Forget ‘Crushing It,’ Startup Founders Open Up About Mental Health Problems

From therapy and peer groups to vulnerability and psychedelic drugs, entrepreneurs open up about their strategies for dealing with mental health challenges.

_{By Jeff Kauflin, Forbes Staff}

Jason Gardner, the founder and CEO of payment processing startup Marqeta, was going through another bout of depression. It was early 2016, and he struggled to sleep and eat in his Oakland home. Sometimes he just laid on the floor and stared at the ceiling. “I could barely get out of bed and couldn’t smile. I felt like things were crumbling around me, but I had to find the wherewithal to continue to raise money and build the company,” he says. Marqeta was weeks away from running out of cash.

He and his wife Jocelyne had maxed out their credit cards and were even putting their mortgage payments on credit card checks while raising their 15-year-old son and 8-year-old daughter. “Sometimes I don’t know how I survived. Not because of something I would do to myself, but due to my body breaking down, or my mind,” says Gardner. He went on to turn the company around, eventually taking it public and stepping down as CEO in January 2023.