Once, I heard an old war story that goes like this: An army arrives by ship to attack their enemy, and when everyone is safely on land, the captain says, “OK, guys, let’s burn the ships.” The crew is like, What? Burn the ships? And he says, “Yes, we are going to burn the ships. Then we have to win, because we can’t go home.”
The real story, likely about Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés, is more complicated than that. (And his ships were sunk, not burned.) But I like this simple version, because it helped me make one of the most important decisions of my life. Six years ago, I was starting a company that tests people for sleep apnea. I had two employees, one desk, and almost no money.…
