Every time I see stories like this on HN I am very tempted to scream about how my burn rate is $700/mo living a very good life without too many distractions from my work. I cannot imagine why people would lace up with lead boots on their first venture by trying it in SF.
"We all like to believe great works are made like the book Ulysses. James Joyce locking himself literally in a hotel room for 2 years straight and doing nothing but working. But reality most great works take as much from what surrounds them as give back to it." -John Green (Slightly Paraphrased).
"all of us go a little mad: whether from great personal success, or just an all-night drive, we are the sole survivors of a world no one else has ever seen." - John le Carre
It does happen. However, as the article you linked notes, they hold the reins a lot tighter when it does. I speak from personal experience, since I ran a startup located in Florida which was funded by DFJ. I can say that it was a different experience than the typical Valley startup; we didn't benefit as much from networking as much as we possibly could have. After the first year, we would have a new funding round every few months, and we had to meet benchmarks to show progress. Even though Tim is a really nice guy and was great to work with, it was very stressful to operate with such a short but continually lengthened (until it wasn't) runway. I wouldn't recommend it to the weak of constitution. However, I can understand why they did it - without eyes on the scene on a frequent basis, they were putting much more trust in us than they were in other startups which they could more easily monitor and guide.
