Some of us like to think that one day, if successful we can contribute to the world and help in some way, I peronally have a few ideas of my own that i would love to execute should that day come where i have enough money to be comfortable plus have alittle extra. Personally, my standards are pretty low and i dont have many views of grandeur such as rolling up to a party in a ferrari, buying the biggest house in the most expensive suburb or owning a private jet, yeh sometimes we say these things but its really just for fun. When your used to having just the basics and you know exactly what you want to achieve and do if you had alittle more money then those big boys toys dont really make it high in the priority list...
Anyway... thats not what i wanted to talk about here, this post is more light-hearted and less serious then "how can we help the world if we had a chance to ". What i wanted to talk about is to compare startup founders to superheros (not in the real life sense) but those found in comic books and sci-fi movies (why not, we love sci-fi and possibly read comic books in the past so lets have abit of fun).
(A bit of background) In my little work area at home where i code when im not doing my day job i have posters all over my wall just to give it abit of character. I have posters of spiderman, ironman, transformers (optimus prime), serenity's river, arnie from terminator and Neo from the matrix.
When im waiting for my code to build or for the application to startup i sometimes pickup my guitar and play alittle tune or i may spin around on my chair waiting. A couple of days ago as i was spinning it occured to me that there is alittle bit of superhero in every startup founder (well the ones on my wall anyway) and maybe thats why my subconcious decided to have these specific posters plastered on my wall covering that boring orange brick. So i guess lets have some fun and look at the similarities:
- Ironman/Tony Stark: Tony stark isnt an entreprenur himself but even though he inherited stark enterprises from his dad, in his own right, with his intelligence and brilliance he would be able to create and build his own technologically advanced companies. In most of us entreprenurs/founders there is alittle bit of Tony Stark/Ironman. We work well with technology, we have ideas for new and wonderful things, we love tinkering and building, we think robots and high tech equipment is cool and that is why we all dream of flying around in a metal suite that has its own mobile phone and communications system ... ;)
- Spiderman/Peter parker: Like peter parker most of us startup founders have too much on our plates. We run around doing many things trying to make it all fit in the short time we have everyday (start a company, go to conferences, do our hobbies, try to get the girl etc). Most of us are quite intelligent(or think of ourselves as alittle above average) and usually we do well when it comes to academia similar to peter parker. Yet because of our lack of time sometimes we find it hard to finish (hence all the little half finished projects and code snippets in our directories from old and past projects or maybe that girl we just cant fully commit to because we know she'd leave again because we just cant give her the time she deserves). Only when we focus that energy, that intelligence and that will do we actually achieve something ...
- Optimus Prime: Optimus prime is the leader of the autobots, just and fair. As startup founders and leaders of our own companies many of us adopt leadership qualities that we believe are just and fair such as that displayed by optimus prime. Sometimes we make sacrifices on our social life, on our relationships and sometimes on our health to see the companies that we lead through the tough and difficult times. Just like optimus prime, to ensure the survival of the autobots and the humans, he risks his own life and own well being to ultimately lead the autobots to saftey and victory ...
- Terminators: This similarity is not quite as easy to see as the others but i think founders of startups definitely share qualities similar to terminators. Terminators are relentlessly resourceful, they have a mission to complete which has been programmed into their chips and they do whatever it takes to achieve that mission. Whether it is to pose as foster parents, imitate the checkered tiles on the floor, artifically enlarge the bustline to get away from the police or to sustain massive bodily damage terminators do what it takes. Similarly we founders take whatever measures we need to take (hopefully within the legal scope) be as creative as we possibly can, work crazy hours, eat and drink whatever is within an arms distance and also many times need to "hack the established system" just so we can finish our mission ... to sucessfully launch our startup.
- Neo: He's a hacker and so are we. We like to see ourselves as able to fly and navigate our way through code just as Neo can fly through the matrix. We like to see ourselves as able to decipher and see things in computers and in code that *normal people* can not see. He is the chosen one within the matrix and is a hero within the matrix. Our matrix is cyberspace, where we unleash our applications to the world in the hopes that it makes life easier for our users by helping them solve problems and thus giving us a sense of satisfaction.
- River from Serenity: Also not quite as obvious and (and in this case) may not apply to all founders. For readers that dont know who river is or what serenity/firefly is, its actually sci-fi show. River is the quiet, weird, outcast characeter who doesnt get involved with much of what the crew does. In many cases though she always comes to the rescue when things get hairy. She poseses a high-level of intelligence and is able to think out of the box but she rarely ever shows it. She has quick reflexes and an innate ability to understand others and her enemies. I think like many geeks during highschool who are now founders its easy to relate. Like river most nerds in highschool were also quiet, they studied for exams but not in those large noisy groups, they knew what was going to be taught in the next classes because they studied just alittle ahead of class to make sure not to be left behind, usually the geeks were not in the popular group who went to the best parties and in general the geeky group is usually viewed as the outcast such as river was. Now this geeky group are the ones starting companies, who might actually help contribute to the economy, just as river would come to the rescue of her more outlandish, loud, gun-ho, gun-blasting crew mates at just the right time ...
OK .. now stop reading this, put your cape on and start coding .....
BTW ... Just as a preview here are some of the posters i was talking about ...
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