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

Re: A day in the life of a CEO

#71

Post by davidw » Tue, Jun 26, 2012, 4:58 PM UTC

kevinskii wrote: post #50

mindcrime wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does this guy think he's a celebrity or something? Does that matter? If you find the content valuable, does it matter whether or not he thinks he's a celebrity? Conversely, if you don't find it valuable, does it matter whether or not he thinks he's a celebrity? Maybe it would be better to focus on the message and not the personality behind it? He's the "CEO" of a small company most people have never heard of. I'm not…

What try to put him down for what he's accomplished? He isn't being put down for what he has accomplished. He's being put down for writing a shallow self-serving blog post that is completely devoid of intellectual content, and then submitting it to HN. I hope enough others here flag this as well.

Flagging is for stuff that's really off topic, like politics, not for something that you didn't happen to find interesting.

Re: A day in the life of a CEO

#72

Post by mertd » Tue, Jun 26, 2012, 5:07 PM UTC

justjimmy wrote: post #57

The gem I found from his post is this: https://www.philrichardsperformance.co.uk/index.php/goodness... I have never tried supplements, always thought they were a bit extreme and only for hardcore athletes and fitness buffs. As I get older, I realize the importance of metabolism (who cares about it when you're a teen and it's sky high), knowing eating breakfast really kicks up your metabolism and how fibre and greens…

> knowing eating breakfast really kicks up your metabolism

I'm not sure this is experimentally verified. There is also the "skip the breakfast" camp that advocates remaining in the catabolic state a little longer to keep burning the fat.

Also, why not throw the exact same greens into a blender. Surely that powder in the tub cannot be any better than fresh vegetables.

Re: A day in the life of a CEO

#73

Post by mnicole » Tue, Jun 26, 2012, 5:15 PM UTC

wissler wrote: post #45

tatsuke95 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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…

"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." Wow. Well, he's the CEO isn't he? He can answer the question he thought should have been asked.

The same way politics works, eh?

Re: A day in the life of a CEO

#74

Post by ryancarson » Tue, Jun 26, 2012, 5:42 PM UTC

Thank you to everyone who took time to stick up for me here. I can take it though, don't worry. I appreciate it nevertheless.

I wrote the post because I'm interested in the details behind everyone's daily life. It's where talk meets action. I don't think I'm a celebrity. I merely wanted to be transparent about my routine so that other CEOs could see how their life compares.

I submit my articles to HN, but it's the community that puts them on the front page. Take them or leave them. It's just my blog :)

Re: A day in the life of a CEO

#75

Post by taurussai » Tue, Jun 26, 2012, 6:02 PM UTC

Close to 9 hrs of work/day and with 4 day work weeks this seems to be a well balanced life! One can argue that quality of work is way better than quantity but this looks primarily for a later stage startup founder...

Re: A day in the life of a CEO

#76

Post by tatsuke95 » Tue, Jun 26, 2012, 6:12 PM UTC

samstave wrote: post #36

tatsuke95 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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.

I'm not upset at all.

In fact, I'm quite amused that people find this post enlightening and insightful, when I find it to be...obnoxious might be too strong a word, but definitely self-promoting and lacking any substance. Apparently some people agree with me. Life is funny like that.

Re: A day in the life of a CEO

#77

Post by hoppster » Tue, Jun 26, 2012, 6:38 PM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #60

blhack wrote: post #41

>5:05 AM - Make a point of appreciating all that is good about my life, instead of immediately rushing into my day. I often take a deep breath and sit out on our deck for a few minutes. Is this meant to be satire or something? This was seriously put into his schedule as a 5 minute task?

I totally agree. It sounds awfully ridiculous -- appreciation of life isn't something that happens "on schedule" any more than falling in love is. Maybe he should have just said, "take a quiet moment before starting my day, because it helps keep me relaxed/whatever" or something to that effect.

I have to disagree with you guys here. I'm definitely not a ryan carson fanboy, but I've been scheduling my 'life appreciation' time for years and my life has been better because of it. In fact, you'll see it on almost every daily schedule I create. It was very easy to go months without appreciating all the blessings before I made a deliberate effort to schedule that time. I'm already teaching this important 'trick' to my kid.

Re: A day in the life of a CEO

#78

Post by ryancarson » Tue, Jun 26, 2012, 6:58 PM UTC

Timothee wrote: post #70

Question for Ryan: I know you said you work 4 days a week at Treehouse. How well do you respect that? Do you do any kind of work during the weekend or just errands, relaxing and family time?

I respect it a ton. I rarely work over the weekends. I check email occasionally, but not often.

Re: A day in the life of a CEO

#79

Post by larrys » Tue, Jun 26, 2012, 7:01 PM UTC

mindcrime wrote: post #47

runjake wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

It people find the content valuable, does it matter if he's gaining something from the exposure? Come to think of it, aren't a lot of the people who post here doing it (at least partially) to promote themselves or something they're building? I mean, I freely admit I am, for one[1]. [1]: Fogbeam Labs, the up-and-coming Open Source collaboration/knowledge-management company. http://www.fogbeam.com Go there now and sign…

"Come to think of it, aren't a lot of the people who post here doing it (at least partially) to promote themselves or something they're building?"

I don't have an issue with self promotion on the part of anyone including what you have done with the [1]. (As an aside I've never charged anyone for anything mentioned in my hn profile although somehow I suspect that some people have felt that I am self promoting. (Which is not to say I won't charge I just haven't so far...)

There appears though to be an imaginary line that some HN posters cross that seems to upset people here depending on the poster. Based on a recent ryancarson post he may have crossed it. (Someone wrote sarcastically that he writes the BEST blog posts, Ryan thanked that person, then someone else basically told ryan he was a schmuck for not seeing the sarcasm (the parent was quickly deleted interestingly).

Regardless of whether someone finds Ryan annoying, pompous or not (personally I don't like the picture of him with the hat, sorry Ryan) I definitely know who Ryan is now and I think he's gained more than he will ever lose by tooting his own horn. And that can only help him. To this day people still make fun of Donald Trump. So if a hacker would rather toil in obscurity and not brag that is his choice. But there is a benefit to bragging and being pompous in achieving your goals and that should be kept in mind. Being humble only gets you so far.

As an aside, you need to get some serious lorum ipsum on your site if you are going to promote it as you've done.

http://fogbeam.com/about_us.html

Re: A day in the life of a CEO

#80

Post by larrys » Tue, Jun 26, 2012, 7:04 PM UTC

ryancarson wrote: post #74

Thank you to everyone who took time to stick up for me here. I can take it though, don't worry. I appreciate it nevertheless. I wrote the post because I'm interested in the details behind everyone's daily life. It's where talk meets action. I don't think I'm a celebrity. I merely wanted to be transparent about my routine so that other CEOs could see how their life compares. I submit my articles to HN, but it's the co…

"I don't think I'm a celebrity."

Not a celebrity yet.

Julia Allison was roundly made fun of a few years ago for her ability to garner press on some blogs and people felt she was totally overexposed. (So was Bethenny Frankel for that matter). Both of them now have TV shows.