Great software products are built out of hatred not passion
the case for why hatred is actually good
Hatred is an underrated reason for starting and building companies. I would argue that many of the best products in the world today arose from deeply felt hatred and frustration, not passion, sunshine, and rainbows.
Hate is also vastly superior to “passion” as a driving force.
More broadly, I would argue that many of the most powerful drivers behind great companies and products are far from “pure.”
To defy the way the world current does things, you’ve gotta be a little bit of a hater.
Defiance is not about coming to terms with the world. It's about looking looking at the world and having the same mental reflexes as the defiant child. It's about the reflexive impulse to say "screw this" and choose self-reliance over hopelessness in the face of problems that are crushingly large. It's about a deep-seated inability to go gently into that good night. It's about being able to look at the terrible social equilibria we're all trapped in and get pissed off — not because any individual is evil, but because almost nobody is evil and everything is broken anyway.
Above all, it's about seeing that the wold is broken, and feeling something akin to "fuck these mortal constraints, I'm fixing things."
^ From Nate Soares excellent post on defiance.
There's tons of myth making in the media, tech, and broader culture about the founding stories of both entrepreneurs and their companies. Virtually every company has a narrative origin grounded in lifelong passion or deeply altruistic motivations.
This is mostly BS constructed for PR, fundraising, and marketing purposes, especially in B2B.
No child grows up telling their parents:
"When I grow up, I want to build system of record software for niche industry verticals.”
or
"When I grow up, I want to sell business process outsourcing and strategic advice to Fortune 500 Enterprises."
I'm exaggerating a bit for effect, but the point stands.
Few will publicly admit they started a company or built a product out of a motivator as dubious as hatred. Rather, we tell neatly constructed narratives about discovering a lifelong passion for helping enterprises automate complex workflows and giving all our money away to save the world (cue convulsing EAs).
Honest motivations for founding companies
Passion – Not the primary driver as much as people purport. Most people can become passionate about many things, especially if they are good at them and/or have momentum. In startups, momentum matters more than passion.
Revenge – Getting laid off or treated poorly by a previous employer. The chips company AMD was founded by Jerry Sanders after being laid off from his dream job of running marketing at Fairchild Semiconductor. Decades later, one of his greatest moments of pride was the day AMD surpassed Fairchild in total revenue. “Vengeance is mine, I will repay” saith many an entrepreneur (scripture reference).
Adventure – Going on a daring mission with other smart, ambitious people. Building great products, disrupting an industry, facing near death experiences, doing work that gives you purpose, etc. This is an especially underrated reason to found or join a startup.
Riches – Also known as greed. Wanting to make a bunch of money for yourself and your family. Financial security is a real thing. No one chases annual recurring revenue because they want to change the world. They do it because they want to get rich.
Opportunism – Very similar to wanting to get rich, but a bit more tied to the timing and dynamics of a specific opportunity. E.g. starting an AI company because enterprises want to try AI products and investors want to fund them.
Status – The pursuit of coolness. Building a company or specific product and making it successful to become cool and high status amongst a desired social circle. This is historically more common in consumer than B2B, but definitely exists in both.
Hatred – Hatred for someone or something that is wrong in the world. Similar to revenge, but not purely revenge motivated. More of a deep seated frustration with the status quo of a system, institution, way of doing things, etc.
I could keep going. The point is there are lots of reasons to do the thing. Some more discussed than others.
The case for hatred as a virtuous motivator
Building something out of hatred is a far more common and just motivator than most admit or realize.
Hatred starts as frustration. Experiencing something deeply wrong in the world.
Losing your hair follicles after a nightmare Netsuite or SAP implementation.
Wasting money on some overpriced, overpromising agency that drastically undelivered.
Finding out your accountant misfiled your taxes.
Finding out you have to pay taxes (irritating, I know).
Spending 10 hours filling out government forms and responding to tax notices that the software vendor you pay was supposed to handle for you.
Visiting Europe and discovering that they have regulated half the consumer internet service you use in America out of existence.
Whatever the case, sufficiently dosed and repeated frustration with something broken in the world leads to feelings of injustice.
Prolonged injustice leads to anger. Anger leads to hatred. Hatred leads to suffering (jk this isn’t star wars).
And hatred can be a damn good spark to go build something meaningful.
Example — Parker Conrad has publicly stated that one of his motivations for building 2 separate businesses in HR / payroll software was his irritation with the sheer complexity of dealing with HR back-office problems. Hatred not passion. Not love. Not altruism.
How many B2B software products are built because someone got irritated at doing that annoying manual process for the 13th time and decided to automate it?
How many great infrastructure products have been built because engineers hated an especially boring type of work?
As a buyer of products, I would rather buy from someone motivated by hatred of our shared problem ~8 times out of 10.
Maybe Notion should be built by someone that loves productivity software.
But I don’t think I want to buy HR software from HR people that are way too into human resource processes.
Hatred transforms into empathy. You understand the pain. You understand the head state your customers and users are in when dealing with this task. You understand why it matters in the first place. It’s easy for you to just get it.
And if you fuse hatred with a few slightly more positive motivators (like greed, obsession, and status), you’ve got a powerful cocktail to go make a dent in the world.
Thank you to all the enemies, haters, and broken institutions that have sparked and fueled the hatred in my heart. 🫡
Honest motivations for founding companies could be its own entire series. Like the rational hot take :)