It no doubt depends on the person, but for a community of startupfounders (or aspiring ones) I hope it resonates. There are surely examples of "big scary generic companies" handling this kind of ordeal (when it happens to their employees) well -- what's worth noting is that I didn't need an income to support either of my parents. None of us took any salary until reddit was acquired, so it'd have been much more difficult if my mother didn't have great health insurance (she worked at a hospital within the Johns Hopkins administration and had fortuitously recently signed up for the premium plan).
As an interesting comparison, my dad's a small business owner (travel agency, where he's had 1-2 employees) in a rather unsexy industry, but having a rockstar employee meant he could make every trip to the hospital with my mom.
I got so much of my independence because my dad was able to be the advocate & caretaker for my mom (not enough is said about how much these people go through - obviously it's not as awful as being the victim, but it's still incredibly trying). But I'm certain being his own boss (and having a fantastic team) made his awesomeness for my mom possible.
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It no doubt depends on the person, but for a community of startupfounders (or aspiring ones) I hope it resonates. There are surely examples of "big scary generic companies" handling this kind of ordeal (when it happens to their employees) well -- what's worth noting is that I didn't need an income to support either of my parents. None of us took any salary until reddit was acquired, so it'd have been much more difficult if my mother didn't have great health insurance (she worked at a hospital within the Johns Hopkins administration and had fortuitously recently signed up for the premium plan).
As an interesting comparison, my dad's a small business owner (travel agency, where he's had 1-2 employees) in a rather unsexy industry, but having a rockstar employee meant he could make every trip to the hospital with my mom.
I got so much of my independence because my dad was able to be the advocate & caretaker for my mom (not enough is said about how much these people go through - obviously it's not as awful as being the victim, but it's still incredibly trying). But I'm certain being his own boss (and having a fantastic team) made his awesomeness for my mom possible.