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Comment by Xylakant | Hacker News Reader

So you’d rather like that the employees foot the bill? Someone needs to pay for that prized 24/7. Note that you can scrounge up an on-call schedule with three people, two if you squeeze it.

Flex hours is a thing that helps, but even there must be an agreement that when you’re off, you’re off. Companies can be stuck in perceived crisis mode for years at a time.

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Having been one of those #1 employees in the past, I didn't feel short changed. It was an arrangement that was beneficial for both myself and the employer. I don't know how many of us there are. But there are people who will take being on call 24/7 in exchange for full autonomy and not having to justify coming and leaving at random hours or taking leave without notice when the opportunity is there.

I had the employer pay for some of my vacations during downtime, I progressed along my career path much faster than normal employees, I was paid more than normal employees. It was a good gig.

There’s a huge leap between “I’m founder or employee #1 and if this flies, it’ll be great.” and the sweeping statement that people that don’t pick up their phone after business hours cannot be entrusted with important projects - which is exactly the statement I took offense with.

And even startups need to get out of “we’ll wing it and cover with our lives for our management failures” mode as early as possible because it’s clearly not sustainable.

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