The Way I Work: Justin Kan of Justin.tv | Hacker News Reader

The Way I Work: Justin Kan of Justin.tv

inc.com

114 pointsevansolomon62 comments

"Lunch gets delivered to the office every day at noon. We asked our former office manager to order lunch every day, because I didn't want to worry about it. I just wanted food to show up. He did it for a year before starting his own business, which now provides this service for us and for other start-ups in the area, too."

Anyone have the name of this service?

ZeroCater

Clickable: http://zerocater.com/

Upside down: /ɯoɔ˙ɹǝʇɐɔoɹǝz//:dʇʇɥ

How did you do that?

http://www.fliptext.org/ would be one approach. (or something like http://pypi.python.org/pypi/upsidedown for the semi-hardcore)

He held the keyboard upside down.

ouch. i think you just held my brain upside down.

Hey PJ - that's me, the service is called ZeroCater.com Yeah, it was pretty cool to be almost mentioned in Inc.

Feel free to get in touch with me: a@zerocater.com

Thanks!

Arram

I'd be hesitant to use your service without a referral. Your site doesn't list your restaurants, your fees, or your happy clients. It's just a Google Doc lead gen form. Why?

There's almost no selling going on on the website, so probably most of their business spreads through word-of-mouth, with visitors to the site already having been referred by happy clients. They also probably need to control how many new clients they adopt to ensure they have adequate capacity before scaling.

Spot on. Almost anyone who sees the site has already met me or been referred by one of my customers.

That said, clearly there's a lot of work to be done on the site.

Hey, I remember you from poker! Glad to see you're doing well. I'm assuming zerocater's just for companies in SF at the moment, not someplace nearby like Burlingame?

ZeroCater is an amazing service. I recommend it for any startup.

Do you guys do new york as well?

Not yet. Check back in 6 months!

My job is to help other people do their jobs well.

straight from the Spolsky school of management

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/DevelopmentAbstractio...

+1 for that link. There's so much of Joel's writing, I don't know where to begin ;-)

Any idea which book called "Influence" Justin was talking about? Looks like there is more than one: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dap....

It's this one: http://www.amazon.com/Influence-Psychology-Persuasion-Busine...

Similar tangent: Is this the Shogun book that Justin was talking about? http://www.amazon.com/Shogun-Tokugawa-Ieyasu-Tuttle-Classics...

I'm guessing they are referring to the popular novel by James Clavell based on the same historical figure:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sh%C5%8Dgun_%28novel%29

No, it's a fiction by James Clavel based on Tokugawa Ieyasu's life.

http://www.amazon.com/Shogun-James-Clavell/dp/0440178002/ref...

Highly recommended.

I learned Chinese because of that damned book.

Why Chinese? They're in Japan.

I read it when I was really young, so it imprinted as an idyllic myth of sorts. I discovered it was just one of a series (most of which take place in China) later on in middle and high school, and by senior year I was reading Water Margins and Romance of the Three Kingdoms in class. Learning Chinese was especially trendy when I entered college in '05, so it seemed fun to dive into something I had carried my whole life.

This is the book: http://www.amazon.com/Shogun-James-Clavell/dp/0440178002

Perhaps I should put my own referral link in ;)

I phone interviewed with Justin.tv soon after they launched. A good chunk of the interview was asking me how I would use grep to solve various problems. It was an interesting interview. I liked that they were clearly looking for people that can get stuff done and didn't want to BS around about it.

http://www.inc.com/magazine/20100701/the-way-i-work-justin-k...

Printer friendly version. All the text on one page with no ads.

Just ⌘-⇧-R in Safari. No need to hunt for printer friendly versions.

Cool. You're talking about their readability rip off (I use readability all the time). Does it also display the whole article on one page?

You're talking about their readability rip off

In Safari, if you go to Help and then Acknowledgements, Apple explicitly mentions Arc90 and Readability.

Does it also display the whole article on one page?

Safari automatically loads the second page when you get to the bottom of the first one.

Nice, that's pretty sweet.

(I forgot about the fact that it was actually Readabililty, not simply a rip off, sorry about that)

I submitted page 2 by accident, here is page 1 http://www.inc.com/magazine/20100701/the-way-i-work-justin-k...

Looks like it was fixed by a moderator.

This article describes the difference between "a job" and "being paid to do what you love". This doesn't mean you have to start your own company. It means you need to find a team you enjoy working with where you get to do things each day you where you get to do your best.

For work/life balance, it is about priorities and setting clear expectations with your significant other. If you love working a lot and start dating don't fake a shorter work week, don't fake that you'll make it home every night for dinner at 5pm. For some people, it will be a deal breaker, and for others they'll appreciate the time you do spend together because during that time you'll be happy, fulfilled and fun to be around.

Would you rather have a SO that comes home every night at 5PM and does nothing but complain about how horrible their day was until 9PM or that needs 4 hours to decompress from work or would you rather have somebody that comes home at 9PM happy to see you with a positive attitude?

"This article describes the difference between 'a job' and 'being paid to do what you love'."

Perhaps, but he says: It's just the way I was raised. So I think, it's more cultural, that he only feels right, worth, if he's working.

There's nothing wrong to feel good when you're working, but there's something wrong, if you feel bad when you're not working.

I often times feel unsettled when not working -- even when I rationally know that working more at that time isn't necessarily productive, efficient or sustainable. That's probably not the most optimal attitude.

Also, I've debated it a lot, and at this point am not convinced that working all the time == success, having seen many examples both ways. Consequently I find it pretty hard to justify telling people to work all the time now (in order to achieve success), and in order to justify however much I'm working I just say that I think it is the moral thing to do.

Is anyone aware of the long-term effects of taking melatonin before you go to bed every night? Just curious, maybe worth a try?

I'm hoping it is benign :)

I actually don't take it every night, but find I can sleep much more regular hours the nights I do.

As of a couple of years ago when I asked my sleep specialist, no one knows.

Your body will naturally produce less melatonin at sleep time. It adjusts back if you stop taking melatonin. This isn't an issue at the doctor recommended 1mg dosage of melatonin, but at 3mg it is and most melatonin pills are 3mg.

As a fake doctor of herbal medicine, my recommendation is to take 1mg of melatonin when you want it, not 3mg. Also, if you take it sublingually (letting it dissolve under your tongue) it takes effect right away.

Interesting. I generally take 3mg, and I think I pretty much need it at this point. I may try and lower my dosage over time. That said, are there any negative effects from relying on melatonin? Sure, maybe I can't sleep well without it, but having access to it isn't much of a problem.

Justin, how do you help the engineers on their problems if you say yourself that you're not that much of a programmer?

I'm not a great programmer, but:

- I'm a pretty decent web developer

- I have a lot of web development experience and often times can solve web related problems with little direct knowledge of the particular code

- Generally scaling problems all follow the same patterns and really there are only a few things that go wrong on websites

- I am a decent communicator and can help communicate ideas (whether they are my own or others)

- I have a good sense of timing around the work flow of web development, and can help line things up (design meetings, QA resources, releases) around the work flow of developers

- I can be a sounding board for technical ideas

- I can record a brainstorming / design meeting and turn it into a spec (although I could probably be better at spec writing!)

- I can help people get excited about an idea

When I started Kiko with Emmett 5 years ago I could barely do any web development at all (don't tell PG!). Since then, I think I've become quite adept at building web apps (and some of those skills even apply to mobile apps). That's not to say I'm exceptional -- I think most people should be able to learn something in 5 years! However, I've noticed that there are a lot of people in the tech startup / HN community that don't necessarily have a ton of programming experience but want to launch tech startups. There are quite a few examples among my friends of people who have done that successfully -- building web apps isn't just about programming.

Wow, thanks for clearing that up! I'm really in that position right now, great to hear that from you.

7am - 11pm? So do you have make a lot of sacrifices with your personal life? Like girlfriend, wife, family?

Also, why did you decide to act on the whole "professionalism" feedback? Did you just thought it would be fun, or did you notice it was affecting the company?

I envy your drive. Amazing really.

Our basic operating idea at the company is that if people think something makes it harder to get their job done then it's a problem worth fixing. Professionalism in the office is just one example.

7am - 11pm? So do you have make a lot of sacrifices with your personal life? Like girlfriend, wife, family?

No one person at justin.tv works those hours (and the article didn't say that).

Many people worked long hours in the early days (when I first started here, I worked 12 hours on weekdays, and 8 hours each on Saturday and Sunday). I haven't done that in a while though - it isn't sustainable.

I get into the office around 10 to 10:30 (not mentioned in the article). So, leaving at 7:30 is around a 9 hour day (pretty reasonable I think). On some occasions I leave later (last Friday we were at the office until 11!), but that's certainly not every day.

Also, generally we don't work from the office on weekends any more.

Glad to see some love for Iain M. Banks. Easily my favorite scifi author at the moment.

Justin TV in May 2007: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ojbyrne/505415469/

I remember it being a little more informal than the Inc picture suggests, but look - dress shirt.

Justin wears a suit now?

I really like the transformation. Changing from the outside most definitely affects you internally.

Dressing up for work is something I'd love to see studied more. At my first job I wore a suit everyday. Wasn't a biggie except cleaning a bit of a hassle, but I always felt really good going and coming from work.

Now I wear jeans when we have important customers coming by. I definitely like the freedom, but I do think that maybe I should dress it up a bit more. It sometimes just felt really good. Not sure why, or if it matters. Inertia is the main thing holding me back.

Only some days, and rarely now that it's the summer and our office doesn't have AC. Seriously though, I definitely feel a lot better on days I wear a shirt and tie to work, especially since it is a very marked contrast from the rest of Valley culture.

since it is a very marked contrast from the rest of Valley culture

I think you're onto something there. The typical valley firm has almost as much of a uniform as a bank.

The subversive suit. Interesting.

The folks in the picture don't look terribly happy to be following him around. The guy in the black jacket looks damn near depressed.

That said, I'm sure it's just the picture. I actually like walking meetings most of the time. And I find Justin's attitude inspiring.

The photo was staged. That shot was probably the 15th or 16th time we walked past that garage, so I'm pretty sure no one was extremely happy at that point :)

Makes sense. I should have considered that possibility, but being featured in articles is something I haven't had the chance to experience yet ;)

I thought they chose Just In TV because streaming content is always just in, but it awkwardly sounded like someone's name. Now it's awkward for a different reason: what does that guy's name have to do with streaming internet TV?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin.tv#Lifecasting_origins

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