way too much scorn on the left about how lonely and challenging and stressful that is.

And, to be fair, sometimes the scorn is well-deserved, since plenty of people who start businesses/orgs are narcissistic sociopaths who subsidize their lack of business acumen by treating people horribly. (this seems to be almost... *more* true in music & performing arts?)

But at the end of the day I've always found it puzzling how much contempt we direct at owners of things: the average owner isn't Jeff Bezos, it's the family on the corner with their life savings in a mini-mart, trying to get enough volume on razor-thin margins to pay themselves

We have the same thing in the arts. Owners/leaders/founders definitely need to avoid the perilous idea that their employees ought to be grateful to get paid at all, no matter how lousy (because it's better than nothing and exclusively due to their good grace). This is Scrooge-y.

But we can do a lot more to support our leaders/founders because it is lonely & hard and good faith & intentions aren't nearly satisfactory on their own. I suspect there are ways we can share the load to ease that burden. But contempt is for sure the wrong 1st step!