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C. Custer · · 5 min read

Sex life at a startup: Chinese founders bare the grim truth

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Recently, an interesting article has been doing the rounds in China’s startup circles. Its authors are anonymous, and with good reason – they’re sharing the dirty secrets about sex life as the founder of a startup. And the truth? It ain’t pretty.

What follows is a translation by Tech in Asia of the article’s most interesting section. Since the authors are anonymous and some of the piece is hearsay – stories from friends and acquaintances – none of this information is verifiably true. Nevertheless, we suspect these tales will sound familiar to startup founders all over the region…

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Low frequency: founders are too busy, there’s no time for a sex life

Frequently traveling means less time to spend with your partner, but it’s for business, so what choice do you have?

Working late too often. Originally, you could always eat dinner with your partner after work, but now by the time you get home you don’t want to wake her up, so you just sleep in another room.

The wife prepares a candlelight dinner, buys a sexy negligee and toys and hopes for a really romantic evening… that is then destroyed by my constant phone calls with an investor.

A friend’s daughter, when she goes off to school in the morning, says, “Daddy, I’ll see you the day after tomorrow.” Every other day, he and some of the other team members work until very late and sleep in the office.

Uhhh...

Uhhh…

Low quality: founders are too tired, and their abilities diminish

For me and a lot of other founder friends, as our companies get bigger so does the pressure. I smoke more and more, and of course it affects my sexual performance, but I can’t stop because I need the cigarettes to keep my mind fresh and help me relax.

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Community Writer

C. Custer

Former editor and motion graphics artist for Tech in Asia. Currently content marketer at Dataquest.io