ajshell1

It’s my birthday, July 28th, and it’s 10 years of working on Vite. I think I made the decision to start Vite 10 years ago on my birthday, or something close to it. I’m not sure anymore. But this year, honestly, I don't want to see anyone. I don't want to do anything. And yet, Tuesday is the one day I get to make it about me. And because it's the one day I get to tell my story without it being a social faux pas. This is a story, I suppose, about all the invisible things. And it may seem like about burnout, especially at the beginning, but in reality, it’s a story about a stupid, earnest guy, who unfortunately has too much belief in the indomitable human spirit, who may tank things too readily for his own good. It’s a story about neurodivergence, and trust, and belief, and the will to keep going, keep believing even when others won’t believe in him. And most of all, I think, it’s a story about the costs of trying to do things the right way, of being honest, and transparent, and authentic, when the world punishes you for it, and rewards you for doing the opposite. In the 10 years I’ve been doing this, I've been working nearly all the time. I can’t really take breaks, or the thousand things I’m personally responsible for collapse. I can't miss a single day, or we fall behind. I can't not show up. I can't take mental health days that I grant for all other Vite staff, I haven’t taken a vacation in ten years, and yet, despite all that, I need to keep my body in pristine condition, both so my mind continues to be as sharp as it can be, and because running a company that makes a healthy food means keeping my body within a certain aesthetic. And the thing that makes me tired isn't the work, necessarily. I miss the flow states, the times when I could get fully excited and fully immersed in what I was doing, get lost in that and not think about anything else. Man, as much as you might hear me complain about spreadsheets, even being able to be allowed to focus in on creating a beautiful, hyperfunctional spreadsheet that improves visibility and efficiency is something I ironically miss, not even mentioning the other, more creative works that I enjoy, or even working on new flavors and R&D. Rather, now, I’m caught in a neverending cycle of how often and how much I need to explain myself, constantly, to everyone, forever. That despite how hard I work, people don't trust what I do, or what I say, and to be interrupted, each and every day, by having to do this, never being allowed to focus on any one thing. And no, before anyone gets any ideas, you almost certainly don’t know the back end institutions I’m frustrated about. This year, more than all the other years, I think, I’m beginning to feel just how neurodivergent, just how autistic I really am. I think, if I don’t vent out some of this, my brain feels like it’ll explode. I’m sure there’s plenty of consequences on my body, too, built off the stress of having to contain all the injustices and unfairness that I can’t talk about, but... I’m hoping that maybe even as vague as I’ll be, some people can begin to understand, at least, some of the feelings and frustrations behind the scenes. The amount of public and private updates I write to try and communicate, the time I need to spend cross-checking every dependency against every other dependency from just how vertically integrated we are, holding more in my head than any one person should ever have to hold, so much that the documents I write start lagging, more than a system holds as we break every single one we try to use, more than a team of people could reasonably hold between them as we outdo every agency we tried to delegate to, actively having to choose which things I will write down and forget so I can keep the active things in my head and prepare to discard them and re-learn the things I’ve forgotten before and-- I have a lot I want to talk about. How hard it is. How much it sucks. I don't even know where to begin, there's so much of it, and even sitting here writing this I’m thinking about how I should be writing all the other backend documents that stretch hundreds of pages, coordinations and communications and requests for information and clarity that’s slowly wring the life out of me each and every day. It’s not like I have impostor syndrome, at least, not in the normal way. I’ve gone over the metrics of everything we do, over and over and over again, running all kinds of analysis and stats and comparisons. Whether it’s business analytics, customer loyalty, communication and transparency metrics, marketing clickthroughs, conversion rates, product quality, operational and production benchmarks... We’re in the very top percentiles for almost everything. It’s that relentless drive, the determination to do it right against all odds, against all the people saying that you can’t, that makes us push to make it a reality regardless. People brag about being in the top 1%, or the top 0.1%... and yet, when I look at these, and I see all the other problems left to tackle, all the other looming issues I need to correct... I don’t see why it’s worth bragging about. Because for us, the only reason any of this is alive, and stays alive, only works if we keep being in the top 0.1%, only if we keep pushing the boundaries of what’s possible. Because, unfortunately, I’ve come to learn that the neurodivergent, autistic worldview I have meant that I believed things that you weren’t supposed to take literally. I'm always waiting for the other shoe to drop, always waiting for something to catch on fire around me, not because I think it's gonna fall apart, but because unfortunately I know I can pull it back together. I know that no matter what, I can sacrifice another piece of myself to make it all work, because I have over and over and over and over again for the last decade doing the things that everyone thinks is impossible, in the ways that I believe are the right way to do things... And all of that, just to scrape by. To constantly get knocked on my ass and scramble back up, exhausted, panting, just to be at the start line again, watching those who did it the other ways stride far, far ahead. Who in their right mind takes pride in that? But then again, who in their right mind decides to do the kind of things we do, the way we do? “Do it yourself,” so I built the machines myself, made my own factory, and suffered through the pains of making an impossible ramen from impossible machines. “Lead from the front,” so I learned everything from editing to basic photoshop to marketing to website dev and machine repair and filming and social media, and lost all my time. “Take care of your people,” so I built the business to be people over profit and everything associated with that, and did it in California of all places, and people complain about the higher prices and claim we’re scamming. “Be honest,” so I give only the dates that we’re given, show only the things that we know aren’t niceties from other links in the supply chain, and get chastised for not providing false, concrete dates. “Be transparent,” so I talk about as much as I can behind the scenes, about the hard things, the things that don’t go right, the things that we’re learning from, and people begin to get upset. But I've been learning that honesty and transparency isn’t what people really want. People get angrier at you for being honest, for setting a boundary. And when I explain, here's what happened, here are the constraints, here's how I made the decision, because I want to provide context, because I want them to understand-- I get scorn, and being accused of making excuses instead of providing explanations. And I’m always intensely grateful for those of you who do send messages of encouragement, who do understand, who do have our backs, because... I don't know where the line is, honestly. I've never been able to see it. I'll do too much or say too much or too little or the wrong thing, and my intention doesn't seem to count for anything, and when I try to explain the intention, and thoroughly, it’s too long, and no one reads it through when they’re angry, even though that I hope the immense time and effort I spent to write it should show more than enough on how much I really care, exponentially more time than it takes to read it. So I’ll try and write the simple email fifteen times. I go over every word, every paragraph, every possible reading, every inflection someone could turn around on me, and I’m exhausted, because I keep wondering if I did something wrong again, and everything else in the email gets forgotten because of a single thing that gets misinterpreted. And when it does, all I want to do is fight back, and I do, sometimes. I’ve never been anti-confrontational, and I’d love nothing more than to be able to directly talk to people, directly say everything, or if people are aggressive first, to fight back. But I'm not supposed to. I'm supposed to sit there and take it, and smile politely, even when it isn't my fault, even when I have hundreds of pages of documentation, even when I'm expected to take the hit for someone else. Just bite my tongue and take it. And I do, and have to, most of the time. People tell me all the time to just keep quiet, just be pleasant and put on that smile and tell little white lies and don’t tell the bad things. And I say no, because I want to talk, I want to respond, I want to reassure, I want to communicate, all the time, and yet... There’s always so much behind the scenes. So many different companies of all types, so many NDAs, dependencies, relationships to untangle, industry mergers and acquisitions, reps changing, policies... Sometimes, it feels like I can’t fight for anything anymore, without someone, somewhere, telling me that it would be easier, smoother to ignore it, deal with it later. But that doesn’t feel right to me, to not fight for what I believe is right, to not fight for my team, to not take a stand for myself, because beneath it all, that same passion and fervor that people love to see is also the thing that makes me not able to sit still when something feels wrong. And yet... the fight, the standing for something itself now, has now been pointed at as the liability. The standard PR play is to not talk about it. But I take things head-on instead, because I refuse to be the person who disappears. I stand there and take it and fight and bear it, because I believe that’s what someone should do, and fight for what they believe in, learn and apologize when they’re wrong, and never stop growing. But the way I do that scares some people, too. I get so many responses, so many comments, so many emails telling me to tone it down, to stop being so loud, to stop being so much, to be more agreeable, to be okay with choosing to lie here and there. And I can’t lie here either, that despite being used to it, despite tanking it all these years, it still hurts. To be misunderstood, consistently and constantly, to be painted as the bad guy before you have a chance to say anything, for people to succumb to fear faster than understanding and having to always fight from the back foot is exhausting. Because, it seems to me that people don't actually want the truth. They want something that feels like the truth, they want honesty that doesn't cost them anything to look at, transparency that resolves by the end, a good fantasy and doesn't ask them to know how hard any of it is. They want a truth that’s nice, and makes them feel good, not the true, transparent, honest version of it. But I'm the idiot who believed all of it when it was said. People only pretend to care about those things when it's over. But so long as I’m still standing, so long as the business continues, we will, forever and always, have more of this mistrust and hate coming our way. But there’s always another choice, because we’ve watched it happen all the time, that as something and someone announces their closure, their shutdown, an end to things... then, suddenly, everything shifts, and everyone suddenly cares, everyone suddenly waxes poetic and all that would’ve helped it not close to begin with suddenly exists. A “smarter” person might call it quits, might choose to leave everyone hanging, like so many other companies did, and go take some corporate job instead and wash their hands of all of it. I'd have so much free time, and so little stress compared to this. Probably more money too, considering how little I pay myself. But I don't. And I won’t. Because simply... Right now, this is my responsibility, and it's my accountability. But more than anything? It’s because I love this stupid, impossible place, and everything that we’ve built, everything we’ve made, and everything that we’ve yet to do. And even when I’m feeling a little(or a lot) down, bitter, angry, frustrated-- I can think about all the things we’ve done, the impossible factory that shouldn’t exist, the ridiculous videos we’ve made, the ramen and noodles and knives and collaborations and everything that we’ve poured all of our hearts and souls to, burning every ounce of passion into making them become a reality, stumbling and laughing and fighting along the way... And I remember why I’m doing all this. Because while everyone else says the words, to take responsibility, to be honest, to not disappear when things get hard, they’re all aspirational and flimsy constructions to be abandoned when things get hard, or things aren’t ideal. Decorative. Performative. But me? I was unfortunately born neurodivergent, of ADHD and autism, and the very core of my being doesn’t let me be okay with that. It doesn’t let me abandon things when it gets hard, it doesn’t let me stand there passively all the time, and not feel a burning need to take action. I was unfortunately raised with the stories of heroes, of responsibility, of the hard, but right journeys. I watched shows and played games of all these people struggle through adversity for their belief in the right things, even when it was hard, even when the world turned against them and misunderstood them. And unfortunately, despite turning 34, I’m still that little kid at heart, believing in those things, and fighting for those in those little ways that I can, despite ten years of impossibilities, despite ten years of the world trying to say that this path was never meant to be. There’s an irony, I think, that in theory, I shouldn’t make this post. I shouldn’t have this long, rambly thing that I’ve become known for, but also shied away from for quite some time. This post won’t make more money, won’t help us get more of a breath past all that I need to do. I could’ve, should’ve, probably, used this time to run a sale, rack my brain to do another promo of some sort, figure... something, anything out. But... Because I guess for my birthday... what I want more than anything is to be understood. Perhaps, what it is that I want is to be known, to be seen, to know that I can continue to do what I do, to believe what I believe in, and not to be looked at with the kind of distrust and mockery that every neurodivergent kid grew up with so much. But that’s what I’ve done for ten years, over and over, again and again, and no matter the explanation, no matter the rigor, it hasn’t worked. So perhaps, in this tenth year, after a decade of trying that, I don’t need more people telling me that they’ll believe me a bit more, or that I need to give myself permission to rest, or for people to ask what they can do, and for me to feel guilty when I say that they can do nothing(well, maybe just buying more Vite stuff). Because in this 10th year, we’re learning more than ever, streamlining, and we have finally shaken off one of the greatest shackles that has ever been placed on us. And even if I can’t talk about all the things that we’ll be doing... I guess, after all, I may not want the autistic, logical foundations of belief that I thought. I think what I want is something less rational, something that I don’t need to explain. I want people to have a little faith in me. To not need the explanation before they extend the benefit of the doubt. To assume, when something goes wrong and I've gone quiet, that I'm probably fighting something I'm not allowed to talk about yet, if ever. To read the long post and think that a man who writes this much, in the faint hours of the night that he doesn’t have, probably cares that much more. I suppose, that’s what I’ll wish for in this tenth year. That’s what I want my birthday present to be. That yes, I may be too intense, and too honest, and sometimes too late and sometimes too overwhelmed and sometimes too quiet and sometimes too loud, and too sometimes too much everything at once. And maybe, just maybe, I'll need to write fewer explanations that don't get accepted anyway, feel less of that twisting anxiety in my stomach hoping that people understand, and be able to devote more time to making things happen. But that, despite it all, I’m someone worth having faith in. So, here’s to ten years of working on all this. Here’s to all the impossible things we’ve done, and the impossible things we will do. Here’s to the indomitable human spirit. -Tim, Founder Vite