11–20 of 31 posts
I don't quite know why, but I'm imagining that guy walking in one day and saying, "My name is Tran. Khang Tran. I get stuff done." He sounds like the kind of person I would like to have always behind me, kicking my butt. Also, this was a really well-written blogpost, like a little novel.
8:30 AM - 9 PM ? Jesus.
8:30 AM - 9 PM ? Jesus.
The equation doesn't add up when your primary compensation is salary (later hires).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, that's quite easy if the definition of personal life is "Sweet Jesus, sleep!" More seriously, that's the kind of thing which does creep in to companies. They have a culture already. It's a long hours culture. You may or may not think that's a bad thing, but it's there. It's quite hard to lose as well. People come in, they can't work less than the people already there, so they jump in to it. Soon people that only…
we don't apologize for working hard. we're a startup trying to make it in a competitive business. what rich meant was that unlike other companies, where social & work bleed together (people hang at the office 7 days a week, 15 hours a day but aren't always working) - we come in, we jam all day, we go home. and we take weekends off.
Past a certain amount of time, you're spinning your wheels, doing bad work you'll have to clean up later, and pushing yourself towards an early burn-out.
It's unhealthy, non-sustainable, a bad cultural precedent.
If there's no other choice, then do it -- we all have. But don't be too proud of it; it's not something you want engrained in your culture.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
we don't apologize for working hard. we're a startup trying to make it in a competitive business. what rich meant was that unlike other companies, where social & work bleed together (people hang at the office 7 days a week, 15 hours a day but aren't always working) - we come in, we jam all day, we go home. and we take weekends off.
we don't apologize for working hard. we're a startup trying to make it in a competitive business. Past a certain amount of time, you're spinning your wheels, doing bad work you'll have to clean up later, and pushing yourself towards an early burn-out. It's unhealthy, non-sustainable, a bad cultural precedent. If there's no other choice, then do it -- we all have. But don't be too proud of it; it's not something you w…
It's nowhere near the hours worked by a first year analyst at an ibank, or by a first year associate at a law firm.
Bill is not saying we are particularly proud of how much we work, just that we aren't apologizing for it. Especially when we are talking about the first 5 employees in the company.
Trust me, I don't want to be working 12 hour days a year from now, but it's what the company requires right now. I enjoy coming to work every day and working on something I love. I'd much rather do that for 12 hours a day, than watch the clock for 8.
8:30 AM - 9 PM ? Jesus.
It's easier to maintain those hours if you have a significant equity stake. The equation doesn't add up when your primary compensation is salary (later hires).
You're already starting to define responsibilities and divide the work accordingly. That's good. However, you need to make sure that there's still a lot of communication between the groups, and not just between the group leaders either. Otherwise what happens is that people get isolated in their own group and begin to think of other groups in the company as the "other". Things only go downhill from there, as these divisions slowly drive the groups into working at cross purposes.
The real job of company culture is to remind employees that they're all in business together; that its not their group against the other groups at the company. If your culture manages that, then it almost doesn't matter what sort of culture it is.
8:30 AM - 9 PM ? Jesus.
Don't worry, the next bullet point clearly states they "separated work from personal life."
As far as I can tell the hours are completely tangential to the main topic of the post. If that one line was removed, suddenly the main thrust of the comments here would have been totally different. Let's not turn into a community that focuses on soundbites, please. We can be better than that.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't worry, the next bullet point clearly states they "separated work from personal life."
Look, the post has eight hundred and nine words which break down to four thousand four hundred and seventy two letters (according to wc). It's pretty dense in content, there is no fluff - most of the words are important. The above comment addresses fourteen letters (or 0.3% of the post's content). This is now all we're discussing. The rest of the content is pretty much ignored. As far as I can tell the hours are comp…
The way threads work, if you feel like discussing some other aspect of the article then you can go right ahead and start another top-level thread about it.
For me, the revelation that they routinely work twelve-and-a-half-hour days, every day, is the most important part of this "company culture" post. It's the one that, if I were considering applying for a job at this company, decide that there is absolutely no fricking way I wanted to work at this company.