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Watch a VC use my name to sell a con

jwz.org

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Re: Watch a VC use my name to sell a con

#81

Post by InclinedPlane »

staunch wrote: post #64

It's the height of ridiculousness for someone who retired, at like age 30 to run a nightclub, after working at a startup to say it's a "con". What kind of terrible "con" turns the victim into a millionaire. There are far more startup employees that have become rich than founders or investors. Tens or hundreds of thousands of them. Of course they don't get as much money as the founders or investors, but how is that an…

JWZ acknowledges that he got lucky with the "Netscape Startup Lottery" and is trying to tell people that most employees at most startups won't see the same results. Even if they are world-class genius coders. Even if they put in 80 hour work weeks for several years.

JWZ isn't a good example to emulate because he is a rare example. Patio11 is a better example because there are literally thousands more devs in a similar position. Self-employed, doing well, but not retired and not outrageously wealthy.

Re: Watch a VC use my name to sell a con

#82

Post by SimHacker »

dylangs1030 wrote: post #10
jf wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why you're having trouble reading the page, but here is the text of his blog post: "Normally I just ignore navel-gazing tech-industry articles like this, but people keep sending it to me, so I guess this guy is famous or something. Michael Arrington posted this article, "Startups Are Hard. So Work More, Cry Less, And Quit All The Whining" which quotes extensively from my 1994 diary. He's trying to make the p…

He probably means that the website is reminiscent of the old Yahoo geocities websites - neon colors over a dark (usually black) background, haha. That aside, it's still pretty readable. Besides, the content is worth the eye strain in this case.

Ha ha! We're talking about jwz, and you think Geocities is old.

Re: Watch a VC use my name to sell a con

#83

Post by alexwolfe »

Some good advice and wisdom in this post. Getting rich from a startup is a lottery, I've personally worked for many over the last ten years (most fail). What isn't a lottery is your time and how you use it. If you do something that makes you happy every day, you don't need to win the lottery to be successful. Nice article.

Re: Watch a VC use my name to sell a con

#84

Post by suivix »

dylangs1030 wrote: post #10
jf wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why you're having trouble reading the page, but here is the text of his blog post: "Normally I just ignore navel-gazing tech-industry articles like this, but people keep sending it to me, so I guess this guy is famous or something. Michael Arrington posted this article, "Startups Are Hard. So Work More, Cry Less, And Quit All The Whining" which quotes extensively from my 1994 diary. He's trying to make the p…

He probably means that the website is reminiscent of the old Yahoo geocities websites - neon colors over a dark (usually black) background, haha. That aside, it's still pretty readable. Besides, the content is worth the eye strain in this case.

Maybe the website was designed for Netscape Navigator? :)

Re: Watch a VC use my name to sell a con

#85

Post by DeAngeloLampkin »

9oliYQjP wrote: post #65
dschobel wrote: post #55

I love that this is the top story on HN. I only wish that PG got as much flack for his startup economics hype piece[1] and proposition to compress a lifetime's worth of work effort into four years. [1] http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html

I've not seen eye to eye with PG on everything he has written. But this particular essay is one of my favourites of his. PG laid out an upper bound, which he later clarifies: "If $3 million a year seems high, remember that we're talking about the limit case: the case where you not only have zero leisure time but indeed work so hard that you endanger your health." And his upper limit for hours worked was 2x that of a…

Overall, I loved the "Wealth" essay. I do wonder though if Paul ever considers that the same thing he says about Bill Gates' success could also be said about his own.

"Bill Gates is a smart, determined, and hardworking man, but you need more than that to make as much money as he has. You also need to be very lucky."

Or perhaps PG thinks his personal success is based purely off his own brilliance with no helpful outside factors needed (i.e. competitor blunders, etc)? :)

Re: Watch a VC use my name to sell a con

#86

Post by InclinedPlane »

mike_esspe wrote: post #76

What do you care about someone becoming rich due to your work, if you are becoming rich too? Let's consider two situations: 1) You work X hours, paid Y dollars for that 2) You work 2 * X hours, paid 100 * Y dollars for that, and some VC is paid 1000 * Y dollars. Should you chose the first?

The point that JWZ is making is that you are by no means guaranteed getting rich, or anywhere close to getting rich by following the "work your ass off as a startup employee" advice that Arrington seems to be providing. It is a pretty sure-fire way to generation substantial ROI for VCs, but it's not a good strategy for coders. Indeed, overall it is probably a less worthwhile strategy than punching a clock to the barest minimum of requirements to earn a salary and then using the remaining free time to acquire new skills (technical or otherwise) or work on personal projects (like one's own startups).

Re: Watch a VC use my name to sell a con

#87

Post by EGreg »

walkon wrote: post #74
EGreg wrote: post #62

This is the comment I left on Uncrunched: (PS: if you feel inclined to downvote, cool -- but I would like to know the reason. Maybe you can reply and tell me why you seem to disagree.) LOL Mike. Our company gets things done without having to live like slaves. There is a reason http://qbix.com/about has pictures of all of us in nature. It’s subtle but it all fits together with our company’s vision. We want to have fun…

Nice plug.

Not really a plug - just proud of what we are doing. Actually from a strictly selfish point of view I'd rather have kept it a secret and not said anything, because the more people realize how much talent is out there without geographical boundaries, the harder it'll be for us to hire. But at the same time we really do like our freedom, including freedom of information, and we want to lead by example.

Think of it this way ... the guys at 37signals always have their own vision and culture that they are pushing. We have the culture of freedom, enjoying life, getting things done, and making smart tools that empower people to get things done better, have control over their data and liberate them from having to waste their time on the computer. We are proud to be a company that is able to take advantage of the latest opportunity that is out there ... to get work done without all the nonsense, and to still have time to enjoy our lives!

Re: Watch a VC use my name to sell a con

#88

Post by EGreg »

suivix wrote: post #80
EGreg wrote: post #62

This is the comment I left on Uncrunched: (PS: if you feel inclined to downvote, cool -- but I would like to know the reason. Maybe you can reply and tell me why you seem to disagree.) LOL Mike. Our company gets things done without having to live like slaves. There is a reason http://qbix.com/about has pictures of all of us in nature. It’s subtle but it all fits together with our company’s vision. We want to have fun…

I think being able to work from anywhere is actually less liberating, because it means you're always battling internally about whether you should be working or not.

If you love what you do, then you will be thinking about doing it. In fact, the problem is often that you are thinking about it when you are expected to be having fun - because you're out with people.

That's when you know you love your work.

But anyway -- I mean it when I say: people live lives, companies create products. A person can devote only 10-20 hours and still be productive. If you write documentation in a common framework, and you have a common process for everyone, then the developers have an easier time picking up whether others left off, and working together. In a word: better encapsulation. I think Google had this back in the day with their interchangeable desks/developers :P

Re: Watch a VC use my name to sell a con

#89

Post by InclinedPlane »

aspensmonster wrote: post #19

> What _is_ true is that for a VC's business model to work, it's necessary for _you_ to give up _your_ life in order for _him_ to become richer. Isn't this more or less the case for any profits-go-to-owners business model? Or rather, any business model where employees are viewed as calculated costs and not owners worthy of a commiserate portion of the profit? I've often wondered how a different ownership model would…

There's a difference between putting in 40 hr work-weeks doing solid work and putting in 80 hr work-weeks giving your entire life over to a project for years at a time. If you aren't compensated for the latter with the ability to retire or move up the salary ladder quite a few steps then you probably got screwed.

Re: Watch a VC use my name to sell a con

#90

Post by [deleted] »

EGreg wrote: post #88
suivix wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think being able to work from anywhere is actually less liberating, because it means you're always battling internally about whether you should be working or not.

If you love what you do, then you will be thinking about doing it. In fact, the problem is often that you are thinking about it when you are expected to be having fun - because you're out with people. That's when you know you love your work. But anyway -- I mean it when I say: people live lives, companies create products. A person can devote only 10-20 hours and still be productive. If you write documentation in a co…

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