Successful Startup & Dealing with Health Problems?
I'm a 33 year old software developer living in San Francisco. I'm married with a young child.

I've been involved with startups since high school. I had my own Rails consultancy for five years that worked with startups, and I currently work for a startup in the Bay Area. Though I've done it before, shortly after college, I will never work for a large company again. I enjoy working with a small team of experts, and I enjoy moving fast and creating with software.

But, here's my question - are there any other startup founders or employees dealing with a serious physical ailment? This isn't something I ever hear or read about, so it makes me think people with chronic diseases just aren't involved in startups, at least not successful ones.

I've lived with a chronic disease for the past 20 years, specifically Crohn's disease. For much of my life, Crohn's has been an annoyance. But the past five years have been really difficult. I've never been as sick as I was two years ago. I actually had to walk away from my consultancy because of health care costs. I was making $150K per year but I was spending more than $3K per month on medical expenses and I felt terrible. I'm on new medication now and it's dramatically better, but some of the other medications I'm on are taking their toll. I'm constantly tired, with little or no energy. I find it hard to concentrate at times and I feel like I'm in a fog most of the day.

It's tough to watch my developer friends stay up until 2 or 3 AM, working on a side project that eventually becomes a successful business. And these friends are not the typical 22-year-old hacker who has unlimited energy and little or no commitment. These friends have families and work for technology companies in the area. I recently tried working with a friend on a side project, but I just could not keep up. My friend ended up doing most of the development work. I hate this, but it's very difficult to explain just how much this affects my life and productivity. There are times where I feel as though my life is being sucked out of me, and it's all I can do to make it through the day. Medicine is a double-edged sword, helping in many ways, but affecting quality of life in other ways. Most people my age or younger have never dealt with these effects of medicine or chronic diseases, let alone on a continual basis. So I don't feel like a simple "I feel bad" to my friend will really explain the issues.

I'd love to hear from anyone else out there battling an ailment and still working at a startup.

Personally, I would be shocked to find out that any of the YCombinator teams are dealing with chronic illnesses or serious medication side-effects. Would an Angel or VC even invest in a company where one of the founders is chronically ill? I don't know of anyone who is a very productive developer at a startup who also deals with a chronic disease. Admittedly, it's easier to get a job at a later-stage startup, after the A round, if you have an illness like mine. Getting a job at an established startup really helped me with health insurance costs (I don't qualify for any individual insurance plans due to pre-existing conditions). Remember the medical expenses I was paying so much for? I pay $0 out-of-pocket now (not counting normal monthly insurance costs). When it came time to walk away from my consulting business, that was pretty much the deciding factor. That said, I'm of course more interested in early-stage startups looking for Angel funding. And I'm not sure medical expenses are really on the radar of Angels.

I often say to myself, "Stop being such wimp - ship some code!" So I try. But what do I do when a migraine hits me so hard I can barely think? Or I'm so lethargic (even with caffeine) that I have to go to bed at 9 PM for a week straight? Part of me wants to explain this to my co-workers and friends, but, unless you're experiencing what I am, it sounds like an excuse or a cop-out. I'm not lacking the passion or the drive or the skills to do something great, I just plain don't have physical energy to work much more than 8-10 hours/day.

Working at a startup is not easy - I get that. I've been through it before, and I love it, even though not all my startup experience has been with successful companies. I love following and working with companies like GitHub, Dropbox, 37signals, Balsamiq, FogCreek, Facebook, Zynga, etc. as they change the world. But I get the feeling nobody at these companies has to deal with a long-term ailment that seriously affects their daily productivity (unless you count too much alcohol).

Does this scenario happen at all?

Is anyone aware of a good example - "founder so-and-so of company X was successful, even while dealing with X"?