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Watch a VC use my name to sell a con

jwz.org

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Re: Watch a VC use my name to sell a con

#261

Post by sausagefeet »

grellas wrote: post #257

"Those who work hard make good" is a profoundly American theme that dates back to Horatio Alger and before - it can hardly be said to originate from a cabal of VCs trying to "put one over" on hapless founders and startup employees in Silicon Valley. No doubt Mr. Arrington adds his peculiarly abrasive touch to the debate (toughen up, don't whine, and let's applaud Zynga for what it did to its employees), but he did so…

But it is nefarious. Long hours do not equate to more money. Arrington is pushing a work philosophy that help him, not the people he's directing it at and he's using a big name to do it.

Re: Watch a VC use my name to sell a con

#262

Post by sixtofour »

nir wrote: post #252
sixtofour wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I've been working for startups for the past 12 years. I won't be a millionaire even if my current company sells for $.5b" I am the pot calling the kettle black here, but I'd like to point out that working in software for 12 years (or 15 or 20), whether for startups or not, would give most people a shot at being a millionaire, if that goal is chosen, tracked and executed on, and it has nothing to do with the exit lot…

That's true - but admittedly I'm a complete idiot as far as investing is concerned.. If you have any recommendations for good intro texts, I'd love to hear.

I'm not a good source of investing advice (other than "do it"). In general you need to treat it like any other skill you need in your day job, including deciding which skill(s) to learn. Investment choices are going to depend on your life and interests.

There's been a lot of discussions here on HN, that should give you some ideas (not advice).

I understand you can invest in New York City taxi medallions, which have done nothing but go up in value. But that's not advice, just pointing out how wide your choices are.

Re: Watch a VC use my name to sell a con

#263

Post by thewisedude »

I think just talking about only hard work being a means to success is a over-simplification of working of this complex world. Working smart as opposed to working hard is also important if you want to benefit financially.

Lets say a kid works hard in his college days and gets to be a dentist or a lawyer or somebody like that. Lets say another kid in similar circumstances chooses not to work that hard or makes a bad judgement and ends up in a not so rewarding area- rank and file job. It is totally fathomable that the dentist kid could end up making twice as much by working half as hard as the rank and file kid for the rest of their lives.

All in all, the idea that working harder will reward you in the future seem fair or karmic. The real world probably is not that simple. I would think there are many other equally important factors like opportunities, luck, judgement etc.

Re: Watch a VC use my name to sell a con

#264

Post by electromagnetic »

rapind wrote: post #259
electromagnetic wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO "working hard" constitutes working an 8-hour day and not being a slack ass in your duties. My day job is construction, mainly because I'm good at it. I find it every bit as stressful and mentally draining as when I've been doing sedentary work (I worked as a reviewer). The main difference is that the stress can often be used (when you have to nail in a certain position and it just happens there's a 1/8th inch ste…

It's ridiculous, but I bet most of us associate construction with that summer job we had back in the day, holding the "slow" sign, sweeping dust off the street, making the trip to Tim's / Dunkin Donuts for the guys doing the real work, etc.

I wonder if I ended up in construction as a profession because my 'summer' (lasted 2 years) job at 16 was working as a movie/game reviewer.

Re: Watch a VC use my name to sell a con

#265

Post by vidarh »

borism wrote: post #239
vidarh wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mike (disclaimer: I know him) has done more startups than PG, and he did pretty much sleep under his desk for the first couple of years of Techcrunch (well, his desk was in his bedroom, and the Techcrunch "office" was the rest of his house) and has worked equally hard in the other startups he's done while I've known him. Including as a regular employee (that's how I met him - he worked at a startup I co-founded years…

Techcrunch "office" was the rest of his house nice definition of "under the desk"

His office was his bedroom. The rest of the people he worked with pretty much crowded the rest of the house.

So "under the desk" was pretty close to reality - he could pretty much reach his desk from his bed.

Re: Watch a VC use my name to sell a con

#266

Post by drcube »

aspensmonster wrote: post #19

> What _is_ true is that for a VC's business model to work, it's necessary for _you_ to give up _your_ life in order for _him_ to become richer. Isn't this more or less the case for any profits-go-to-owners business model? Or rather, any business model where employees are viewed as calculated costs and not owners worthy of a commiserate portion of the profit? I've often wondered how a different ownership model would…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employee_Share_Ownership_Plan

Re: Watch a VC use my name to sell a con

#267

Post by Fliko »

rapind wrote: post #256
Fliko wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people I know who work all day on a farm do it because they absolutely love it and would imagine living no other life.

Farming today is completely different than it was 60+ years ago (especially before WWII) for 90% of farmers. I'd wager a large sum that most farmer's do not actually enjoy their job these days. Small independent sustainable farmers sure, too bad they represent such a small percentage of farming compared to the industrial food complex. Anyways, comparing farming today to what it was 60 years ago is apples to oranges.…

Small family farms represent 91% of all the farms in the US. 59% of food production in the US is in due thanks to large family farms. There are actually very few industrial food complexes in the US, although it is interesting to note that most of the food production is from these complexes.

http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/EIB12/EIB12c.pdf?

Re: Watch a VC use my name to sell a con

#268

Post by Fliko »

grellas wrote: post #257

"Those who work hard make good" is a profoundly American theme that dates back to Horatio Alger and before - it can hardly be said to originate from a cabal of VCs trying to "put one over" on hapless founders and startup employees in Silicon Valley. No doubt Mr. Arrington adds his peculiarly abrasive touch to the debate (toughen up, don't whine, and let's applaud Zynga for what it did to its employees), but he did so…

Everyone is free to express themselves, being accused is just a side effect of expression. Hell, Arrington took a stab at jwz in his response.

jwz's advice is extremely valid, it doesn't matter if it's about VCs or vending machines. You have to work hard, but you also have to work smart and be wary that there is always someone waiting to profit off of what you built, he never said it's always the VC.

Re: Watch a VC use my name to sell a con

#269

Post by antirez »

rapind wrote: post #233
antirez wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is my opinion and is based solely on my experience after 15 years of being in the industry, including one successful startup built by me and a friend of mine with a decent "exit" sold to Telecom Italia, and a successful open source software (Redis). Additionally I used to work in different places in the past with many programmers, so what I say is also based on how the success of programmers I know first hand co…

I'm fully aware of who you are, and at least some of your successes (I've used Redis in several projects now, and love it). For me it's an age thing. I put in some extremely long hours in my youth, and I think it paid off. I'm not putting in as many hours these days, but then again I feel like I'm quite a bit more productive with my time than I used to be. I think it's the experience itself that's the differentiator,…

Yes I share this experience with you: when I was 18 or 20 I worked a lot of hours, but this was pure fun as I was learning to write code. This is probably a very good investment: it completely does not weight on you since you are having true fun, and of course 20 years old can do things that are impressive :) At least for me that I'm now 35.

However my father is like your father in this regard: he thought me to work long hours, and he still does even if it is 63 now. But I've the feeling that the work it does that has more to do with people, with moving from one place to the other to fix problems, and things like that, is much more "long hours compatible". The solve fact it does not sit all the day is different... In short I think that programming is exceptionally bad: too static, too focused, too stressing, too timelines, ...

Re: Watch a VC use my name to sell a con

#270

Post by nknight »

grellas wrote: post #257

"Those who work hard make good" is a profoundly American theme that dates back to Horatio Alger and before - it can hardly be said to originate from a cabal of VCs trying to "put one over" on hapless founders and startup employees in Silicon Valley. No doubt Mr. Arrington adds his peculiarly abrasive touch to the debate (toughen up, don't whine, and let's applaud Zynga for what it did to its employees), but he did so…

> It is also unfair to take him to task for quoting from a publicly available source

Quotes which were already removed from their full context, taken further out of context by Arrington, with a shallow, incomplete understanding of the long-term consequences of the events being recounted.

Arrington has a Bachelor's in economics and a law degree, until 1999 he was a securities lawyer. He was still in law school when jwz was actually doing useful things and wrote those diary entries.

Arrington has never been an engineer of any kind. He has no concept of the kind of stress placed on engineers, little grasp of the work environments he wants people to put up with, and as a VC, has a massive conflict of interest.

Invoking a respected name through excerpts of a document that offered only a narrow, fuzzy window into what jwz went through in order to lure young hackers to an inevitable burnout for a likely reward of zilch is just scummy, and it is in no way unfair to call Arrington on his BS.

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