A Project of One’s Own • Hacker News Board

Re: A Project of One’s Own

#61

Post by Tycho » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 1:42 PM UTC

UncleMeat wrote: post #34

nindalf wrote: post #19

> That's why it's a mistake to insist dogmatically on "work/life balance." Indeed, the mere expression "work/life" embodies a mistake: it assumes work and life are distinct. For those to whom the word "work" automatically implies the dutiful plodding kind, they are. But for the skaters, the relationship between work and life would be better represented by a dash than a slash. So I guess this is what I'll be told the…

Yeah this is horseshit for everybody except maybe founders. I'm selling my labor for money. If I work harder and the company does better, this translates into almost no extra benefits to me, with all of the net benefit going to the owners. I want "work/life balance" because I am being paid for a very specific amount of work and I want my employer to keep its nose out of the rest of my time. At least with a founder th…

You’re not just selling your labour though, you’re cultivating your own career. That’s why people generally advance with more years of experience. You are the 100% majority stake owner in the startup of you.

Re: A Project of One’s Own

#62

Post by bsedlm » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 1:43 PM UTC

mumblemumble wrote: post #55

UncleMeat wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah this is horseshit for everybody except maybe founders. I'm selling my labor for money. If I work harder and the company does better, this translates into almost no extra benefits to me, with all of the net benefit going to the owners. I want "work/life balance" because I am being paid for a very specific amount of work and I want my employer to keep its nose out of the rest of my time. At least with a founder th…

Tangentially to that, I've worked at exactly one place that had a really good profit-sharing system. On paper, everyone had a relatively low salary. But, at the end of the fiscal year, they'd tally up the profits, divide them up among the employees, and cut everyone a check. (Naturally, this was not a publicly-held company, nor was it financially beholden to any venture capitalists. One rarely finds much equity in ex…

sounds like it was a relatively small company, but was it? how many people were there?

Re: A Project of One’s Own

#63

Post by lelanthran » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 1:44 PM UTC

nindalf wrote: post #19

> That's why it's a mistake to insist dogmatically on "work/life balance." Indeed, the mere expression "work/life" embodies a mistake: it assumes work and life are distinct. For those to whom the word "work" automatically implies the dutiful plodding kind, they are. But for the skaters, the relationship between work and life would be better represented by a dash than a slash. So I guess this is what I'll be told the…

Yeah; I recently had a conversation with someone who went off at their manager because their manager said that the company (the second largest in its field in the world) told them that "work-life balance" is not the correct term, the official company policy replaces the term with "work-life integration".

Personally, I probably would have read that manager the riot act for even considering it appropriate to do.

Re: A Project of One’s Own

#64

Post by dunnock » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 1:44 PM UTC

UncleMeat wrote: post #34

nindalf wrote: post #19

> That's why it's a mistake to insist dogmatically on "work/life balance." Indeed, the mere expression "work/life" embodies a mistake: it assumes work and life are distinct. For those to whom the word "work" automatically implies the dutiful plodding kind, they are. But for the skaters, the relationship between work and life would be better represented by a dash than a slash. So I guess this is what I'll be told the…

Yeah this is horseshit for everybody except maybe founders. I'm selling my labor for money. If I work harder and the company does better, this translates into almost no extra benefits to me, with all of the net benefit going to the owners. I want "work/life balance" because I am being paid for a very specific amount of work and I want my employer to keep its nose out of the rest of my time. At least with a founder th…

PG is not saying everyone are skaters, neither convincing everyone to become skaters. There are definitely such people and work-life balance indeed is not as standard for them. Moreover they being hated by people who are just for money on a work as they are raising the bar, but it does not mean they should stop.

I tend to agree it's a part of a character which also can be developed.

Re: A Project of One’s Own

#65

Post by corry » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 1:46 PM UTC

UncleMeat wrote: post #34

nindalf wrote: post #19

> That's why it's a mistake to insist dogmatically on "work/life balance." Indeed, the mere expression "work/life" embodies a mistake: it assumes work and life are distinct. For those to whom the word "work" automatically implies the dutiful plodding kind, they are. But for the skaters, the relationship between work and life would be better represented by a dash than a slash. So I guess this is what I'll be told the…

Yeah this is horseshit for everybody except maybe founders. I'm selling my labor for money. If I work harder and the company does better, this translates into almost no extra benefits to me, with all of the net benefit going to the owners. I want "work/life balance" because I am being paid for a very specific amount of work and I want my employer to keep its nose out of the rest of my time. At least with a founder th…

"this is horseshit for everybody except maybe founders"

Well, who do you think PG's audience is?

A 45-yo welder? A school teacher who loves their job? Or even someone happy at their FAANG job?

This advice isn't meant for them. Like most PG essays, it's obviously meant for people who want to be founders (or already are).

You might think it's dumb. But given he's seen people go out and do this, what, 5,000 times now? (Not sure what the total YC company count is) with some median level of success? He's got something valuable to add.

Perhaps you'd like 10x more qualifiers, 10x more nuance, 10x more comprehensive treatment of ALL potential types of people in his essays.

But he'd be far less effective at reaching his real audience - founders and potential founders.

Re: A Project of One’s Own

#66

Post by tmotwu » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 1:47 PM UTC

mattbrewsbytes wrote: post #44

tmotwu wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People need incentives, and being competitive in school-like activities provides them. Universities have been moving away from evaluating candidates from raw academic or scholastic perspectives. For instance, removing standardized testing from the process. [1,2,3] This has raised concerns and considerable pushback from parents. It raises the uncertainty of admission, even if they raise a child to do everything right…

I was asking how to get kids to explore things where they might find something that sparks them to desire to spend time on "A Project of One's Own". Competition in school or school-like activities is a fabricated incentive that doesn't have anything to do with kids doing what Paul is talking about with "A Project of One's Own". Chasing a GPA leads to a feedback loop akin to "keeping up with the Joneses" and basically…

Where do you find the balance between spending time maximizing your child's entry into a safe and secure future versus entertaining their passions? Not that being passionate about something and school-like activities are mutually exclusive anyway. Anyway, kids are far too young to decide what they want to do, so college is a good time and place for that already. Most students coming in to top universities come in undeclared.

Maybe Paul's kids have that privilege to go down that riskier alternative. For many others, its non existent and frankly, it is tone deaf.

Re: A Project of One’s Own

#67

Post by emc3 » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 1:48 PM UTC

Ugh, PG discounted his earlier works, again.

I can't relate to "workers" (employees) and I haven't been out of the workforce for nearly as long as PG.

Dalio emphasizes the importance of being believable, and I don't believe that PG understands the concept of work/life balance(or "work-life" or whatever).

Disclaimer: @paulg blocked me on Twitter.

Re: A Project of One’s Own

#68

Post by sumeno » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 1:48 PM UTC

nindalf wrote: post #19

> That's why it's a mistake to insist dogmatically on "work/life balance." Indeed, the mere expression "work/life" embodies a mistake: it assumes work and life are distinct. For those to whom the word "work" automatically implies the dutiful plodding kind, they are. But for the skaters, the relationship between work and life would be better represented by a dash than a slash. So I guess this is what I'll be told the…

On the bright side it's better to find out ahead of time. If someone told me this during the hiring process I would immediately end negotiations.

Re: A Project of One’s Own

#69

Post by john61 » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 1:49 PM UTC

Tycho wrote: post #61

UncleMeat wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah this is horseshit for everybody except maybe founders. I'm selling my labor for money. If I work harder and the company does better, this translates into almost no extra benefits to me, with all of the net benefit going to the owners. I want "work/life balance" because I am being paid for a very specific amount of work and I want my employer to keep its nose out of the rest of my time. At least with a founder th…

You’re not just selling your labour though, you’re cultivating your own career. That’s why people generally advance with more years of experience. You are the 100% majority stake owner in the startup of you.

And if you focus on WLB you're cultivating your life, health and family.

Re: A Project of One’s Own

#70

Post by tmotwu » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 1:50 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #45

tmotwu wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People need incentives, and being competitive in school-like activities provides them. Universities have been moving away from evaluating candidates from raw academic or scholastic perspectives. For instance, removing standardized testing from the process. [1,2,3] This has raised concerns and considerable pushback from parents. It raises the uncertainty of admission, even if they raise a child to do everything right…

> being competitive in school-like activities provides them To an extent. I keep wondering, wouldn't it be better if schools/universities were structured as PvE challenges, not PvP ones? Trying to elicit a culture of collaboration, instead of pitting students against each other? I may be strongly biased, because I hate competition outside of games[0], and competitive incentives generally make me stop caring. -- [0] -…

Collaboration and competition are not mutually exclusive. Competition does not always result in self-determination. For instance, people mentor others because they might learn something new themselves or grow their network. Thus, you can enjoy collaborating with others while doing so because of your competitive ambitions.