I keep seeing people — who ought to know better — reacting to Paul Graham’s “founder mode” as if it contains some keen insight about the human condition, and it is tempting to reply each time, but I don’t think much would come of it. There are already great responses to the ideas it sets forth and you should probably read one of those rather than mine. While I do not fully endorse all the conclusions here, this is probably a good one to get started with https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Blaise_Pascal/Discourses_on_the_Condition_of_the_Great