edit: upon rereading your assessment and then my post, i thought this post was way overblown and while it contains kernels of truth i think it is unfair and too harsh.

My parents would try to pressure me to quit if they thought I was working with someone like that, if they read the newspaper article I was referring to. Not this post. In asian families this sort of stuff matters and it's not a joke. (What race are you?)

If we give off the impression that we are unskilled individuals, why would people trust us with difficult work? Why would people trust us with a touchy project? If they associate us with low skills why would they trust us over the next guy? These are all legitimate concerns in my eyes and I do not think that tangent covers it.

I'm sorry if you want more information, adhd (which I have) comes with something called the 30% rule which is emotionally you are 30% behind your peers, so while I sympathize with what you said, your statements are correct.
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OVS16Abo80 (Source/fact check) . BUT if you take stimulants you're back to normal(so +30% and back to my age maturity) and yesterday I had very little sleep and did not take what I was prescribed if it makes you feel better.
So both of us can win this one. your statement is correct to some degree of credibility but is false in the general case. I get complete symptomatic remission I just have higher variance in emotions. Perhaps too much information but this was a necessary statement on my part.

* We have also had 2 advisers that didn't tell me anything was wrong/fishy and they've had plenty of business experience (20-50yrs between them). So my thought process was "My advisors would tell me if something was amiss". One of them has had two exits 3billion/300m . So I thought to myself "this is ethical, because these people would alert me to the facts".

I used to meet with one 300m/3b he used to be a math professor at mit too, i met with this guy frequently and he was the one who told me I was smart (got my confidence back up after a few setbacks) so I thought hell, why not mention it? He again, did not alert me to the fact that anything was fishy. So I thought this is the guy who knows, he has had the exits and the industry experience and is in high standing and known to be ethical. If there's any one who would look out for me, it would be him, right? Guess not. I have to admit the harshness of your post has me thinking.

>saying things like "i associate homelessness with lack of skills and i want to keep my identity small. i'm known for being well read" really reminds me of when I was really arrogant in high school and felt the need to maintain an internal (and wholly undeserved) sense of moral/intellectual superiority over my more popular (not unsurprisingly) classmates.
And then worrying about how your friends might perceive you because you're associated with him. These are not the signs of legitimate concern. These are the signs of insecurity.

Well several people in this thread told me it was a legitimate image concern and responded as if nothing was wrong with that concern so this makes me doubt the validity of your claim and assessment. humans are social creatures man and I should be able to control my identity.

At times in my life people have told me I'm too harsh on myself or not harsh enough, too self-conscious not self-conscious it's difficult to get an accurate opinion at times. If I had posted "i am not smarter" or not mentioned it someone would say "you're selling yourself short man!" or something of the sort, it's always a roll of the dice when when looking for opinions. I wanted my beliefs to be congruent to reality, so I cast a wide net for opinions.

>Now, you could be totally right about there being too much focus on media attention. But a socially mature adult (and business partner) would be comfortable bringing those concerns directly to their cofounder, not to an internet forum where they can let their ruminations run wild.

I did bring those concerns directly to him I just wanted to see if my assessment was correct. I have been told I have very eccentric opinions or unusual opinions so I try to get a feel for what everyone else is thinking.

> The fact that you've also accepted an arrangement that is an absolutely terrible deal financially indicates a certain sense of naivete about employment, how startups work, and finances. This is not how unpaid internships work. The only reason to ever take an unpaid internship is if 1) it's at a highly prestigious company, or 2) it's in an industry where there are hundreds of overqualified applicants for every position.

I don't know, I think you're exaggerating the unpaid internship thing, is this just white people who think that way? I know plenty of friends who have done so and they don't mind.

I wrote this when I was really anxious and I didn't quite realize it at the time. When I woke up I felt physically different. Please do not read too much into this there's only so much you can infer from one days worth of information. everyone here has given me a lot more to worry about.

I also accepted this job when my cognitive abilities were really taking a hit, I thought I had sleep apnea for awhile but it turned out I was getting too little phase 3 sleep, (Getting 7% as opposed to 25-35%) and this was making me nervous and cognitively under-performing and I was really glad to to be working on a real project and getting some experience and working on something legitimate that I could put on my resume.