I've seen several really smart people self-destruct under the stress of their lives in my lifetime to date. Each exhibited the same pattern of awesome-burnout-intoxicate-destruction as Hsieh is described as having here, but none were founders, so they had to do it more cheaply. The drugs they each used varied wildly, but every single one was trying to disassociate from burnout long enough to reach their goals — to escape, to get rich, whatever.

I can understand why the list of what they fell prey to varies so wildly, because the typical top two most common drugs, alcohol and marijuana, have essentially no intoxicating effect on my brain at all — they do one time per year, but the 'addiction' curve for me is far sharper than other people, and they won't work again for months after that first time. It's always been like this for me, before and after I was diagnosed and prescribed medication for ADHD.

Every one of them started with alcohol and/or marijuana, and after a very brief period of time, those had minimal or no effect whatsoever, so they escalated to a wide variety of more potent disassociative drugs. My mental list is: LSD, cocaine, nitrous, other inhalants. It isn't even a surprise anymore to see that someone with charisma and a really interesting view of the world end up failing as they try as hard as they can to get a break from their thoughts. I don't blame them. If I hadn't watched one of my friends self-destruct and die over this as a teenager, I'd probably have burned out my brain decades ago by now.

So I go through my life with no known intoxicants that work on me — of the set of intoxicants that are considered 'safe', anyways — and, bluntly, I would never wish this on anyone. I have an unusual brain that can interrupt addictive cycles with willpower, but until I learned this lesson, I repeatedly found myself caught in the same Hsieh-like loop of "if I just double down, I can finally disassociate enough to get an evening's rest from my thoughts and worries", thinking that maybe if I just consumed more, it might be enough. It never was, and I am lucky beyond belief to now be able to interrupt that cycle without external intervention, before I do harm to my life and body.

The pandemic has put crushing pressure on me, and strained my ability to bear reality to the limit, and I still worry that someday I'll end up like Hsieh, trapped in a cycle of addiction because I just wanted a one-day vacation away from it all and couldn't find it. I'm not a startup founder, and most of my friends weren't either. When I find myself wanting an escape from life for a day, it's not because my life is terrible, it's because my life is intense like the noon sun is bright. (Like Lantern, if you Know.)

It turns out that burnout is the one thing that's guaranteed to push my ability to bear the intensity of life to my limits, and in that I think there's a critical warning for founders, for workers, for anyone in our industry with the tendency to drink caffeine to calm down and to do the entire project the night before it's due. Managing burnout is your number one priority for staying alive, after the bare minimum of bodily basics, because when your burnout level overflows, it can easily and trivially send you into severe addiction and possible death, as happened to Hsieh here.

If you suffer the same kind of brain issues that I and those I knew did, if you think that ADHD may apply to you — even just if coffee slows you down - then I beg of you: Beware burnout. It is your greatest enemy, it can undermine your willpower and your defenses against escapism and futility, it can't be cured with money or intoxication or hard work towards a goal, and it can lead to you sucking your life away from a small metal canister in the blink of an eye, just trying to get a single instant away from it all.

Footnote: The desire to escape can find outlets in religious and cult-like experiences as well; one friend with severe burnout fell prey to "self help" seminars trying to heal from it. I wonder sometimes if this offers a glimpse into the rise of personality "cults" in our modern world.

Disclaimers: Yes, everyone has different experiences. Yes, not every ADHD brain is the same. Yes, burnout can affect normal people in this way too. But I'm not speaking to those circumstances here today. No, I don't have secret information about Hsieh, and maybe he spiraled in a familiar way for an unfamiliar reason. This is a reply to the story, not gossip about Hsieh.