Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Shopify CEO says long hours aren't necessary for success

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 246 posts

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

#201

Post by Proziam »

Retric wrote: post #199
Proziam wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My parents were living this lifestyle. My dad routinely worked 100+ hour weeks, often sleeping on job sites and very often traveling for work. It kinda makes me chuckle a bit when I hear people say that 'nobody can do 80 hours!' when I spent my entire formative years watching my dad and everyone he knew doing exactly that but doing much harder labor. It really feels to me like people who say this stuff are either ver…

Being at work for 100 hours is different from actually putting in 100 hours of work. I have worked with people that stayed 80 hours a week, but only really worked around 20 hours on average. If your putting around while a 4 hour script runs, you’re there but not actually working during that time.

I understand your point, but it definitely doesn't apply to the situation I was talking about. When a steel mill or nuclear test facility has to go up by a certain date, the work doesn't stop. They just cut bigger overtime checks and keep people going until the job is done. And there isn't any 'hiding' at your desk, you're either visibly working on the job site or you're not.

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

#202

Post by vgchh »

The reality is that there is no single answer. There are companies like Shopify that are able to build a platform while encouraging work-life balance. And then there are companies like Tesla, where employees are expected to forgo work-life balance. I think it comes down to how quickly you as a company may die if left on autopilot. I am going to guess that Shopify had near death moments, but probably fewer. OTOH, Tesla, remains in the default dead territory even now, that they are close to shipping half a million cars per year.

That said, a great work-life balance is great to strive for, just that depending on what your company does, it may or may not happen soon enough.

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

#203

Post by AndrewKemendo »

randomsearch wrote: post #200
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…

No offence, but I’ve done extremely creative and demanding intellectual work, and then work like you’ve listed. What you’re doing is valuable and useful work, but it is a lot easier to do. Much less mentally demanding.

This is generally the wrong attitude in my opinion. I've done both very technical/creative demanding work and the organizational work as I describe.

What you realize after a while is that they are both hard, but in different ways because it's different work.

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

#204

Post by AmericanChopper »

dahfizz wrote: post #191
nsxwolf wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did this when I was young, and I don't think it got me anywhere. I should have spent my 20s doing a lot surfing or something, anything really other than what I did. I should have got home at 5, and if that got me fired, whatever, got another job.

I get what you're saying, and I respect 20 year olds who want to live that way, but I personally disagree. I had to work to support myself during college, so I was already used to the "grind". So I decided to keep up the high effort and accelerate my career while I was young. You can have fun at any age. But investments pay off over time, so it made sense to invest in myself early. Now that I have a good career and d…

Pretty much the same story for me (though I dropped out of college after 3 years, and wasn’t studying anything related to my career anyhow). I also moved out of home when I was 16, and had to work evening jobs to finish high school.

But as the above commenter points out, toil by itself is useless. I found an job which gave me the opportunity to learn, so all of my toil was ultimately improving my marketable skills. I also had to use initiative to create all of my own learning opportunities in this job. When I started in that job the pay was very low, it gradually improved over a few years, but I honestly would have been fine even if it didn’t. Because when I left that company I nearly tripled my salary, and it’s been going up steadily ever since.

That’s also not to say that any of that was necessary. None of the peers I had who were around the same age as me in the beginning worked anywhere near the same amount I did. They all have comfortable careers now, and are absolutely successful. However I can now demand much more from my employers than any of them can (salary, working conditions, perks...). I simply wanted more from my career, so I invested more into it, and got a greater return.

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

#205

Post by dmix »

vgchh wrote: post #202

The reality is that there is no single answer. There are companies like Shopify that are able to build a platform while encouraging work-life balance. And then there are companies like Tesla, where employees are expected to forgo work-life balance. I think it comes down to how quickly you as a company may die if left on autopilot. I am going to guess that Shopify had near death moments, but probably fewer. OTOH, Tesl…

Shopify started off selling snowboards on the internet, Elon took on one of the most powerful, politically connected, and entrenched industries head-on.

There’s always going to be significant differences in the business dynamics and the public pressure on Tesla and their crew was insane. Unfortunately that shit rolls downhill sometimes and it’s hard to control.

Shopify also never faced the massive and constant vitriol and naysayers from day one. It was a massive play out of the gate, not a hockey stick growth but a massive capital investment covering multiple very difficult verticles all at once from design to operations to production and managing a very expensive and risky customer lifespan and regulatory risk for every car sold. Not to downplay how hard it is to do what Shopify accomplished, which was significant and very admirable. But ultimately it’s comparing apples to oranges at a high level like that.

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

#206

Post by twmahna »

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…

It’s definitely possible to work 80 hrs of real work per week. I’ve done it myself. Your mistake is probably underestimating how diverse people’s values are. If you have a strong enough reason why, working non stop is fulfilling (especially when it becomes habit).

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

#207

Post by king_panic »

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…

My experience is ~4 of productive creative work per day. I can go to 6-8, but that gets drawn out to a 12-14h workday. 4h is where Im happiest and most productive. I dont force it.

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

#208

Post by Crusoe123 »

dangero wrote: post #125
bertr4nd wrote: post #109

I always like Richard Hamming’s take on hours worked: “ Knowledge and productivity are like compound interest.'' Given two people of approximately the same ability and one person who works ten percent more than the other, the latter will more than twice outproduce the former.” (From “You and Your Research”: https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html ) I started incorporating this thinking into my own…

I think this is the generally accepted and obvious view, but there seems to be a push from several popular personalities to virtue signal against it in the name of better working conditions. In the process they are accusing startup founders of abusing their workforce if they mention such an idea as working a little extra to get ahead.

As they very well should.

If startup founders want to work extra - let them. But when they create a culture where they expect everyone to give the same extreme amount of sacrifice and work while they stand to gain only a fraction of what those who own the capital or have power in running the companies will gain - that is something that should be fought against as vigorously as possible on every level of society - culture, law etc.

So I applaud this "virtue signaling" and call it common sense.

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

#209

Post by samwestdev »

> 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.

He's practically asking to put company success before personal growth. That's incredibly selfish if you ask me.

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

#210

Post by originalbryan2 »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #34
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 think some of the people who are making claims of really long hours are using amphetamines or other performance enhancing drugs.

In my 20s I worked 80-90 hours for ... 4-6 months. It was day job, then side hustle software that I was very excited about. Now in my late 30s with kids, yeesh. Honestly it's impossible to get 40 hours in some weeks.

Edit: no drug use

Post reply on HN