> the number of successful startups whose founders had horribly unhealthy lifestyles yet still managed to sell their product is significantly higher than the number of startups with healthy founders who didn't sell anything.
I see the point you are making, but I'm skeptical of this; if we ignore the health factor entirely, the number of startups that sold any significant amount is probably a very small fraction of the total number of all startups.
I'd be more interested the proportion of founders with healthy lifestyles in the pool of "successful startups that have sold a nontrivial amount of product", versus the proportion of healthy people in the _general_ population (either all founders, or all people).
My completely uneducated guess is that there would be two competing effects for the "successful startup" pool: the "dedication at all expense" factor would result in a negative correlation between success and health, and the other obvious effect would be healthier living causing better decision-making and execution. Of course, this is just a guess and I could very likely be wrong.
I see the point you are making, but I'm skeptical of this; if we ignore the health factor entirely, the number of startups that sold any significant amount is probably a very small fraction of the total number of all startups.
I'd be more interested the proportion of founders with healthy lifestyles in the pool of "successful startups that have sold a nontrivial amount of product", versus the proportion of healthy people in the _general_ population (either all founders, or all people).
My completely uneducated guess is that there would be two competing effects for the "successful startup" pool: the "dedication at all expense" factor would result in a negative correlation between success and health, and the other obvious effect would be healthier living causing better decision-making and execution. Of course, this is just a guess and I could very likely be wrong.