"Usually the way startups die is that they launch something, users ignore it, investors are lukewarm, and they get demoralized and give up. Sometimes there are other forces encouraging them to give up, like the pull of school, or the push of founder conflicts. It's normal for users not to like what you first launch with, and for investors to be lukewarm. (Investors are basically permanently lukewarm.) So the groups who give up usually are looking at about the same information as other groups who keep going and succeed. Most of the time it comes down to whether they see the glass as half full or half empty." --.Paul Graham, writing at Hacker News, in the comments

"Two months ago, I was doing what I had to do. Now I'm doing what I want to do. And looking back, it was a change I'd always wanted to make, but as long as I was drawing a steady paycheck, I didn't see it as a change that I could afford to make-for me or for my family. Looking long term, I'm not sure it was a decision I could afford not to make. Getting laid off forced me to make the change that I'd always wanted to make anyways. And it may work out or it may not. But the point is that I've made that change now. I'm doing what I'm passionate about."

--Fellow ex-Yahoo! Ryan Kuder, who's started blogging, started a company and is seeing the brave new world, post Yahoo!.

Susan sez: It's hard to let go of complacency and choose risk, but well-thought out risk is one of the biggest adrenalin highs, and a place where both opportunity and productivity can flourish.

Okay, my new favorite blog clearly has to be Signal vs. Noise, cause I keep quoting them on this blog:
"That's why I like working with the family man or woman. They come in as a cold bath of reality. When people have other obligations outside of work that they actually care more about than your probably-not-so-world-changing idea, the crutches are not available as an easy way out, and you'll have to walk by the power of your good ideas and execution or you'll fall fast and early."

---David, writing about why start-ups should hire family people as well as the 20-somethings with fewer responsibilities if they want to build better products.

There is so much going on in my life right now, most of which I can't talk about yet.

Sorry for the teasers, but it's the only way to explain both the lack of blogging and my non-show to date at Web 2.0; got the pass, but have been hunkeringh down down at home on some critical things.

Short version: Israel was a great (working) vacation, I feel refreshed and diving into the next set of adventures feels so energizing--and stressful--I always find changes really hard, even good ones.

"If your idea for a web business is more along the lines of the mundane "product * price = profit" (3P) variety, I think the culture of San Francisco and that famous 20-mile radius around Stanford is anything but helpful. I might even go as far as say it's downright harmful.

The flush availability of other people's money is simply too tempting. When you're not spending your own money, it's easy to splash on a big open office on day one, a staff of 10+ in no time, and have few worries about paying the bills on the 1st of the month. It takes away much of the urgency to make money that I think is critical to build sustainable businesses. It gives you too many resources to be satisfied building simple tools for niche markets. Everything becomes about catching that huge wave."

--David, Signal vs, Noise, writing about start up stuff, like where to locate your endeavor

Rafat Ali's got an unusually animated post about Adam Penenberg's big wet kiss (with Rolling Stone quality photos) to Ning, Gina Bianchi and Mark Andressen.

Rafat: "FastCompany has unloaded the biggest piece of Turducken shaped in the form of a cover story on Ning, in the latest issue. And for once, Valleywag is actually tame in its skewering of the story. In terms of hype, this is of BW-cover-story-on-Digg proportions (hence the similar headline in my post). Keep in mind this is a post about the lameness of FC's story and the hype its journalist spews in this story...Ning has all the right to hype itself however it wants."

Valleywag's Owen Thomas does an elegant pile-on: "According to figures in the piece, Ning is making roughly $1.7 million a year in the $20-a-month subscriptions some social-network creators pay. The rest of the money they make comes from Google's AdSense ads, the familiar fallback of hopeless startups."

Marc Canter calls em out:"Wat can Ning do with $44M?  Now what can they do with another $60M?  Well since they're not profitable - lets see - they could lost $10M a year for 10 years and still sell the company for $100M."

Susan sez: Nothing like blue chip founders and fawning journalists to get hard-driving startupistas in a twist--but is Ning really a mass market tool?

Me do not think so, regardless of stats.

"I've noticed the biggest bottleneck stopping me from efficiently accomplishing the tasks I've set up for myself is just my mood. I'll have a clear definition of what needs to be done, full confidence in where I'm going with things, and I'll sit down and just think "aw, damn, I feel like shit." Then I'll generally waste time until it's 1am and I need to sleep. This happens 1-2 nights a week.

I'm looking for news.yc folks to try to get some rational insights on on the irrational problem of keeping your mood in check and focusing on what matters, when you're just one guy.

How do you guys deal with emotional problems?

How do you avoid ruminating on things in your day that have pissed you off? This is my biggest issue."

--Hacker News community member and start-up entrepreneur Dan Grover. writing about issues solo founders of companies need to manage in a post called "How do solo founders stay emotionally efficient?"

Susan sez: Seems to me this is a great question for everyone-how do you keep your brain and feelings in check long so you can get things done when you need to, and with optimal output and performance?