I think people misunderstand what I mean when I say I want to build a startup.

They hear startup and think billion dollar empire, venture capital, hustle culture, some guy on LinkedIn saying “we’re changing the world” because he made a dashboard for invoices or whatever.

And sure, getting rich would be nice. I am not going to pretend money is bad. Money solves real problems. Money buys freedom. Money keeps the lights on.

But that was never really the dream.

The dream was way simpler than that.

I wanted enough money to pay the bills, rent an office, buy some food, keep the computers on, and hack with my friends.

That’s it.

A room. Some desks. Some snacks. Good internet. Maybe a whiteboard. Maybe too many monitors. People arguing about systems and programming languages and product ideas. Somebody building something weird in the corner. Somebody else reading tech news for fun. Somebody pushing a deploy. Somebody saying “wait, what if we just…” and then everyone loses two hours chasing the idea because it might actually work.

That’s the part I always wanted.

Not the empire. Not the press release. Not the fake founder mythology. Not the “we are disrupting X” nonsense.

I wanted the workshop.

The funny thing is my friends already do this. They already build things for fun. They already read about technology for fun. They already have opinions about databases and operating systems and AI and networks and whatever else. They already spend their free time doing the thing most companies have to pay people to pretend to care about.

So part of me is like: why couldn’t we build a company out of that?

Not a company where the joy gets crushed under meetings and process and status games. Not a company where snacks replace compensation or where “we’re a family” means “please work nights for free.”

I mean a real company.

One that makes enough money that people can show up and be paid like adults.

One that has customers, and bills, and boring operational stuff handled, but where the center of gravity is still making things.

A company where the work still feels alive.

I think when we were younger this was easier to understand. If somebody made something on a computer, that was cool. A website, a script, a game, a server doing something weird, whatever. The first reaction was not a policy analysis. It was “whoa, you made that?”

Now everything gets filtered through takes.

Is it good for society? Is it cringe? Is it a startup grift? Is it AI slop? Is it capitalism? Is it replacing someone? Is it going to become a monopoly someday?

Some of those are fair questions. But man, if that is always the first reaction, it kills something.

There used to be a basic joy in making the computer do a thing. I still have that. I do not think I ever lost it.

And I guess I am realizing that the company I always wanted was not really about winning capitalism. It was about making a place where that joy could survive adulthood.

Because adulthood changes things. People have partners, kids, mortgages, health problems, parents getting older, responsibilities. Sitting in a room with friends, free food, and computers does not sound as magical to everyone as it once did. To some people it sounds like one more obligation.

I get that.

So maybe the dream has to grow up too.

Not a hacker house. Not a grind cave. Not “sleep under your desk until we exit.”

More like a sane little lab.

A software shop with a soul.

A place where people can come in, do good work, make real things, get paid, eat lunch, laugh, argue about dumb technical details, and then go home without feeling like the company owns them.

That sounds modest compared to the billion dollar startup dream, but to me it feels bigger in the ways that matter.

Because the point was never just money.

The point was: can we make our natural behavior economically sustainable?

Can the thing we already love doing become the thing that pays for the room?

Can we build something useful enough that it buys us more time to build more things?

That is the company I always wanted.

Not a unicorn.

A workshop with revenue.

A place where the fridge is full, the servers are running, the work is interesting, and the people in the room still think making stuff on computers is cool.