Ask HN: How true is it that most founders are taking drugs like Modafanil? I keep seeing references online taht a lot of people in Silicon Valley are taking prescription medications such as modafanil, adderal, etc. Is this actually common? Anyone here take those things and do you need them to survive? |
This is partly due to compensate for a medical condition.
Part of the reason it's dangerous, however, is because no one goes in prepared what to expect. The doctors' "do you have any questions?" line is a joke. And they usually don't take adderall anyway, so they can't tell you what to expect.
I think Elon takes/took adderall as well. Or at least I heard someone say that in a pretty convincing context, once. (So it must be true, right?)
The biggest thing to watch out for is the annoyance it imposes on your life. Get ready to spend every month going to the doctor, every single month, to get your script. Faxing/mailing adderall scripts isn't a thing, because controlled substance.
The second thing to watch out for is that it's easy to ruin your sleep schedule. But I don't know how true this is, because my medical condition is related to sleep issues in the first place.
That all begs the question: Is it worth it?
I remember sleeping through class. If I had been on it from age 12, I would probably have attained high marks.
The worst aspect is that you feel an urge to conceal it, because otherwise you feel classified into the same category as these guys: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQVb6Cd-w8s
The other reason to conceal it is that people start to make fun of you or be dismissive of you.
It's a tough decision, and there's no clear right answer. There are pros and cons.For some people the cons outweigh the pros. One of my friends said that he felt like he was having a heart attack any time he took even a small amount. Another said he didn't want to take it because "he liked being able to think."
Both are true in certain contexts. If you need to plow through mundane work, there is no better way. But it comes at a price.
After watching it my understanding of Aderall is that it makes you capable of intense focus (a sort of anti-procrastinator). It doesn't make you smarter or capable of solving stuff that you couldn't before. They end with saying that it destroys lives and that it's dangerous, but they never quite delivered on that, one guy said that it destroyed his life but he never went into detail and he didn't look like you typical image of a crack-addict (ie: felt to me more of like a thing they did to prevent them being accused of promoting drugs).
I wouldn't say any of us need them, but they are useful tools, both for work and occasional recreation.
People at the bottom piss in cups all the time. I have a sneaking suspicion the top rarely does.
It once came up in a higher up meeting at a company I worked at and someone snickered and said “never gonna happen. I would lose a bunch of my top performers.”
(I am sure there are companies that test but it is the exception here.)
When I took it, it felt like that movie "Limitless". Superpower concentration. I took their word on the health bit though, no free lunch, so I stayed away. I developed A-fib (Atrial Fibrillation) at age 30, which is very rare at that young. Could be any number of things, most notably genetics (though I'd be my family's first); but doctors to whom I mention Aderall all have this "ahhhhh" reaction. "Could be something else, but if I were a betting man..."
Frankly, I've always figured the way Aderall abusers abuse - here and there, for finals or work deadlines - couldn't be that dangerous, unless you get into the habit. I (and many others) was prescribed 1x/d for ~10 years. Seems to have caught up to me, but that's some relative heavy usage. I certainly don't condone, just brain-dumping experience.
Probably the biggest surprise for me since starting my own company has been how little "hard stuff" I've done. I've learned a whole lot of new skills but the hard part is keeping nose to grindstone, not emitting flashes of brilliance. Versatility and average engineering skills applied persistently are more than adequate (in my experience) so something like modafinil would probably be a significant win for me - too bad I can't risk trying it since I'm probably not diagnosably ADHD and my work involves semi-regular drug tests.
it's so easy to fake it
The biggest side effect I ran into was de-personalization, Adderall made me lose interest in many non-productive things like taking relaxing walks outside or making small chat with my girlfriend. It turned me into a productivity machine.
My doctor and I played around with various dosages ranging from 5mg XR to 30mg XR and from 5-15IR in the afternoon as it starts to wear off.
My philosophy these days is to take the minimum dose required to just barely get that focus I need to finish complex long tasks that require a lot of focus. For me that's 10mg XR for a whole day or 5mg IR for a hour or two. I also only take it on days where I have one of those tasks, and neither my doctor nor I see any benefit it taking it every day.
In college many of my friends took it for studying, and being a pill that increases deep focus of course it helped with used correctly. Even for those without ADHD.
It makes me capable of merely ordinary adult focus (and I still need other tactics in addition). I read these anecdotes about superhuman laser-beam focus and it kinda irks me because I just come up to "able to hold a job" levels.
This could also be a part of the media's unfortunate tendency to conflate "tech founder" with "software engineer", and "San Francisco" with "Silicon Valley" -- I wouldn't be surprised that you'll see more smart drug use among people in the former than the latter.
I agree it’s a bit lax and my Opsec probably isn’t the most consistent with my comment history here but I’d rather be honest with an employer than lie anyways. I’ve lost at least one or two interviews this way, but I see it as a positive thing. I’m not particularly good at not being myself, which is something I’ve had difficulty with at the workplace. But seriously thanks for pointing out; it’s not something I’ve considered much on HN.
I’ve never met anyone that takes those.
I have certainly met many founders that could be prescribed them.
Adderall is pretty common, but they usually take it for ADD or depression. When I see Adderall get "abused" it's usually people using it before going out drinking and not necessarily for work purposes.
The only times I ever learn about someone on prescription "smart" drugs or antidepressants is when we're close and I confide in them first, or they're the type of person who shares their adderall with people who want to take it recreationally.
I was on Adderall for mild ADHD for 10 months in 2016. Software Engineers in my late 20s. I found that I was not finishing any of my side projects. Was working (and still do) for a FAANG. Consulted a real doc i.e Psychiatrist in San Francisco and he diagnosed me with very mild ADHD Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder)
Apparently this is quite common in adults these days, esp. in high intensity brain-work related professions like Software Engineering, Finance / Wall Street and such.
My prescribed dosage was 5 mg / day of Adderall, the lowest possible dose. I was very concerned about long term side-effects and the doc assured me that it was perefectly safe. He said that it's not the same as crystal meth like the media would have you believe. In my last outing , I mentioned the "Take my Pills" netflix documentary and his take was that the documentary featured extremes cases of very high dosages (the 3 people featuered were on atleast 50 mg / day, = 10x my dosage) and also that 2 of the 3 didn't have any ADHD or ADD symtoms - the football player and the girls in school.
Now for the effects, I can say it's incredible. The first day I felt lazor like focus. I walked into work, and finished a javascript library that I'd been stuck on for days, in like 4 hours. I even helped a super-star Russian coder fix a nagging complex multi-threaded bug. I didn't (and still don't feel) "high" from it. What I feel is extremely sharp focus, like I notice very small things out of order and correct them, in codebase and outside in my daily life. In the first month or so, I also got lot of "life-things" that I'd be procrastinating on done, like I did my TRUST, Living Will etc.
> is this actually common?
My experience has been that it's trivial to get a prescription of adderall in America. Doctors have tried to give it to me even when I've said that I don't want it. So (I assume) anyone with health insurance that wants it can get it.
> do you need them to survive?
Yes and no. If I were to immediately stop, I think it would take me 6 months to 4 years to redevelop coping strategies to manage work and my own life properly. I grew up taking it, thus it's my primary coping mechanism. Certainly possible, but certainly unpleasant.
I think it's probably the safest investment I can make. The cost of going to doctors and filling prescriptions is mostly in time, but the payback is huge. I think my life would have taken a very different path without adderall.
To clarify, when I say adderall I mean Adderall XR. My experience with other, similar drugs has been much worse.
Here's how various similar drugs affected me:
- Adderall instant release reliably caused psychosis for me (paranoia and hallucination primarily) and the come up and come down were too sharp. It worked, but benefits < costs
- Ritalin works for me, but it's closer to being unmedicated than it is to being medicated.
- Dexadrin works the best but is both easy and tempting to abuse. I think the benefits < costs.
- Vyvanse feels much "dirtier" for lack of a better word. It causes too much PNS stimulation. At lower doses, it's a bit less effective than adderall, at higher doses it just makes me feel bad.
- Modafinil is very different from any of the above. It does what it says it will, but cheating sleep is a losing game (and that's all that it's really good for), with or without drugs. Thus, benefits < costs.
- Caffeine doesn't help with focus much and has a lot of nasty effects.
For various personal reasons (the stigma and laws of foreign countries), I do want to taper off/stop, but it's been extremely difficult. Even with adderall, the modern world is just so crushingly attention-grabbing that I find it hard not to feel mentally exhausted and overwhelmed constantly. Honestly, I think getting rid of my smart phone and not keeping my computer connected to the Internet all day would be better for my health than stopping adderall.
I gave my extra pills to another friend who was interested; both my friends stopped using them after a while, saying they made them feel different but not more focused or anything.
It was a mildly interesting waste of time and money for all four of us.
That's just one data point. But: I don't think it's at all common.
Perhaps you're referring to founders specifically though, rather than people you've worked with.
There's immense pressure to say nothing. And that translates into you not knowing.
But the leap to "It's therefore not common" would be mistaken.
(I assume lots of people take adderall, for what it's worth).
I think there's an outsider perspective on the industry that is very invested in the notion that successful startup founders are generally chemically enhanced. I think that's false, and harmful for obvious reasons. When I ask startup people I know about it, I generally hear the same thing. But: limited visibility.
(I really don't care about adderall; I know a bunch of people with ADHD scripts, and they all seem to need it. I'm more concerned about stuff like modafanil.)
About half of the startups I have worked at the founders were abusing Adderall. One company even offered it to developers. It provides an edge but the fallout is usually terrible. I won’t tolerate it anymore. It’s just too crazy.
Similarly, "many men and women do not take a particular drug" is not going to move copies of Wired.
What brings eyeballs is novelty. Danger. Jealousy. Sex. Power.
What doesn't bring eyeballs are repetitious, unremarkable, properly calibrated statements of reality. Our brain already tunes that signal out.
By way of disclaimer, I take methylphenidate as a treatment for ADHD-PI.
My days are hectic between full-time work, sideline hustle, having a child, housework, exercise and spending time with my partner. I do it to help me stay focused and bang out the necessary tasks that I need to keep my life in order. I try to get 7-8 hours of sleep and I do maintain a healthy diet. The only side effect that I have noticed is that if I use it too often I do feel my immune system get weaker.
Overall, I've had a positive experience with using Modafinil as a supplement.
In general I've found that unmedicated ADHD founders seem more common than medicated, but I wouldn't count on that as generalizable or fact.
In terms of people without ADHD using Modafanil or amphetamines to get an edge, I'm sure that happens a lot, but it's less common than Wall Street or high-powered law firms.
Funnily enough, I just started taking Modafanil this week.
I use modafinil quite regularly.
It is very easy to get.
No one that i don't do drugs with recreationally knows that I use it. If it came up in a discussion with people I know professionally and I needed to contribute an opinion, it'd be slightly negative and dismissive of the idea.
This is the key, I think. If you're not close enough with your co-workers that they'd offer you weed after the office Christmas party/do lines off the table in front of you/tell you about the time they bought ketamine in Slovenia[0], why would you know about their non-recreational drug use?
[0] hypothetical examples - all my office Christmas parties have been staid and family-friendly - but examples based to some degree on reality
It's greatly affected my work in a positive way and will continue doing so until I get used to my CPAP and actually get a real night's sleep.
I don't, though I've known people who do (not in SV, FWIW); mostly those are taken for quality of life reasons, not immediate survival needs (though obviously quality of life does have potential survival impacts.)
steve jobs, bill gates, elon mask, john lennon ,thom yorke , genious everybody took lsd, everybodys junkie.
lsd make human robotize that push our technolody towards future
Nobody can "read binary code", because you do not specify what you encode.
It's like asking what e.g. a circle symbol means, without supplying any context whatsoever.
My side-project procrastination was the main reason I decided to see a Psychiatrist. Before Adderall, I had about 8 different side-projects in various states of progress, with a couple hosted and launched, but I was doing nothing to market and grow them. Now, a couple of years later, I have successfully grown the 2 that were launched and were languishing, launched 3 more, killed 3 that were going nowhere. I am now very satisfied mentally with my situation, do not procrastinate, and am making about 1000$ per month across all the side-projects. These projects were more for learning and keeping up to date, so money is not a concern for me, completion is (/ was)
Word of caution: I did as my doc about micro-dosing LSD. He gave me a very stern warning. According to him, LSD, even in micro-doses, "fries" the your serotonin production network in the brains and destroys neurons permanently. He strongly advised me to not try it even once.
And for those looking for Adderall or LSD, I would advice you to consult a Psychiatrist, if you believe you have ADHD. For people that don't have ADHD, Adderall, Ritalin etc don't work, and they end up getting addicted on high doses and land on documentaries like "Take my Pill".
LSD is only available on the "dark web" as far as I know, so you'll need to use TOR and Bitcoin. It's also shady and you have to purchase a "Tester Kit" (who knows if that tester kit is also legit?!). Don't do it.
I'm still on 5 mg of Adderall and have not noticed any bad side-effects, with the exception that I wake up a couple of times at night, and as long as I don't open my eyes when I'm aware that I just woke up, I promptly go back to sleep. I take 3 to 5 days "off" once every other week, like my Doc advised me to, in order to prevent my tolerance from increasing, and needing more mgs / day.
I do have a couple of friends, in their early 20s, who were diagnosed with ADHD recently, and are on higher doses. They both work for startups in SF, 1 at BitFlyer and another at some SaaS startup in the Workshop Cafe building. They both say that they need it to "get in the zone" and get the gruntwork in startup world done.
I am not aware of widespread use of stimulants like Modafinil or Adderall or Ritalin in the startup world here in SF. But like others have stated, it's somewhat of a tabboo to speak about usage, because, in 1 sense, it "exposes" you and your collegues will never look at you the same way as they'll think you are "cheating" using a "performance enhancer" drug, which in some ways, are what Modafinil , Adderall, Ritalin and other stimulants are.
>Claims LSD, "fries" the serotonin production network in the brains and destroys neurons permanently.
>Prescribes speed
“Drug misuse is not a disease, it is a decision, like the decision to step out in front of a moving car. You would call that not a disease but an error of judgment.” ― Philip K. Dick
But just be aware of the legality of whatever you're doing. Broadcasting that you're having your friends mule prescription drugs into the country for you is going to take the very laziest of warrant applications to work out who you and your friends are.
Maybe your guess is mistaken, or you're trying to get me to reveal more about myself.
I'm not guessing; I know who you are. Be pseudonymous or don't, but don't try to have things both ways. If you falsely claim to have worked with me, I'm just going to address you here by your full name.
This thread started creepy and weird and got creepier as it went on, so maybe we should wrap it up now.
If you want to ruin six years of pseudonymity, you're free to do so of course.
In the context of the original thread, the claim was that modafanil use is uncommon in startups. I merely pointed out that adderall (which is mostly interchangeable) is quite common. I personally know at least one founder who uses it, for example, and he made it to YC's interview process last batch.
Beyond that, we've certainly interacted enough for you to have a pretty good read on me, so it seemed worth pointing out.