The research behind "desirable difficulties," stress inoculation, and why chronic adversity is not the founder advantage many people think it is. There is a story the startup world likes to tell about itself: the founders who succeed are the ones who had it hardest—that an early lack of money, connections, or a safety net forged something their more comfortable competitors simply don't have. Pieces of that story are genuinely supported by research on learning and stress. But it bundles toge...