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Comment by yummyfajitas | Hacker News Reader

This. What she is really saying is that she has permission to fail the customers who trusted her. We achieve success by being given a position of trust by people who depend on us. She is unilaterally demanding the right to betray that trust in order to have both the benefits of success, and also the easy lifestyle of someone who is just a worker bee.

This idea that everyone deserves an easy lifestyle, regardless of their position, is one that needs to die. Marissa Mayer and her ultra short maternity leaves gets it. This lady does not.

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Thank you! HN is not the same scary place it was two years ago. I'm impressed!

> What she is really saying is that she has permission to fail the customers who trusted her.

No she really isn't.

> She is unilaterally demanding the right to betray that trust in order to have both the benefits of success, and also the easy lifestyle of someone who is just a worker bee.

This is baseless. She is giving herself permission to not be wracked with guilt, beat herself up about it endlessly, and put herself through self-imposed torture if she fails. It makes sense not to snowball over and compound your failures by piling on. Nobody is advocating screwing customers over by default.

> This idea that everyone deserves an easy lifestyle, regardless of their position, is one that needs to die.

Kind of extreme?

> Marissa Mayer and her ultra short maternity leaves gets it. This lady does not.

...

Besides, our system of corporate loans and bankruptcy works so well to encourage innovation precisely because it minimizes the personal cost of failure. If you weren't allowed to fail, nobody would take risks.

No one is saying she should compound her failures. I'm saying she should either be willing to do what it takes to fix them or she should step aside for someone who is willing.

The idea of screwing customers "by default" is exactly what she advocates doing. By default services will break and she is giving herself permission to leave them broken.

I think I understand what you're saying, but I think you're drawing the wrong conclusion here. You just stated that services break by default. I think that's what the author is stating, too. Services break. People make mistakes. Failures happen. By accepting screw-ups we arm ourselves with a mindset that's focused on moving forward, instead of beating ourselves up over what's already occurred.

I took away something completely different. The OP gives herself permission to fail not because she doesn't want to put in the effort, or has any less desire to succeed.

The point is she doesn't want to be driven by fear. Fear is a powerful motivator but not necessarily a constructive one. Some people may find they lack drive without the fear of failure, but to me it seems the OP feels it more of a drag. Without the burden of fear she may feel more clarity and actually make better decisions, e.g. decisions that carry more personal risk but are better for the company/customers.

So the appearance of dedication and the platitudes mouthed are more important than the actual results?

Saying something about "permission to fail" and then recovering & excelling < claiming repeatedly you're committed and putting in 100 hours a week that don't solve the problem effectively?

The author isn't remotely coming up with some sort of "work smarter not harder" plan, or some way to get actual results without large amounts of work. She's giving "permission to fail" instead of "push through the issues".

I'm a keen.io customer, and I don't feel betrayed. YMMV.

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