Live data from Hacker News

A day in the life of a CEO

ryancarson.com

21–30 of 93 posts

Re: A day in the life of a CEO

#21

> @ryancarson can you blog about how you spend your day running your biz? What biz activities do you focus on now that the product is up? The person on Twitter clearly asks about the business . The author then proceeds to write 18 points about his day, only five of which are actually about the business, including some gems like, "Crank through todos" . Does this guy think he's a celebrity or something? Why am I inter…

That's a bit generous, 'todos' appears in four different points during the day, the specifics he gives are that he chats with Alan, goes to meetings, thinks about the company, communicates, and researches solutions.

Re: A day in the life of a CEO

#22
CEO's say how busy they are, but it seems like most execution is handled by people below the CEO. So I'm left wondering what are specific tasks that are the right level to keep the CEO so busy?

The author had a great chance to address this... but all we're told is "meetings" and "todo list."

Re: A day in the life of a CEO

#23

> @ryancarson can you blog about how you spend your day running your biz? What biz activities do you focus on now that the product is up? The person on Twitter clearly asks about the business . The author then proceeds to write 18 points about his day, only five of which are actually about the business, including some gems like, "Crank through todos" . Does this guy think he's a celebrity or something? Why am I inter…

> Why am I interested in his personal life whatsoever ?

Give Ryan a break. Running a startup and balancing that with personal / family life is a huge question for many entrepreneurs, and I for one am pleased to see Ryan being candid about it.

Glossing over the "Crank through todos" section is fine with me too - These are likely different day-to-day, and I'd rather he painted a picture of how he steers the company, than get bogged down in company internals.

Besides, if you want to know specifics just ask him (he hangs out here), rather than acting like a douche.

Re: A day in the life of a CEO

#24

> @ryancarson can you blog about how you spend your day running your biz? What biz activities do you focus on now that the product is up? The person on Twitter clearly asks about the business . The author then proceeds to write 18 points about his day, only five of which are actually about the business, including some gems like, "Crank through todos" . Does this guy think he's a celebrity or something? Why am I inter…

I think you're being unfair.

1. The person on Twitter doesn't exclusively ask Ryan about the business. He specifically asks how he spends his day. Even if the asker wanted to know more about the business and less about his day, Ryan's response is appropriate given how the question was phrased.

2. Ryan does talk about which business activities he focuses on. He specifically mentions how he used to handle newsletters, wireframes, support emails, and marketing plans but now focuses on strategy, product, and team communication.

3. Ryan is a CEO of a venture-backed company and people, including ones on HN, are sometimes interested in the lives of people like him, both the personal and professional aspects. The personal details he shared helped me understand how he's able to maintain work-life balance, notwithstanding the demands of a CEO, which I find personally useful.

4. As to your complaint of him specifically mentioning his iPhone, one of the other commenters put it best: "Because his identity revolves around the brand of his phone and he's just begging for your validation. OR The post is full of specific details and he owns an iPhone."

If you want Ryan to be more specific, you could ask him on his blog. But I think it's unreasonable to expect that Ryan should have had the foresight to be more specific, and then subsequently criticize him for not being specific.

Re: A day in the life of a CEO

#25
post #20

> @ryancarson can you blog about how you spend your day running your biz? What biz activities do you focus on now that the product is up? The person on Twitter clearly asks about the business . The author then proceeds to write 18 points about his day, only five of which are actually about the business, including some gems like, "Crank through todos" . Does this guy think he's a celebrity or something? Why am I inter…

How to be cool, a HN guide: 1. Get up at 5 AM or sooner 2. Go to gym every day 3. Eat organic food or be vegetarian or vegan 4. Use iPhone and 11" MacBook Air 5. Work from coffee shops 6. Write a blog post about it and post it on Hacker News Feel free to add ideas. :) (I'm not mocking the author, but the idea.)

People want to "live the life", I guess. You can't blame them for wanting money, free time, power, celebrity, and a beautiful family. I think that shooting for success in a "balanced" life is a great thing. What that balance is varies tremendously by the individual.

My only beef is when sideline critics go ballistic just because someone works hard and wants to be a part of a team that works hard. Take a look at the HN-linked article from yesterday where the Google manager talked frankly about being driven and the manager of a group that's very work-oriented and driven. From some of the comments in the thread, you'd think that she was talking about her joy of drowning kittens.

It's a shame to see that kind of attitude dominate the conversation of even one thread on HN, a site that should be open to many routes to success for entrepreneurs, including very hard work.

Re: A day in the life of a CEO

#26
The important thing to note is:

"When Treehouse was

Now that we’re about to hit 50 full-time employees, I spend all my time ‘steering the ship’.

I suspect some of the vitriol here is due to the relatively large audience of entrepreneurs in startups less than half his size. To be more relevant, I'd love to see his schedule when he was a 3-5 person company.

Re: A day in the life of a CEO

#27

I don't know many people who wake up at 5am. Is that necessary to get the job done or just your preferred wake up time?

> I don't know many people who wake up at 5am

Maybe because you know intelligent people.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundament...

Re: A day in the life of a CEO

#28
post #18

He can go to bed at 10 pm and wake up at 5 am? I go to bed at 10 and wake up still extremely tired at 7 am...

that may be because you actually oversleep. unless you're very young (<20yo), 7h of sleep is likely all you need, and anything less than 6h or more than 8h will leave you tired and lacking energy.

I could be oversleeping but I cannot really fix that. I don't use drugs to sleep or wake, and I don't wake via an alarm most days (alarm is for 7, I wake up at 6:40~55).

I could set an alarm for 5 am but I predict that I would be even more tired compared to my 10 to 7 schedule.

Re: A day in the life of a CEO

#29

> @ryancarson can you blog about how you spend your day running your biz? What biz activities do you focus on now that the product is up? The person on Twitter clearly asks about the business . The author then proceeds to write 18 points about his day, only five of which are actually about the business, including some gems like, "Crank through todos" . Does this guy think he's a celebrity or something? Why am I inter…

What I got out of reading about his "non-business" items on the list was an emphasis that his life is not solely focused on running his company. He values his family; he values his life. His entire existence is not summed up in what he does for his company.

Does this matter, since he's a relatively-unknown CEO of a small company? Would it matter if he were a famous CEO of a huge company? That might attract the interest of more readers, but I don't think it really matters any more or any less. He's a fellow human who is offering his insights. Maybe you don't need his insights, but that's okay. There are lots of people offering things that I do not need, but that doesn't mean they should keep to themselves.

Re: A day in the life of a CEO

#30

He can go to bed at 10 pm and wake up at 5 am? I go to bed at 10 and wake up still extremely tired at 7 am...

I agree, I have a hard time with it as well. However, I have noticed that if I force myself to workout a few times a week and get in a routine then I sleep better so maybe 10PM to 5AM is achievable...I just need to get back into that routine. :) But I think a lot factors in such as stress, sleeping comfortably, sleeping enough but not too much, etc.
Post reply on HN