Seven Books About Goats

A few years ago, I was three days into no sleep. Not the exaggerated “I barely slept” that people throw around at conferences. Three actual days. The deliverables at the startup I was working at had this wonderful property where finishing one immediately created two more, like some kind of productivity hydra. I was routinely up at two, three, four in the morning, staring at a screen, trying to ship something that would only generate the next thing I needed to ship.

And at some point during hour 70-something of consciousness, I went on Amazon and bought seven books about raising goats.

Seven.

I had decided, with the full confidence of a person who had not slept since Monday, that my wife and I were going to become goat farmers and cheesemakers. I had a vision. It was pastoral. It was peaceful. It was completely detached from reality. We were living in a two-bedroom apartment in the San Francisco Bay Area. We didn’t have land. We didn’t even have a yard. For crying out loud, we didn’t even have a patio. Nobody in my family has ever raised an animal more complicated than a domestic shorthair cat. But there I was, reading about dairy goat breeds at 3 AM, fully committed to a life of artisanal chèvre.

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My wife eventually talked me off the ledge. I took two weeks off, did absolutely nothing, definitely did not go shopping for goats, and came back at least sane enough to stop planning a second career in agriculture.

I was lucky. My version of burnout involved livestock fantasies and a very patient spouse. Other founders aren’t that lucky.

I usually write about the operational stuff. Hiring, metrics, culture, runway. The systems and structures that either scale with you or break underneath you. This week is a departure, and I think it’s an important one, especially for those of you who are reading The Next Gear for the first time.

Because the thing nobody tells you about building a company is that the company might be fine while you quietly fall apart.