Founders Diary | Raw Stories from Building Vernon AI

You know that part in Whiplash when the main character sits across from his girlfriend in the diner and says, ‘I don’t think we should be together… I’ve thought about it a lot. Here’s what’s gonna happen: I’m gonna keep pursuing this thing, it’s going to take up more and more of my time, and when I’m with you, I’ll just be thinking about drumming.’

That line has been stuck in my head for years. Not because of the romance—because of the obsession.

The Obsession Problem

I’m 23, I’m a founder, and I’ve never been in love. People always assume it’s a choice. They ask if I’m on dating apps, or they try to set me up, and I laugh it off: “I’m too focused on the company right now.” It sounds like an excuse, but it’s also true.

Building something from scratch eats you alive if you let it. It’s not just a job. It’s the thing. It gets in your head. It follows you into the shower, into the gym, into bed at 2 a.m. I think about product bugs the way Neiman thought about drum fills. I think about runway the way he thought about tempo. Even when I’m with people I care about, my brain is off somewhere debugging, strategizing, obsessing.

And if I’m honest, part of me is terrified to let anything compete with that obsession. What if I open the door to love and it makes me mediocre at the one thing I know I’m good at?

Relationships vs. Startups

The irony is, love and startups aren’t that different:

Both demand time. A relationship thrives on presence, a startup devours every hour you give it.
Both require vulnerability. A product launch is just another way of saying, “Here’s something I poured myself into—please don’t laugh.”
Both will break you if you let them. Anyone who’s missed payroll knows heartbreak isn’t limited to romance.

But the rules aren’t the same. Startups reward obsession—work longer, iterate faster, sacrifice more, and maybe you win. Relationships punish obsession—if you’re not present, if you don’t invest emotionally, the whole thing withers.

The Cost of Choosing

So I’ve poured everything into Vernon AI. It’s my first real love, if I’m being candid. It gives back in its own way: the high of solving a bug at 3 a.m., the rush of signing a client, the vision of what this could become.

And yet, sometimes in the quiet moments, I wonder what I’ve traded. While my peers were learning how to hold hands and break hearts, I was learning how to negotiate term sheets and debug production. They were figuring out how to be vulnerable with another person; I was figuring out how to convince strangers to bet on me.

What Obsession Teaches

Being consumed by one thing has its lessons too:

Obsession clarifies. You find out quickly what matters when you’re willing to sacrifice everything else.
Self-awareness is non-negotiable. Knowing your limits—emotional, mental, physical—becomes survival.
Success is lonelier than failure. Winning without someone to call at midnight doesn’t feel like winning at all.

Where This Leaves Me

I don’t know if love will arrive next year, or in ten. Maybe I’ll always be the person who broke up in the diner before the relationship could even start. Or maybe the very obsession that keeps me up at night writing code will one day make me capable of loving someone with the same intensity.

What I do know is this: being a founder is not just about building a company. It’s about being consumed by something, sometimes to the point of madness. And if you’re reading this as another founder, maybe you know what I mean.

Until then, I’ll keep building. And maybe—just maybe—I’ll learn what it means to build love too.

What’s your obsession costing you? I’d love to hear your story: vernon@vernonaisolutions.com