Ryan Smith: Tying happiness to company performance makes founders miserable
Ryan Smith · 20VC: Qualtrics Founder, Ryan Smith on The 2 Hour Decision Whether To Sell Qualtrics for $8Bn in Cash, Why Tying Your Identity To Your Company Will Never Make You Happy and His Relationship To Risk, Wealth and Responsibility as a Result · May 11, 2021 · at 5:50
Ryan Smith, co-founder of Qualtrics, discusses why tech founders must maintain a source of personal identity and fulfillment outside of their corporate success.
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“If your happiness is tied up in your business, you're never going to be happy because it's nothing but problems, whether it's customer problems, whether it's Employee problems, whether it's just frustration, like, you've got to find happiness outside, and it's one of the biggest problems I see in tech is we're all so good at what we do, and what makes us great will also kill us, and so whatever that center of gravity, whatever that piece, whether it's family, whether it's spiritual, whether it's who you are, like, that's got to carry the day, and you've got to bring that with you to what you do in tech and your job. If you don't have that, You are going to be a miserable human being, because tech will eat you up, because it's a constant state of innovation.”
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