I understand it perfectly - if my friends could all afford to go out and have a pint on the weekend, go on a road trip, vacation, etc. and I was excluded because I couldn't afford it then it would be upsetting to me, and motivate me to earn a better income. That being said, people typically associate with people in their economic class to avoid those types of issues, so I'd assume if they weren't motivated the friends would eventually fade out (to an extent of course)
As I thought about it a little more, I came to this conclusion as well. It could just be a young single-person's motivation, certainly.
I had kids before I even had a chance to know what it was like to be a young single guy out of college, and I started my company when my first son was 1, and my motivation was to be a success in his eyes at the time. Still is. I started developing games because I wanted my kids to see that no matter how far-fetched it may seem, go after your dreams, succeed on your own terms.
But I can see how having money for beer might have been a motivating force when I was 21 and if I had no children at the time.
EDIT: I'm being sincere. That read-back as dickish, but I'm serious. I'm far removed from that world, but I respect anyone's motivation for becoming a success on their own terms, I just don't always grasp it right away.
It's not so much that we felt pressurised by our friends, but more to do with the fact that we were disappointed in failing to live up to our OWN expectations. Simply put, we graduated from two of the best Universities in London, and here we were, earning $15 a day (split two ways!). Financially, this was wrecking us. It wasn't about bragging rights or earning more than our friends, we loved what we were doing and had foregone great salaries to live out our dream - but not earning enough to even buy a week's worth of groceries scared the crap out of us.
Sadly, quite often, people here in London seldom respect you when you say you're running a startup, thinking you're probably just unemployed and can't find a proper job.
I guess in the end, the fact that we couldn't contemplate failing really pushed us to devise innovative strategies to succeed on the App Store with very little money (we'll explain this in detail in part 3).
Certainly is tough to measure success, but I don't think it is just a young person attitude (that being said, I'm a fairly young person). I think I'd rather make sure that my son/family was financially stable then be successful in his eyes... I figure take the biggest risks when you are young, prior to the family/mortgage/etc. I couldn't imagine risking it all when I was primarily supporting others.
