Not getting is never good a good sign. But the assumption that you can send emails only while awake is wrong as well.
Ask HN: Is it normal for founders of startups to not sleep?
31–40 of 62 posts
Re: Ask HN: Is it normal for founders of startups to not sleep?
#32Does anyone know of an email client or plugin that acts like Buffer? Something that would allow you to add these midnight missives to a queue for dispatch at a sane hour? You should be able to skip the queue for emergencies but those should really be handled with phone calls or texts.
Re: Ask HN: Is it normal for founders of startups to not sleep?
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
One of the biggest mistakes I made while working on a past startup was listening to an advice like this. What you say is totally valid if your company is a fortune 500 company, but the type of people who start companies shouldn't strive to become those types of managers covered in business case studies. I made this mistake after reading too many business books. It simply doesn't work. From my experience it fucks up t…
Here's the biggest problem with your approach: in today's market, it's a lot harder for startups to recruit and retain good employees than it is for good employees to find new employers. Just look at the OP: he left an ostensibly good job to join a YC startup and he's already questioning the founder's behavior and competence. When he starts feeling pressured to work insane hours, or completely loses faith in the foun…
thank you
Re: Ask HN: Is it normal for founders of startups to not sleep?
#34I think that people greatly overestimate the productivity gained by sacrificing sleep. For intellectually taxing work I think it is probably detrimental overall, particularly if chronically sleep derived. Lots of high profile successful people say the don't sleep, but this may largely reflect their exceptional drive and dedication, rather than any real benefits. The second thing to consider is the use of stimulants l…
don't take that shit.
Re: Ask HN: Is it normal for founders of startups to not sleep?
#35Does anyone know of an email client or plugin that acts like Buffer? Something that would allow you to add these midnight missives to a queue for dispatch at a sane hour? You should be able to skip the queue for emergencies but those should really be handled with phone calls or texts.
Email scheduling with Boomerang (gmail plugin) or something similar
Re: Ask HN: Is it normal for founders of startups to not sleep?
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
One of the biggest mistakes I made while working on a past startup was listening to an advice like this. What you say is totally valid if your company is a fortune 500 company, but the type of people who start companies shouldn't strive to become those types of managers covered in business case studies. I made this mistake after reading too many business books. It simply doesn't work. From my experience it fucks up t…
Here's the biggest problem with your approach: in today's market, it's a lot harder for startups to recruit and retain good employees than it is for good employees to find new employers. Just look at the OP: he left an ostensibly good job to join a YC startup and he's already questioning the founder's behavior and competence. When he starts feeling pressured to work insane hours, or completely loses faith in the foun…
Who would you pick if you had following two candidates:
1. A rockstar developer who wants work-life balance 2. Not famous but passionate junior developer who has potential
I would always pick 2 over 1. I know because I have made exactly that mistake of hiring #1. And the company culture went to shit. If I was the founder of that company and found out about this I would have a talk with OP and if there's disagreement I would rather let him go than trying to tone it down. Company culture is much more important than one or two rockstar developers. Also you don't attract great employees with a promise of work-life balance--you can only attract "good" employees that way. Great employees are attracted to passion.
Go to Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and tons of other industry defining founders and ask them if they worked leisurely with work-life balance or ran around like a chicken with its head cut off.
Re: Ask HN: Is it normal for founders of startups to not sleep?
#37Some people can go on very little sleep. Bragging about it is immature, but it isn't a sign that something is wrong by itself.
Sometimes it comes up and he talks about getting no sleep like everyone should be doing it. It is not aggressive, but maybe passive aggressive? I'm not even really sure, but it definitely makes me uncomfortable. Maybe this is my real concern with it?
Yes, this seems like the most important, and most detrimental part of this behavior. I'd recommend getting a new job -- it'll only get worse as the company gets older and more stress is added.
Re: Ask HN: Is it normal for founders of startups to not sleep?
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
One of the biggest mistakes I made while working on a past startup was listening to an advice like this. What you say is totally valid if your company is a fortune 500 company, but the type of people who start companies shouldn't strive to become those types of managers covered in business case studies. I made this mistake after reading too many business books. It simply doesn't work. From my experience it fucks up t…
Here's the biggest problem with your approach: in today's market, it's a lot harder for startups to recruit and retain good employees than it is for good employees to find new employers. Just look at the OP: he left an ostensibly good job to join a YC startup and he's already questioning the founder's behavior and competence. When he starts feeling pressured to work insane hours, or completely loses faith in the foun…
Not all, but almost all of the successful founders I know are obsessively focused on their startups and they don't put much time into other areas of their lives (family, social life, etc).
Humans need sleep and whether they sleep 4 or 8 hours doesn't really matter. The work is just always on their minds, 24/7. They are always on call. They are always reachable. They never say no. The passion, focus, and obsession for the business oozes out of them, even when they are ''out of the office''. There is not even a question of work-life balance because work is their life.
Personally I like to invest in and work with people like this because they tend to succeed, make disruption happen at scale, and make lots of money upon exits. A lot of recruits burn out and don't like it, but the ones who survive learn a ton and make a lot of money too.
Re: Ask HN: Is it normal for founders of startups to not sleep?
#39To me it's normal. When I obsess over things I get very little sleep. But to brag about it, to me, is immature. It reminds me of college kids who would brag about waiting last minute to study and pulling all nighters for their tests the day before and being proud of it. Well... if you were more responsible with your time maybe you wouldn't have to cram like that?
To answer your question, yeah it's normal to send things at odd hours, but immature to constantly talk about it as if you deserve some sort of special treatment for it.
Re: Ask HN: Is it normal for founders of startups to not sleep?
#40To me it's normal. When I obsess over things I get very little sleep. But to brag about it, to me, is immature. It reminds me of college kids who would brag about waiting last minute to study and pulling all nighters for their tests the day before. Well... if you were more responsible with your time maybe you wouldn't have to cram like that?
To answer your question, yeah it's normal to send things at odd hours, but immature to constantly talk about it as if you deserve some sort of special treatment.