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No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

sahillavingia.com

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Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#41

Post by alawrence »

DVassallo wrote: post #28
draw_down wrote: post #3

This is maybe the only “how we work” I’ve ever read that is actually appealing. It really does sound wonderful. My only question is around health insurance for the US based folks (I’m guessing the answer is “take the money we pay you and go buy some” which is unfortunately not a good solution) but otherwise yes, sounds ideal.

I work quarter-time at Gumroad, and I pay for my own health insurance ($950/mo for a family of 4). If Gumroad offered it, I would almost certainly still keep my own (unless it was at >50% discount). I prefer not having my health insurance tied to one source of income.

Wow, that's not a bad rate. Do you find the coverage adequate?

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#42

Post by tartoran »

ska wrote: post #37
dkdk8283 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d love something like this: I loathe the bullshit factory process has become.

Process is one of those things you have whether you think about it or not. It's up to you collectively to decide if it is BS or not, too heavy, too light, etc. I'm not suggesting everyone has the influence to change process much at the place they work, but they idea that there is a single "thing" called process and some places have it and some don't is just dangerously misleading. It is true that process tends to nat…

It really depends how that process is adopted. If it's organically in-house grown and it does makes sense then it becomes a synergic glue. If it's imposed top down from the outside because "that company does it, lets follow suit" then it can become a pain and cause more harm than good. I liken that to goo.

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#43

Post by dkdk8283 »

ska wrote: post #37
dkdk8283 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d love something like this: I loathe the bullshit factory process has become.

Process is one of those things you have whether you think about it or not. It's up to you collectively to decide if it is BS or not, too heavy, too light, etc. I'm not suggesting everyone has the influence to change process much at the place they work, but they idea that there is a single "thing" called process and some places have it and some don't is just dangerously misleading. It is true that process tends to nat…

> but they idea that there is a single "thing" called process and some places have it and some don't is just dangerously misleading.

Is that what I said? No.

I got into computers because I dislike people: leave me alone and let me work.

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#44

Post by philmcp »

In years to come we will look down on the 5 day working week in the same way we currently do with 15hr factory shifts during the industrial revolution.

It absolutely blows my mind that 99% of office roles are still 5 days / week, Monday to Friday - why is there basically no variation on this model? I'd be more than happy to work a job for 80% salary for 4 days per week...

So much so, I'm about to launch a website listing remote software jobs with a 4 day work week:

https://www.28hrworkweek.com/

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#45

Post by NationalPark »

caymanjim wrote: post #31
jennyyang wrote: post #18

Very interesting proposition, I hope the company flourishes! I'm not HR but I'm pretty sure the anti-overtime provision is completely illegal at least in countries like the US and Canada. I would outlaw overtime instead of pay people less for overtime.

> I'm pretty sure the anti-overtime provision is completely illegal at least in countries like the US This is incorrect. The tldr is that US employees are either "exempt" or "non-exempt". Without getting into pedantic details, employees can be categorized as exempt if they make over about $23k/year. Exempt employees are not entitled to overtime at all, and the Fair Labor Standards Act doesn't prohibit reducing someon…

They're contractors not employees, but you are correct. There's nothing illegal about the arrangement.

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#46

Post by tinyhouse »

I must say that's impressive. I've been thinking about this for some time. I'm wondering if this new wave of companies would be a problem for the economy. Running a company is getting easier every year. That's good, more companies means more job opportunities. On the other hand, as we can see from the article, you can run a very lean remote company and still grow and be successful. Such companies would hire less and raise the hiring bar and if you're not great in what you do then you'll have a hard time finding a job. But long term it's a positive trend.

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#47

Post by quixoticaxolotl »

sahillavingia wrote: post #20

Hey, #1 on Hacker News! I don't think that's happened since...I wrote Reflecting on My Failure to Build a Billion-Dollar Company back in 2019: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19105733 Thanks HN for being a part of my journey!

How do you stay competitive with similar products without instituting deadlines?

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#48

Post by antattack »

"To be clear, we don’t provide healthcare. Everyone who works at Gumroad is responsible for their own healthcare and benefits. Everyone also pays for their own phone, laptop, internet connection, and all the other things they need."

It seems to me that company operates like Uber or Lyft, and their product is exploiting wage inequalities.

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#49

Post by sillysaurusx »

thesausageking wrote: post #19

Let me understand this. Gumroad raises $8m from VCs, isn't able to grow fast enough, so the VCs agree to give up any claim on the company. Sahil fires all of the employees, hires a cheap contracting firm and some of the employees back as part-time contractors. The company now does $11m in revenue, most of which is profit and Sahil keeps. That's amazing. For Sahil. Not so great if you were one of his investors or form…

The graph speaks for itself: https://sahillavingia.com/operating.png

You seem a little surprised. But why? This is the whole point of business: to make more money than you lose.

As for why he did it, it looks like he wrote a retrospective here: https://sahillavingia.com/reflecting

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#50

Post by DVassallo »

alawrence wrote: post #41
DVassallo wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work quarter-time at Gumroad, and I pay for my own health insurance ($950/mo for a family of 4). If Gumroad offered it, I would almost certainly still keep my own (unless it was at >50% discount). I prefer not having my health insurance tied to one source of income.

Wow, that's not a bad rate. Do you find the coverage adequate?

It’s a very high deductible plan ($13.6K) but otherwise had no problems with provider coverage. I’m in WA and the insurer is Molina. Found it through the ACA marketplace.
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