Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

sahillavingia.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

381–390 of 543 posts

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

#381

Post by solatic »

wrsh07 wrote: post #273
solatic wrote: post #242

> When someone new joins the company, they do what everyone else does: go into our Notion queue, pick a task, and get to work, asking for clarification when needed... Instead of setting quarterly goals or using OKRs, we move towards a single north star: maximizing how much money creators earn. It’s simple and measurable, allowing anyone in the company to do the math on how much a feature or bug-fix might be worth. Qu…

I actually really like the anti overtime policy (half your hourly rate after 20h / week) I suspect that scares off workaholics. It's definitely sustainable if they don't plan to grow, and frankly it might still be sustainable at much larger sizes

> I actually really like the anti overtime policy (half your hourly rate after 20h / week)... I suspect that scares off workaholics.

I suspect that anti-overtime policy, at scale, is somewhat like a salaried position. When you earn a salary, your salary is guaranteed regardless of how many hours that you put in. Why work more than 40 hours a week? But in the real world, gains and promotion often go to people who "bleed" for the company. If salaried positions, which offer zero overtime pay, end up promoting overwork, why would offering a partial reward of half-pay factor in at all into whether the company has an overwork culture problem or not (particularly if reporting hours is the responsibility of the employee and the employee can simply decide not to report the overtime hours)?

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

#382

Post by namdnay »

philmcp wrote: post #177
namdnay wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 part time? This is pretty normal in nearly every company I’ve worked in, lots of people take it to spend more time with young kids

For all the companies I've worked at, the developers are all full-time so I envy your industry / location if part-time is common. More generally though, I feel employees almost need an "excuse" to work part time (i.e. some reason such as childcare). I wish for a time when a significant % of developer jobs are advertised as near-full time and that I'm not stereotyped as lazy for applying to them. There's more to life…

Completely normal in most European jobs. And you don’t need to have an excuse, especially as a developer, which adapts perfectly to part-time work (harder for a PM or PjM or EM)

But don’t envy us too much, the counterpart is that our salaries are much much lower than the US (even at 100%).

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

#383

Post by solatic »

1123581321 wrote: post #247
solatic wrote: post #242

> When someone new joins the company, they do what everyone else does: go into our Notion queue, pick a task, and get to work, asking for clarification when needed... Instead of setting quarterly goals or using OKRs, we move towards a single north star: maximizing how much money creators earn. It’s simple and measurable, allowing anyone in the company to do the math on how much a feature or bug-fix might be worth. Qu…

What would you say if the answer to your questions were yes, yes, and large enough? Why isn't there enough high-value work? One of their organizing principles seems to be that it's okay to do something that seems fun or that creators are asking for, so why should that stop being a guide for people who enjoy the work they do and enjoy listening to customers?

> What would you say if the answer to your questions were yes, yes, and large enough?

Then their model isn't replicable as a "better way of working" in general. Most companies with 50+ headcount aren't going to suddenly slash their headcounts down to 25 so that they can assert the cultural benefits that can be achieved with a small workforce and clear messaging that exponential growth is neither expected nor desired. If their model isn't replicable, then it doesn't have as much to teach us.

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

#384

Post by petre »

philipkiely wrote: post #15

I work at Gumroad, mentioned in this article. Sometimes, I read things by CEOs about how a company works on the inside and I wonder if it really looks like that, or if it is a view from the top that doesn't reflect what it's really like. This article, with its discussions of the upsides and downsides, is accurate to my experience and my understanding of other people's experiences. For many people, Gumroad wouldn't be…

The article has answered most but two questions: what does Gumroad do? How is it meaningful in today's society?

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

#385

Post by juskrey »

musingsole wrote: post #264
andrekandre wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> benefit of the gig economy is the average person has more masters how about no masters? > (and so is beholden to any one master less) that does not necessarily follow... if i still need say 3 jobs to make ends-meet, then im on the street if i get fired from one of them... now i need to juggle the demands of 3 masters, all with different demands on my time, energy and concentration...

Sure, no masters is better...though I'm not aware of anyone in that position. Manufacturers have customers, billionaires the IRS. Everyone's accountable to someone on something. Hermits? Working 3 jobs and losing one is not the same thing as working one job and losing one. Losing revenue will always hurt. The point is to prevent it from being fatal. And still, you don't really have an argument here. All of this is in…

Diversifying clients is good, still on practice main part of the income usually comes from the single client. And.. Your time doesn't scale, compensation has visible upper limits.

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

#386

Post by xienze »

boo-ga-ga wrote: post #217

I think the critics who complain about money, pensions and healthcare didn't do proper calculations. Gumroad pays from $50 to $250 per hour. Let's say you get $100 (below average) and work 60 hours per month (one-week vacation every month). This is $6000 per month, which is basically more than enough for a comfortable living in 95% places on the planet. They pay equal money regardless of location, so the proposition…

I think the other part people aren’t considering is you can make $250 an hour for 10 hours a week. Why even quit your day job that’s providing you benefits? Where do I sign up? I can spare 10 hours a week on top of my day job for that kind of money...

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

#387

Post by cycomanic »

uberswe wrote: post #359
callmeed wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I make more than enough to afford proper health insurance on the open market. Everyone at Gumroad is paid very well and should be able to afford the same. This might be true for everyone at Gumroad , but I wouldn't be so sure. You also seem dismissive (probably unintentionally) of one of the biggest problems we have in the US right now: health care and insurance is ridiculously expensive–especially for people with…

In Sweden, about 9% of my salary goes towards healthcare and I pay almost nothing extra for any of my healthcare needs. This 9% also covers things like elderly care and I don't lose this benefit if I lose my job.

How do you get to 9%, I'm also in Sweden but I've never seen a specific breakdown. Genuinely curious.

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

#388

Post by vlz »

_2d30 wrote: post #66
philipkiely wrote: post #15

I work at Gumroad, mentioned in this article. Sometimes, I read things by CEOs about how a company works on the inside and I wonder if it really looks like that, or if it is a view from the top that doesn't reflect what it's really like. This article, with its discussions of the upsides and downsides, is accurate to my experience and my understanding of other people's experiences. For many people, Gumroad wouldn't be…

Are you willing to provide any additional clarity on "very competitive rates as contractors"? I understand if not but would be useful to help some of us externally think about this model.

From the article:

> In practice, we pay everyone hourly based on their role. The range varies from $50 (customer support) to $250 (Head of Product) an hour.

> Recently I standardized our rates world-wide

> We also have an “anti-overtime” rate: past twenty hours a week, people can continue to work at an hourly rate of 50 percent. This allows us to have a high hourly rate for the highest leverage work and also allows people to work more per week if they wish.

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

#389

Post by Guthur »

novok wrote: post #336
war1025 wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> dental care in Australia is ripoff expensive I read somewhere that dental issues are universal enough that you don't get nearly the same cost averaging that you can get for other medical problems. When I looked into it, dental insurance basically amounted to "a payment plan for dental expenses you would pay anyway"

It lets the rich pay for the dental problems of the poor. It's also a form of income redistribution.

And a broken form at that. The vast majority of dental problems are avoidable either via diet or dental care.

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

#390

Post by feydaykyn »

simpixelated wrote: post #205
feydaykyn wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really interested in reducing meetings by writing more, can you give some insights on how you do it ? Thanks !

I'm sure there are specifics for Gumroad, but there are lots of insights available via other remote companies: https://blog.doist.com/asynchronous-communication/ https://zapier.com/blog/how-to-work-asynchronously/ Basically instead of waiting for a meeting to communicate, just write it down and send it out, via Slack or whatever. People can consume it on their own time.

I'll read it thanks!
Post reply on HN