How a Founder Turned a Slow Burn Rate into a Big Exit
firstround.com
firstround.com
Oh, I have seen that couple of times. People who stay longer are the ones who stayed with the company -- but what's the reason? The implied reason is that because that people who stay longer do more, feel better, etc. However, in many-many cases people who go home earlier are pushed out by others who stay later -- not based on productivity, etc. At [insert big company here] I knew teams where everybody stayed until 10 pm every day, because that was the team culture. Other teams went home at 5, 6 pm. Were the former more productive? Not at all, just that became the norm.
"To this day, I fight any budgets for any part of the company. If you don't have one, then people's default is to be more conservative. It's like limitless paid vacation policies — people end up taking less vacation."
Etcetera. This writing is about 'how to burn out employees'. It might work out well for founders though.
"We needed people who would be with us at 2 a.m. committing code so that we could have it in front of AT&T the next day."
That's not about good employees, that's about employees with no lives outside of work. Of course the ones whose job becomes their life will stay longer. It's far more traumatic to leave if you don't know anyone outside of work.
I'll take the four-day workweek start-ups any time over the death march start-ups. And I'll put my own short-week productivity up against anyone's 80-hour week.
I will never do more than 60 hours work week, and that will only be for a couple of weeks max to get something out of the door. So as a result, I'll never work for a start up that doesn't have a concrete product road map that I could understand and believe in.
As an experienced developer (25+ years now), I'd put money on my code being more capable of pivoting quickly to a new product road map than the code of a less experienced developer.
I've had clients/employers be amazed by how fast I could change fundamental behaviors of software I've worked on, and not because I put in 80 hours, but because the design starts out flexible, and I can adapt the work to the new requirements with minimal effort.
Sure if you're ask your dev to make changes on a Saturday, the 80-hour employee will be there, but if he/she is still working on that major pivot by Monday, and I can make the changes in a few hours, and my code is more stable, then I still win. ;)
Of course spending time alone does not mean you'll be productive, but assuming equal intelligence, someone who is able to sustain concentration over a longer period of time will accomplish more than someone who concentrates for a lesser amount of time.
Maybe I'm just faster; my own experience is that I can push to 50 hours in a week, maybe 60, but then the following week I get about 20 hours of productivity in before burning out, so 60 isn't sustainable, at least for me. And those last 20 hours in a 60 hour week are really only good for brainless tasks.
God forbid I do any truly complex code in that time, or my net productivity will actually go negative, as I'll need to spend more time later fixing what I did as a zombie.
I think instead he was saying that when something is due the next day. He doesn't want someone who just clocks out because 5 pm came around. He wants someone who cares enough to stick around till they have something working for the demo they have tomorrow
80 hours means they've been death marching for at least five days (assuming the devs still sleep) and more likely a full week (if you allow for commute time and eating not at your desk).
And I do stick around until late when something is due the next day. But that typically means I put in less time later, so my net time spent is still about 30 hours/week. Putting in extra time means I need more free time to balance things out, and I think anyone who doesn't do that isn't acting in their own interests -- or their employer's.
Even if my short-week productivity doesn't match my 80-hour week productivity, I'll still prefer the short week, with no guilt over having those preferences. My goal in life is not to optimize everything I do for maximum benefit of my employer; I have my own priorities and trade-offs to worry about.
If so, then an employer should be willing to pay you appropriately for that amount of time.
Something tells me even though that guy got a magical plane ticket home he also probably wasn't a participant in that "big exit".
"“When you're all working in one big room, everybody can see each other come and go. It becomes obvious who the outliers are.”
Doesn't make it sound like we are pretending that the open office plan is really about productivity maximization.
And besides, if you expect me to stay incredibly late then unless you're also going to give me a huge, huge chunk of equity (or, hey, pay me overtime), then I'm out.
As long as my salary is not skimped on, I get a lot of satisfaction from working for a thrifty company. In my domain (infrastructure and ops), learning to do more with less is a lot more challenging than having a blank check for everything you want. Some of my best workplace accomplishments were made when we simply didn't have the cash to buy the big, expensive gear or software.
More 2am nights?
This is the real secret. Lean is how they lasted long enough, but a profitable business model with actual customers is how they exited.