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

Jack Dorsey does 8 hours at Twitter, 8 hours at Square daily

thenextweb.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 139 posts

Re: Jack Dorsey does 8 hours at Twitter, 8 hours at Square daily

#91

Post by gws »

antirez wrote: post #51

Jack Dorsey does 8 hours at Twitter, 8 hours at Square, 0 hours at life, daily. In other words Jack is free to do whatever he likes, but it is not a good example for most of us. I'll cite a very short poetry by a Sicilian poet called Salvatore Quasimodo: "Everyone stands alone on the heart of the earth / transfixed by a ray of sunshine / and it is suddenly night"

Having lived in Italy and the US I can tell you there is a cultural divide that makes these verses very hard to grasp that side of the Atlantic. This translation in English is beautiful though

Re: Jack Dorsey does 8 hours at Twitter, 8 hours at Square daily

#92

Post by Cl4rity »

Why is everyone complaining that this isn't a lifestyle to idolize or emulate when the resounding sentiment here is that it isn't a lifestyle to IDOLIZE OR EMULATE?

We get it. I get it. You get it. Everyone gets it. I think plenty of the commenters here do a damn fine job of trivializing other readers' intelligence.

I'm also certain that Jack Dorsey doesn't work 16-hour days for the attention. We didn't know this up until now, and Twitter and Square have been running just fine. That's what matters, and if Dorsey feels like putting in that much time is necessary, so be it. If he burns out, he'll burn out; if he doesn't, good for him.

Re: Jack Dorsey does 8 hours at Twitter, 8 hours at Square daily

#93

Post by run4yourlives »

rokhayakebe wrote: post #57
run4yourlives wrote: post #41

Good for him. Regardless of whether or not it's sustainable, I simply do not want that type of lifestyle. If I'm not as "successful" because of that, so be it.

I simply do not want that type of lifestyle What kind of lifestyle do you want? When given the chance, most entrepreneurs will work 16 hours on their company. If you only had 8 hours, you may be more likely to do a better job at managing your time/tasks.

>What kind of lifestyle do you want?

A balanced one. I already spend a vast majority of my waking hours focused on "work". I also have my kids, my wife and other leisure activities that I find make my life worth living.

Given these pieces of life, which most entrepreneurs have - most entrepreneurs will not want to work 16 hours a day on their companies.

Re: Jack Dorsey does 8 hours at Twitter, 8 hours at Square daily

#94

Post by ethank »

tryitnow wrote: post #73

Unfortunately, I think a lot of people may miss the most useful point of this article: blocking out days by themes as a productivity booster. The big headline is about working 16 hours days, but that headline grabber will distract from the most useful nugget of information: how he does it. The really cool thing about this article is theme-blocking his days. Has anyone tried that? If so, how has it worked?

Because of the tuesday-tuesday nature of the record business, working at a label necessitated this.

Monday->Engineering maintenance for records. Lots of email blasts and such, site maintenance.

Tuesday - Release day, also radio promo meetings. Executive meeting

Wednesday - Marketing meeting. This was when results of the last week's sales were finalized so also reconciling retail with stats and such.

Thursday - typically a big launch day for us.

Friday - clean up, product dev work, department stuff. It was a 0 launch day.

Re: Jack Dorsey does 8 hours at Twitter, 8 hours at Square daily

#96

Post by ahoyhere »

bbhacker wrote: post #86

I think Jack Dorsey is doing an amazing job and it is extraordinary what he has shown at Twitter and Square. That being said, what we are seeing here is basically "story telling" and "legend building" in action. The same happened when Jeff Immelt took over GE and The story was "Look at that guy! The hardest working GE employee, putting in 100 hours a week. What a leader!" (you can Google it). While I believe that Jac…

You're right. It's called hagiography -- a term HNers would do well to learn.

Re: Jack Dorsey does 8 hours at Twitter, 8 hours at Square daily

#97

Post by ahoyhere »

pxlpshr wrote: post #4

Four-hour work week? Work smarter, not harder? I just don't buy those kind of ideologies if you really believe your idea will change the world. If you want a lifestyle business that provides for you and your next of kin, more power to you. And if that's the route you take, please stop trying to convenience everyone your path to enlightenment is the right way. For awhile, I found that whole movement to be quasi-religi…

"Lifestyle business" is a strawman argument.

The fact is, all -- ALL -- the research on work effectiveness & work-related health shows that this kind of work schedule is terrible. Not only do you stop working effectively after a few hours (you only get the illusion of still being sharp), it's terrible for your body.

Re: Jack Dorsey does 8 hours at Twitter, 8 hours at Square daily

#98

Post by davidhansen »

shad0wfax wrote: post #40

I am not surprised or in awe that he is putting in 16 hours a day. Every passionate founder would likely be doing it. I am sure most of us have heard Steve Job's on how building a company is usually a 18x7 work-week. What I am in awe and admiration is that he is managing two companies and in this case two completely different ones by nature! A rule generally accepted in the startup land is that you don't work on mult…

A rule generally accepted in the startup land is that you don't work on multiple ideas

Interesting. I have not heard this before. As it stands, I have always worked on multiple projects for as long as I can remember. My current main company started out as a side project, for example.

Is there a canonical reference or blog post that the startup community refers to, to elucidate the reasons for one-project focus?

Re: Jack Dorsey does 8 hours at Twitter, 8 hours at Square daily

#99

Post by robryan »

billpatrianakos wrote: post #47
blhack wrote: post #18

Poor guy, someday I hope he doesn't have to do that. It makes me a little sick to see some people idolize this.

Agreed. We all have to remember we're not Jack Dorsey. A year ago I might have actually tried to emulate this. Experience tells me unless it's coming naturally it's a kamikaze mission. I totally respect mr. Dorsey, I just hope to god the naive don't get a hold of this article and start copying the 16 hour work day part.

It depends on timespan, if he thinks that doing this for a short time will be a big plus for both companies then it could be an okay trade off.

Re: Jack Dorsey does 8 hours at Twitter, 8 hours at Square daily

#100

Post by jasoncrawford »

antirez wrote: post #51

Jack Dorsey does 8 hours at Twitter, 8 hours at Square, 0 hours at life, daily. In other words Jack is free to do whatever he likes, but it is not a good example for most of us. I'll cite a very short poetry by a Sicilian poet called Salvatore Quasimodo: "Everyone stands alone on the heart of the earth / transfixed by a ray of sunshine / and it is suddenly night"

I've heard Jack talk about his work--I think it is his life. He loves what he does. Don't demean that by saying he has no life.
Post reply on HN