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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

#161

Post by mattrp »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #67
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…

Most of my work weeks clock in around 50-60 hours regularly. It's pretty simple how this happens. It's meetings all day and then once meetings are over it's email, documents, admin paperwork, training etc... Here's an example of just last Thursday which was busy but was at least not double booked and had some times I could stop and go to the bathroom, I also wasn't traveling this day which was good: 8-12 - US Senate…

This is a typical executive schedule. If you’re managing a global workforce, you can generally take 2am to 6am quiet hours but that’s about it. It’s not everyday but at minimum you’d usually see check-ins from Europe needing response coming in around midnight to 2am pretty much every day.

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

#162

Post by nrdgrrrl »

luhn wrote: post #5
pmoriarty wrote: post #3

"I've never worked through a night. The only times I worked more than 40 hours in a week was when I had the burning desire to do so. I need 8ish hours of sleep a night. Same with everybody else, whether we admit it or not" So he didn't. What about his employees? Not to imply that long hours are necessary. I think they're abhorrent. But they're also endemic. Some bosses do get away with working shorter hours while the…

If you read the Twitter thread [0], ostensibly they don't. > For creative work, you can't cheat. My believe is that there are 5 creative hours in everyone's day. All I ask of people at Shopify is that 4 of those are channeled into the company. Obviously Shopify has thousands of employees now, there's very real chance that Tobi's perception does not match the reality of the employees. [0] https://twitter.com/tobi/stat…

I work in a non-coding position, way at the bottom of the org chart, and Tobi's vision does filter all the way down to us - mostly. We work a 37.5 hour week and we're strongly discouraged from working beyond the end of our shift (and have the support we need for this to actually be possible).

We also have 3-5 hours a week for professional development. Sure it's not a 5 hour work day, but we're also not doing much creative work. It's far better than any other job I've been at.

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

#163

Post by jcims »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #147
jcims wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do we culturally accept the distinction 'creatives' and 'non-creatives'. It's gross.

People like putting themselves in boxes, and the one he used is generally accepted classification. I don't think it's something to be offended about. I think Tech community is quite elitist at times

No domain has a monopoly on original thought, so calling some of them 'creative' is just lazy and imprecise.

I'm just pissing into the wind. Ultimately it doesn't really matter and I agree it's not worth getting offended about.

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

#164

Post by AmericanChopper »

whatshisface wrote: post #73
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of my work weeks clock in around 50-60 hours regularly. It's pretty simple how this happens. It's meetings all day and then once meetings are over it's email, documents, admin paperwork, training etc... Here's an example of just last Thursday which was busy but was at least not double booked and had some times I could stop and go to the bathroom, I also wasn't traveling this day which was good: 8-12 - US Senate…

You can also get hours like that by working multiple low-level service or industrial jobs, or working a lot of overtime at a job that pays overtime. I have known people to do both, and the only thing that really limits it is the cost to your personal life and basic maintenance (relationships, health, home repair, that kind of stuff.) Men with a stay at home wife who is good at managing the home and keeping up relatio…

I worked in restaurants and bars when I was younger, and pulled in 80-100 hours every week for a few years. When I got my first engineering job I did the same thing, trying (successfully) to learn and develop my career as quickly as I could. I’ve also gone through phases of working 60+ hours as a contractor, trying to save as much money as possible.

For me at least, doing that much productive work in a week was never very difficult, but it was only possible because I had no real responsibilities at home. I had friends, but barely spent any time with them, and I once went 5 years without taking a holiday. I wouldn’t do that again today, but for a young person trying to set themselves up in life, it makes perfect sense.

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

#165

Post by wolco »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #145
parthdesai wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, I completely agree, but him saying that he worked for entitreity of those 4 hours is a bit misleading imo. We all know how "efficient" these meetings are.

I don't think it's fair to suggest he was slacking or something, unless you can show that the norm is to accomplish same job far faster. Perhaps it would be fair to say, it is easier/more natural to spend 12 hours in a day dealing with people that moving bags of coal or solving differential equations.

Those hour meetings act as a crutch that drain or energize us and falsely trick us into thinking we've done something productive.

Those 12 hours could have been spent differently to acheive the same or better results if optimized time management matters but I don't believe they do matter in this case. This person is fueled by the meeting (he leaves the meeting stronger) and by shortening his day he would never fully be in a zone.

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

#166

Post by jariel »

leblancfg wrote: post #112
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

Yes, of course. Shopify.

But weirdly enough - the same might be said of Spotify.

In the sense that Stocholm is not the Valley and doesn't have A+ stars in many tech categories. But - because Sweden has a historical special relationship with the music industry, and Spotify requires 'smart people and a few geniuses but not tons of specialised geniuses' - Stockholm might make a better choice than the Valley.

One thing about Sweden though - they hit way above their weight in other, more classical industries. They're a small country that makes massive international brands, car companies - for gosh sakes they make the most complicated product category: Jet fighters. Mind you, not all of it, especially the engines, but making a 'Jet Figther' requires A+ players across a broad set of industrial categories, including a diplomatic corps that's deeply and efficiently embedded with industry, as many European countries have. Canada does not have this at all, and is probably last place in the OECD for this kind of economic cooperation.

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

#167

Post by rhodysurf »

bigwavedave wrote: post #139
mindblownlazy wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep seeing this but why do non-creatives count dinner, commuting and exercise as work? (You don't do all these but you put dinner there) As a creative I find it hard to justify that, sure I did talk about work during lunch with a coworker or an ex coworker or friend but damn I was just enjoying my pork chops, that's not work!!!

I've been classified as a creative my entire professional life and I absolutely consider a work dinner to be... well... work. When I'm doing something on the company's behalf, of course it's work. There's no need to be so hostile on hn.

It wasn't explicitely stated that dinner was a work dinner> I personally read it and assumed he went home ate dinner and continued working

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

#168

Post by AndrewKemendo »

mattrp wrote: post #161
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of my work weeks clock in around 50-60 hours regularly. It's pretty simple how this happens. It's meetings all day and then once meetings are over it's email, documents, admin paperwork, training etc... Here's an example of just last Thursday which was busy but was at least not double booked and had some times I could stop and go to the bathroom, I also wasn't traveling this day which was good: 8-12 - US Senate…

This is a typical executive schedule. If you’re managing a global workforce, you can generally take 2am to 6am quiet hours but that’s about it. It’s not everyday but at minimum you’d usually see check-ins from Europe needing response coming in around midnight to 2am pretty much every day.

Yup, we've got people worldwide.

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

#169

Post by wolco »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #157
mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you feel as a society that we should condone working beyond dinner like like? As I read your schedule, I think, “if this couldn’t be handled between 9-5, with a no-work break for lunch, then something is wrong here and effective decisions aren’t being made.” I say this as someone with a similar job, the machine learning manager with several teams reporting to me, budgets in the tens of millions per year, staffing…

In fact there's plenty of saying no and choosing what to let sit idle happening in my portfolio, so I concur that's just part of being a mature manager. In fact I could point to at least two places in my organization that are somewhat "idle" at the moment where I could actually put additional attention. However creating that bandwidth would break other things. FWIW, I'm the only one on my team working these kind of h…

As a leader do you feel you are setting an unhealthy example? Your actions are being noticed and replicated.

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

#170

Post by rpastuszak »

simonw wrote: post #15
thetrumanshow wrote: post #8

A few thoughts to add to the discussion, loosely related: 1) If I know exactly where to spend my time for the best rate of return, its likely that I'll have to spend relatively few hours achieving success. 2) For most people, the success they can achieve through just having a plain old job can be had for a mere 40 hours. Anything they want above what 40 hours can grant them should probably be done elsewhere (second j…

Study after study has shown that working 80 hours dramatically reduces your productivity during those hours. I loved what Tobi said in this tweet: https://twitter.com/simonw/status/1210622908143415297 "For creative work, you can't cheat. My believe is that there are 5 creative hours in everyone's day. All I ask of people at Shopify is that 4 of those are channeled into the company." 5 creative hours in a day absolute…

My experience/conclusions are similar to the comment above.

I feel like the hardest skill in jobs like programming, design (or any creative jobs, to be fair) is managing your cognitive resources, understanding when to approach problems requiring particular modes of thinking and when to stop, work on something else, or learn to do nothing.

In my mid 20s I did my share of reckless 80-100h weeks—ending up with depression and health issues that took years to recover. Some days are still challenging. And, I’m just 31.

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