Max Marmer

Most people are going to disagree with me here, but I find it sad that Seth Berger checked out after finishing with AND1.  I think having kids was the culprit for the decrease in desire, and this case isn’t the exception.

“Knowledge@Wharton: Clearly you have experienced a lot of success in a very competitive industry. If you were to start another company today, what would it be?

Berger:  [laughs]. I don’t know. I really don’t think I would do that actually. We sold the business in 2005. I’ve got three young kids. I have been coaching high school basketball. I’ve had three or four opportunities to do really cool things; each time I have decided that the time with my kids and the time that I am spending with the kids from my high school, because I coach them six months during the year, are more valuable than starting another business.”

Someone with that kind of innovative spirit and proven ability to make things happen needs to be in the business of making things happen for a lifetime, with a few long vacations interspersed between projects.  What caused him to check out was having kids. I’ve heard having kids triggers some biological mechanism to slow down and stop thinking big. I would urge successful people to be weary of having kids. I honestly don’t know if you can both raise a family and make something big happen. If decide to you, you must be ready to model other people who have made it work. Especially if you consider the fact that if they don’t continue to try to make a difference in the world we might not have a world where any humans can have kids soon because we won’t exist. Wozniak checked out too.

Do you consider yourself an entrepreneur?
Not now. I’m not trying to do that because I wouldn’t put 20 hours a day into anything. And I wouldn’t go back to the engineering. The way I did it, every job was A+. I worked with such concentration and focus and I had hundreds of obscure engineering or programming things in my head. I was just real exceptional in that way. It was so intense you could not do that for very long—only when you’re young. I’m on the board of a couple of companies that you could say are start-ups, so I certainly support it, but I don’t live it. The older I get the more I like to take it easy.

It all comes down to mindset. If you don’t want to do it anymore you won’t. And maybe Energy Management, if you feel you don’t have any gas in the tank anymore. But if you had once, you can do it again, the human body was made to recharge. Just get in shape, maintain a circle of friends and get back in touch with your purpose. The ones who die early are those who retire and check out. Those who live longest stay engaged.