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

All or something (2009)

37signals.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 70 posts

Re: All or something (2009)

#41

Post by jriddycuz »

pg wrote: post #28

"One of the most pervasive myths of startup life is that it has to be all consuming." This supposed myth long precedes startups. If you look at the outliers in any field, you'll find many if not most are by ordinary people's standards excessively dedicated to their work. Isaac Newton and Michelangelo (to name just two of thousands of examples) were notorious for neglecting everything except their work. The fact that…

I would agree that to be counted among your "thousands of examples" of outliers, one would have to be obsessively dedicated. Not everyone wants to be a Newton or a Da Vinci though. And there is nothing wrong with that. FogCreek and 37signals are certainly nowhere near as publicly visible as many SV startups, but they are successful and they became that way without the extreme levels of energy that SV startups seem to demand.

Now those firms and their ilk may not fit your definition of "startup", but they are still ex nihilo undertakings that have been able to supply some very demanding consumers. They'll never be as sexy as the Valley kids, but their continued existence serves as ample evidence of their validity. And in that sense, it is a myth that startups must be all-consuming.

Re: All or something (2009)

#42

Post by pg »

portman wrote: post #35
pg wrote: post #28

"One of the most pervasive myths of startup life is that it has to be all consuming." This supposed myth long precedes startups. If you look at the outliers in any field, you'll find many if not most are by ordinary people's standards excessively dedicated to their work. Isaac Newton and Michelangelo (to name just two of thousands of examples) were notorious for neglecting everything except their work. The fact that…

Paul, Now that you're a parent, I'm curious if your opinion has changed (or will change in the coming years). For example, do you think you could have built ViaWeb if you had had children at that time? Is it possible to "neglect everything except your work AND your family", and still have the same probability of success a your childless doppleganger, who neglects everything except work?

Before I had kids, I knew that having kids made it harder to do great work. What I didn't understand was the way it happens. Before I had kids, I thought of kids as a distracting responsibility. Now I realize that the reason kids take up so much of your time is that you enjoy spending time with them.

So for me at least the answer is not merely that I can't focus on work to the degree I used to, but that I wouldn't want to.

Re: All or something (2009)

#43

Post by abstractbill »

jriddycuz wrote: post #41
pg wrote: post #28

"One of the most pervasive myths of startup life is that it has to be all consuming." This supposed myth long precedes startups. If you look at the outliers in any field, you'll find many if not most are by ordinary people's standards excessively dedicated to their work. Isaac Newton and Michelangelo (to name just two of thousands of examples) were notorious for neglecting everything except their work. The fact that…

I would agree that to be counted among your "thousands of examples" of outliers, one would have to be obsessively dedicated. Not everyone wants to be a Newton or a Da Vinci though. And there is nothing wrong with that. FogCreek and 37signals are certainly nowhere near as publicly visible as many SV startups, but they are successful and they became that way without the extreme levels of energy that SV startups seem to…

Now those firms and their ilk may not fit your definition of "startup"...

This whole debate seems to hinge on the definition of "startup". I'd be interested in historical evidence to back-up or refute the claim 37signals makes: Has the meaning of "startup" actually been hijacked? Or has it always meant what pg (and wikipedia) say it does?

Re: All or something (2009)

#44

Post by martincmartin »

pg wrote: post #28

"One of the most pervasive myths of startup life is that it has to be all consuming." This supposed myth long precedes startups. If you look at the outliers in any field, you'll find many if not most are by ordinary people's standards excessively dedicated to their work. Isaac Newton and Michelangelo (to name just two of thousands of examples) were notorious for neglecting everything except their work. The fact that…

This is the old "working harder vs. smarter" dilemma. When you're looking who to fund/hire, or what kind of culture to build, you can either attract people who work smarter or work harder, or both.

Working smarter is like finding an algorithm with a better time complexity. I was recently on a project where we could do it using The Architecture Going Forward That Is Always The Right Answer To Every Question, or the pragmatic way. I argued for the pragmatic way, but lost. February is the 1 year anniversary of this project. It has fallen far short of our goals, and we're now undoing the Grand Architecture way and implementing the pragmatic way, which is almost done and would have only taken 3-4 months, to achieve better software performance.

Working harder is like improving the constant: if you spend 80 hours instead of 40 hours, maybe you can get 20-40% more done.

Of course, it's great if you can get both. Working harder AND smarter. And there are a handful of people who do that. But not many, and you can't build a company full of them. Also, once people have had a lot more experience, and gained the ability to see the pitfalls before they step in them, they tend to want different things out of life, like, not working crazy hours. So you really have to choose.

My favourite movie of all time is Kurasawa's The Seven Samurai. In the movie, a very experienced Samurai has to put together a team quickly, so the "job interview" starts with the candidate walking to a room where someone tries to hit him with a pole. The first candidate is inexperienced but very talented. He parries the blow. The second candidate, as he's walking up to the room and before he could possibly see the assailant, somehow senses him and avoids the situation entirely.

I'd pick the second guy over the first guy any day.

Re: All or something (2009)

#45

Post by [deleted] »

pg wrote: post #28

"One of the most pervasive myths of startup life is that it has to be all consuming." This supposed myth long precedes startups. If you look at the outliers in any field, you'll find many if not most are by ordinary people's standards excessively dedicated to their work. Isaac Newton and Michelangelo (to name just two of thousands of examples) were notorious for neglecting everything except their work. The fact that…

[deleted]

Re: All or something (2009)

#46

Post by jriddycuz »

abstractbill wrote: post #43
jriddycuz wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would agree that to be counted among your "thousands of examples" of outliers, one would have to be obsessively dedicated. Not everyone wants to be a Newton or a Da Vinci though. And there is nothing wrong with that. FogCreek and 37signals are certainly nowhere near as publicly visible as many SV startups, but they are successful and they became that way without the extreme levels of energy that SV startups seem to…

Now those firms and their ilk may not fit your definition of "startup"... This whole debate seems to hinge on the definition of "startup". I'd be interested in historical evidence to back-up or refute the claim 37signals makes: Has the meaning of "startup" actually been hijacked? Or has it always meant what pg (and wikipedia) say it does?

Startup companies can come in all forms, but the phrase "startup company" is often associated with high growth, technology oriented companies. -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Startup_company

This seems to be a reasonably good description of what the word means and what it is commonly associated with. You can call practically any young firm a startup, but it does most commonly refer to PG's definition. Like DHH said in the post, "starting a business" just does not have the near-mythical connotations "startup" has, but those connotations are result of the stories that typical startup culture provides. I don't think there's a way to make "starting a sustainable business" sound sexy because it's not a very sexy idea. And perhaps people with a spouse and kids shouldn't worry too much about how sexy an idea is, but rather how valuable it is.

Re: All or something (2009)

#47

Post by soosh »

pg wrote: post #42
portman wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paul, Now that you're a parent, I'm curious if your opinion has changed (or will change in the coming years). For example, do you think you could have built ViaWeb if you had had children at that time? Is it possible to "neglect everything except your work AND your family", and still have the same probability of success a your childless doppleganger, who neglects everything except work?

Before I had kids, I knew that having kids made it harder to do great work. What I didn't understand was the way it happens. Before I had kids, I thought of kids as a distracting responsibility. Now I realize that the reason kids take up so much of your time is that you enjoy spending time with them. So for me at least the answer is not merely that I can't focus on work to the degree I used to, but that I wouldn't wa…

That much is true. I guess you're lucky with your son. My daughter sleeps so badly I've discovered a new side of my wife called "apocalyptic night mommy".

Re: All or something (2009)

#48

Post by billpatrianakos »

phamilton wrote: post #3
billpatrianakos wrote: post #2

I've been critical of seeing so many 37Signals posts around here lately but this one really is a true gem! He's right, there's this idea that you just have to work 24/7 and have no life to be a success. Businesses aren't cool but startups are. What's the difference? These days the difference is one is cool and the other isn't. One makes you think of the 20-something hipster genius loner hacker and the other makes you…

Business => J-O-B Job seems to be a four letter word in some circles...

I never thought of it that way. At first I didn't know what the hell you we're talking about because of the whole 25 hour a day work schedule people seem to think is necessary for startups but then I realized a lot of people, in some circles like you say, do a startup to avoid real work. I'm not saying a statup isnt real work, just that there is a group of people I've seen who go into some half baked startup idea because they seem to think if you call it a startup it's an excuse to play all day with personal projects that have no business model and hope to god the magic VC fairy will come to visit them one day.

Re: All or something (2009)

#49

Post by chaostheory »

"Most people will look at that and say that’s not me. I don’t have 110% to give. I have a family, I have a mortgage, I have other interests. Where’s my place in the startup world if all I have to give is 60%? What can putting in part-time give?"

If you work full time for a software company, you will probably not be legally allowed to give 60% depending on your contract. I know a lot of my friends tend not to read them before signing. Of course this doesn't apply if you don't do a software start up while working for a software company.

Re: All or something (2009)

#50

Post by huggyface »

pg wrote: post #28

"One of the most pervasive myths of startup life is that it has to be all consuming." This supposed myth long precedes startups. If you look at the outliers in any field, you'll find many if not most are by ordinary people's standards excessively dedicated to their work. Isaac Newton and Michelangelo (to name just two of thousands of examples) were notorious for neglecting everything except their work. The fact that…

This supposed myth long precedes startups.

The myth he talks about is specifically startup life, so it can't possibly precede it. It is perhaps a bit aggrandizing to compare, for instance, the general day to day operation of Stack Exchange or Reddit or any other "startup" style site with two of the greatest in human history.

There are a lot of very successful organizations and individuals who don't commit themselves to the demonstration of heroic effort. You don't hear about them because heroics is a nice narrative, and the lack of heroics is seldom worthy of mention.

Post reply on HN