Michelle: The very qualities that get a founder celebrated on the cover of a magazine—the obsessive drive, the reality-distorting vision—might be the same ones that land them in a psychiatric hospital. What if the startup world is rewarding a pathology? Mark: Whoa. That’s a heavy opening. It feels like you’re saying the secret sauce for success might actually be poison. Michelle: That's the brutal question at the heart of Andy Dunn's national bestselling memoir, Burn Rate: Launching a Startup and Losing My Mind. Mark: Andy Dunn, the co-founder of Bonobos, right? The brand that kind of revolutionized how men buy pants online. I remember when they were everywhere. Michelle: Exactly. And what makes this book so groundbreaking, and frankly so courageous, is that Dunn wrote it as a kind of public reckoning. He was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in college but kept it a secret for over a decade, even as he was building this massive, venture-backed company. The book is his story of that secret unraveling in the most dramatic way possible. Mark: A secret that big, in a world that demanding… I can’t even imagine the pressure. So how did this secret illness actually fuel the company's rise? It sounds like a complete paradox. Michelle: It is the central paradox of his life and his career. And to understand it, you have to understand the entity he calls "the Ghost."

Mark: The Ghost? What does he mean by that? Michelle: It's his name for his bipolar disorder. It’s this presence that’s always with him. Sometimes it’s a terrifying enemy, but other times… it’s a source of immense power. He describes his entry into the New York startup scene with what he calls a "fundamentalist's zeal." He arrives in the city with just two suitcases of pants, no apartment, but this unshakeable, almost divine belief that his company is going to succeed. Mark: Okay, but that "fundamentalist's zeal," that unwavering belief… that's the founder myth in a nutshell! That's what every venture capitalist wants to see. They want the person who can bend reality to their will. Michelle: Precisely. And in those early days, the Ghost was his co-pilot. He describes his first days in New York as "magical, like building a workshop at the North Pole." There's this boundless energy, this creativity, this ability to work insane hours and charm investors and customers. This is the seductive side of the illness, the state known as hypomania. It feels like a superpower. Mark: It’s like having a cheat code for entrepreneurship. You have more energy, more charisma, more belief than anyone else in the room. What’s the downside? Michelle: The downside is that the cheat code comes with a virus. To understand the risk, we have to rewind to his college years. Long before Bonobos, during a ski trip, he has his first full-blown manic episode. It’s not just high energy; it’s a complete break from reality. He becomes convinced he’s the Messiah. Mark: The Messiah? Like, the actual, biblical Messiah? Michelle: Yes. He starts approaching strangers on the street, telling them he’s here to save the world. He believes his girlfriend at the time is literally God. It’s a state of total delusion that ends with him being hospitalized. That’s the first time he gets the diagnosis: bipolar I disorder. Mark: That is terrifying. And he just… buries that? He goes on to Stanford Business School and then starts a company, all while knowing this potential for a complete reality-break is inside him? Michelle: He rejects the diagnosis. He calls it a "diagnosis deferred." He’s ashamed. He’s terrified of the stigma, especially in the hyper-masculine, stoic cultures of his fraternity and then later, the business world. So he tries to pretend it never happened. He pushes the Ghost into the shadows. But the Ghost doesn't go away. It just channels its energy into his work. Mark: So the same force that made him believe he was the Messiah is now making him believe Bonobos is destined for greatness. It’s the same engine, just pointed at a different target. Michelle: Exactly. And this is where it gets so complicated and so fascinating. The book quotes the clinical psychologist Kay Redfield Jamison, who also has bipolar disorder. She wrote that the illness is "a distillation both of what is finest in our natures, and of what is most dangerous." Mark: I can see that so clearly now. The 'finest' part is the vision, the creativity, the energy that builds a beloved brand from nothing. The 'most dangerous' part is the potential for it to spiral into delusion and self-destruction. Michelle: And for years, Dunn walks that tightrope. He’s raising millions of dollars, he’s getting praise in the press, Bonobos is named one of the best places to work in New York. The company is innovating, creating the "Guideshop" model which was this unexpected but brilliant pivot from being online-only. From the outside, he’s the epitome of a successful founder. Mark: But on the inside, he’s shadowboxing with the Ghost. He’s hiding this monumental secret from his co-founder, his investors, his employees, and even the woman he loves. The burn rate isn't just financial; it's psychological. He's burning through his own sanity to keep the illusion alive. Michelle: You’ve hit on the core of it. The title is a brilliant double entendre. The financial burn rate is a standard startup metric. But the real story is the human burn rate. And that tightrope he was walking? Eventually, it was going to snap.

Mark: And when it snaps… what does that look like for a high-profile CEO? This isn't like the college ski trip. The stakes are infinitely higher. Michelle: The stakes are everything. His company, his reputation, his relationships, his freedom. The book builds to this absolutely harrowing climax. In 2016, after a period of intense stress, lack of sleep, and emotional turmoil—the Cubs are in the World Series, Trump gets elected, and in a hypomanic state, Dunn decides he should run for mayor of New York… Mark: Wait, run for mayor? While being CEO? Michelle: Yes. It was this grandiose, impulsive idea fueled by hypomania. His board was used to his big swings, but this one jeopardized the sale of the company they were negotiating. He eventually pulls back, but the pressure keeps building. The final break happens a few months later. He has another full-blown manic episode. This time, it's not on a remote ski slope. It's in New York City. It involves an altercation with his girlfriend, Manuela, and her mother. It ends with him being arrested and taken to the psychiatric emergency room at Bellevue Hospital. Mark: Oh my god. To go from celebrated CEO to an inmate at Bellevue… that's the ultimate nightmare for someone in his position. The secret is out in the most catastrophic way imaginable. Michelle: It’s the fall. The book opens with a quote from the mystic Julian of Norwich: "First the fall, and then the recovery from the fall, and both are the mercy of God." This was his fall. He describes the experience in the psych ward with gut-wrenching clarity. The shame is immense. He writes, "A crime of insanity becomes its own form of punishment." He’s not just dealing with a diagnosis anymore; he’s dealing with the real-world consequences of his actions while he was ill. Mark: I can’t even begin to process that. How do you even begin to recover professionally from that? What did his investors, his board, say? This is the kind of thing that gets a CEO fired instantly. Michelle: And that’s what he expected. He thought his career was over. But this is where the story takes a turn towards hope. He has to come clean to everyone. His HR head, his executive coach, his board. And instead of being fired, he's met with… support. They rally around him. They help him get the care he needs. It challenges the very stigma he was so afraid of. Mark: That’s incredible. It’s the opposite of what you’d expect from the cutthroat world of business. Michelle: It is. And it marks the beginning of the second, much harder journey: the rebuild. This isn't about pretending the Ghost isn't there anymore. It's about learning to live with it. It’s about radical accountability. He and his now-wife, Manuela, go to therapy to rebuild the trust he shattered. He finally finds the right medication cocktail that stabilizes him without turning him into a zombie. Mark: So he has to build a whole new operating system for his life. Michelle: A completely new one, built on transparency and vigilance. There's this amazing, concrete detail in the epilogue. His mother, after seeing how critical sleep is to his stability, comes up with an idea. He now wears a Fitbit that tracks his sleep, and every morning, it automatically sends a "Sleep Report" to his wife, his mother, his sister, and his doctor. Mark: Wow. So he has a literal support system monitoring his data to keep him safe. That's taking accountability to a whole new level. It’s not just a promise; it’s a system. Michelle: It's a system. It's an admission that he can't do it alone. And that, I think, is the most powerful takeaway. He has to build guardrails for his own mind. The journey goes from the manic, individualistic ambition of the "founder myth" to a communal, interdependent model of health.

Mark: So the 'burn rate' in the title really isn't just about cash. It's about the human cost of that myth. Michelle: Exactly. The book is a powerful argument that the startup ecosystem, with its "move fast and break things" ethos, is almost perfectly designed to burn through people, especially those with a predisposition to mental illness. It glorifies traits that are dangerously close to the symptoms of mania. Mark: And Dunn’s story shows that true, sustainable success isn't about ignoring the 'Ghost,' or pretending you're an invincible hero. It's about building a life, and a company, that can coexist with your own humanity, your own fragility. Michelle: He puts it so perfectly near the end of the book. After all this, after the fall and the recovery, he reflects on his fear of the illness. And he says, "The day I’m not afraid of this illness is not a good day for me or anyone I love." Mark: Wow. That gives me chills. It’s not about conquering it. It’s about respecting it. It’s about constant vigilance, not a one-time victory. Michelle: It’s a lifelong partnership. A difficult one, but a manageable one. And his courage in telling this story has had a real impact, helping to open up a conversation that was happening only in whispers in the business world. Mark: It really makes you wonder, how many other brilliant founders are out there, right now, shadowboxing with their own ghosts? And what innovation, what creativity, what human potential are we losing by not creating a space for them to be honest about it? Michelle: This is Aibrary, signing off.