Ask YC: Should Fridays and Saturday nights matter to a young hacker? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask YC: Should Fridays and Saturday nights matter to a young hacker?

#31

Post by johnnygoodman » Sun, Nov 18, 2007, 10:20 PM UTC

When I was starting up my business there were a lot of nights that turned into day that turned into night. Each spring/winter/etc break during college was me sitting in a room with CS students I'd hired coding furiously and batting design ideas back and forth.

From the outside, you could say with a good bit of justification that I needed to go learn how to ski or drink some beer or something. I'd argue though that "getting lost" is one of the rewards of working on a startup project. There's a mix of satisfaction in the sacrifice, the joy of unbridled creation and the camaraderie of taking on something that you may or may not pull off with a lot of people you respect and trust.

These days, I live in a nice part suburbia with my wife, who would feed me every 10 or so hours during those projects. She's getting an MBA and I'm running the business I started, but our pace of life is much more normal.

My advice, having lived on both sides of the fence, and without knowing the specifics of your situation past what you posted, is to grab as hard as you can for that vision you see. You'll learn, grow and stumble into things and people that will greatly enrich your life.

Good luck!

Re: Ask YC: Should Fridays and Saturday nights matter to a young hacker?

#32

Post by pg » Sun, Nov 18, 2007, 11:38 PM UTC

I think it's a good idea at any age to take some time off and have fun. But you don't have to do it each Friday and Saturday. That custom is just an artifact of people having regular office jobs. It might work better for one person to work 7 days a week but take two hours off each day, or another person to work solidly for two months and then take an entire week off.

Re: Ask YC: Should Fridays and Saturday nights matter to a young hacker?

#33

Post by icky » Sun, Nov 18, 2007, 11:44 PM UTC

timr wrote: post #9

Rules I wish I had followed when I was 20(-ish): 1) Listen to the little voice. If he wants to be doing something else, so do you. You can only ignore him for so long. 2) When you can't do #1, make sure that you're doing something valuable . Don't squander your precious youthful enthusiasm on non-productive crap. 3) If you're prone to overwork, make your social life a priority. Never turn down a social invitation, un…

> 1) Listen to the little voice. If he wants to be doing something else, so do you. You can only ignore him for so long.

Careful; he can get you in trouble. Wear protection. ;-)

Re: Ask YC: Should Fridays and Saturday nights matter to a young hacker?

#34

Post by andrewfong » Mon, Nov 19, 2007, 5:34 AM UTC

Not necessarily Friday and Saturday nights -- but socializing with other people is important. There are a number of "good for the startup" reasons to do so -- e.g. bouncing ideas off other people, networking with potential VCs / partners / employees, and keeping your sanity.

But in order to get the maximum benefit, you'll want to have at least some social time not oriented around the startup. My co-founder and I have keep our sanity by spending time talking about girls, baseball, and TV shows. Not sure if it would work if we discussed social networking and Javascript.