Hacker News Reader

Comment by m00x | Hacker News Reader

Calvin cofounded Segment that had a $3.2B acquisition. He's not your typical employee.

So this guy is filthy rich and yet decided to grind for 14 months with a newborn at home?

I guess that's why he's filthy rich.

Way to go to keep the boring chores of the first months with the partner and join the fun when the little one starts to be more fun after a year. With all that cash, I'm sure they could buy a bunch of help for the partner too.

I don't know, when I became a parent I was in for the full ride, not to have someone else raising her. Yes, raising includes changing diapers and all that.

You make it sound like your choice is somehow the righteous one. I'm not convinced. What's wrong with a hiring help, as long as it's well selected? And anyway, usually the help would take care of various errands to free up mom so she can focus on her baby. But maybe they have happily involved grandparents. Maybe he was working part-time. Or maybe there's some other factor we're completely missing on right now.

So you sincerely think it’s ok that everybody takes care of the kid but the father because he’s rich and can afford multiple nannies? There’s not much context to miss when TFA has this:

> The Codex sprint was probably the hardest I've worked in nearly a decade. Most nights were up until 11 or midnight. Waking up to a newborn at 5:30 every morning. Heading to the office again at 7a. Working most weekends.

Does a household necessarily need multiple nannies to raise a baby? Grandparents might be willing to help and if there's some house help as well, no nannies might be needed at all, as long as the wife is happy with the arrangement, which I don't find impossible to entertain. Yeah, wealth allows for more freedom of choice, that's always been the case, but this type of arrangement is not unheard of across social classes.

A billionaire asking the grandparents for help with a newborn instead of spending some dollars for that help? C'mon, have you ever had a newborn?

>>free up no so she can focus on her baby

Their baby, I presume…not just hers.

Literally any excuse for the man to not be involved.

There are certain experiences in life that one needs to go through so you keep grounded to what really matters.

The people who will disagree with this statement would say, full throated, that what really mattered was shipping on time.

Couldn't be me. I do my work, then clock the fuck off, and I don't even have kids. I wasn't put upon this earth to write code or solve bugs, I just do that for the cash.

There is some parenting, then there is good parenting. Most people don't have this option due to finances, but those that do and still avoid it to pick up just easy and nice parts - I don't have much sympathy nor respect for them.

Then later they even have the balls to complain how kids these days are unruly, never acknowledging massive gaps in their own care.

Plus it certainly helps the kid with bonding, emotional stability and keeps the parent more in touch emotionally with their own kid(s).

> Then later they even have the balls to complain how kids these days are unruly, never acknowledging massive gaps in their own care.

My favorite is ‘I can’t understand why my kid didn’t turn into a responsible adult!’

Cue look back on what opportunities the parent put them in to learn and practice those skills, over the last 20 years.

You do know that early bonding experiences of newborns are crucial for their lifelong development? It reads like satire, or, if serious, plain child maltreatment.

Pushing it a bit there, aren't we?

Winston, R., & Chicot, R. (2016). The importance of early bonding on the long-term mental health and resilience of children. London journal of primary care, 8(1), 12–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/17571472.2015.1133012

Brown, G. L., Mangelsdorf, S. C., & Neff, C. (2012). Father involvement, paternal sensitivity, and father-child attachment security in the first 3 years. Journal of family psychology : JFP : journal of the Division of Family Psychology of the American Psychological Association (Division 43), 26(3), 421–430. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0027836

Deneault, A. A., Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. J., Groh, A. M., Fearon, P. R. M., & Madigan, S. (2021). Child-father attachment in early childhood and behavior problems: A meta-analysis. New directions for child and adolescent development, 2021(180), 43–66. https://doi.org/10.1002/cad.20434

Scism, A. R., & Cobb, R. L. (2017). Integrative Review of Factors and Interventions That Influence Early Father-Infant Bonding. Journal of obstetric, gynecologic, and neonatal nursing : JOGNN, 46(2), 163–170. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jogn.2016.09.004

Jeong, J., Franchett, E. E., Ramos de Oliveira, C. V., Rehmani, K., & Yousafzai, A. K. (2021). Parenting interventions to promote early child development in the first three years of life: A global systematic review and meta-analysis. PLoS medicine, 18(5), e1003602. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1003602

Joas, J., & Möhler, E. (2021). Bonding in Early Infancy Predicts Childrens' Social Competences in Preschool Age. Frontiers in psychiatry, 12, 687535. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.687535

Thümmler R, Engel E-M, Bartz J. Strengthening Emotional Development and Emotion Regulation in Childhood—As a Key Task in Early Childhood Education. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2022; 19(7):3978. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19073978

“Child abuse or maltreatment constitutes all forms of physical and/or emotional ill-treatment, sexual abuse, neglect or negligent treatment or commercial or other exploitation, resulting in actual or potential harm to the child’s health, survival, development or dignity […] Neglect includes the failure to provide for the development of the child in all spheres: health, education, emotional development, nutrition, shelter and safe living conditions.”

Source: World Health Organization, Child maltreatment, Fact sheet, 2020 https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/child-maltr...

“The term ‘child abuse and neglect’ means, at a minimum, any recent act or failure to act on the part of a parent or caretaker, which results in death, serious physical or emotional harm, sexual abuse or exploitation, or an act or failure to act which presents an imminent risk of serious harm. This includes emotional neglect such as “extreme or bizarre forms of punishment, deliberate cruelty or rejection, or the failure to provide the necessary psychological nurturing.”

Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) https://acf.gov/cb/law-regulation/child-abuse-prevention-and...

Emotional neglect includes “acts of omission, such as the failure to provide developmentally appropriate affection, attention, or emotional support.”

Source: APSAC, Practice Guidelines: The Investigation and Determination of Suspected Psychological Maltreatment of Children and Adolescents, 2017 https://apsac.org/guidelines

It’s obvious why the HN news community has downvoted this comment but you’re absolutely spot on.

This thread reads like all the excuses for emotional and actual abandonment of a mother and a newborn for man’s little work project.

Yeah, or, let the partner have the easy period before they are mobile, and when they sleep half the day, and then join the fun when they can walk off into the craft supplies/pantry where sugar/flour/etc. are stored/the workshop with the power tools etc., and when they drop the naptime and instead start waking at 5am and asking you to play Roblox with them.

Either option is priceless :-)

I just went through this period.

I would not describe it as easy.

lots of wealthy families have dysfunctional internal emotional patterns.. A quick stat is that there is more alcoholism among the 1% wealthiest than the general population across the USA

Wow! Wanting to work hard at building cool things == dysfunctional internal emotional pattern

Sums up western workforce attitude and why immigrants continue to crush them

It's unlikely he sees or even perceives what he's doing as a grind, but rather something akin to an exciting and engrossing chase or puzzle. If my mental model of these kind of Silicon Valley types is correct, neither is he likely to be in it for the money, at least not at the narrative self level. He most likely was "feelin' the AGI", in Ilya Sutskever's immortal words. I.e. feeling like this might be a once-in-a-million-years opportunity to birth a new species, if not a deity even.

I had a chance to join OpenAI 13 months ago too.

But I had a son 14 months ago.

There was absolutely no way I was going to miss any of a critical part in my baby’s life in order to be in an office at 2am managing a bad deployment.

Maybe I gave up my chance at PPU or RSU riches. But I know I chose a different kind of wealth that can never be replaced.

Wow, ditto! I thought I was the only one who took an extended leave to watch their baby grow up. Totally worth it, and it was a wonderful experience being able to focus 100% on her.

You both 100% made the right choice. The number of apologists for terrible fathers in this thread explains a lot.

My daughter was born in 2020, when my employer was going through big changes and the world around me was obviously in chaos. There were real opportunities to work long days and advance in our new parent company. Instead, I took every day of paternity leave that they'd let me have and tossed in some PTO for good measure. There's nothing like being able to spend all day learning your new baby.

Which is a YC startup. If you know anything about YC it's the network of founders supporting each other no matter what.

> no matter what

except if you publicly speak in less than glowing terms their leaders

Some books do a good job of documenting the power struggles that happen behind closed doors, big egos backed by millions clashing over ideas and control.

Not gonna lie, the entire article reads more like a puff piece than an honest reflection. Feels like something went down on Slack, some doors got slammed, and this article is just trying to keep them unlocked. Because no matter how rich you are in the Valley, if you're not on good terms with Sam, a lot of doors will close. He's the prodigy son of the Valley, adopted by Bill Gates and Peter Thiel, and secretly admired by Elon Musk. With Paul Graham's help, he spent 10 years building an army of followers by mentoring them and giving them money. Most of them are now millionaires with influence. And now, even the most powerful people in tech and politics need him. Jensen Huang needs his models to sell servers. Trump needs his expertise to upgrade defence systems. I saw him shaking hands with an Arab sheikh the other day. The kind of handshake that says: with your money and my ambition, we can rule the world.

Why that's exactly what we desperately need - more "rule the world" egos!

That's even more of a reason not to bad mouth other billionaires/billion dollar companies. Billionaires and billion dollar companies work together all the time. It's not a massive pool. There is a reason beef between companies and top level execs and billionaires is all rumors and tea-talk until a lawsuit drops out of no where.

You think every billionaire is gonna be unhinged like Musk calling the president a pedo on twitter?

Hebephile or ephebophile rather than pedo to be precise. And we all saw how great friend he was with epstein for decades, frequent visitor to his parties, dancing together and so on. Not really a shocking statement, whether true or not.

He is still manipulatable and driven by incentive like anyone else.

What incentives? It's not a very intellectual opinion to give wild hypotheticals with nothing to go on other than "it's possible".

I am not trying to advance wild hypotheticals, but something about his behavior does not quite feel right to me. Someone who has enough money for multiple lifetimes, working like he's possessed, to launch a product minimally different than those at dozens of other companies, and leaving his wife with all the childcare, then leaving after 14 months and insisting he was not burnt out but without a clear next step, not even, "I want to enjoy raising my child".

His experience at OpenAI feels overly positive and saccharine, with a few shockingly naive comments that others have noted. I think there is obvious incentive. One reason for this is, he may be in burnout, but does not want to admit it. Another is, he is looking to the future: to keep options open for funding and connections if (when) he chooses to found again. He might be lonely and just want others in his life. Or to feel like he's working on something that "matters" in some way that his other company didn't.

I don't know at all what he's actually thinking. But the idea that he is resistant to incentives just because he has had a successful exit seems untrue. I know people who are as rich as he is, and they are not much different than me.

Calvin just worked like this when I was at Segment. He picked what he worked on and worked really intensely at it. People most often burn out because of the lack of agency, not hours worked.

Also, keep in mind that people aren't the same. What seems hard to you might be easy to others, vice versa.

> People most often burn out because of the lack of agency, not hours worked.

Not sure if it's genuine insight or just a well-written bit of thoughtful PR.

I don't know if this happens to anyone else, but the more I read about OpenAI, the more I like Meta. And I deleted Facebook years ago.

i know calvin, and he's one of the most authentic people i've worked with in tech. this could not be more off the mark

This reflection seems very unlikely to be authentic because it is full of superlatives and not a single bad thing (or at least not great) is mentioned. Real organizations made of real humans simply are not like this.

The fact that several commenters know the author personally goes some way to explain why the entire comment section seems to have missed the utterly unbalanced nature of the article.

People come out to defend their bosses a lot on this site, convincing themselves they know the powerful people best, that they’re “friends”. How can someone be so confident that a founder is authentic, when a large part of their job is to make you believe so (regardless of whether they are), and the employee’s own self image push them to believe it too?

Some teams are bad, some teams are good.

I've always heard horror stories about Amazon, but when I speak to most people at, or from Amazon, they have great things to say. Some people are just optimists, too.

Why did Michael Jordan retire 3 times? Sure, you could probably write a book about it, but you would want to get to know the guy first.

first time in 93 because of burnout from three peat, and allegedly a gambling problem. second because of the lockout and krause pushing phil out. third because too old

sounds exactly like a “typical employee”

Reply on news.ycombinator.com