Building something big without becoming someone you would not work for

Expanded from a LinkedIn post originally published on 2026-07-06.

I’ve been watching Super Pumped, the show about Uber’s early days, and I’ll be honest, there were parts of it where I found myself getting literally… pumped up.
⠀
That’s probably the dangerous thing about shows like this.
⠀
You see years of chaos, pressure, sacrifice, aggression, belief and momentum compressed into a few hours of television, and it becomes very easy to glamorise it. You watch the big moments, the wins, the arguments, the “do whatever it takes” mentality, and part of you thinks, maybe that’s what it takes to build something huge.
⠀
But then you sit with it a bit longer and realise there’s another side to it.
⠀
To operate like that every day, with that level of intensity, disregard and collateral damage, you probably need to switch off a part of yourself that most decent people still have switched on.
⠀
A lot of smart, ambitious people still have compassion. They still care about people. They still feel the weight of decisions. They still struggle with the idea that winning at all costs might actually cost too much.
⠀
I do think there’s a place for obsession. There’s a place for grinding, pushing hard, taking risks and doing what needs to be done when things get difficult.
⠀
But there has to be a line.
⠀
Building something big is impressive.

Building something big without becoming someone you wouldn’t want to work for is probably the harder challenge.

#Startups #Founders #Entrepreneurship #Leadership #BusinessBuilding

Television compresses the cost

Watching a founder story can make the intensity feel infectious. Years of pressure and consequences become a handful of dramatic scenes, and the momentum can be easier to see than the people carrying its cost.

That is what made Super Pumped interesting to me. I could feel the appeal of the ambition while also questioning the version of leadership being made to look exciting.

Obsession still needs a boundary

There is room for hard work, risk and persistence. There is also a difference between taking a difficult decision and treating compassion as something that must be switched off to succeed.

I do not think caring about people makes someone less ambitious. It gives ambition a harder standard to meet: building something worthwhile without becoming the sort of person I would not want to work for.