A day in the life of a CEO • Hacker News Board

Re: A day in the life of a CEO

#31

Post by bmj » Tue, Jun 26, 2012, 3:00 PM UTC

mej10 wrote: post #10

I love reading things like this and it sounds like you live a very balanced life. Honestly, this sounds like a pretty ideal schedule. Any advice for someone that still has a day job? I don't have kids but do try to spend a good amount of time with my SO.

I'm not a CEO, but I keep a similar schedule (replace his meetings and schedule reviews with development), and it works well for me. I'm up early, work for ~90 minutes, then get the kids up and ready for the day. Same thing in the evening--unless something is truly on fire, I leave the office between 4:30 and 5:00 every day (or close the computer if I'm working from home), spend time with my family 'til 8:00 or 9:00, then work again for an hour or two (if necessary--I don't do this every night).

Obviously, this doesn't work for everyone who works for someone else. I'm fortunate to have a job with a great deal of flexibility. If I'm in the office, I'm rarely there longer than 7-8 hours a day.

Re: A day in the life of a CEO

#32

Post by tatsuke95 » Tue, Jun 26, 2012, 3:02 PM UTC

tonyjwang wrote: post #24

tatsuke95 wrote: post #8

> @ryancarson can you blog about how you spend your day running your biz? What biz activities do you focus on now that the product is up? The person on Twitter clearly asks about the business . The author then proceeds to write 18 points about his day, only five of which are actually about the business, including some gems like, "Crank through todos" . Does this guy think he's a celebrity or something? Why am I inter…

I think you're being unfair. 1. The person on Twitter doesn't exclusively ask Ryan about the business. He specifically asks how he spends his day. Even if the asker wanted to know more about the business and less about his day, Ryan's response is appropriate given how the question was phrased. 2. Ryan does talk about which business activities he focuses on. He specifically mentions how he used to handle newsletters,…

>"The person on Twitter doesn't exclusively ask Ryan about the business. He specifically asks how he spends his day."

Wrong. He asks: "can you blog about how you spend your day running your biz?" followed by "What biz activities do you focus on now that the product is up?". "Biz" is referring to business, in case you didn't pick that up.

>" Ryan is a CEO of a venture-backed company and people, including ones on HN, are sometimes interested in the lives of people like him, both the personal and professional aspects. "

I'll tell you what his life is like: it's just like yours, or anyone else who has a work-day. Do you really think that somehow being a venture-backed CEO of a tiny company changes your life? That's incredibly naive.

>"As to your complaint of him specifically mentioning his iPhone"

I didn't complain about it, someone in the comments did. His reply was what interested me.

>"If you want Ryan to be more specific, you could ask him on his blog."

No, I don't care to read his blog. As I've said, I have no interest in his day-to-day life. I care about reading HN, and this article appeared today. It's the only reason I stumbled on it, mostly because it had such an eye-catching title.

Re: A day in the life of a CEO

#33

Post by runjake » Tue, Jun 26, 2012, 3:15 PM UTC

tatsuke95 wrote: post #8

> @ryancarson can you blog about how you spend your day running your biz? What biz activities do you focus on now that the product is up? The person on Twitter clearly asks about the business . The author then proceeds to write 18 points about his day, only five of which are actually about the business, including some gems like, "Crank through todos" . Does this guy think he's a celebrity or something? Why am I inter…

> Does this guy think he's a celebrity or something?

Not to slam the guy, but if you examine his submission history, he seems to be using HN as a tool to build his "personal brand". Regardless, readers upvote it.

Re: A day in the life of a CEO

#34

Post by robgough » Tue, Jun 26, 2012, 3:18 PM UTC

UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #28

evilbit wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that may be because you actually oversleep. unless you're very young (<20yo), 7h of sleep is likely all you need, and anything less than 6h or more than 8h will leave you tired and lacking energy.

I could be oversleeping but I cannot really fix that. I don't use drugs to sleep or wake, and I don't wake via an alarm most days (alarm is for 7, I wake up at 6:40~55). I could set an alarm for 5 am but I predict that I would be even more tired compared to my 10 to 7 schedule.

Why not go to bed later?

Re: A day in the life of a CEO

#35

Post by ngilmore031 » Tue, Jun 26, 2012, 3:19 PM UTC

tatsuke95 wrote: post #8

> @ryancarson can you blog about how you spend your day running your biz? What biz activities do you focus on now that the product is up? The person on Twitter clearly asks about the business . The author then proceeds to write 18 points about his day, only five of which are actually about the business, including some gems like, "Crank through todos" . Does this guy think he's a celebrity or something? Why am I inter…

One of Ryan's big points in a lot of his articles is about work life balance. He explains his entire day which is great. Spending time with family and eating right are all important items that a lot of people forget about.

Great post with a well rounded view of his day.

Re: A day in the life of a CEO

#36

Post by samstave » Tue, Jun 26, 2012, 3:21 PM UTC

tatsuke95 wrote: post #32

tonyjwang wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're being unfair. 1. The person on Twitter doesn't exclusively ask Ryan about the business. He specifically asks how he spends his day. Even if the asker wanted to know more about the business and less about his day, Ryan's response is appropriate given how the question was phrased. 2. Ryan does talk about which business activities he focuses on. He specifically mentions how he used to handle newsletters,…

> "The person on Twitter doesn't exclusively ask Ryan about the business. He specifically asks how he spends his day." Wrong. He asks: "can you blog about how you spend your day running your biz? " followed by "What biz activities do you focus on now that the product is up?". "Biz" is referring to business, in case you didn't pick that up. > " Ryan is a CEO of a venture-backed company and people, including ones on HN…

Look Tatsuke95, I can see you're really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over.

Re: A day in the life of a CEO

#37

Post by pitt1980 » Tue, Jun 26, 2012, 3:25 PM UTC

tatsuke95 wrote: post #14

yesimahuman wrote: post #12

Hey Ryan, I'm just curious how you handle spending quality time with your employees. I've worked at companies where the CEO is never around, and when you do meet with him, it's in meetings that feel rushed and they are always looking at their watch for the next meeting. Frankly, it's disrespectful and it does negatively impact the morale of the team. I'm in the CEO role right now, and I'm realizing a lot of meetings…

He can't hear you. He's at the gym.

why are you being a dick?

if you want him to go into more detail about a paticular item, why don't you ask about it?

if you don't care at all, why don't you just find a different item to read?

Re: A day in the life of a CEO

#38

Post by samstave » Tue, Jun 26, 2012, 3:26 PM UTC

According to this, he puts in 28 hours per week, which doesn't account for time in the restroom, sidebar chats, walking between appointments, personal life issues that pop up etc.

Sounds like a dream job.

Re: A day in the life of a CEO

#39

Post by samstave » Tue, Jun 26, 2012, 3:26 PM UTC

According to this, he puts in 28 hours per week, which doesn't account for time in the restroom, sidebar chats, walking between appointments, personal life issues that pop up etc.

Sounds like a dream job.

Re: A day in the life of a CEO

#40

Post by s_henry_paulson » Tue, Jun 26, 2012, 3:29 PM UTC

tatsuke95 wrote: post #8

> @ryancarson can you blog about how you spend your day running your biz? What biz activities do you focus on now that the product is up? The person on Twitter clearly asks about the business . The author then proceeds to write 18 points about his day, only five of which are actually about the business, including some gems like, "Crank through todos" . Does this guy think he's a celebrity or something? Why am I inter…

Meh, it's a generic question, and I think he does a good job going over his routine giving some insight into his activities.. and I think minute things, for example, going over big-picture items very early in the morning is something more people should adopt.

>Why am I interested in his personal life whatsoever?

Didn't you just open an article called 'A day in the life of a CEO'?

> He's the "CEO" of a small company most people have never heard of.

He's got 50 people working for him, and works from home. I think most of us would love to have 50 people working for us and to never have to suit-up to sit in a closet for most of the day.

I can see why you're nitpicking about some of the items, but for the most part I've picked up some valuable tips from these posts, and I'd rather see content like this then a dozen repeated posts about something silly facebook did.