In this "gripping" (TechCrunch), "eye-opening" (Gayle King, Oprah
Daily) memoir of mental illness and entrepreneurship, the co-founder of
the menswear startup Bonobos opens up about the struggle with bipolar
disorder that nearly cost him everything.
"Arrestingly candid . . . the most powerful book I've read on manic
depression since An Unquiet Mind."--Adam Grant, #1 New York Times
bestselling author of Think Again and host of WorkLife
ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2022--Forbes
At twenty-eight, fresh from Stanford's MBA program and steeped in the
move-fast-and-break-things ethos of Silicon Valley, Andy Dunn was on top
of the world. He was building a new kind of startup--a digitally native,
direct-to-consumer brand--out of his Manhattan apartment. Bonobos was a
new-school approach to selling an old-school product: men's pants.
Against all odds, business was booming.
Hustling to scale the fledgling venture, Dunn raised tens of millions of
dollars while boundaries between work and life evaporated. As he
struggled to keep the startup afloat, Dunn was haunted by a ghost: a
diagnosis of bipolar disorder he received after a frightening manic
episode in college, one that had punctured the idyllic veneer of his
midwestern upbringing. He had understood his diagnosis as an unspeakable
shame that--according to the taciturn codes of his fraternity, the
business world, and even his family--should be locked away.
As Dunn's business began to take off, however, some of the very traits
that powered his success as a founder--relentless drive, confidence
bordering on hubris, and ambition verging on delusion--were now
threatening to undo him. A collision course was set in motion, and it
would culminate in a night of mayhem--one poised to unravel all that he
had built.
Burn Rate is an unconventional entrepreneurial memoir, a parable for
the twenty-first-century economy, and a revelatory look at the
prevalence of mental illness in the startup community. With intimate
prose, Andy Dunn fearlessly shines a light on the dark side of success
and challenges us all to take part in the deepening conversation around
creativity, performance, and disorder.
