How Many Silicon Valley Startup Executives Are Hopped Up On Provigil?

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/15/how-many-of-our-startup-executives-are-hopped-up-on-provigil/

by jmorin007 • 18 years ago

29 50 18 years ago

gaika• 18 years ago

Sleepless vs sleepers, are we approaching the world of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beggars_in_Spain ?

131072• 18 years ago

Don't get too carried away with the hype about Provigil. It allows you to sleep less and may cause a mild increase in focus, with possibly fewer long term effects than amphetamine-type drugs (speed, ritalin, etc). IE Provigil users don't seem to turn into tweakers.

It is safer but less effective than good old fashioned amphetamine for actually getting stuff done.

If you're just a regular person trying to live a semblance of a balanced lifestyle (for this purpose I will include working a regular 8-to-6 job) the biggest effect of provigil is likely to be to make you say 'so what?'

If you are used to the caffeine-shakes and twitches that come at the rough end of an all-nighter, Provigil can take that away to some extent. The psychological price you pay for doing this too often is unknown, though.

Having said that, it is useful to get you out of a jam if you stay up partying all night and need to drag yourself to work the next morning.

And best of all, if you are in the UK, the NHS pays for it all. In other countries you often have to pay up to several USD per pill and it can take up to 4 pills to be effective.

Edit: Based on my experience, I would consider use of Provigil during a true work crunch or crisis that can only be solved by a burst of long work hours. However, if your masters get used to your performance at that level under those conditions, you might learn more about the expression 'burning the candle at both ends' than you want to know.

swombat3• 18 years ago

I’ve taken Modafinil extensively while I was launching my first start-up and still working full time. For six months I was waking up at 4am every day, working until 7am, having a one-hour nap, then off to work until 6pm… Bed-time around 10-11pm. I wouldn’t have been able to launch without Modafinil (I’m actually using Alertec rather than Provigil, it’s a bit cheaper). Those days I took up to 1.5 pills a day (150mg) - 1 pill 1 hour before waking up, to make the most of that 3-hour slot, then half a pill half-way through the day to allow me to keep productive at work.

I still use it occasionally, to boost a specific day’s productivity. I think taking it as described (and as I did while launching my first start-up) is abusing it and asking for trouble later, but using it to get an odd boost of concentration (which suddenly allows me to work like a beast for about 12 hours and get huge amounts of technical work done in that time, particularly in combination with a little caffeine) is ok and doesn’t have any side-effects - just make sure you drink plenty of water (sometimes on Modafinil thirst can also seem like a bit of a distraction, but you will get a mild headache if you don’t drink anything). Also, I only take half-pills now, so the max I ever do is 50mg in one day.

I’m in London, though, not Silicon Valley.

tptacek4• 18 years ago

There are several places in this comment where you forgot to write "that I know of".

edw5194• 18 years ago

I wouldn’t have been able to launch without Modafinil...

How do you know? Did you try?

swombat3• 18 years ago

No, obviously, but I was barely able to with Modafinil.

Perhaps better phrased: I wouldn't have been able to pull those hours without Modafinil. That, I have tried, and failed.

menloparkbum• 18 years ago

"What’s so funny is that entrepreneurs apparently aren’t interested in typical drugs - instead they find the one that gives them a mental and stamina advantage"

He must not pay much attention at his own TechCrunch events, as they are fueled by booze and weed with some coke thrown in for the bizdev types' girlfriends.

LogicHoleFlaw2• 18 years ago

How much of a competitive advantage would a startup have if it strictly avoided booze, weed, and coke?

tstegart5• 18 years ago

I'll let you know when I start-up :)

eisokant• 18 years ago

Am I the only one against performance enhancing drugs?

edw5194• 18 years ago

No. I am too.

I have commented before on how offensive posts like this are for so many reasons. It ususally turns out to be me against the world. So I don't even bother anymore.

But now that I saw your question, I decided to throw my 2 cents in (again).

AFAIC, with few exceptions, everything we do is a marathon, not a sprint. So using crutches for sprints is, at best, myoptic. Any stimulant, I don't care which (food, drugs, etc.) has another side, i.e., what goes up must go down. One of the commenters on OP's site talks about this much better than I can.

I really don't care what anyone does in private. But setting aside all the ethical, medical, and legal considerations, here is my biggest concern: Lots of people come to this site to learn and exchange; I'd hate to have them walk away with the idea than drugs are a good idea for their startup, just from the feedback of their peers. That's irresponsible.

cdr• 18 years ago

I think I can see why it turns into "you vs the world". Can you back up those broad claims?

Prrometheus• 18 years ago

It sounds less awful than binging on coffee. Like it or not, sometimes a lot of work has to be done in a short period of time.

I don't know why some people have such an aversion to tweaking the biochemical machine whichh they inhabit, except of course with caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol, all of which are harmful and less effective for their intended purpose than manufactured drugs.

I don't think any drug has done as much damage to my body as the intense stress that I suffer from being unable to focus on a project unless against a deadline and the attempts to complete massive amounts of work overnight wit a fuzzy-headed caffeine-fueled incompetence.

I know I sounds dangerous and iconoclastic here, but I think many people would share my point of view if they weren't conditioned since they were 5-years-old with "drugs are bad" propaganda in their schools.

boucher• 18 years ago

      I have commented before on how offensive posts like this are for so many reasons

It's one thing to disagree, its another thing entirely to claim this post is offensive.

Plenty of people don't drink alcohol, or coffee, because they believe (with plenty of reason) that its not good for them overall. That's a choice they're empowered to make. But to be offended by people who do drink coffee, or do drink alcohol, is silly. If you let the personal decisions of the rest of the world offend you so easily, you'll never get anything done with your own life.

The same logic applies here. Nobody is, for example, advocating that you must take drugs to succeed in your startup. It's certainly interesting to me (and probably others) to know to what extent other people go to try and get an edge.

rms• 18 years ago

>It usually turns out to be me against the world. So I don't even bother anymore.

Funny, it turns out the same way when I am advocating the other way. :) Generally when either of us disagrees with the board about this issue, the advocates for the other side come out in mass because they feel strongly one way or the other.

Drugs are indeed bad in the average case, but some people don't have the mental willpower or brain chemistry to get by in an unenhanced state. The medical diagnosis for this would be ADHD. The problem and controversy is that the treatment for ADHD is drugs that enhance the performance of absolutely everyone which is why ADHD is so overdiagnosed.

tstegart5• 18 years ago

I'm with you. Nothing needs to be done that urgently that you need to do drugs. I put little stock in the "no side effects" voices. The body wasn't made to do this sort of thing, forcing it to just can't be good.

iron_ball• 18 years ago

"Made to"? Made by who? If you believe in evolution via natural selection, you believe that the human body is, at minimum, just barely good enough to propagate its genes -- with no other lower limit specified. I think we can definitely improve on that.

iamelgringo• 18 years ago

I had a number of conversations with a musician friend about drugs and bands. He was pretty adamant about staying sober and clean while playing in a band, and his main reasoning was that when you're stoned or high, you just don't know when you sound like crap. When you're chemically altered, you always think you sound good.

I've worked as an ER/Critical care nurse for 15 years, and I can say that categorically that all the stimulant using patients I've cared for tend to make bad choices. Perhaps it's a selection bias and only the people on stimulants that make crap decisions come and pay me a visit in the ER.

Do you really want a substance clouding your judgment when you're working on your startup? When you're chemically altered, how do you know that your business decisions aren't crap?

tptacek4• 18 years ago

The plural of "anecdote" is "anecdotes", not "data".

tapostrophemo• 18 years ago

Well, plenty of people playing in bands sound like crap anyway.

comatose_kid• 18 years ago

Me too - I find that running really hard for 1/2 hour in the morning make me pretty productive and 'sharp' for the rest of the day. As a side benefit, I sleep better, and my symptoms of asthma have decreased.

It would be interesting to compare each method's suitability for getting more out of each day.

elai• 18 years ago

Drink Coffee? (or tea?)

breck• 18 years ago

This is a broad statement.

Being categorically against performance enhancing drugs is unwise because it would slow the development of new drugs that can improve people's lives. Also, it would deny helpful drugs to those individuals who wouldn't experience negative side effects(since everyone reacts differently to the same drugs).

I am against using performance enhancing drugs under-the-table, in an uncontrolled manner, because not only is that risky, but it doesn't contribute at all to our understanding of the pros and cons of a drug. But if you are up for experimenting and record your results, I think people should be able to try nearly anything they want to.

kogir• 18 years ago

Some of that might be useful about now... :)

I'm lucky (depending on how you look at it) in that I seem to be able to work long hours fairly reguarly without drugs.

deathbyzen2• 18 years ago

FYI, the worst side-effect of Modafinil (beyond addiction) is that it makes your urine smell bad (or worse depending on what kind of diet you already have.) When Modafinil metabolizes it breaks down into sulfur and sodium, so you get salty smelly urine.

tptacek4• 18 years ago

How do you know it's salty?

deathbyzen2• 18 years ago

...

asdflkj• 18 years ago

Perhaps it also affects your behavior in strange ways.

icey2• 18 years ago

I can't speak to the salinity, but I can confirm that your pee will stink terribly.

icey2• 18 years ago

I've tried Provigil, and found it wasn't really all it was cracked up to be. The only thing it really does is make you less tired. I guess that's great if you want to be awake for 40 hours at a time, but for mental clarity and sharper thought: Drink water.

Drink a LOT of water. I bet that half of these guys taking Provigil because they need the 'edge' have never forced themselves to drink a gallon of regular old water in a day. Soda, coffee, and tea don't count. You'd be amazed how many people spend years in a state of mild dehydration.

Drinking water has given the biggest improvement to me mentally, far and away. In second place is not eating meat during the workday; but that pales in comparison to just drinking enough water.

calvin• 18 years ago

This is why I take a Nalgene bottle everywhere with me. 32oz of pure, unadulterated h2o (depending on the quality of the local water source).

Alex3917• 18 years ago

Unadulterated? Have you never heard of BPA?

JabavuAdams2• 18 years ago

Interesting.

fallentimes• 18 years ago

This is interesting, but honestly who cares if it's widespread. It's their respective bodies, as long as they aren't hurting anyone else, they can do whatever they want.

JabavuAdams2• 18 years ago

It's all fun and games until your first psychotic episode.

How Many Silicon Valley Startup Executives Are Hopped Up On Provigil?

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