Founders often find themselves in situations where they are under-resourced and over-committed. While chasing a dream is exciting, the weight of responsibility can overwhelm employees, investors, and customers.
Compounding this issue is the reluctance many founders have to disclose their feelings to those closest to them for fear that they will be perceived as a “failure” or ill-equipped to perform their job. Imagine a founder struggling with addiction or substance abuse because of the demands and pressures of running their company. Now imagine compounding the worry and anxiety by revealing something like this to investors.
Michael Freeman, a psychiatrist and former CEO who serves on the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine, investigated the prevalence and characteristics of mental health conditions among entrepreneurs.
Founders are twice as likely to suffer from depression, six times more likely to suffer from ADHD, three times more likely to suffer from substance abuse, and twice as likely to have suicidal thoughts than a demographically matched comparison. He concluded founders are twice as likely to suffer from depression, six times more likely to suffer from ADHD, three times more likely to suffer from substance abuse, and twice as likely to have suicidal thoughts than a demographically matched comparison. Freeman found that entrepreneurs are 50% more likely to report having a mental health condition, with some specific requirements being incredibly prevalent among founders.
The statistics are eye-opening, but the natural, tangible impact can be devastating. I always say that if I have a sore arm or shoulder, I’ll come to work and whine about it. But if I couldn’t sleep last night, or I’m paranoid about going outside, or I’ve been taking too many sleeping pills or drinking too much wine, I won’t talk about it.
I’ll say that I’m going to my doctor to fix my shoulder, but I won’t know if I will talk to my therapist. At QED Investors, we experienced the terrible results of this silence firsthand. In 2018, we lost our partner Greg Mazanec after a long battle with substance abuse. Since then, we’ve been working with Greg’s family to determine how we can do our part to prevent others in the VC and startup worlds from suffering the same fate.
I can’t speak highly enough of Greg as a personal friend and colleague. He defined an excellent human being — an orthogonal thinker, tenacious, brilliant, quirky. We lost him far too soon. Today, we carry him around on our shoulders.
We had a team of 15 people then, so you can imagine how close everyone was. I swore to myself and his family that I would talk about him wherever I had the chance. So, whenever I get in front of LPs or my portfolio companies, I bring this issue out into the open to tackle this corrosive stigma head-on.
Taking mental health discussions out of the shadows can massively change the trajectory of outcomes. People have felt increasingly isolated, depressed, anxious, and helpless. Some may have turned to opioids or another form of addiction or substance misuse. Our venture capital world is replete with people going through these kinds of difficulties, even before the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated people’s fears and worries.
The research is detailed — support from friends, peers, and colleagues is pivotal in conquering mental illness. As companies start returning to the office or adopting a home-office hybrid, organizations have a real chance to refocus their company cultures, destigmatize addiction, and prioritize mental wellness. This is a unique window to focus on this disease.
The Mazanec family created Operation Lighthouse to address substance abuse and addiction in the ecosystem most dear to Greg — the founder and entrepreneur community. It was the easiest of decisions for QED to lean in heavily to support this excellent initiative.
Earlier this year, QED piloted a program called Just Five with three of our portfolio companies. Created by national mental health nonprofit Shatterproof, Just Five delivers, in 5 minutes per lesson, the essential concepts and facts regarding addiction.
Today, we are excited to roll out that same self-paced and anonymous educational program free of charge to more than 16,000 employees across all 50 of QED’s U.S.-based portfolio companies. This program intendsprovide mental health education and catalyze informed discussion to ultice stigma.
Over the year, we intend to expand the reach of this program to our international portfolio companies and other VCs who might wish to support their founders. A Spanish-language version is already planned.
Each of the six lessons has a specific theme. The first two lessons touch on the science of addiction and how certain factors, such as the age of first use, genetics, and environment, can explain why some people become addicted, and others do not.
The intermediate lessons explain the dangers of opioids and the signs, symptoms, and treatment options for substance abuse, while the final topics touch on ways people can help. Most of the overwhelmingly positive feedback we have received so far has been centered around those last two lessons. We learned something that we anecdotally already knew — people want to help, but those who need help the most don’t always know how to ask for it.
I’ve taken every opportunity to discuss mental health over the past few years. I genuinely believe that if you destigmatize it, people can deal with it. It’s a solvable problem. Just like your sore shoulder, it can be fixed. We must create a better culture where people can take the first step and speak openly about it.
