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Shopify CEO says long hours aren't necessary for success

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Re: Shopify CEO says long hours aren't necessary for success

#111

Post by [deleted] »

blhack wrote: post #75
bwb wrote: post #28

I don't believe anyone really does 80 hours. I just don't think it is possible and I don't think you can call sitting at a desk doing nothing "work". I've done 60 hours during intense periods just fine... but it was only effective because of the nature of the work I was doing at the time. And, I usually took a break down the road to compensate. In no way was it even 50% creative work. 4 to 6 creative hours seems righ…

Ive done it. It was a startup, but not explicitly a tech company. We legitimately got to work at 7:30 every day and left at 9:00 7 days a week for several weeks. Obviously unsustainable, but easily one of the most enjoyable periods of my work life. Everybody was helping doing everybody else’s job. It was really fun.

[deleted]

Re: Shopify CEO says long hours aren't necessary for success

#112

Post by leblancfg »

jariel wrote: post #37

Me thinks there's a bit of selection bias here. If you're fortunate enough to hit product market fit without too much struggle ... and then can scale it as a regular company - good on you. But I suggest in the early years, it's really not like that for most founders as they pivot and strife. In the scale years, I suggest it probably could be more like that for most company employees and leadership. And FYI I think mo…

s/Spotify/Shopify/g

Re: Shopify CEO says long hours aren't necessary for success

#113

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC »

natalyarostova wrote: post #94
faitswulff wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This schedule was established by a literal drug addict (cocaine and morphine) named William Halsted, not due to high demand.

And it’s since been reviewed and maintained due to the continual finding that continuity of care is so important to health outcomes that it makes up for exhaustion.

I think the continuity of care thing is overblown. There will always be a handoff because no one can work 24/7. One way specialties such as Emergency Medicine and Critical Care (which manage the Intensive Care Units) manage this is with overlapping shifts, where for the last hour of one shift and the first hour of the next shift overlap.

Emergency Medicine and Critical Care manage to do handoffs well, as well as nursing. I strongly disbelieve that surgeons are uniquely incapable of doing handoffs.

Re: Shopify CEO says long hours aren't necessary for success

#115

Post by lefstathiou »

bwb wrote: post #28

I don't believe anyone really does 80 hours. I just don't think it is possible and I don't think you can call sitting at a desk doing nothing "work". I've done 60 hours during intense periods just fine... but it was only effective because of the nature of the work I was doing at the time. And, I usually took a break down the road to compensate. In no way was it even 50% creative work. 4 to 6 creative hours seems righ…

I’m confused. You say you don’t believe anyone does 80 hours and then you seem to add a qualifier to define work as that which is creative or meaningful.

To your first statement, it is possible and very common in law and investment banking, so it’s easy to dispel that misconception for you. I worked in investment banking for years and there were dozens of people on my floor which was one of dozens of floors pulling 70-90 hour weeks routinely. There is some % of an 80 hour week lost in transition (sitting at a desk waiting for feedback on a book that needs to go to printing by 4am for the 8am meeting) but you have no choice but to be there and at any moment you have to be prepared to act on whatever next step is required.

To your second point: was this work deeply creative or meaningful? To me it was. Perhaps less creative than technical. As for meaning, that depends. We would routinely work on projects that had 9-figure dollar impact on companies with tens of thousands of employees. Our numbers determined the fates of thousands of employees and hundreds of thousands in their supply chains. Today I manage over 50 people, while I have a more direct human impact now than I did then, my impact today is a fraction of what it was when our teams changed the course of companies from a little Excel spreadsheet.

Re: Shopify CEO says long hours aren't necessary for success

#116

Post by pm90 »

jariel wrote: post #37

Me thinks there's a bit of selection bias here. If you're fortunate enough to hit product market fit without too much struggle ... and then can scale it as a regular company - good on you. But I suggest in the early years, it's really not like that for most founders as they pivot and strife. In the scale years, I suggest it probably could be more like that for most company employees and leadership. And FYI I think mo…

I really like your comment. Dealing in absolutes, either way, seems incomplete. It really does depend on the kind of market you're in and the competitors that you face.

The one distinction I find important is between working long hours because of the nature of your situation v/s working long hours because your manager/company is exploiting you. Determining if that's the case or not is up to the worker.

Re: Shopify CEO says long hours aren't necessary for success

#117

Post by soperj »

bwb wrote: post #28

I don't believe anyone really does 80 hours. I just don't think it is possible and I don't think you can call sitting at a desk doing nothing "work". I've done 60 hours during intense periods just fine... but it was only effective because of the nature of the work I was doing at the time. And, I usually took a break down the road to compensate. In no way was it even 50% creative work. 4 to 6 creative hours seems righ…

I worked pipeline. We'd do 11 hour days, 3 weeks on, 3 days off. Not quite 80 hours, but we worked the entire time.

Re: Shopify CEO says long hours aren't necessary for success

#118

Post by ixtli »

This is really a lovely thread. In general I loathe working at large companies and try to avoid it, but this really changes my perception of Shopify. The fact is that people who say they work 80 hours don't really do it. If they ever do it it's a rare event in the totality of their labor.

Re: Shopify CEO says long hours aren't necessary for success

#119

Post by zeruch »

hintymad wrote: post #106

These successful people sound like working long hours is an absolute evil. I think they underestimate the effort that an ordinary person needs to be even moderately successful. What if it takes me twice as long to debug a problem as my team's standard? What if a concept is so simple to everyone else in my team yet it's just so hard for me to understand? What if I see an opportunity to build a truly great product, yet…

If it's a choice, that is fine. If it's an assumed baseline that management leverages to squeeze ever more "productivity" out of people without compensating them for it, then its not.

If the latter, I guarantee you will have just as much regret looking back years later. The 'voluntary' part is the gray area that most seem to talk around.

Re: Shopify CEO says long hours aren't necessary for success

#120

Post by NathanKP »

anon73044 wrote: post #100
NathanKP wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd still say that John Rockefeller is more impressive. Adjusted for inflation John Rockefeller's company Standard Oil was worth over $1 trillion. Or Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, the guy who started the Dutch East India company, which adjusted for inflation was worth over $8.2 trillion. Modern companies have nothing on what entrepreneurs did in the past and how much money they made. It doesn't matter how many markets El…

>I'd still say that John Rockefeller is more impressive. Adjusted for inflation John Rockefeller's company Standard Oil was worth over $1 trillion dollars. >Or Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, the guy who started the Dutch East India company Yeah, it's amazing what those guys could get away with back in the days of slavery and before regulation. /sarcasm

Yep to be clear I think Standard Oil and Dutch East India company did a lot of bad things. And that's part of the point... If you are saying Elon Musk is impressive just because he started four companies that are worth a lot of money that means nothing. There are better ways to judge a CEO, and better ways to build a company, and that's what the Shopify CEO was saying in his Twitter thread.
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