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No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

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

#441

Post by capableweb »

ElFitz wrote: post #436
capableweb wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure where the company nor the employees are based, but it does seem ridiculously high and probably more than what 90% of the people in this world earns while working full-time. With that high salary and low amount of hours, I would personally feel bad, as the contrast against my peers and people around me would be too high.

But then you’d also be able to afford spending it helping your community and giving some to local or non-local charities Heck; I’ve always thought that the first thing I’d do after winning the lottery would be paying off my parents’ mortgage ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (disclaimer: haven’t won yet)

Indeed I could, but I much rather hire two co-workers and cut my salary is three pieces and give them one piece each, if it would come to that. Life's more than money and people jump on the chance to do something they find is meaningful.

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

#442

Post by kjakm »

grapehut wrote: post #341
rattray wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

waiting lists "can be long" – it's time to stop parroting these misleading statements. They can be, if your test/operation isn't urgent. Urgent things are treated right away. Frankly, as an American, I think we have shit quality of health service, based on the insurance cos' red tape and restrictions and paperwork alone. Getting healthcare in this country is a bureaucratic nightmare. Maybe the docs and meds and tests…

My friend in Vancouver had lung xray show up something weird and the doctor scheduled her for an MRI. The appointment was in 7 months. Instead she got the MRI in a private clinic for a pretty reasonable cost and came back with the results for her doctor. If that's not indicative of something broken, then I don't know what to tell you.

What were the results? If it was a serious issue that needed treated urgently there is a problem. If it was not then she was prioritised correctly and there's no issue.

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

#443

Post by Jedd »

rablackburn wrote: post #283
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…

> Imaging paying 10%+ of your salary just for health insurance I decided to actually look at my budget from the last year and see how this compares to my costs. In Australia I pay about ~28% of my salary in tax. 2% is for medicare, and I have private health insurance on top of that for roughly the same cost again (for dental, which isn't covered in our system because of dentists lobbying an exception back in the 80s)…

> In Australia I pay about ~28% of my salary in tax. 2% is for medicare ...

This is a common misunderstanding in Australia.

The Medicare levy, as it's called, is an administration levy, not a 'this all goes to healthcare, and healthcare is only funded by this' tax.

Originally set in 1984 at 1% and guaranteed to never to go up , it is now at 2%.

(Aside - within two years it was raised to 1.25%, then in 1993 bumped to 1.4%, in 1995 raised to 1.5%, in 1996 the Howard government set a temporary increase to 1.7% (ostensibly related to gun control costs) which did drop back in to 1.5% the following year, but in 1999 there was an attempt to bump it up again to 'cover the costs of our military involvement in East Timor' - this didn't happen, but it speaks volumes. In 2010 we suffered the regrettable corruption of 'if you earn more than ~$100k AUD you will pay an additional 1.25-1.5% unless you buy private health insurance'. Further fiddling got us to where we are now. Much sad.)

Point being it's incorrect, and quite misleading, to assert that 2% of your salary 'is for medicare', as a simple breakdown for public health shows that, per-dollar, it's somewhere in the range of 10-25%, though because money is fungible, budgets are intentionally fuzzy, and definitions of healthcare somewhat flexible, an exact figure isn't easy to determine.

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

#444

Post by _blu »

coffee wrote: post #235
paxys wrote: post #39

I work for a large SaaS company with hundreds of engineers and a very healthy revenue. It's widely acknowledged that the company would continue to function exactly as it is now for a very long time if they fired 95% of the staff. Heck stability and uptime would probably improve due to fewer deployments/no new feature adds. So the graph with declining expenses and increasing revenue isn't at all surprising. The proble…

> if a competitor takes interest in your space and has a large war chest, you'd be powerless to compete with them If that were true, every single company that had more money to spend would always win. But that's not what's observable. There seem to be other factors at play that don't always center around money. > no new company that starts with the environment you are describing is going to be successful. That would…

no, because the point is that the company has fundamentally changed it's structure. So it would be hard to create new features when they lack a culture for doing that

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

#445

Post by BlargMcLarg »

pc86 wrote: post #432
philmcp wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think if managed correctly the second option is more than achievable for a software development team. I agree it doesn't work for all industries / jobs (e.g. support staff etc), but for the majority of technical positions, I think the gain in productivity and saving in salary will more than make up for these inconveniences. I also think it will make the recruitment of developers easier as you'll be offering a benef…

I'm sure some people will disagree but working less for less money isn't seen as a benefit to me, especially in the US where there may be healthcare implications. And as others have said, given static overhead you're more likely to earn less per hour. You're likely better off going contract and having a higher hourly rate and just billing less, but that has its own set of difficulties. The real benefit I've seen very…

I both agree and disagree. Disagree as this implicitly assumes working 40 hours won't produce relatively more negative feedback on one's personal life than a 32 hour week would. Once you start accounting for that, the "net loss" story becomes a lot more vague.

Given if the requirement was "you really have to work this number of hours to get that total income", I would prefer longer days + fewer days over the 9-5 mentality most countries have. Unfortunately, the last time I requested 9x4, it got denied. Let alone more extreme variants, 4x10, 3x10 or 3x12. Ironic, since 4x10 would also have less overhead, despite still being a 40h workweek.

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

#446

Post by jonp888 »

ativzzz wrote: post #172
shafyy wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your underlying assumption is that companies where employees work more hours are more successful on the market place. I would say this is a deeply flawed assumption.

If two equally capable entities are competing, the one who puts in more time will almost always win. The Chinese may be lacking the (social and physical) infrastructure that the Europeans have a head start on for productivity, but they are catching up or have already caught up. This probably applies less to big conglomerates who exist and will continue existing regardless of what happens (honestly most of their emplo…

For building infrastructure or manufacturing, probably yes, but not for innovation.

Anyone being forced to work under the conditions you describe is probably too terrified to do anything more than iteratively replicate existing foreign designs.

You can't force innovation by locking people in a dungeon and screaming "INNOVATE!" at them until they succeed.

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

#447

Post by hobby-coder-guy »

callmeed wrote: post #280
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…

> 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…

Why the hell do Americans rely on their employer for health care? It’s so fucking dumb.

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

#448

Post by wreath »

geggo98 wrote: post #428
wreath wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Imagine paying 10%+ of your salary just for health insurance. In Germany it's 14% that is split between you and your employer, so I guess you'd have to all of that on your own if you are self-employed. Granted, you can also choose to have a private health insurance which will seem cheaper but gets outrageously expensive with ages and it is very very difficult to get back to statutory insurance.

To my understanding this plan should include the spouse and any number of kids up to the age of of 23 (age limit for the kids, not for the spouse of course). Dental care and eye care might be a bit limited in these kinds of plans. This means that you have to pay extra if you want more then the medical necessary minimum.

That's exactly right. It seems that your experience with health care will also depend on where you live in Germany.

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

#449

Post by kasey_junk »

lostcolony wrote: post #349
brianwawok wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then by that note, premature optimization doesn’t imply excess complexity nor effort. So we have gone in a complete circle and conveyed nothing.

Pretty sure that doesn't logically scan. If it doesn't imply excess complexity nor effort, it's not premature to optimize it. Why write the inefficient algorithm when you remember the efficient one, and it's no more effort? But if an optimization will imply excess complexity or effort, and you aren't sure it's needed, it's premature. Worrying about load when you have 3 users is almost assuredly premature. Not to say…

Premature optimization is extremely subjective. You can’t actually make any decisions based on it because the data you need to know if it’s premature is in the future.

Conversely we know you can’t make an unscalable design scalable after the fact. You may be able to do micro optimizations of hotspots or fix the egregiously bad parts but you’ve painted yourself into a corner.

The good news is that most scalable architectures are simpler and better in most other facets of the design so it’s largely a false dichotomy.

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

#450

Post by wrsh07 »

solatic wrote: post #381
wrsh07 wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 "ble…

I suspect setting the bar at 20h sends a reasonably strong signal.

Even if people do overwork, they should only do it with that as a baseline, which should keep anyone from 80 hour workweeks far away (why would I work there for 80h/week when Netflix would pay me 2-4x for that much work?)

You might see people working 40h/week but I'm not seeing why that is bad for the company or culture.

I think you're pushing at "there will be people who really want a pay raise and they will work long hours to get it" but I honestly just don't see that happening. It only happens if it's rewarded, and they've set up what seems to be a strong culture that motivates people to not work too much.

It seems like their current culture consists of people who don't want to be defined by their work. The post notes this explicitly.

If the employees will overwork, I suspect it will be on their side projects, and more power to them

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