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Success at Work, Failure at Home

scott.a16z.com

121–130 of 169 posts

Re: Success at Work, Failure at Home

#121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Got the same impression.

I believe you guys misunderstood him. I think he is not saying he should not have done those 100 plus hour weeks as a CEO necessarily, but that he was simultaneously being a dick to his wife and eventually this probably had some negative impact on his CEO performance, not just on his personal life. What I got out of this is his advice is, try to the extent possible to be present for your family and get rid of "I am a…

No, they got it right. The #1 advice he should have given his former self was to ensure that the company DNA had proper work life/balance at its core. Once that culture was in place, the other things would have pretty much taken care of themselves.

Re: Success at Work, Failure at Home

#122

I'm facing many of the challenges Scott is talking about. I churned through the first part of the essay and thought "yes! yes! yes, yes, let's get to the solution!" But the second part of the essay falls short for me. It's a bit like the depression and the broken hand cartoon[1]. I can't disconnect. I know I'm supposed to turn off my phone, do household chores, and take my wife out to a nice dinner. I know taking the…

There are corollaries to "turn off the phone, do household chores, take spouse to dinner" that you've probably tackled successfully in the work context. It's not the nicest thought in the world, but personal life (and family in particular) is often a similar schlep as a startup.

Re: Success at Work, Failure at Home

#123
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i agree with the spirit of this but the flaw in this reasoning is an assumption that all hours are equal. Working consistent 80 hour weeks is the reason we got the Mac as well as Facebook. The extreme outcome possible due to one locally focused push could far outweigh any other strategy and could also be the maximum of the global state.

And what's your proof that without 80-hour weeks we wouldn't have got the Mac or Facebook? All of those people were also wearing underwear, so if correlation is all the proof we need around here, then I've got me a new business book to write: Steve's Secret: What Every Silicon Valley Entrepreneur Has In Common I can even try to get data on whether boxers or briefs lead to better marketplace success, and gin up some f…

Thank you for stating that, it's one of my biggest pet peeves as well. The startup culture is one of doing regression on the 0.001% of the companies who become unicorns, while completely ignoring the failures.

I really want someone to start putting together stats of successful businesses that were built working at most 40 hours a week without wrecking homes, by people who knew how to use their time wisely. People who didn't fart around at the office, hanging out with the guys watching anime at night and doing whatever other freshman dorm-room behavior you constantly see the worst performers do at the coworking spaces.

Re: Success at Work, Failure at Home

#124
I've seen plenty of startup CEOs that add value and some that subtract value.

The ones that subtract value just push to meet arbitrary deadlines and don't pitch in.

The ones that add value actively remove burdens (go get lunch) and look to keep people from burning out (send people home or off to the beach).

Re: Success at Work, Failure at Home

#125
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Each time I read madness as 60h/w, 70h/w or the wtf 80h/w I am really happy to live and work on EU. I think I would fall in depression really fast if I had to sacrifice (because over a certain limit, to me, it is only sacrifice) so much of my time and passion. Also in my opinion, ever over a certain limit (For me is 50h/w), the productivity of an engineer just vanish. I prefer work to live against live to work.

Each time I read madness as 60h/w, 70h/w or the wtf 80h/w I am really happy to live and work on EU I'm happy I don't live in EU. I don't have to work 80 hours, but if I choose to then that should be my right. Europe is too anti-ambition and its policies reflect that.

Well if you're the boss it's your right to work as long as you want, but it's not OK to abuse your employees and make them work ridiculous hours.

Re: Success at Work, Failure at Home

#126

My wife and I are going through this right now. My wife has a senior director position in a multi-billion dollar financial company, and I am a programmer at a startup. We just had a child several months ago, and it's been very hard trying to balance work and life. It's actually the hardest thing we've both had to do in our lives. Her job is a minimum of 60-hrs per week, but luckily I'm able to limit my work to 40-hrs…

Hehheh you American people are crazy. 60 hours, 40 hours... I work three days per week, my wife two. I get to enjoy taking care of my baby girl for a full two days every week while the wife works. The weeks fly by.

But hey, you're doing it to yourself you know?

Re: Success at Work, Failure at Home

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess the European peons did learn some lessons from all the centuries of oppression under the feudal nobility. The Americans never had that experience, so they bought into the company line hook line and sinker.

If you're going to attribute history to why the workforce in Europe is the way it is, then the American expectation of the peons to work all the time is because the US never got over having slave labour. BTW that line of thinking is ridiculous. Europeans and Americans learned about feudalism the same way, from history books. No one who was around when labour laws were going into effect has first, second or third hand…

In addition to slavery, Americans also had The Frontier. A man who didn't like the wages offered had the option to go make a homestead.

Re: Success at Work, Failure at Home

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Each time I read madness as 60h/w, 70h/w or the wtf 80h/w I am really happy to live and work on EU I'm happy I don't live in EU. I don't have to work 80 hours, but if I choose to then that should be my right. Europe is too anti-ambition and its policies reflect that.

Well if you're the boss it's your right to work as long as you want, but it's not OK to abuse your employees and make them work ridiculous hours.

[deleted]

Re: Success at Work, Failure at Home

#129
When I was working at HP, just after graduating from college, the CEO (Lew Platt) announced that he would be stressing work-life balance among employees. He specifically said that he wanted to accommodate working mothers, and especially single-parent families. He officially blessed the idea of job sharing (such that two people could each have a part-time job) and flexible hours, to help in that way.

The particularly poignant part of this story was that he learned the importance of such flexibility the hard way: His wife died from cancer, and he was left taking care of his children by himself. Suddenly, he realized how much work it was to raise children, and he decided that HP should try to take into account people's personal needs, such that they could be with their families and have jobs.

I don't know how deep those changes really went, and I don't know how many of them have continued until today. But those announcements and attempts to help people balance their personal and professional lives have stayed with me for about two decades.

Sure, I work crazy hours (as a freelancer, and also trying to finish a PhD) -- but part of the reason I work late at night is because I value spending time with my wife and children. I cringe when I see startups (and other companies) expecting people, explicitly or implicitly, to sacrifice their family time for the sake of the company except in unusual circumstances. And yet, there's no doubt that for many of these companies, success often does demand more than a simple, 40-hour week.

I'm glad that the original author realizes now that he could and should have spent more time with his family. But I do wonder if he is willing to tell the people working at his startups, "Hey, that program can be debugged tomorrow. Go home and spend time with your children. Software can wait, but they can't."

Re: Success at Work, Failure at Home

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And just think, Americans (and Canadians) also get much less vacation time than Europeans! Geniuses!

I guess the European peons did learn some lessons from all the centuries of oppression under the feudal nobility. The Americans never had that experience, so they bought into the company line hook line and sinker.

It's not like we came over from Europe or anything.
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