How I Feel as Young Father Involved in Early-stage Startup
nguonthieng.com
nguonthieng.com
Of all the things that might happen, much as we'd like it to be different, I can guarantee that this is one which won't happen.
However upsetting it may be now (or looking back in the future), time isn't going to wait for you and all those firsts, all those events and experiences you miss, won't wait and won't happen again.
We tell ourselves it isn't a choice but for many of us it is. Most of us could earn enough money to support our family comfortably in a relatively regular 9 - 5 job. We might not be personally as satisfied and we might not be as financially well off, but we can choose one possible version of our life over another.
It's absolutely fair to say that you have to balance the needs of being a "good" father (which let's remember is a subjective term in many ways), against your own personal needs (and indeed the needs of your partner, the rest of your family and so on), but most people reading this board are fortunate enough that there genuinely is an element of choice.
No-one should tell you that working long hours so your child need never go without (or so you're personally happy and the time you spend with them you do so without resentment) is better or worse than coaching their sports team and being there every bath time, but whatever you decide to do, I think the most important thing is to accept that you're doing it because you made a conscious decision - ultimately that's going to be the only way you'll be at peace with it.
And if you haven't made a conscious decision, the for heavens' sake sit down with your other half and do so. Of all the outcomes, doing what you're doing without thinking about what you want and what works best for your family maybe the only truly bad one.
I will give this guy a lot of credit for honesty. It's tempting to pretend that starting a company is something you are doing solely to provide a better life for others, when the truth is it is just as often, if not more so, for the self-actualization need of the founder.
From the wife/kid's perspective - they want you to be happy, but they also want you to be present and engaged. From that perspective, what you do to make the money isn't so important as the fact that you can provide, and be part of the fun.
"believing that this is the great sacrifice I must make, the choice I took upon myself for the betterment of the family, for you, but I know that’s not entirely true A little or a lot, it’s for me This addiction or obsession I seem to have with work"
Bertrand Russell - "In Praise of Idleness" - http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html
"Leisure: The Basis Of Culture" by Josef Pieper also seems on topic, I'm planning to read it myself - http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/767958.Leisure
References are from comments on here yesterday - "How did we get so busy?" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7769610
I don't know if the OP is still contracting but if he is, something like Brennan Dunn's "Double Your Freelancing Rate" could help with working less on more interesting / higher paid projects - http://doubleyourfreelancingrate.com
From my own experiences - obviously your mileage may vary - but your family (and especially your wife if you have young kids!) needs you to be present and engaged.
Yes, as others have said, PG has said that you could compress your working life into a few years but what if you're holding a losing lotto ticket at the end of the day? Because you are gambling with your time.
We all make compromises and sacrifices with our lives - and we all have to live with those choices. Whether these are "right" or "wrong" is really for the individual to decide.
It's probably my first negative comment on HN, but as a new father of a 6 months son, and a co-founder of a startup, this just irritates me. I spend 2-3 days per week working from home, being able to take a lunch break with my wife, or change nappies for my son or feed him in the morning before hacking away. I catch up later at night when he sleeps, but generally manage my time well between those two. I'm not a perfect father and not the most successful entrepreneur, but these are the choices I made and the challenges I face. I think it's important for my son that I'm going to be around, but also that he has a father that is proud of his work and enjoys what he does.
For me it would be (and is--I have two sons) a no-brainer. I actually am working at a start-up, but it's one that places a high value on work-life balance so I never feel that I have to work outside of 9-5. I have cracked open the laptop on the occasional evening just because I enjoy what I'm working on, but I definitely wouldn't want to miss this period of my kids' lives for anything. They're only this young once.
Given the psychology studies on creativity and productivity given the mythical man hour, it's not much of a choice.
Beyond that, missing his daughter's life and working many hours, sleeping less will ultimately lead to a shorter life due to the physiological effects.
But in the meantime, I have a daughter due in a few months and I know that the most important things for her are that I have a steady income and that I be around for her and my wife as much as I can. Being a (new) entrepreneur allows neither of those things. Maybe when she's a bit older I can think about striking out on my own, but for now it would be selfish to do so.
It's self-serving to set up a schedule like the OP did, then complain that you don't have enough time to spend with your family. You have no one to blame but yourself; we in the tech industry have the luxury right now to have a large demand for our labour for wages well above the median. Most people in the world can't say that and have to make compromises. We don't. To make compromises anyway is to play the martyr card.
If, as a technologist, you don't get a chance to see your daughter, it's because you prioritized something else over her.
I'm currently in the 9-5 job and maybe I'm just a whiner, but I feel the same as this guy. I hate the commute through rush hour traffic that I am required by the time window to make. I hate that once I get to the office I sit in a 8'x8' cube, with two 8'x4' desks taking up 50% of the space. I hate that I've just been reassigned to a new cube, same size, same desks, but now with a structural 4x4 pillar taking up another 25% and my back to the "door".
I hate that I spend all day patching the same kinds of holes again and again without the authority to fix the root problems. I hate that I have no real ability to influence the direction of my organization. Without agency it become very difficult to keep caring about the product. I hate that nobody else cares either. I work purely to support my family. That is the only reason. I used to love writing software, and I still do, but I hate my job. I hate that I feel like everything that makes me who I am is being slowly ground away into nothing.
I get home with time for the kids but I have nothing left. My mental tank is completely empty. I almost can't get up in the mornings, I don't want to get up. If it wasn't for my wife and kids I wouldn't get up. Somehow this wonderful, exciting process of solving problems and finding solutions to people's needs has turned into torture. I'm on a sinking ship and am too burdened with responsibility to jump off. So I'm frantically trying in my spare time to build a raft so I can find my own island. I feel like I'm racing against time. I have to finish the raft before I have a mental break and land my family on welfare and me on a psychologist's couch.
There are great things about my job, those benefits that you mention: 40 hours a week (well, 50 including the commute), an above-average salary (my wife can spend her quality time teaching and raising our kids), job security (we've been planning to end-of-life the product for longer than I've been here), a reasonable boss (who is just as powerless to change things as I am).
I guess I'm not really disagreeing with you, just sharing an admittedly depressed view from the other side. We do have a choice, and right now my choice is to pull late nights after the kids go to bed. I'm scrambling to create my own software that I can sell so I don't have to go to this 9-5 which you advocate for OP.
Both sides of the decision likely involve compromise. The idea that being a more involved parent is without downside is sadly not true for most people.
The only thing I would say is that there are jobs that allow a work life balance which aren't totally soul destroying - something between your current hell and the 12 hour a day start up culture. Maybe it's time to start looking for something which may not be your perfect job, but might be a little better.
Essentially what I am saying is, it might be time for you to look for a different 9-5 job.
Have you started to look for other work? It's not easy to throw a job search on top of everything else on your plate, but if it gives you some of your own life back, it could be well worthwhile.
I have a 3-year-old son, and it's been an interesting ride. This year was supposed to be more relaxing because we got into a better living situation, but then my wife was getting bored staying at home every day. So she got a really interesting job, but the job ended up being way more involved than either of us expected. So our schedules are pretty hectic, but it's worth it to see her mentally stimulated and avoiding the professional detachment that can come from stay-at-home-parenting.
I have some really interesting personal projects going, which have been affected by family stuff. I have responded by stretching out the timeframe on these projects. That is better than giving up these projects entirely, and it is way better than ignoring my family in order to finish the projects.
If you limit yourself to one or two kids, your kids will be grown up and out of the house in no time, and you'll never get that time back with them. "Out of the house" doesn't mean 18 and living somewhere else, it can mean 6 and in school most of the day, or 12 and in all kinds of activities all the time. Those early years are prime family time; I hope everyone is able to let themselves enjoy that period of life.
I have looked at other jobs, and I'm thinking about picking up the search again, especially given the volume of mail I get from recruiters. Basically though I have given up on finding a job that matches what I want out of life. I feel a bit ungrateful because there is so much opportunity out there. People with our skills are in high demand. But after the last few years I have decided that the only reliable way to find a company that values what I value is to create it myself.
Maybe that's something that could actually help. You sound like you're suffering from depression and it's a difficult cycle to get out of (for those that are blessed to be able to).
Maybe this is superficial but here's a few suggestions that improved my outlook on life when I was in a similar situation:
- I chose to drive an alternate route to work that was longer, but involved a more scenic trip. I began to appreciate it more.
- I started podcasting extensively (I use Downcast on IOS and listen at 1.5x speed). Story-based podcasts were helpful - The Moth, This American Life, Planet Money, Freakonomics, The Truth, etc.
- Audiobooks can be very distracting for commutes. My local library had a good selection and Audible/Audiobooks.com aren't that expensive.
- I went to the local thrift store and bought some desk lamps. They were gaudy but fun. I put two in my cube.
- I hung Christmas lights in my cube.
- I went to Big Box Hardware store and bought a small area run and put it at the cube entrance.
- I bought a round convex mirror on Amazon and hung it behind my monitors so I could see the cube door.
- I got desk plants (http://www.mossandstonegardens.com/mossrocks.php) to add some green to my environment.
Those simple things made my work environment much better ( I still wanted to leave, true, but it helped). Maybe that can make your life slightly better too.
My kids are all teens moving into 20s now. I work a job whose primary feature is working at home (the job is fine, but I do it to be home) so I can soak up some last time with them before they are out of the house. I now get to hear about crushes and new-found independence.
But, if I could do it again, I wouldn't make the mistake. There is time for all the things after your kids are older. If you are in a situation where you have to be gone to provide a roof, and there is no other way, have no guilt; but if you have the option, your future self and your kids will thank you for being there.
Don't fool yourself into thinking "once I get this right, I'll have all the time in the world to spend with my kids". This will never happen, and if it does it will be too late to form that close bond, and share your life with your kids.
I'm in to work (my own business) at 7:30, leave by 5 at the latest and make sure to drop all my stress/anxieties at the door. I have weekends off, and rarely miss events or chances to ditch work and support my two girls.
To each their own, but I would never sacrifice a moment with my daughter unless is was absolutely necessary. As contrary as it might seem to people in the startup bubble, the importance placed on most day-to-day work is an illusion.
Pop the bubble and hug your kids. In the long run, that relationship will mean much, much more to you.
I rarely have a client demand my time in the evening/night or weekend. If I do I usually try to accommodate (the life of client work!) but don't make it a habit.
I do think you are projecting, although if you co-workers have issues with you clocking out "early" it's completely on their end. If you spend the day chit-chatting and clock out early, you may not be leaving the right impression. But if you clock in, kick ass and go home at a reasonable time I can't see anyone having issues. It's also good to explain to people why you have to leave at 5 or earlier, so they know you're not just looking to skip out, but rather you value your home life enough that you don't want it compromised by your work.
When you're present, people DO notice who spends two hours a day talking about golf or football or facebook or talking on the phone. Don't be that guy. Work at work, play at home, and you'll appear (and be) much more productive for 8 hours than the guy who works 6 hours and plays 6 hours while physically in the office for 12 each day.
Abstractly, someone home with a sick kid is probably sitting in the same room with the kid and occasionally nursing the kid while spending most of the time playing minecraft or Eve or posting on HN or whatever. But what people actually remember is the guy who spent his entire afternoon birthday party shopping on amazon, or the guy who spent 2 hours talking about the superbowl or game of thrones, because they saw that with their own eyes.
A secret "hack" I've done over a decade is when the kids are playing at the playground by themselves and most of the parents are looking at twitter on their phones or reading romance novels, I have some pragprog or oreilly book either dead tree or ebook form. From the kids point of view "Dad took us to chuck e cheese" or whatever, but out of an hours time I get 15 or more minutes of serious study. I'm taking off and going to a little league game on friday afternoon/evening, and I'll pay attention while he's in the field or at bat, but when he's merely sitting on the bench waiting, rather than checking out some of the moms or staring off into space or whatever, I'll read or study something "useful". There's a lot of downtime during "family time". If we're driving somewhere to do something as a family, and my wife is driving, I'll read something.
I do sometimes feel the pressure to get stuff done so I work from home after the kids are asleep, but it's difficult (and hard on a marital relationship) to get in more than an hour of extra time for this every evening.
I've come to the conclusion that:
a) When I go home, I go home. I try very hard to drop everything at work and not worry about it until the morning.
b) I love having the time with my family. I want more of it, and want to eliminate my commute. I'm looking into freelancing and remote work as a possible route, although competition is fierce and I need to put food on the table. My research is telling me that I need to bolster my resume with skills (from what I've seen, bigco work doesn't align well with freelancing & remote work teams, although I would be ecstatic to be wrong), and I don't know if I have the time to do this. It's a chicken & egg problem, and I may not solve this without herculean effort.
When I had a kid, I worried what the other individuals at my level would think when I started taking vacation regularly, and paired my work day down to 8-5. I know that one, who I used to work incredibly closely with, looks down on my hours now, and believes that there is no way that I can still be productive in 8 hours instead of the 12 he pulls every day.
After a bit, though, I realized that co-workers' opinions only matters as long as I'm at my current job, and that I can replace them at a moments notice, whereas it's harder (and costlier) to replace my partner and kids.
Priorities realigned, I know my work output, my superiors know my work output, the rest be damned.
A ham-fisted example: stealing a pack of gum vs. stealing a car.
I guess the workaholics I see, end up having this happen with themselves.
I generally try to not miss dinner, but I have a rule that I go by, which is I never ask my colleagues to do what I was not willing to do myself.
Even if I spend all the time with my daughter, I never think it's enough. This was written when I made a decision to do both: be the best father I could and be the best professional at my job; when I did that, the only solution was to cut down on my sleeping time.
It was taxing on my body and one night on the way back on the train, I wrote this piece thinking about my daughter. I shared it because I didn't think I was the only one riding that home-bound train. I've been receiving personal messages telling me how much they appreciated me putting their feelings into words. That's when I knew I was definitely not riding that train by myself.
By the way, I left work early yesterday to take my daughter to the park yesterday. She was quite happy :)
1. Unless there's a real emergency, which is rare, I leave the office around 6-7, even if I still have work planned for today. It's not really early but it leaves me a couple of hours with my kids (I live really close to work, like a 10 minute motorcycle ride).
2. If I still have urgent work to complete, I just continue work from home after they are in bed and I've spent some time with my wife. If you have to work late, this makes for more productive midnight-crunching, because you're at home with your family, you've eaten a proper dinner and not some pizza, had a shower, etc.
3. Once a week I leave work early (around 4pm) and pick my kids up from day care, and I dedicate my entire afternoon to having fun with them. Of course not every early stage start-up would agree to that, but luckily both my last employers were start-ups founded by young dads as well, and they were understanding, and do this themselves as well.
Kudos for making extra time for your kids. I plan on doing the same.
Tho mine wasn't a "startup", I started a web design and hosting business when my son was 2, I worked ALL the time for a good year or 2. I had the luxury of working from home so I didn't really miss big moments, but I did put a serious strain on the relationships between myself and my family. I was even glued to hosting issues when we were on vacations, sitting at my laptop a couple hours a day.
If I could go back, I would definitely give myself 8-10 hours a day max, be home and present with my family by 6. On days where I needed more time, I should have woken up at 5.
I added probably 6 hours a day, 5 days a week, to be more productive back then, but knowing I had those hours, I probably slowed down 2 extra hours a day, and those extra six hours were tired hours, so I was probably only productive for about 3 of them.
The way I look at it, I probably maybe gained an extra week of work time a month back then, and every project I was working on I could have EASILY asked for 1 more week to finish.
Anyway, regret sucks, and looking back, I should have worked smarter and not harder.
Many years ago, I was working 80+ hour weeks, week after week, and my daughter was very young. Consistently, I would not even SEE her from Thursday morning until Saturday afternoon.
I burned out on that job. I felt shell-shocked. I went to dinner with my wife and realized that we had grown apart. I hated that. I hated missing my daughter growing up.
I hated that my daily thoughts were about work, what was happening with work, and that my interactions with my coworkers had overridden my interaction with my family.
So I decided that my life would revolve around my family, and who I was outside of work, not the other way around. Over the years I have changed jobs, started companies, had wild success, had some failures, but through it all I felt even-keel because it all felt like my LIFE was the same. The cubicles, the coworkers, the employees, those all change but my wife and daughter, the life we share, that has been constant. I actually don't feel like I've changed jobs at all even though in reality I've worked at about 6 different places and started 2 companies.
Don't think that work and success will make it alright in the end. It won't. Don't believe people who think you are slacking because you aren't working 100 hours a week. Those people aren't executing efficiently. I can promise you this is true because I have left a trail of Type A 'go-go-go' personalities in my wake because they couldn't match my output and drive, even though they were burning midnight oil and I was at home watching Jeopardy! with the fam.
I guess what I'm trying to say is don't listen to all of those people who are making horrible mistakes. Work hard, but read 'The Power of Full Engagement' by Tony Shwartz and realize that you can work like mad and relax and you will beat the crap out of everyone around you.
Edit: That being said...I usually make sure to leave work at 5, and if I still feel like I need to do some more, I wait until I put my daughter to bed to fire up the laptop.
One of the things that has influenced me here was an article that did the rounds a few years ago. I think it was this one, "Top five regrets of the dying" [1]:
"2. I wish I hadn't worked so hard.
This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children's youth and their partner's companionship."
Do not miss your kids growing up, you might regret it forever.
Good luck! :)
[1] http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/feb/01/top-five...
"Economically, you can think of a startup as a way to compress your whole working life into a few years. Instead of working at a low intensity for forty years, you work as hard as you possibly can for four. This pays especially well in technology, where you earn a premium for working fast."
and this:
"Combine all these multipliers, and I'm claiming you could be 36 times more productive than you're expected to be in a random corporate job."
and the reasons why we might want to do a startup:
"For example, one way to make a million dollars would be to work for the Post Office your whole life, and save every penny of your salary. Imagine the stress of working for the Post Office for fifty years. In a startup you compress all this stress into three or four years. You do tend to get a certain bulk discount if you buy the economy-size pain, but you can't evade the fundamental conservation law. If starting a startup were easy, everyone would do it."
http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html
That essay can be read both as an inspiration and as a warning. On the positive side, it is good to realize how much you can achieve in a few short years. On the negative side, you must be wholly focused on one thing during those few short years. The rest of your life needs to put on hold.
A personal anecdote: I am a bit of a news junkie, and I typically spend an hour or two a day reading the news, but when I had my own startup, I gave up reading the news. For the years 2003 to 2004, and for most of 2006, I rarely read the news. That was a huge change of personal habits for me. But avoiding the news was important for me to stay focused. I would write code for 12 hours a day, sometimes 14 hours a day. I think one has to have a very narrow focus during the first year or two of a startup.
You may end up loosing your kids childhood while still working normal hours the rest of your/his/her life. That is provided not to much of your own money is in your startup, if that is the case you loose even more.
Trying to equate a 9-5 job with startup hours in this regard is intellectually dishonest.
The risks of the startup going down without IPO or buyout are extremely high, long hours, equity will be diluted, founders will lose control of the decision making, short term objectives will be prioritized.
Returns on efforts in bootstrapping seem to be much much better.
Start-ups are really good for VCs, though.
And my question would be: did you miss something important, that could be life-changing if only you had seen it on the news?
Being off the news myself (except tech news) for more than a year now, I'm yet to experience such an "event".
But of course some non-technical news "sip through" - get posted on HN, you hear from family etc. So there is no way to really miss something important, and no way to completely stay away from news.
Useful? Nah. Necessary? Absolutely.
Skip techcrunch, network tv, and USA today. Look for groups like commonwealthclub.org and find out who smart folk pay attention to (Ezra klein's following list on twitter is pretty golden).
This part makes no sense to me. Why can I produce 3x as much work in an hour at a startup because I "focus"? I think that's a bit of a stretch.
What it says is fundamentally true but I'm curious about the allocation of "maker" and "manager". As someone who has worked as a manager and a developer, I value uninterupted time in both roles. It doesn't matter whether I'm planning, or writing a proposal, or coding - large chunks of uninterrupted time are good, a broken up day is bad and less unproductive.
Certainly managers might more often have to respond to changing situations (though if you're a developer with any involvement in support you might question that) but if they opt to plan around frequent task changes when they don't have to that's just odd.
To me it just feels like a difference between people who manage time well and those who don't, rather than a maker / manager distinction.
People waste lifetimes thinking they are working hard but are really just puttering around.
It's been stated by authors (I mentioned Tony Shwartz in another comment and I highly recommend his book) but I offer this analogy:
Consider you are standing next to a roaring river. It is treacherous. It is dangerous. On the other side, it looks like it's a lot nicer (more grass, nicer setting, maybe a picnic table all set up) than the side you are standing on.
Sure would be nice to get over there. But man, to swim that current...dangerous. So maybe you could build a raft? You start looking for wood, something to put it together. Can't find anything. You try looking at the river to see if there's an easier way to cross. Maybe some shallows? Not sure.
Then, behind you, suddenly there is a pack of lions. They look hungry. They ARE hungry. And they see you. And they start loping your way, drool dripping from their teeth. This ain't Hobbs. This is real. These lions are going to literally rip you apart and it's going to happen in a few seconds.
How long does it take you to get across that river now? Are you still going to try and build a raft? Still going to look for a shallow end?
Still going to worry about getting wet?
Focus is a curious thing. We think are 100% committed to something, but we are really not. We achieve what we are truly focused on.
I mean, it sure FELT like you were working 100% on getting across the river when you were trying to lash together a raft and when you were scouting the river for an easy way across. But when it meant getting across or being eaten, THAT'S when you focused truly 100%.
The secret is learn how to FOCUS, truly focus, put your entire mind intensely on the most important task...then take a break, recover. Then do it again. And wow...does it ever work.
(The lions are always there, people are just more acutely aware of them at a startup.)
A panicked jump into a roaring river can kill you just a surely as a well reasoned one.
But that smoldering fire to your left contains a branch long enough that waving it around a couple of times creates a flame an lions are scared of fire.
(If you can conjure up Lions, rivers and green grass to make your point I don't see why my imaginary fire is an illegal device. It could have been a machine gun for the same money, you'd dine on lion steak and congratulate yourself for not trying to swim to the other side of the river).
The overwhelming odds state that your startup will fail, no matter whether you spent six hours or fourteen hours every day working at it.
Working hard is definitely a must, but I think market timing, number of competitors, and other features have more of an impact on success than whether you put in another 4-5 hours a day. In some new markets, there are so few competitors or such a huge distance between the leader and the laggard that hours worked doesn't even matter.
In some cases, capturing mind-share does enough to get you further resources and that alone buys you luxuries that free you from 14 hour days.
Some of us have kids, some have partners, some have ... a life!
Does PG really want a bunch of code obsessed, single minded founders with no hobbies or life outside of their startup? I can't imagine he does, and as a result he should revise some of his advice.
If PG is looking to make a quick buck, churn and burn founders than it all makes sense. But if PG is looking to help founders build sustainable businesses, he should be telling them to clock out, and open your eyes to the world (and people) around you.
Yes. He wants his startups to work, eat, exercise and sleep.
Makes me think of other idols with personal or business traits that are widely lauded but would cause many to ultimately fail.
Disproven by https://medium.com/i-m-h-o/e092ee0b79b7
If anything, a 20 something is more likely to drive their body and their product in the drastic wrong direction, than somebody older, wiser.
Even if you're fresh out of school and have no kids, job, or friends that you care to spend time with, you probably shouldn't be coding 80 hours a week, even if your body and lifestyle permits it.
Live each day as if its your last; do the things you won't regret. If you die tomorrow, was all your hard work at the 24-7 startup worth it? Or did you get to spend as much time with your family as you could?
Paul Graham is basically just talking his own book. His model is to fund a heap of cheap companies that overwork work young, naive people. Most of these companies fail. The occasional one succeeds enormously which more than covers the costs of the failures. Meanwhile, the starry-eyed young employees often don't notice the system is rotten until their thirties.
I was once in the SF startup world, and it's a pretty disgusting place. It's sexist, extremely ageist, intolerant of actual diversity, and anti-family. The sooner that particular culture dies (and make no mistake, it's dying), the better.
It's also lazy capitalism; it loads as much risk as possible onto the employees instead of those providing the capital, and many of the twenty-somethings love it. Machismo (look at how hard I work) and confirmation bias abound.
You're being played, folks.
I almost fell into this trap while I was inspired to work for a super cool team within a bigger company; a la start-up within a giant. I, unfortunately, got inspired enough that I ignored my new born, didn't see him grow up. I realized that I was being played just in the nick of time (after an year).
Irony is that now I'm in a real start up for almost two years and these two years have been best years of my life, both professionally and personally. I get to work on something that's really challenging and rewarding and at the same time I get to spend a few hours of high-energy time with my son, wife and family (I also am very active reader).
All this just because I figured out how to balance by spending sane hours at work and work at home late night once in a while when everyone is asleep!
My take away from this experience is; after your needs are taken care of to a comfortable extent never trade time for anything. Not for money, not for equity not for anything. Especially if you have a young family. Watch your child grow spend time with her; children develop emotional attachment by the time they are 5 and it only comes with spending time.
Even if you don't have family don't trade your time; go see the world, read something new, learn something interesting. But don't give away your time.
The small number of times I've been interested enough to take the discussion to matters of compensation and effort have been an effective deterrent for me. I earn more base salary and get better equity by my investments, and have much more time to spend with my family and working on income-producing side projects, working my 9-5 as a full-time contractor.
It's telling that these comments rarely solicit many replies on HN, even though they apply directly to what HN is all about. I have no sympathy for willful ignorance.
- Going to an early stage start up as a young father is not a sacrifice, it's a selfish act. You are thinking more about yourself and what you want to do (and not do) rather than what's best for your family. Hate the idea of a 9-to-5 job? Well, suck it: the regular hours and clockwork and guaranteed paycheck will go a long way toward making your family more stable and stress free. Maybe it's a good time to also ask yourself if there are no hidden reasons behind choosing this line of work. I know I've seen fathers do this because they didn't realize they were not interested in the chores involved in raising a young age infant.
- I'm guessing the infant is less than two years old (the text mentions diapers) so I'm shocked that this text is not giving credit to who really, really deserves it: the Mom. At that age, the infant doesn't really care much whether Daddy is around at night time or to play with toys, but this father really needs to realize how much stress his work situation is putting on his wife.
I have a two year old son and I quit the start up I was working at before his birth. I felt it just wouldn't be fair to my wife to stay there. There will always be start ups to join should I ever want to try this again, but a child growing up is an opportunity that doesn't occur often in one's life.
First and foremost, most credits, indeed go to my wife and family. The reason why I didn't mention my wife in this piece other than "You’re the only cool shade in the hottest of days/For a weary soul/that your Mother saved many years ago" is because this was a letter to my daughter. This piece was part of a collection of my thoughts from last year (when I was thirty) and I did thank my wife and family when I publish it: http://vuongnguyen.com/thirty-ba-muoi.html.
I'm 31 last month and I've been with my wife for 11 years now. We're best friends in many way and we support each other in our own dreams. Before my daughter was born, I was mostly doing consulting. I made sure I spent time walking and taking care of my wife. I made it a point to never miss a doctor appointment or any pregnancy/childbirth classes we have together. I really appreciated every step of the way.
Then my daughter was born, I stopped accepting new clients (as mentioned in the piece). Spent time with my wife and newborn. Then I stayed home for another three months with my daughter so my wife could return to work.
When I joined the startup, after much discussion and encouragement from my wife, I also made a promise to never miss any doctor appointment. That is still true. I feel blessed that I was able to afford much flexibility with my family and I never take it for granted. I know many other folks who go through a much more difficult time.
I think there is much more I could do and of course I'll continue to do my very best to be a good person every day. This was written as a personal thought and shared because I wanted to feel for myself and others, that we are not sitting alone on that home-bound train, if that makes any sense.
I hope that clarifies things a bit more.
-V.
" Hate the idea of a 9-to-5 job? Well, suck it: the regular hours and clockwork and guaranteed paycheck will go a long way toward making your family more stable and stress free. "
See, it's not that simple. What if hating that 9-5 job means he is angry and depressed and takes it out on his family or decides to give in to some sort of escape (alcoholism, extra-marital affairs, etc.)? Is it worth it then?
Don't convince yourself that a 9-5 is stable, it isn't. They are typically more stable than startups but far from rock solid. You can be laid off tomorrow due to a sudden market change, or nasty office politics. Then what? Was it worth it not to give yourself (and by extension, those that depend on you) leverage? Maybe, maybe not.
It is a complicated matter; for some, the risk of sacrificing some time now in hopes of a better future is worth it, for others, it isn't. Some would much rather have a dead-end job, barely make ends meet but spend 8 hours a day with their kids/family/friends. Others would sacrifice some relationships in order to achieve a greater goal - be it in pursuit of self-actualization or better living conditions, etc.
Author clearly thinks about his daughter and from the responses, am convinced he wants her to know that he cares for her. There's no clear cut answer and there will always be a sacrifice involved when we want something.
For some, the return of investing in relationships far outweighs the financial return of working above-average hours (I am learning this more and more). I personally think it is often worth sacrificing work/money for relationships; but at the same time, let's not forget the people who sacrificed their lives for their work. It is claimed that Nikola Tesla - at the latter end of his life - expressed regret at not getting married and sacrificing so much for his work. But without that sacrifice, where would we be as a society today? Of course, not everyone's result is as noble or far-reaching, but the truth about life is that there will always be a sacrifice to achieve something greater, the ultimate question is: Is it worth it? For that, there is no universal answer.
However, I think it's important to remember that we can just as easily get caught in the trap of being present with our family, but not "present", because we're stuck in a 9-5 job that is sucking the soul out of us.
I'm currently in a position that consists about 80% meetings and 20% reading/responding to email, when I would so much rather be coding. I come home feeling unfulfilled, and am irritated way too easily.
Some people can still cope with a job like this and separate themselves from it as to not affect their home life. I wish I was one of those, but I'm not. And since I recognize that I'm not, I have chosen to find -- and have found -- another job that without a doubt will not have this impact on me.
If you're in the same boat, and are not able to cope and separate yourself from the drudgery of your 9-5 job, find one that you enjoy better. And I personally think it's worth even taking a cut in pay, if you can and if you have to.
I can't believe we're even debating this. Reality check people: Your kids should come before your job.
It's an great piece (IMHO) & if it helps you reflect, then it's done its job. It's not a problem do be solved (yes, I know... that's what we do... but really though....)
Are these comments not the appropriate place to voice our feelings/insights/experiences with the subject of the post??
Quite frankly, this piece made me think of the illusions we create for ourselves. In some ways, we're happy to always be busy. I for one, wouldn't really know what to do with "free" time (probably start another side project).
I agree that this is the place to discuss this matter. I guess I typically hold HN to a higher standard and generally the comments are very insightful.
I wrote this because I honestly was missing my daughter a lot and hope that capture that feeling and put it into words. I do my best to take care of my family and express my care to my love ones.
I think at the end of the day, we're all engineers, hackers, lovers etc. and it's our nature to solve anything that seems like a problem coming our way. This is why I decided to share it with everyone. Because I know that home-bound train, I wasn't by myself and there were others who were on it with me.
Thank you for your kind words to me. I am flattered and somewhat embarrassed when you call it "arts" though. I'm shy! I don't even call it poem because I didn't want to offend those who truly dedicate themselves to the craft. I'm simply a convert who wanted to share a feeling I captured.
Take care.
I love my dad. A lot. He is still one of my favorite people, and when I come home it's always a joy to talk to him. But, he just wasn't around all that often as a kid, and I know he really tried, but you just can't be in two places at once. Honestly, I think it was a lot harder on my mom, what with the financial difficulties (especially when the startup eventually went belly up for a bit) raising me and my sibling on her own, all that stuff. I'm not angry at my dad, he did something he really wanted to do, and worked really hard at it, but you know you can't stop growing when you're five.
The only piece of 'advice' I have is try to carve out a regular time for being with your kids. Every Friday night, my dad would take me and my sibling down to the lake, and we'd get food, and talk, and play at an arcade (I still can totally beat him at Space Invaders, by the way), and that w as a really meaningful time for me and my sister, especially on the weekends he was working, or when we found him passed out in his chair after working all night.
Because of the uncertainty and risks that come with working in a startup, I pursued other options. I ended up talking with a smaller software development agency here that has the startup atmosphere in the office (doesnt feel like some corporate job). They are very well off and there is very little chance of them failing or running out of work. The increased salary and full benefits were easily enough for me to leave the startup where I had a slightly less salary, but 20% equity. The 20% equity definitely had the potential to have some huge payoffs, but I wouldn't see those for atleast 5 years, and I much rather have guaranteed stability now rather than hoping for it to come later.
Because they didn't. Daddy's own choices and values have apparently clipped his wings. Hope you're OK with it.
It's nice writing but ultimately it reads like a thin excuse. I hope daddy uses better time management in the future.
If you feel that "being professional" includes the need to push yourself and miss events you can't recapture, it's not being "professional" -- especially if you are an employee. Startups that push the "we are a family -- we work hard, play hard, stay late together" are in a sense delusional -- yes the thrill of building a company is compelling, but unless it is your own company - you are sacrificing yourself unnecessarily for someone else's benefit. There will always be another startup, but early months of a child's life where changes are there daily, hourly.
Sergeant Prendergast: Yeah.
Bill Foster: How'd that happen? I did everything they told me to. Did you know I build missiles? I helped to protect America. You should be rewarded for that. But instead they give it to the plastic surgeons, you know they lied to me.
Sergeant Prendergast: Is that what this is about? You're angry because you got lied to? Is that why my chicken dinner is drying out in the oven? Hey, they lie to everyone. They lie to the fish. But that doesn't give you any special right to do what you did today. The only that makes you special is that little girl. Now let's go. Lets go!
From a lean startup perspective, the more burnout pace you work at, the less likely you are to close the feedback loop and actually produce the right feature. From a Mythical Man hour perspective, you're more likely to be less productive the more burnout pace that you try to maintain.
A lot of my (now) wifes friends told her that I was crazy to do that, that their husbands would never do that to them or their kids and that I chose career instead of family.
The thought of disrupting ones life for something uncertain is to many the #1 fear and is the reason why many say "we would love to live and work abroad" but when it comes down to it they don't.
My thinking one the choice I made was tactially problematic, it is never a good idea move away from certainty in the short run. But strategically I feel like I made the right decision and for a very simple reason.
Your kids grow up and while they might adore you when they are young they will also grow up and become their own individual.
And while I definitely want to see them grow up I also want to be there with them when they are older and perhaps even be something other than a dad.
Lifes complicated and there are no right or wrong choices. All we can do is trust our intution and that might sometimes be trusting what seems counter intuitive.
We all now live together in NY and had another son. And while I certainly understand the difficulty of finding the balance between you and your family but never forget that there will be a point where you are not that type of father anymore and by that time if you are not careful you loose whats just as important as seeing your kids grow up, you loost your ability to define you as more than a dad.
I actually took some risks and worked super hard in my mid-20s to mid-30s, prior to having kids. I am so glad I did it then.
Another way to read this post, if you are young, is as a warning - you may think it is scary or hard to take risks now, but go for it. When you have children, it will be much, much harder. Every minute you are working, you will feel torn that you aren't with your kids, and every minute you are with your kids, you will feel torn that you aren't working (to provide for them). If you can use your twenties to gain some financial freedom and control of your time, it is really worth it.
I went through a period of thinking that I had 'wasted' my 20s on hard work, while everyone else was partying/backpacking/skiing/whatever. I now realize that my 20s (and early 30s) were an investment for a vastly better reward - the time and financial freedom to be with my family in my late 30s/early 40s when my children are young. I couldn't be happier with the outcome of those choices, and I didn't really see it coming, because I did not understand the depth of feeling I would have for my children.
But for the young people out there in their 20s - your opportunity cost will never be lower. Go for it. Invest in yourself. Working until 10pm on something you care about won't always be without painful tradeoffs. Forgoing income to try to start something won't always be so easy.
While I was terrified of what would happen with the startup and the family, there was no question to me that we had to stay on the path. That startup ultimately was sold in a good outcome and I am now two startups past that. My kids are now 11 and 9*3. They know that I work in startups and many times they visit the office and hangout.
While I have some regrets, like flying to Europe every 2-3 weeks post acquisition for over a year, I want my kids to know that I do what I do because I love it and it is how I put bread on the table. While I don't wish my life choices on them, I want them to know that being the master of their own destiny is a choice their dad has fully embraced whatever they decide.
All of that said, even when I was flying to Europe, I made it a point to move heaven and earth to be home with them every single weekend during that period of time and was actively and highly engaged while at home. While you can choose to work hard, you also have to choose to be a great father and role model IMO.
Great piece.
For years, I worked in "safe" enterprise jobs, rather than the risk of startups, for the financial security of my children. They're adults now, and I'm starting over in many ways. I'm twice the age of the "startup founder" trope. It feels very natural to me now.
As for my daughter... she has the entrepreneurial spirit. She wants to be challenged, to learn and grow in ways she won't get to do in college. Working for me, she'll get to do things she wouldn't get to do in a slower, safer business. And she has a strong self-interest, too - if it succeeds, I'll become very wealthy, almost as a side effect. As my heir, she eventually benefits from that as well. So from the point of view of both her learning and her long-term financial security, helping me is the best thing she can do for herself. Smart kid.
I figured that we're not trying to find a correct answer here. But knowing our community of engineers, hackers, lovers etc. we'd always trying to solve any problems coming our way :)
My humble opinion is: feelings are honesty trying to express themselves. Even if we can't solve the problem of "feelings", I'm quite happy we can search for it together as a group.
I wrote this piece during a tough part of the startup last year. I recently looked at it again and realized it wasn't just about me but rather about all my friends, I actually do refer to you folks on here as "friends", with the common dream.
I think at some point on one train-ride home or another, we've searched for some sort of understanding and hope to know that we're not the only one. Today, I'm happy to know that my "friends" do share the same feeling at one point or another. And we are not alone.
-Vuong.
Don't live a life of regret. Make do with less. Maybe get there slower, but be a happier person.
I'm in a similar situation in that I have two young children (under 5) and I am the co-founder of a small-ish startup in healthcare. I make sure to leave every day at 5pm so I can be with my kids for a few hours. If I have a busy week, I'll get up earlier (5 or 6am) and get my work done earlier in the day.
If additional work needs to get done, it gets done after they go to bed.
Importantly, my co-founders also have families and value them as I do. If that were not the case, I would not be involved in this company.
For me, it's been a revolution at RescueTime. I had a 5 year old and new born when I started.
You structure your day right, you should be able to get done what is useful in a day's work in around 5-6 hours for most days. Otherwise, you need to restructure your day. You're doing something wrong-- excess communications, excess task-switching, excess research, over-engineering or something.
By consistently paying attention to getting the most out of the hours between 0830/0900 and 1530/1600, I am able to get at least 3-4 hours a day with my kids. There's the odd day where I get back on the computer after they are in bed.
The simple truth is you can restructure your work to match your life with kids, you cannot restructure your kids to match your life with work.
1 - Children 2 - Marriage 3 - Living arrangements / lifestyle (sans work) 4 - Career (but I take my career VERY seriously, I've been an executive for 9 years and I'm 33)
My routine
1 - Alarm goes off at 4:30 am 2 - I pickup around the house, toss in laundry as needed 3 - Catch the 5:45 am train to be into the office roughly @ 6:15 am 4 - I leave the office @ 5:30 pm to catch the 5:50 pm train to be home roughly @ 6:15 pm 5 - I play with the kids 6 - We then eat dinner together as a family 7 - I bathe and put both kids to bed around 7:30 - 8:00 pm 8 - I help pick up the rest of my house with my wife, it usually ends @ 8:30 pm (we talk a lot while doing this) 9 - My wife and I sit down on the couch/porch/etc and hang out for a few hours while I also work 10 - I'm usually in bed by 11 - 11:30 pm
If I have more work to do that evening I might have my laptop out while hanging out with my wife or stay up later. This is usually 4 nights out of the week.
Things that shift to "once in a while" given my priorities
1 - A full 8 hours of sleep 2 - Seeing that television show 3 - Seeing that movie 4 - Random nights out with friends 5 - Etc
These simply just take a back seat.
Things I never miss, and spend as much time with as someone working a standard 9-5 (although I do head into the office earlier than most)
1 - My kids (first and foremost) 2 - My wife 3 - My house 4 - My career and type of company I appreciate being involved with
To me, I keep the things that matter most and give up things that I found out I didn't really need (for context, I never really watched a lot of television).
This schedule works for me and I end up working 10 hours a day and never miss a beat with my kids.
PS. I also about twice a day, for 5 minutes, FaceTime with my wife/kids while at work. It's a nice break and a chance for me to see them during the day given I miss them in the morning.
Knowing that I have to collect her from nursery, help with the bedtime routine, I need to finish as much work as possible during the day, no time to waste. At the beginning, it was just impossible for me to think finishing working at 6pm but in fact, I just feel better in my mind and my productivity skyrocketed since then.
Not to mention that I also stopped wasting time with bad projects and client.
Have a baby! Best pomodoro ever ;)
I choose my wife, son & future kids as priority #1.
That choice came with costs -- I'd probably be the CIO of a pretty major org at this point, but that means 10-12 hour days that I won't do.
That doesn't mean that life is over, it just means that you need to be more strategic about opportunities, and may need to scope out some roles.
We are not doing it for our families; we are doing it because we fcking like what we do, we feel fcking alive doing it and we are fcking good at it.
I was going to take a big leap in to a post with salaries far beyond what I would pay myself. Many here told me to take the risk, go for it etc etc. But I chose my family over a fat pay-check. No regrets!
And I still teared up reading the poem, because I could have written it myself.
I don't know about the author, but for me the startup part of the equation is a symptom, not a cause.
A nice bit of prose about that struggle and the ways we coddle ourselves as we get too far out of line.
And I hunched in its pixel mines unable to doze.
Sixty miles from home, loosed from its dream of life,
I ran into black tasks and the nightmare deadlines.
When I was canned they washed me out of the company with no equity.
(all apologies to Randall Jarrell)
Your age + 25
This is how old you will be when a kid born this year graduates from college (typical undergrad.)
If you are waiting to have kids add those years to your age.
I feel sorry and pity for you.
I would suggest thinking about another job (and btw, it is 100% possible to work normal hours at a startup).
My wife and I have a pact: we'll live for our children and family but we'll always continue to develop ourselves. This way, there is never a resentment toward the people you love. I, too, work and go home for my family.
The only people who care about excellence are the excellent, and we almost never get to call the shots (we're bad at politics). Since the people evaluating our work are in no way qualified to assess excellence or even slightly-better-than-mediocre-goodness, most of our work is just a commodity, and the price is set by the winner's curse: schmucks who haven't learned (either by raising children, or by having people close to them get sick and die) how finite time is.
It's better to compete to excel than to compete to suffer, but the software/startup world is run by people who don't value excellence in the least, and who wouldn't be qualified to evaluate it even if they did. So that steers us toward "compete to suffer" dynamics, also known as "fish frying" (http://www.strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/).