Watch a VC use my name to sell a con (2011)
jwz.org
jwz.org
For better or worse, these people choose "work" (in quotes because it doesn't feel like work) over watching TV, taking vacations, and spending time with friends.
When outsiders observe people like this, outsiders come to the conclusion that said people are successful because of the long hours. When in fact, they're successful because they're obsessed with making it successful.
In other words, the takeaway should be "do something you love," rather than "work long hours."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_caus...
It's also highly questionable that people who are successful are successful because they're obsessed with making it successful. Obsessives and workaholics love to play it as if that's what turns the trick, but it's really just as silly as a sports team attributing its success to having "wanted it more". What, like the other guys didn't want it?
From another point of view, Robert Greene tries to mount the horse from the other side, in his book "The 50th Law", where he brings forth that the mastery of any skill at a sufficient level will make you love that skill (kinda like Intellectual Stockholm Syndrome). So there are arguments from the other side as well.
If we are to follow Greene's train of thought, most work can be made enjoyable through an unhealthy dose of obsession.
On the question whether people are sucessful because they are obsessed, I personally think that it's a contributing factor. The existence of people that are obsessed but not sucessful seems to prove that obsession does not lead directly to sucess, but most people I consider sucessful posess some element of obession.
I actually tend to group people by obsession, for example Tim Feriss, Robert Greene, Neil Strauss, Cal Newport, Stephen Key,Perry Marshal etc. by their obsession for different kinds of Systems.
We should be working less hours; as the mental capacity and focus required to do our jobs well is strictly necessary to do a good job.
Just because someone, somewhere, got rich working stupid hours doesn't mean you will-- if anything you probably won't and why would you want to? Your life just vanished; because you spent it working like a dog for nothing.
While I think DHH (of Rails fame) is often kind of a douche (I am too, so don't take too much offense)-- his, public, views on how to run an office and actually work a start up are vastly better and more realistic for the masses.
This is true not just for engineers, but teachers, manufacturing workers, and number of people where the workforce size is suppressed and individuals are stretched to the limit for the benefit of the C suite and the shareholders.
One not actually unfortunate aspect of the preferability of sane to insane work hours is that a lot of aspects of corporate culture that are much esteemed in startup-land are really basically designed to get you to work insane hours, from undergrad-dorm-esque offices (hey, remember when we pulled all-nighters all the time and it was totally cool?), to employer provision of services since you wouldn't otherwise have time to run errands, to, most mind-bogglingly to me, employer provision of dinner. It really shocks me when I see a company drawing attention to how it provides free evening meals to its employees (or just to its engineering staff or whatever), because why the fuck would I be there at dinner time? And why are you all stretched so thin in the first place? (I mean, at my actual job, I am there at dinner time, on occasion. Which is less than ideal. But at least no one acts as if that's a great state of affairs.) And that doesn't get into the corrosive mindset according to which your job is supposed to be your primary leisure pursuit as well, because you love it so damn much.
It's absolutely a corrosive mindset. It's also one not conducive to learning new tricks or to meaningful thinking– just shallow processing, to paraphrase Nassim Taleb.
Don't get me wrong, I'll be up late tonight. I've got some big things tomorrow that I need to prep for. It happens once in a while.
Sleep's important, but the kind of masochistic bullshit you correctly ID isn't. Or shouldn't be.
I mean workwise, I feel better sprinting short burst than to walk for long periods, but trying to take on a 4 year death marathon, starting at 6 in the morning and ending 2 in the evening, wasn't much of a bright idea. I ended up crashing every second term, to get sick weekly during that time and to pull down my hard earned grades into the D range.
I believe that the mind is a lot like muscle in that respect. Don't excercise it, and it will atrophy. Strain it constantly, and it will break down, along with your bodily health. The point to building mental muscle seems to be alternating between periods of excertion and recuperation. Anyone telling you that carrying weights constantly is the path to strenght is proably trying to get you to build their pyramids, pulling stone slabs up an incline day and night.
You can imagine what the culture was like (loved my team though)
This is how margins are increased (runway gain) by the people who are going to be selling the company: cheap offices and more hours under the same salary. You want respect for your time from a startup? Work hourly.
for most of us (those launching pure software startups - sorry hardware folks) we now have the benefit of 6c per hour servers and the luxury of avoiding VCs completely.
we can burn 12-18c an hour ($133/month) while we find product market fit with a business model such that adding users adds profit. that's what you are doing right?
if not, then yes, you are falling into the VC trap.
otherwise, you own your culture. think about what you want.
I don't think this fact changes the "do what you love" message at all; it just means that you have a better chance at getting a decent slice of the pie if and when doing what you love becomes lucrative.
> "I've been burned badly by VCs. Treated unfairly. But my response was simply to stop doing what I was doing and start doing something else."
Isn't that exactly what Jamie is saying? Once what you're doing stops being fun, don't force yourself to keep slogging because you think keeping your nose to the grindstone will make you rich.
And as someone else said, I doubt you're at the end of your life. At least, I hope not!
The thinking (if I can speculate) probably is that if an item was submitted that didn't make it to the homepage, but it gets resubmitted a year later and does make it, it's worth everyone seeing it again.
Or, it could just be too annoying for the less-than-part-time maintainers of HN to keep the blacklist past 10,000 items or something.
Speculate on. :)
You can watch the video if you want, but the relevant gist is that I knew people who trained for marathons and really wrecked themselves. They did one, said "never again", and then quit running. Whereas I, a slow fat guy, took my running much more gradually, and now have been running 7 years. I even just did my first triathlon a couple months back.
Video here: http://vimeo.com/24843552
On the other hand, I don't think it changes the meaning of the article the least bit if we exchange Arrington with any of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_venture_capital_firms.
It seems to me that being a partner at a venture capital firm makes someone a VC. Why do you think otherwise?
BTW, from CNN: "CrunchFund itself has largely flown-under the radar. It doesn't even have a website."
They might not make a lot of noise now, but CrunchFund was the trigger for several days of utter and very public chaos at AOL/TechCrunch when it launched, leading to Arrington being fired because of AOL's own choices and disclaimer of journalistic ethics, but not really, but oh maybe really, but no, but yes, but now he's back, and AOL still doesn't know WTF they're doing...
Email jwz your suggestions. Also have you seen his homepage? http://www.jwz.org/ OMG, it's like... So horrible hurts my eyes, god who would care about what jwz says with that design!
On HN you're not a real hacker until even your tweets have a colophon.
In all seriousness, what issues do you have with it?
Reading it on my tablet at night means I don't get blinded by a light background, and the green is something my eyes deal with easily. Honestly, I think his site looks better than most of the same vanilla layouts we see here posted every day.
I'm not affiliated with the developer in any way.