Humans are not designed to: 1) Stay long hours sitted, immobile. It ruins your health. 2) To provide a steady high quality output in creative disciplines (writing code qualifies) for more than a 4/5 hours a day (add to this the time to do breaks, install your updates, check news sites, fix the email client, and you'll reach the 7/8 hours per day figure). It makes sense in a startup to work hard in crucial weeks, you…
This may be slightly off topic, but for solving #1 a standing desk is a great idea. My energy levels have improved dramatically and I've also lost some weight since I got my standing desk.
Humans are not designed to: 1) Stay long hours sitted, immobile. It ruins your health. 2) To provide a steady high quality output in creative disciplines (writing code qualifies) for more than a 4/5 hours a day (add to this the time to do breaks, install your updates, check news sites, fix the email client, and you'll reach the 7/8 hours per day figure). It makes sense in a startup to work hard in crucial weeks, you…
> 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…
>> 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?
Not necessarily. There are plenty of businesses where the principal owners are working just as hard as the "regular" employees, and don't just sit in on a board meeting once a month.
>>Follow the fucking money. When a VC tells you what's good for you, check your wallet, then count your fingers. This is just gold.
It struck me more as simple than gold. If a VC that invested in a company gives them advice then obviously his goal is to make more money... but that goal will, in turn make you more money too. If you don't like the fact that a VC has the potential to make more money than you, the solution is to not take investment from one, not to ignore them after they take investment. Also remember that yes, they're not putting in…
But what is not obvious is that the VC might not care if _your_ company is the one that makes him money. Remember that VCs are managing a portfolio of companies, in order to spread their risk. The VC might decide that your company is in the part of their portfolio that won't go big, and so they won't give it any more but the bare minimum of attention.
I already mentioned in one of the threads below. Our work as software professionals today is more dependent on productivity not intelligence. We are quickly assimilating in to normal crowd. We may even be judged by the same metrics they are.
For all those people who are not getting it. Today success of most software shops is about business innovation not technology innovation. Yes there are instances of Google and other big web giants innovating greatly in the technology area. But they amount to less than 1% of the software crowd. We are all writing software to solve business problems. We are not writing software for Software innovation. Unless you are d…
I am not sure whether you have ever worked at a startup or not. Your understanding of current software development is what big software service companies do with mediocre programmers. Startups never have army of programmers but few intelligent programmers. And there is nothing bad in using IDE, innovation does not mean to write a solution from scratch. There will always be need of abstraction based on current libraries and programming environment.
Humans are not designed to: 1) Stay long hours sitted, immobile. It ruins your health. 2) To provide a steady high quality output in creative disciplines (writing code qualifies) for more than a 4/5 hours a day (add to this the time to do breaks, install your updates, check news sites, fix the email client, and you'll reach the 7/8 hours per day figure). It makes sense in a startup to work hard in crucial weeks, you…
It seems to me that Arrington does not realise that managing coders is not the same as managing journos on a blog. Maybe writers can churn and churn while working miserable hours for years on end. It does not work that way in coding. One hour of coding without thinking carefully can have a large negative contribution to your company's ability to meet its goals, by way of causing bad architectural decisions, bugs, and…
I highly doubt writers can work the same way. Anyone doing any type of creative work needs these types of breaks. Similarly, one article published without adequate editing/fact-checking can do wonders to destroy the credibility of a blog...
That half-arsed stuff in the middle is called living, and it's the only way you can do this sustainably. Startups are like going to Hollywood. Your goal might be to become as successful as Clooney, but that's not likely to work out. Still, if you're talented & dedicated, you can make a living in this industry and enjoy it. I've been working for startups for the past 12 years. I won't be a millionaire even if my curre…
I'm talking about half-arsed work or time-wasting, not what I enjoy of my life - sorry if that wasn't clear. Living in a rut is little better, in my experience. This year I have worked on more side projects than I can handle, I've worked through the night and had brutal weeks at my own business, I've done a lot of socialising and I've spent almost three months of the year overseas on holiday. I hope to work harder an…
Please don't take my comment as criticism - I used to do the same when I started out, and it was a lot of fun. Definitely an experience worth going through. I was just referring to the longer term, so that people new to this field won't get the impression we all sleep under our desks till retirement :) Good luck with your startup/s!
Afraid not (afraid I don't know, not you're wrong) - how does a VC make money if a company they invested in goes bust and shuts down?
VCs invest money from so-called limited partners: universities, pension funds, wealthy families, etc. They're partners in the VC firm by dint of providing money, but they don't get operational control of deals. The fee structure of a VC firm is similar to that of a hedge fund: they take a management fee (based on the committed fund size) and a performance fee (based on the profits, if any, from investing). Typical nu…
True but maybe not so significant. Without hits the VC can't raise the next fund. Fees are real but I'm not sure they drive model or the viewpoint.
IMO the larger divergence of interest is investment of time. Financial risks can be diversified or hedged, but there is no protection against lost time.
Humans are not designed to: 1) Stay long hours sitted, immobile. It ruins your health. 2) To provide a steady high quality output in creative disciplines (writing code qualifies) for more than a 4/5 hours a day (add to this the time to do breaks, install your updates, check news sites, fix the email client, and you'll reach the 7/8 hours per day figure). It makes sense in a startup to work hard in crucial weeks, you…
This may be slightly off topic, but for solving #1 a standing desk is a great idea. My energy levels have improved dramatically and I've also lost some weight since I got my standing desk.
If the human body isn't built for sitting 8 hours a day, I'm damn sure its not made for standing 8 hours a day (not mine at least!)
It seems to me that Arrington does not realise that managing coders is not the same as managing journos on a blog. Maybe writers can churn and churn while working miserable hours for years on end. It does not work that way in coding. One hour of coding without thinking carefully can have a large negative contribution to your company's ability to meet its goals, by way of causing bad architectural decisions, bugs, and…
I highly doubt writers can work the same way. Anyone doing any type of creative work needs these types of breaks. Similarly, one article published without adequate editing/fact-checking can do wonders to destroy the credibility of a blog...
I agree, but maybe this would explain why most TechCrunch articles are so bad.