Every year, we do an employee survey to see how management is doing; like a report card for management. In the last 3 years, mine has come back with the highest company scores for employee engagement, job satisfaction, and project completion rate. I was asked to give a presentation to the other officers and managers about things I do to get those scores.
The presentation was basically one slide that I expanded to 10. It came down to creating the expectation, for the folks who report to me, that a work week is 37.5 hours (our full-time week) and no more. I make it clear that if my team is working overtime, I've failed. If that happens, together we look at their project commitments and reduce the workload, or get training, or whatever is needed.
Working folks to the point of burnout is NEVER a valid solution. Respecting personal time pays dividends to everyone. It's amazing how treating people like adults makes them happier and more productive. It's such a low bar and yet seems so foreign to people.
After my presentation, multiple execs argued thar I'd get more done if I pushed my team harder. Our company President pulled up all of our project completion rates, and asked them to explain the discrepancy. The three who complained the most about my approach were in the bottom five.
Data continually shows people are happy when they have a solid, predictable, work life balance. Happy people are more productive and are willing to do more in the long run. And they stick around, so you don't have to keep looking for new employees. Everyone wins. Yet, there is such a resistance to it by certain people, and I don't understand why.
Tldr: Expecting your people to give up their personal life for work, it's a clear sign that you are a terrible leader.
Yet, there is such a resistance to it by certain people, and I don’t understand why.
People are emotional driven. It might be something like "I worked 80 hour weeks. If I accept that that wasn't the right move, then I have to admit I fucked up. I'm a good smart person. I don't fuck up. Thus, this idea is wrong and I reject it"
I make it clear that if my team is working overtime, I've failed.
Bingo!
This was my attitude too. If anyone has to work late or weekends, it was a failure in resource allocation, which is a management function.
The only exception was if people had to get on late night calls with people in other timezones, in which case they were expected to take the equivalent time off at their own convenience.
Another easy win is bullshit agile daily standups. I made them twice a week, and no longer than 15 minutes and only to cover potential blockers, not status reports. That alone made everyone happier. In one case, the team finished a project that had been languishing for three years in three months and shipped it out.
My last boss totally fucked up my daily stand-ups. I suggested them because, when I started, I found most work wasn't consistently tracked or even discussed. My boss's management style was panicking about everything and panic working while raging that no one else was also panicking about everything (spoiler: I also learned department turnover was high, can't imagine why), so I was trying to help implement any organization whatsoever. She quickly turned my 10 minute stand-ups into 1-1.5 hour slogs where each team member had to give an update on each of their projects, despite having earlier logged it all into the project tracker I created.
By far the worst micromanager and least competent person I ever worked for.
My promotion was fucked by an internal client like this, who’s a manager that keeps failing upwards and sideways. His team members hate him, his VP doesn’t trust him and keeps putting additional managers on his project.
My team did everything - we saved his project from the edge of the cliff, reached milestones, onboarded contractors, and made the notoriously grumpy VP satisfied.
Yet that’s not enough, as I’m supposed to make this manchild happy.
Some people just love drama and panic, and others are too soft to push back on them, as they are uncomfortable with any type of conflict.
My coworkers and I were having issues getting any information from another team to do our job. Since we had a set deadline to finish the work, I set up a Monday/Wednesday meeting schedule to extract the information we needed from that team. My boss and the other team's boss turned it into a two hour update-fest with us and the other team updating our respective bosses, with both teams in the meeting. So fucking pointless, and so far away from what that meeting was supposed to be, it is truly astonishing we were able to get anything done.
Oh and the other team stopped providing the information we needed to finish when our bosses converted our meeting to update-fest.
People requesting you to say orally the same thing you typed in the task tracker that they should see if they paid attention to the tasks that are assigned to them and also notifies them by email really annoys me.
The frequency of standups should be determined by the team and blockers should never have to wait till standup to be surfaced.
I work on a growth product team and we frequently have devs pulled away to work on a feature in a different product. The engineers started losing track of availability of others and what features were going to prod became opaque. We opted to move back to daily standups with status reports as it kept the team informed and thus motivated, and gave an opportunity in several cases to refine approaches from the start.
There are, of course, other ways to accomplish this, like having a public issue board, but often private conversations don't make it to the issues.
Semi-agreed on daily standups -- the regular accountability drives productivity for a lot of people, but I also agree that daily is excessive. We've settled on 3 days/week and it works pretty well for both camps - 2 is probably fine, but 1 I would argue is missing the point.
Def agreed on 15 minutes, as you say - any longer and you lose both people and the purpose of the check-in.
Flip daily around and it becomes much more useful.
Instead of everyone reporting what they did, go through the board and look at tickets, with a focus on tickets in hand-over states (waiting for review, waiting for tests, ...). That way the daily can actually help progress stuck tickets.
At the end, ask if anyone doesn't have enough work and needs new tickets (to catch the potential problem of running out of work).
Doesn't take more than a few minutes and focusses on the things where the daily can actually help, instead of turning it into the daily exercise of "Yesterday I had a ton of meetings. Today I'll have a ton of meetings. Bye." That kind of stuff is worthless.
This is why I didn't stay in management. I had the same attitude as you. I didn't mind working late myself and if someone really wanted to because they had an interesting problem I'd usually let them cut out early Friday or come in late the next day. I got too much shit from other management and C levels about how my team never seemed to be around. I'd ask what was not getting done or what they were expecting that they didn't get. The answer was always just that they didn't see the team in the office when other teams were still there. They could have needed something!
I got tired of that shit. One of the reasons that I went into business for myself as a one man company. Now I don't have to justify anything but my own existence to anyone except who I directly report to. And the guy I directly report to likes the big ass penalty clause in my contract for terminating it early or without notice because accounting can't get rid of me without taking a hit or giving me time to finish up my projects. I'm judged solely on what I deliver. And I almost always come in ahead of time and with better results than most other teams because I'm not worked like a rented mule.
Yup. We're humans and when we get tired we make mistakes. I could work a 12 hour day, but in the twelfth hour I'll probably make a mistake that'll take more than 6 hours or to fix someday in the future. If I work 8 hours you get 8 hours of productivity. If I work 12 hours you'll end up getting 6 hours or less of productivity.
The whole thing about making people work long hours is just about bad managers that enjoy exerting power over people. It's not about productivity.
We’re humans and when we get tired we make mistakes. I could work a 12 hour day, but in the twelfth hour I’ll probably make a mistake that’ll take more than 6 hours or to fix someday in the future
Doctors/nurses/cops/emts/firefighters/pipefitters/welders/fucktard-managers everywhere are gasping in shock and horror.
Not saying it is. Though I do know from the medical field especially that where mistakes are found is in the handoff or shift change, which is one reason it took so long to see any meaningful change in the way residency worked for doctors. Despite the incredibly long hours, the new docs didn't tend to make mistakes in care during the shift. I think long shifts aren't necessarily the problem, it's when we're pushed to keep working when we can actually feel the fatigue and malaise of the day set in. Maybe the only way (right now, due to the way you work or you die) is to mandate shorter shifts, but I would love to see a culture set up where you work until you start to feel it, and then go home or take a break, however long that break needs to be. That's probably fantasy of the highest order, but hey, why not imagine ways where things could like that and push for them?
Medical work and software development are very different kinds of work with very different difficulties.
A lot of medical shift work is about being there, not necessarily about doing stuff all the time. There's a lot of standby-duty. It's sometimes physical work, sometimes emotional/social work, sometimes actual brain work (researching stuff). It's quite a lot of different types of tasks over a shift.
Software develompent is highly-concentrated brain work without meaningful built-in breaks. You spend all day staring at a screen, doing high-level logic non-stop. Humans aren't built for that kind of work at all, so it's really difficult to do that for extended periods.
A lot of business types have a very simple view on labor. Time is money, so the more time you get somebody to work the more you earn. Of course it doesn't work like that in reality, but this mentality is spread far and wide.
Recently read "Pimp" by Iceberg Slim, and it seems like a training manual for (some) modern managers and executives. Use your recruiting process to select low-esteem, easily manipulated people to be your worker drones, and they will do 80 hour weeks to earn that pizza party.
who deeply believe in the mission (and the future value of their equity)
This is the only proviso for me. Some people wouldn't mind working themselves to exhaustion for a lot of money. Then the question of whether it's exploitative or not depends on the amounts involved and the conditions of equity ownership
Dude, you're pulling 80 hour weeks for your company. That you own.
Expecting the same input from people who will never see as much as a percentage of what you stand to make off of their success is delusional. But I suppose delusion is almost a requirement for these kind of people.
Many startups fail because people try to work 80+hrs per week. Biologically more than about 25-30 hours of work is usually a waste of time. You can occasionally pull a long week but then you need to rest and recover to get back to full productivity. If you push beyond it often, you'll make a shit ton of stupid mistakes that completely nullify all your efforts.
If you've ever been around someone "working" on hour 70+ during a week you'll know what I mean. A five minute tasks takes them an hour and they generally fuck it up.
I've worked for a few startups (in software). They all failed because their idea was stupid, the executives were technically incompetent borderline sociopaths, and they weren't even good at getting VCs to throw money at them. Some employees worked insane hours while others of us fucked off most of the time and came to work high - it made no difference.
Exactly!! Easy to pull so many hours when it is for your own business. But do not expect employees who could get fired or laid off any time at your own will to have the same commitment.
Yeah, 100%. This kind of advice can maybe make sense if you're starting a startup, but everyone employed at that stage needs to be on equal ground and well-protected. If they're not, then that can still be fine, but they can't be expected to put as much of their lives into your product. They're contractors you're hiring for some shit-shoveling and maybe it's best to be honest about that.
The unfortunate thing in tech is that, due to pushing "learning to code" as a universal employment option, there's always a pool of idealistic fresh blood that is willing to crunch for you if you make vague mention of being in it together, when a few people stand to gain the vast majority of the profit if the company's product is successful. By the time the new recruits are old and bitter and burnt out, you can lay em off for poor performance (or cannibalize the company at large) and hire some more doe-eyed interns.
If you're expecting your employees to consistently work long hours for you, they need to have the same stake as you do. They need flexibility to take care of their mental and physical health as needed. You should encourage them to unionize and collectively bargain for their needs once they come in conflict with yours, because they absolutely will. You can't afford to lose these people, because it's rare to find people that won't get ground into dust doing this because they want it as bad as you. so make it sustainable and more than worth their while. if you can't find these people? maybe your app sucks.
these types view themselves as above the labor they're hiring because they got there first / had the means to form a company and I fucking hate it.
Maybe for employees like 1-5. Beyond that is rapidly diminishing amounts of equity. I was employee #49 and got like 40,000 shares options (that I had to buy)
And even if you are like employee #3, the actual owner and investors get more than you
Exactly, there is a place in the world for startups burning 80 hr/wk. Just compensate the people who are doing that adequately with equity, and hire risk takers who want that kind of risk.
I agree in principle that start up employees can be incentivized better than the usual wage or salary slave.
There is always a big butt, though.
Non-capital investors almost always get shares of a lower class that can be denied a share of any future revenue from a sale of the company or god forbid they get real revenue.
These term “Hollywood accounting” exists for a reason and skepticism about the real value of lower class shares is very valid.
I think what he said about startups is more pr less true. Of course, with startups you're putting in a lot of work to break into or create a new market, and you get a percentage of that company, too. It certainly isn't for everyone, and most people don't want to do it for their whole career. And expecting that kind of attitude from a regular employee is simply ridiculous.
No, on a startup salary. Which might be minimum wage (on a 40h basis). His advice is solid: for someone who looks for work life balance a startup is not the right employer. They will be much happier in a big boring established company. If someone is in their 20s, little family obligations, wants to have a high risk high reward experience, go for it.
People can start a family in their 20s today, but not working for a startup. For instance, getan engineering degree, a job in a big company with a good union (IG Metall is the one im familiar with) and you can start a family at 25. That won't get you a yacht like a startup could, but it will give you stability and a very comfortable life.
startup gets you a yacht if you are the lead engineer or the one who starts it. if you are one of the initial employees maybe you get some shares that you can't cash right away and a somewhat a better position and possibly a thanks.
I know personally people with a 3 digit employee number at a company (hard to call it startup at that point) who are millionaires. Anything pre-IPO is serious money, the first 100 employees usually in the high 7 figures.
High risk high reward jobs are rarely a good advice for someone trying to establish their own life in their twenties especially if you don't have a safety net. It is like suggesting math PhD students to go after the biggest unsolved problem of the century. It is much more sane to try to do such stuff when you are established in your career. Also I am not sure what is the rewarding part even if the start-up becomes wildly successful best you get out of those are some shares with lots of strings attached, it is not like CEO makes every initial employee a high end partner.
I'm at the start of my career and decided to join a startup now. I'm at a point in my life where I don't need to support anyone other than myself, and can afford to work a lot for relatively low pay because it's fun to build something new from scratch. I can afford that this flops.
In ten years, I'm hopefully in a place where I want/need more stability, free time, predictability, and better pay. Either the startup works out, and I can have that, or I'm hoping that the experience I get working on it will allow me to get a "normal" job when I need it.
Edit: What's with people downvoting me for saying that I personally have joined a startup because I personally think it's fun and rewarding? Jesus...
I wish you all the luck, but recent trends are that unless you're the founding engineer or close friend of the CEO, then IF the startup makes it (is bought) you'll be left on ice.
Honestly if I am going spend my years on building something from scratch and sacrifice so much for its growth, I would like to have some say on its further development and future course and a fair share of its success too (acknowledgement and financial wise). That rarely seems to happen in startups, apart from top engineers and executives. Even if you come up with ideas that transform the company, best you get is some sort of bonus and maybe sth you claim you have done in your next job interviews.
If you want such rewarding stuff then work in the academia for somewhat a better salary and much more freedom and ownership of projects you develop and supervise (even as a postdoc).
Only string attached is that I'm required to sell them back to the company if I quit. I think that makes sense, since we're not publicly traded, and want all shareholders to be people actively invested in the company.
This is the worst advice I have seen in a while. Academia is the absolute worst for salary, with an eternity actuelly not earning anything (or if in the US, having to pay yourself!) plus the stress of constant chasing of funding, politics that make big corporations pale and whims of reviewers that have no idea about your niche. I didn't even consider a post-doc, went straight to industry. Best decision ever.
Only go to academia if it's truly your passion and you don't care about money for some reason.
I am comparing academia to working as an initial employee in a startup though, not to working as an employer in industry in an established firm.
In this case salary is likely better, you still build stuff from scratch on topics that interest you, you don't work so that some guy can achieve his/her dreams, you have a higher chance of getting credit for the stuff you do (though wouldn't say %100 because yea fucking humans...). It even comes with the same levels of future uncertainty that a startup does lol. That being said as with anything luck is the major determinant here too. If you end up with a group of immature people and a bad PI you may live hell on earth (as you would anywhere). But I believe your chances of ending up with a fun gang of intelligent people is quite high, including the PI.
I respectfully disagree. The potential reward in a startup is orders of magnitude higher than academia. The percentage of time dedicated to useful work is higher in a startup (funding proposals suuuuck). The time you start earning money is years earlier in a startup (no need for masters or PhD). I agree about credit (which unless it's Nobel level is almost worthless, and usually the department chair gets the most credit anyway) and luck.
While I don't regret my years in academia, it's only because it helped me land my first industry job which would be super difficult without that background. Academia itself as a career path was a big no for me after my first two published papers.
Well then that startup will likely move to the next candidate (among hundreds) with their ten stage interview. I can understand owners and leads of startups wanting to work their ass of to lift their company and dreams off the ground. But if they expect a regular employee to do the same for a low salary and barely any extra benefits then they are delusional. If they use sentences like "we are a family", "this is our dream", run.
But yeah, at least in tech one of the motivation tools for employees is equity, even post-IPO you get RSUs and some form of ESPP. If you don't offer big equity for an early stage startup why would someone work for you instead making mid 6 figures at a FAANG?
Yeah, started out like that. First employee in a startup (when I started it was me and the four co-owners). I helped build that thing up from the ground. I created the whole IT and software development aspect of the company. I did so for the salary of a supermarket worker, even though I was department lead with 7 people under me at the end. Yearly bonus was a €50 Amazon voucher.
I helped raise the company from 5 guys up to 50 in 3 continents. Never got anything for it.
Boss threw a big hissy fit when I didn't want to come into the office during lockdown even though it was against the law to do so.
After I handed in my resignation, the boss never even talked to me once.
Working at a startup is not high risk high reward. It's high risk, high work, no reward.
Anyone who thinks there's reward in it for the workers is naive. Unless the worker gets paid in undilutable shares of the company, all the reward goes to the owner. And unless an owner pays me like an owner, I'm not going to give half a shit about the company.
And unless an owner pays me like an owner, I'm not going to give half a shit about the company.
100%
These startup bros got real "I need an army of desperate folks who can be paid in motivational speeches to make my dreams come true because I bring nothing to the table." Energy lol.
If you don't get undilutable shares, why on earth would you work for a startup??? Unemployment has been at an all time low for the last what, 20 years? Plenty of jobs out there, the only argument for a startup is the lottery ticket.
You are exactly the person this advice would have been great for. Only accept the low salary if you get a big chunk of equity in the company: that's the big reward part of the equation. Otherwise you could have been working for a boring multinational going home by 17:00 and have a house with a picket fence by now.
Yeah, I was young, it was my first real job in the field and I didn't have the experience to do better. It would have been a decent job for the first year or so, just getting my feet wet in real-life work to find a better job afterwards.
But idiot me drank the kool-aid that the owners were talking all day ("It's good that you are here, you'd never make it in a corporation", "Remember all the benefits you have here, like e.g. being able to take vacation on only 1 month's notice", "Corporations are so evil, they'll rip you off" and so on) that I was too afraid to look for something better.
Wasted 7 years there. Then I moved to a corporate job, doubled my salary and have never looked back. Corporate work environments are so, so much better than startups.
I received a few job offers for tech lead at startups and therelike, sometimes even with higher pay than I had at a corporate job, but I'll never ever join one of these mini-dictatorships in a startup again. Just far too much power concentration in a single person.
It's not inherently the case. For instance, my best job ever work-life balance-wise was a start up.
They were a really down-to-earth group, but they were also aware enough to realize that having a good work environment is how you keep your best people when you can't necessarily compete on salary/prestige with the big guys.
That is always the case, you get a very generous part of the equity, which at that time is worth nothing, with the hope that in a number of years you can cash out and move from a dingy basement to a tropical island.
If they don't offer a this very generous equity, run away immediately.
Aquihired means immediate vesting of all your equity and you can cash out in the short term (usually no later than 1 year, often immediately) sometimes with the condition that you stay employed for a certain amount of time if you are high enough.
If you work 80+h and it doesn't feel like work, then maybe playing golf and eating out doesn't magically turn into work just because you write it off as work expenses.
"No no, you don't understand. You shouldn't have a family, you have to flog yourself to death for this startup company that's making a Gym Membership app. If you don't neglect your kids to vibe code a scheduling system then you just don't deserve a job and you and your family should just die"
I feel like anyone who says they love their work so much it doesn't feel like work just doesn't have an actual life that they like to live so work just beats out not working everytime.
I mean there is people who work for organizations like Doctors without Borders. Being deployed in a zone of natural disaster or war, they probably rack up 60+ hours a week easily. However their pay is much smaller than what they could get in the "market". Turns out people can love their job, if it does something meaningful, rather than make some rich people more rich.
The 19th hole is the traditional joke name for the bar/restaurant that you go to after you finish playing. Not sure where you got sex from, but no, there is no sex involved in golf.
I can see a young bachelor with no hobbies choosing that but if you have a family and do this then you might as well just say that avoiding them is your only hobby.
There are exceptions to every rule. There are super lucky people for whom their job really is their hobby. Then, even if they do have a life , they can still find their work doesn't feel like work. Life is not fair - it's not shitty for everyone equally.
I really enjoy my job. I spend my time solving problems and work on projects that improve the water supply for the country. I enjoy working late because I don't have any meetings, so I am unburdened enough to actually work. I don't think I could work more than 50 hours a week though.
I myself very much want a good work-life balance, therefore I do not apply for jobs to be one of the first ten people working for a CEO that thinks they're going to change the world.
He did a big favor for that candidate by not hitting him.
looking at the douchebags profile he's also a, surprise surprise, massive advocate for AI with a recent post stating that gpt5 is a "massive change for humanity"
He has the usual tech bro posts with the usual bootlicker middle managers commenting support. Christ on a cracker I wish I could close my linkedin account.
they use it to write text. usually more text than any human would use. they get mad if you ask how much they spent on the slop picture they just posted.
We haven't figured out the details yet but we're passionate about our business family and we're sure we'll have good news for you at ChristmasEasterThe New YearThe next AGM hey wait why are you leaving what about those shares? We've nearly sorted out the details!
BRO IF YOU JUST GRIND! WIPES TEARS JUST FIND A PURPOSE, BRO. SOBS WORK 190 HOURS A WEEK BRO. IT'S LIKE THE DREAM. GRIND BRO. THE VISION. PUTS THE BARREL IN HIS MOUTH
If that vision was at least their own vision, but so many wage slaves freely give their life away for someone else's. So many management positions that don't get overtime but do 12h days because "otherwise things don't work". Well, they're not supposed to work if that's what it takes. Many of my colleagues are so close to burning out, or rather already sizzling.
This is why it's important to be honest about your deal breakers from the employee perspective or at least subtly figure out their plan for employees at startups. I learned this the hard way recently by basically wasting 6 months at a startup, went well for a while, then 60-70+ hour work weeks, then my boss became overbearing.
They weren't honest from their side in the interview for most employees when they would ask about work life balance, the company always said it was great and well above average for the industry and startup environment.
Bananas are great. If I ate a healthy amount of bananas a week, I'd be happy with my banana consumption. I'd enjoy bananas.
However, if I ate a lot of bananas each week, let's say 80 🍌/week (that's 16 bananas a day, from Monday to Friday!), I would HATE bananas, regardless of how much I previously enjoyed them. With so many bananas a week, I'd probably suffer from malnutrition and related health problems.
End banana metaphor.
I don't think it's possible to be happy when working 80+ hours a week, even if it's something you used to enjoy. "The dose makes the poison."
That's because workaholics think they're normal and everyone else is lazy. In reality they usually either trying to hide from something in their personal life, or they really are just that boring of a person that they can't think of anything better to do than work.
This is not the same as being passionate, since that usually involves doing something for yourself rather than for another persons business.
I used to be a software developer and I enjoyed being a software developer, but I honestly couldn't give a crap about the proprietary accounting system or whatever it was that we were developing for the client. That stuff was hella boring
Exactly, loving your job doesn't prevent burnout. No matter how much you love it, if you are doing actual work (not some exec shitposting on linkedin all day) then past a certain point your body/mind will just get too tired to function well.
I genuinely love my job. I would do it for free if I could afford to. I sometimes (especially lately) work well over 60 hours a week. But I need to be careful about how much OT I let myself put in because I will burn out. I know that when I push myself too hard I will eventually start fucking up. I will start missing obvious things. I will start making stupid mistakes. With my job I am also far more likely to seriously injure myself when burned out. Allowing myself to become burned out results in worse outcomes for the customers and costs my company more money. Not to mention that if I did injure myself badly enough to be out of work then all those extra hours I put in would be outweighed be the time I miss.
A good manager recognizes that a burned out employee does more harm than good and works to prevent it. A good manager knows that keeping their employees happy, well rested, and fulfilled is in the company's best interest. Sometimes demands pop up that will require a bit of burn out to deal with but the benefit of meeting those demands needs to be weighed against the harm of that burnout. Shitty managers always severely underestimate the harm burnout causes not just to their employees but also to the company.
I don’t think it’s possible to be happy when working 80+ hours a week
I think there's a certain element of "do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life" in this.
If you're really deeply invested in a project and doing it brings you joy, then you very well might find yourself investing every waking moment working on it.
But that's not a "job", that's a "passion". You typically don't get to pursue your passions unless you already have a big passive income or a sugar daddy willing to cover your expenses.
It’s weird how this response also works for the “if you can’t handle me at my worst, you don’t deserve me at my best” posts. Do women still do that? I bet they hook up with the guy in OP.
To be perfectly honest, if a CEO is truly working 80+ hours a week, you almost have to wonder where they would find the time to write walls of text to rejected candidates and to play around on social media.
Granted, I suspect a lot of higher level folks are like the ones I know, they're very generous with what they qualify as "working hours" for themselves. For instance, "I work 12 hour days" translates to I leave for work at 7 a.m. and I don't get home until 7 p.m." so basically they consider their travel to/from the office, the 2 hour lunch break + gym time, picking up kids after school, etc to be part of their working hours. Or if they're away from home for 3 days at a conference, that's 70+ hours of work right there.
And the thing is, I don't completely disagree with any of that, it's just that they tend to take the opposite stance when it comes to people actually doing the work. If you're not sitting in front of your computer or on the phone making calls, then you're not working. Your commute to/from work doesn't count. Your lunch break doesn't count. Your travel time to and from the conference doesn't count for your 38.5 hour minimum billable time for that week.
Sign up with this guy. Work nights and weekends for three years. Then he cashes out, you get 30.000 shares of worthless "stocks" and a severance notice becauser he decided to pivot . Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
My husband is at the point of his career where he seeks out startups because he like passion projects. He's actually worked for several that have become huge multibillion dollar companies
The look on his face rn as i read this out to him is hilarious
Props to that CEO for being open! I'm sure all the other people pressured to work long hours there are compensated as highly as him and there's no wage theft complaints with the Department Of Labor, right...?
RUN!!!! To the closest golf course, that new CEO is probably there and just walk up to them and say “fuck you and “your company” I am out!” Then yell to the people around them to not give money to him… “he’s a grifter who is exploiting workers so he can play golf with you!”
If you want to hurt him, say something along the line: "The product doesn't work and most of the code is plagiarized". Something that implies that the company is about to hit a rough patch. Something that suggests that investors shouldn't invest, lest they lose their money.
The main character is sort of the prototypical modern incel rage fantasy.
I really enjoy this movie it has a lot of awesome scenes of outrage at normal life, but much like the fight club movie or the novel 'Catcher in the Rye' I feel like people often get the wrong idea about what problems it identifies in society and why the main character is a deeply unhealthy response to a sick world.
Agreed, he’s just a horrid person in and out of acting so it’s savage that he’s trying to pretend he’s not an incel who is a trash actor and hasn’t had anything since his little fame. He’s basically a “D” actor and everything since has been a straight up cash grab because it’s all TRASH!
I just want a stable job working for a co-op or a local government where I make good money, go home at a reasonable hour and have nice benefits. Startup culture sounds like hell. And i wouldn't begrudge them for it, but they keep winding up buying governments and convincing everyone to function like that
I helped one startup grow into a nice respectable company. Got good pay out of it. Then the CEO squandered what he had in a series of bad decisions. It's not worth it, would not recommend a startup.
Oh, thank god. Although I've known many managers who openly say that they throw out the application of anyone who mentions "work/life balance", so unfortunately it's a real sentiment.
Yeah, nothing like insecurity. Everyone fucking loves the shit outta that fucking shit! Gimme it all. I want nerve wracking, potential poverty around every corner. That's the ticket!
You get this with startups. There's always some pillock who reckons that just because your employee number 17 means that somehow you should be as invested as they are despite the fact that you're getting the wage you're getting regardless. If you weren't a founding member, then it's just a job.
Sure if they do really well as a company maybe you could ask for a raise, but it's not a guarantee and it's not directly mapped to the company's success, so who cares.
If you ever work for a startup in the software industry make sure the base salary is good, because there's no guarantee that any shares in the businesses will ever be worth the paper they're written on. If the company does well, then great, but if it doesn't you still need to have been compensated for your time, after all it's not your fault that subscription-based water fountains didn't catch on.
It's basically the same thing that scammers do - they know they have a terrible approach, but that's fine because they are only looking for the easy marks who are too oblivious to sense anything is wrong.
This CEO is preventing anyone with self preservation or a sense of actual industry norms from applying, increasing the proportion of aps from the gullible.
Everybody lies in job interviews, and the ones who say they don't lie are lying to us. Both candidates and interviewers lie. It's all a great lie, and indirectly, the main objective is to find the greatest liar, even if no one will admit that, because that's what the interviews actually test for.
No wonder companies are like they are, with deceiving behavior at all levels, and a lot of times, incredibly incompetent, despite their position in the market. And also, no wonder some people, like me, never manage to get a corporate job, no matter how much they try.
When I was looking for a job last year, I made a point to be honest. I was definitely trying to present an appealing version of myself, but I didn't want to land a job to learn a few weeks in that they had toxic management cultures, insane work expectations or other giant red flags. Maybe if I examined everything I said something was untrue, but I certainly tried to be honest.
I interviewed over 30 places, some of them almost certainly rejected me because I was honest about being a poor fit for a toxic environment. But that's fantastic, I wanted them to reject me if they were like that. I'm super happy with where I landed.
Lots of people lie, and there's certainly an expectation to lie and commodify yourself. Some people even believe the lies they tell themselves. But I think being more honest about your basic expectations and minimum requirements is a better strategy. Be yourself, and not the commodity they want you to be, but also make sure they understand why your unique skills are helpful to them. It's a fine line, but I think threading it works well, and if everybody tried to, we'd have a bit better world.
Yup. Kind of like a relationship, where we need to be honest about how we present ourselves to our significant others, and in general the kinds of people we seek affection from should be considered:
At your absolute best, you still won't be good enough for the wrong person. At your worst, you'll still be worth it to the right person.
Speak for yourself. I have never lied in a job interview. I'd like to, I think it's a good strategy and I don't respect corporations or think they deserve honesty. But I can't, I'm... Idk, too autistic or something to actually do it in the moment.
I'm exhausted. It's tiring. I've been with startup after startup after startup.
I've vested equity after equity into more equity.
I've made $0 off that equity over nearly 3 decades.
My health suffers because of the stress and strain of the jobs I've been forced to put my body through over the years and there's no coming back from that.
My mental health is at a constant tipping point during my every day of work and I wonder just how much longer I can even manage to put in "regular" hours before I just curl up into a ball and wait for the sweet embrace of death.
I've lost decades of my life, thrown away in offices, cubicles, and shitty pizza party meetings to celebrate meaningless achievements that are wiped out in the next quarterly planning session.
Brett Goldstein can go fuck himself with a sandpaper infused dildo.
Appreciated, but I'm not sure if that would be popular🙂
People want to read books about how to "win" at capitalism, not how it utterly breaks you and everything you held dear over the course of your life.
I doubt anyone would even be willing to publish it.
I'd consider writing one if people were interested though. I've done it all at this point pretty much. Climbed up and down the ladder of tech and business two or three times over. I've spoken at huge tech conferences, worked for startups, enterprises, mid tier, tech, non-tech, etc. I've owned my own companies, built startups with friends, with foreign investors, and more.
All it's taught me is that I need to go live in the woods alone until death comes.
The best conference I went to was called FailCon. Nothing but speaker after speaker getting up and talking about how their startup had failed. Learned more there than all the bragfests combined.
I was in the same place as you. I quit and now I drive a school bus. I am infinitely happier. I will have to work until I die, but it's a pleasant activity and takes only 4-5 hours of each day and I don't mind the thought of continuing this into my 70s or 80s (our oldest driver just retired at age 84).
Of course AI is probably going to fuck me out of this option, but AI will almost certainly replace programmers before it replaces school bus drivers.
As someone who built up a business working 80+ hrs; fuck that guy. 5 years ago I was paying part timers$26/hr and my only full time (salary) - told him 30 hrs/week max. It was my risk/investment, not theirs. I didn't want them to get burned out. Happier employees perform better.
Some will say those are the little guys trying to add competition in the market and compete with the big corporations. But since they are all VC backed, exploit workers, and just end up getting acquired anyway if they don’t fail, it’s hard to see it that way.
Made the mistake of taking an entrepeneurship internship over the summer at university. Every partnership they had in place proposed projects that basic due dilligence disqualified in seconds, and the lead professor was flabergasted that a bunch of business majors, IT, Design and Engineering majors had the noses to smell bullshit.
Okay, so I was even more surprised we were able to convince the business majors with little effort, but they were mostly seniors. Oh, and the one IT major with a viable product/prototype was ejected from the program.
Ah, the future value of equity ... sacrifice your life on spec that the venture will succeed when most don't and that your boss won't find a way to fuck you over of it does. Bearing in mind that the more money is on the table, the more likely it is that your boss will try to screw you out of it.
If you want to go to Vegas, go to Vegas. Do an 80-hour stint, see if you get rich, and if you fail then go home. Don't spend years at some shitty company run by an asshole.
Guy probably works, effectively, for 4 hoours a day, and then puts 16 into Jira.
On another note, I work 10 a day give or take, and that's because I can then take a few days off anyway. And I love my work and can afford it. Nobody pays me more than my hourly rate (if it is not a requested overtime in case of a night release [2x hourly] or being on emergency in case something breaks [0.5 hourly, but paid even if no emergency is raised, but have to be on call, so 8 hours of undisturbed sleep is like working 4 hours]). I do this on my own volition.
I love the bit about how people who work for early startups have to work long hours for little pay so that the owner of the company can walk away with a highly successful business that pays them handsomely while you get maybe a decent wage if you're lucky, or if the company doesn't fire you when they realize they can hire three people for half the pay that you were getting by the time the company is actually making a profit.
Yeah, if someone rejects me for not wanting to work 80 hours a week, I'd be glad. I worked a place where I was working between 50 and 60 hours a week all the time, and it affected my health. I will never do that crap again.
I am honestly surprised to hear people say stuff like this after the pandemic. My perspective post pandemic really changed. The things that are important to me isnt how much I work. Nobody's gonna give a shit that you put in 12 hour days at work when you're on your death bed. Spend time with the people you care about, and work to live. Not the other way around.
This guy (assuming this is real) is the chump, not the person who interviewed.
Only time I would work these kind of positions is when I truly enjoy the job, believe it can succeed AND shares of the company I don't have to buy. If i wanted extra hours and bad supervisors I could go back into the trades
A while back I did consulting for a startup where the CEO would hold all-hands meetings at this home -- on Saturday mornings. Attendance wasn't mandatory, but everyone knew it would look bad if they didn't show up. The 'executive team' also met on Sundays, and made sure on Monday standups mentioning that they had met.
They started messaging me about those meetings, and also texting me at all hours about problems they expected looked at right then or the next day. My work was pretty specialized but they kept trying to drag me into other problems they were having.
I very politely told them to go pound sand. Mentioned work-life balance. That I wasn't an employee and would only be available during the contracted hours. Also, that I had other projects and it wouldn't be fair to drop everything just for them. To their credit, they backed off (not that they had a choice).
A few years later, long after I was gone, they completely imploded. Was told things got worse and more frantic towards the end.
Kept seeing the same pattern in subsequent companies. It all stems from bad management.
Sort of? Society as a whole may support them, but like most parts of this giant machine mess, it's unknowingly. You pay money to the grocery store, which funnels it to the top, and then those leeches take the money and support people like the ceo fool through investment. Repeat for almost every other industry you are forced to partake in to survive.
I have family who have worked in several tech startups. They are funded by venture capitalists dreaming of the next facebook or google, or just selling out to people snatching up advertising methodologies/companies. I'm not going to blame society as a whole for the actions of relatively few people.
My actual reply to this nonsense that I’ve experienced before. Tell me what your startup does that benefits humanity. Other than making a few people rich, how does humanity benefit from this product. You want me to give up my life outside of work and I will, the moment you tell me this product will make humanity better.
I’m too tired of this bullshit. These people would rather just keep digging holes than determine the best way to build a house. If you’re ever in this situation, you dodged a bullet.
Everything he wrote makes sense IF you are working for yourself, for your startup, get paid by the hour (doesn't apply since he mentioned little pay), or you are gaining priceless skills and experience which you can soon after capitalize from (investing yourself).
The work my firm does affords no work life balance, and I tell that to anyone that approaches us for work. That said I also tell them that they will get paid for every hour they work.
Expecting people to work extra without additional compensation is illegal in a lot of states but the slave/hustler mentality has normalized it for many.
PS: At my firm, the number of work hours is determined by the employee. If you are only available for 10 or 20 hours a week, then that's all you work, but that's also all you get paid for. We have a few "retired" experts that only work a handful of hours but they have irreplaceable expertise. It's a win/win IMHO.
No question this guy is a tool, he's posting on LinkedIn. However, he's not wrong about startups being a bad fit for anyone looking for work-life balance. You're literally trying to build a business from scratch as fast as possible before the seed money runs out, and your compensation is usually more equity than salary. No time for anything but work in that scenario, or no one gets paid.
If that’s a decision you make for yourself, that’s great. Do that, as the owner.
Expecting it if anyone else, who, in reality, will never be as into the business as the owner, is exploitative. The level of entitlement in that expectation is not much different than that leechy individual you know who is forever trying to get more from others because he feels like world owes him. Expecting dedication to your dream, not theirs, is like that guy who verbalizes a demand for respect on every occasion.
You want labor, then pay people for it. You want trained, experienced labor, then pay people commensurate with their skill level. This means raises each year as they level up that experience working for you.
I don't see the problem. He told him honestly: this is not a job for you.
Maybe it's exploitative, maybe not, maybe they are offering stocks. Maybe they are taking a chance on a junior role. Whatever. It's all good if people are honest and if the work is long hours, that those hours are paid.
That's it.
I've worked in a startup and a lot of times it's honest people that want to make something succeed and are in a hurry. It's a normal situation. They want someone that's like them, to put in long hours and make it work. I think that's ok, if it's communicated at the start and then paid in some part ownership. And we don't know if that is the case here.
He gave him honest advice to survive in the toxic industry. If OP wants to work in that toxic industry, they do sort of have to grind that horrible mindset.
I know he’s not the only one but the exploitation of salary workers is insane to me. I’m a PM at a niche contracting company, I’m hourly and 40 hours is full time. I’ve had conversations with my boss about going salary and told him that it’s still only 40 hours a week.
I’m still hourly and I work overtime occasionally but you better believe I’m getting paid time and a half for any time over that 40 hours. And if I even touch my work phone while I’m on vacation, I’m billing those hours.
lol startups. “Sorry we are looking for someone to exploit to get us up and running and then fire so we don’t have to agree to pay them what they’re worth once we can.”
I doubt this actually happened because we all know our potential bosses are incredibly fragile when it comes to any traces of reality intruding on the bizarre bubble they’ve created for themselves. You’d lie through your teeth and say “I want to work somewhere that is like a family and I’ll work any amount of time until the job is done!”.
He’s actually not wrong. Startups are brutal, you have to literally take in the whole world with as little as possible.
Once you carve out your niche, then you can relax a bit. But before that you are in a race with an unknown number and quality of competitors. You can’t afford to have a good work-life balance.
So; the candidate did tank their chances by mentioning they wanted better work-life balance. You don’t apply to startups if that’s what you want. Look more towards established banks and the like.
But the dude in the post yapping about loving 80hr weeks is clearly deranged (or trying to impress some VCs)
Yeah I have worked at startup companies, twice, from beginning through 12 years, it's been my career so far, and honestly I like seeing the progression and jump out when it gets too established and bureaucratic and inflexible. Those long hours at the beginning usually do come with some flexibility, and figuring out things and fixing problems, implementing new systems (I am an accountant) is good and interesting work. I guess I got lucky both times since they didn't go under, one got sold and this one is starting to get too corporate.
It's weird how he states it so plainly, yet people misunderstand it. It's not for everyone. Some people specifically are willing to work at an unstable startup company, and can commit long hours in exchange for ownership of the company. They get a big reward if things go well. If the company just paid a paycheck, that would be exploitative. he's not talking about a shitty job where you're asked to work long hours because some rich assholes need line to go up.
It's totally valid to want just a stable job where you go in, do your fucking job, then go home, and get paid, then live your passions outside of work. Get that work/life balance, that should be your choice. This guy is not talking about that kind of job.
You guys are a bit too extreme, it can be fulfilling to work hard and get rewarded, just because you had a bad experience working for an exploitative big company doesn't mean all work is like that. If you have a lot of shares, then you're part owner. If they don't offer equity then fuck that, they can't expect anyone to put up with long hours, and what kind of cuck would get enjoyment about making other people rich?
80 hours/week is not sustainable. Anyone who truly works that will be burnt out in short order. Research shows long work hours are counterproductive, especially in "creative" types of work such as engineering. A lot of startup founders have pretty strong anti-dillution protections while the employees don't. 90% of startups just fail, 10% "succeed" but most don't pay out significant amounts to employees (and are then often laid off), and maybe 1-2% have explosive growth that may pay off enough for the employees to offset their initial sacrifice.
It's not sustainable, but with startups the goal is to either get big, or fail, over the span of a few years. You're not supposed to be at that level forever. If someone tries to that, we would call them a workaholic, and they will probably later regret not seeing more of the world while they were still young.
Every year, we do an employee survey to see how management is doing; like a report card for management. In the last 3 years, mine has come back with the highest company scores for employee engagement, job satisfaction, and project completion rate. I was asked to give a presentation to the other officers and managers about things I do to get those scores.
The presentation was basically one slide that I expanded to 10. It came down to creating the expectation, for the folks who report to me, that a work week is 37.5 hours (our full-time week) and no more. I make it clear that if my team is working overtime, I've failed. If that happens, together we look at their project commitments and reduce the workload, or get training, or whatever is needed.
Working folks to the point of burnout is NEVER a valid solution. Respecting personal time pays dividends to everyone. It's amazing how treating people like adults makes them happier and more productive. It's such a low bar and yet seems so foreign to people.
After my presentation, multiple execs argued thar I'd get more done if I pushed my team harder. Our company President pulled up all of our project completion rates, and asked them to explain the discrepancy. The three who complained the most about my approach were in the bottom five.
Data continually shows people are happy when they have a solid, predictable, work life balance. Happy people are more productive and are willing to do more in the long run. And they stick around, so you don't have to keep looking for new employees. Everyone wins. Yet, there is such a resistance to it by certain people, and I don't understand why.
Tldr: Expecting your people to give up their personal life for work, it's a clear sign that you are a terrible leader.
People are emotional driven. It might be something like "I worked 80 hour weeks. If I accept that that wasn't the right move, then I have to admit I fucked up. I'm a good smart person. I don't fuck up. Thus, this idea is wrong and I reject it"
sounds like how my parents rationalize my childhood
It’s how religious and cult members stay in and why it’s so hard to deprogram them.
Drama is much more compelling than good leadership. Martin Gutmann: good leadership is boring
shit floats
Consult your doctor
he said to cut all ceos out of my diet
Hmm... maybe it we make them into hot dogs first they'll be more digestible.
It's more cognitive dissonance than emotional drivers, with what you've described.
Is cognitive dissonance not a subcategory of emotions? If not I guess you're right
No, it's where your reality externally doesn't match your internal idea of it so you ignore it away or rationalize it away, etc.
Bingo!
This was my attitude too. If anyone has to work late or weekends, it was a failure in resource allocation, which is a management function.
The only exception was if people had to get on late night calls with people in other timezones, in which case they were expected to take the equivalent time off at their own convenience.
Another easy win is bullshit agile daily standups. I made them twice a week, and no longer than 15 minutes and only to cover potential blockers, not status reports. That alone made everyone happier. In one case, the team finished a project that had been languishing for three years in three months and shipped it out.
It's really about respecting people's time.
My last boss totally fucked up my daily stand-ups. I suggested them because, when I started, I found most work wasn't consistently tracked or even discussed. My boss's management style was panicking about everything and panic working while raging that no one else was also panicking about everything (spoiler: I also learned department turnover was high, can't imagine why), so I was trying to help implement any organization whatsoever. She quickly turned my 10 minute stand-ups into 1-1.5 hour slogs where each team member had to give an update on each of their projects, despite having earlier logged it all into the project tracker I created.
By far the worst micromanager and least competent person I ever worked for.
I dont understand how these managers get hired and stay on so long behaving that way
My promotion was fucked by an internal client like this, who’s a manager that keeps failing upwards and sideways. His team members hate him, his VP doesn’t trust him and keeps putting additional managers on his project.
My team did everything - we saved his project from the edge of the cliff, reached milestones, onboarded contractors, and made the notoriously grumpy VP satisfied.
Yet that’s not enough, as I’m supposed to make this manchild happy.
Some people just love drama and panic, and others are too soft to push back on them, as they are uncomfortable with any type of conflict.
True, although for some the conflict simply isn't worth it.
My coworkers and I were having issues getting any information from another team to do our job. Since we had a set deadline to finish the work, I set up a Monday/Wednesday meeting schedule to extract the information we needed from that team. My boss and the other team's boss turned it into a two hour update-fest with us and the other team updating our respective bosses, with both teams in the meeting. So fucking pointless, and so far away from what that meeting was supposed to be, it is truly astonishing we were able to get anything done.
Oh and the other team stopped providing the information we needed to finish when our bosses converted our meeting to update-fest.
People requesting you to say orally the same thing you typed in the task tracker that they should see if they paid attention to the tasks that are assigned to them and also notifies them by email really annoys me.
The frequency of standups should be determined by the team and blockers should never have to wait till standup to be surfaced.
I work on a growth product team and we frequently have devs pulled away to work on a feature in a different product. The engineers started losing track of availability of others and what features were going to prod became opaque. We opted to move back to daily standups with status reports as it kept the team informed and thus motivated, and gave an opportunity in several cases to refine approaches from the start.
There are, of course, other ways to accomplish this, like having a public issue board, but often private conversations don't make it to the issues.
Semi-agreed on daily standups -- the regular accountability drives productivity for a lot of people, but I also agree that daily is excessive. We've settled on 3 days/week and it works pretty well for both camps - 2 is probably fine, but 1 I would argue is missing the point.
Def agreed on 15 minutes, as you say - any longer and you lose both people and the purpose of the check-in.
Flip daily around and it becomes much more useful.
Instead of everyone reporting what they did, go through the board and look at tickets, with a focus on tickets in hand-over states (waiting for review, waiting for tests, ...). That way the daily can actually help progress stuck tickets.
At the end, ask if anyone doesn't have enough work and needs new tickets (to catch the potential problem of running out of work).
Doesn't take more than a few minutes and focusses on the things where the daily can actually help, instead of turning it into the daily exercise of "Yesterday I had a ton of meetings. Today I'll have a ton of meetings. Bye." That kind of stuff is worthless.
You're an electromagnet?
This is why I didn't stay in management. I had the same attitude as you. I didn't mind working late myself and if someone really wanted to because they had an interesting problem I'd usually let them cut out early Friday or come in late the next day. I got too much shit from other management and C levels about how my team never seemed to be around. I'd ask what was not getting done or what they were expecting that they didn't get. The answer was always just that they didn't see the team in the office when other teams were still there. They could have needed something!
I got tired of that shit. One of the reasons that I went into business for myself as a one man company. Now I don't have to justify anything but my own existence to anyone except who I directly report to. And the guy I directly report to likes the big ass penalty clause in my contract for terminating it early or without notice because accounting can't get rid of me without taking a hit or giving me time to finish up my projects. I'm judged solely on what I deliver. And I almost always come in ahead of time and with better results than most other teams because I'm not worked like a rented mule.
Yup. We're humans and when we get tired we make mistakes. I could work a 12 hour day, but in the twelfth hour I'll probably make a mistake that'll take more than 6 hours or to fix someday in the future. If I work 8 hours you get 8 hours of productivity. If I work 12 hours you'll end up getting 6 hours or less of productivity.
The whole thing about making people work long hours is just about bad managers that enjoy exerting power over people. It's not about productivity.
Doctors/nurses/cops/emts/firefighters/pipefitters/welders/fucktard-managers everywhere are gasping in shock and horror.
Just because they work it doesn't make it right.
Not saying it is. Though I do know from the medical field especially that where mistakes are found is in the handoff or shift change, which is one reason it took so long to see any meaningful change in the way residency worked for doctors. Despite the incredibly long hours, the new docs didn't tend to make mistakes in care during the shift. I think long shifts aren't necessarily the problem, it's when we're pushed to keep working when we can actually feel the fatigue and malaise of the day set in. Maybe the only way (right now, due to the way you work or you die) is to mandate shorter shifts, but I would love to see a culture set up where you work until you start to feel it, and then go home or take a break, however long that break needs to be. That's probably fantasy of the highest order, but hey, why not imagine ways where things could like that and push for them?
Medical work and software development are very different kinds of work with very different difficulties.
A lot of medical shift work is about being there, not necessarily about doing stuff all the time. There's a lot of standby-duty. It's sometimes physical work, sometimes emotional/social work, sometimes actual brain work (researching stuff). It's quite a lot of different types of tasks over a shift.
Software develompent is highly-concentrated brain work without meaningful built-in breaks. You spend all day staring at a screen, doing high-level logic non-stop. Humans aren't built for that kind of work at all, so it's really difficult to do that for extended periods.
A lot of business types have a very simple view on labor. Time is money, so the more time you get somebody to work the more you earn. Of course it doesn't work like that in reality, but this mentality is spread far and wide.
The suffering is the point
What did the execs have to say after being asked to explain the discrepancy?
Sounds exploitative because it is. Just because work is your entire personality doesn’t mean every one else’s should be too. Fucking tool
Recently read "Pimp" by Iceberg Slim, and it seems like a training manual for (some) modern managers and executives. Use your recruiting process to select low-esteem, easily manipulated people to be your worker drones, and they will do 80 hour weeks to earn that pizza party.
This is the only proviso for me. Some people wouldn't mind working themselves to exhaustion for a lot of money. Then the question of whether it's exploitative or not depends on the amounts involved and the conditions of equity ownership
Dude, you're pulling 80 hour weeks for your company. That you own. Expecting the same input from people who will never see as much as a percentage of what you stand to make off of their success is delusional. But I suppose delusion is almost a requirement for these kind of people.
Personally theory.....
Many startups fail because people try to work 80+hrs per week. Biologically more than about 25-30 hours of work is usually a waste of time. You can occasionally pull a long week but then you need to rest and recover to get back to full productivity. If you push beyond it often, you'll make a shit ton of stupid mistakes that completely nullify all your efforts.
If you've ever been around someone "working" on hour 70+ during a week you'll know what I mean. A five minute tasks takes them an hour and they generally fuck it up.
I've worked for a few startups (in software). They all failed because their idea was stupid, the executives were technically incompetent borderline sociopaths, and they weren't even good at getting VCs to throw money at them. Some employees worked insane hours while others of us fucked off most of the time and came to work high - it made no difference.
Exactly!! Easy to pull so many hours when it is for your own business. But do not expect employees who could get fired or laid off any time at your own will to have the same commitment.
Yeah, 100%. This kind of advice can maybe make sense if you're starting a startup, but everyone employed at that stage needs to be on equal ground and well-protected. If they're not, then that can still be fine, but they can't be expected to put as much of their lives into your product. They're contractors you're hiring for some shit-shoveling and maybe it's best to be honest about that.
The unfortunate thing in tech is that, due to pushing "learning to code" as a universal employment option, there's always a pool of idealistic fresh blood that is willing to crunch for you if you make vague mention of being in it together, when a few people stand to gain the vast majority of the profit if the company's product is successful. By the time the new recruits are old and bitter and burnt out, you can lay em off for poor performance (or cannibalize the company at large) and hire some more doe-eyed interns.
If you're expecting your employees to consistently work long hours for you, they need to have the same stake as you do. They need flexibility to take care of their mental and physical health as needed. You should encourage them to unionize and collectively bargain for their needs once they come in conflict with yours, because they absolutely will. You can't afford to lose these people, because it's rare to find people that won't get ground into dust doing this because they want it as bad as you. so make it sustainable and more than worth their while. if you can't find these people? maybe your app sucks.
these types view themselves as above the labor they're hiring because they got there first / had the means to form a company and I fucking hate it.
The vast majority of people who start at the beginning of a startup will receive equity, so they are also co-owners.
Maybe for employees like 1-5. Beyond that is rapidly diminishing amounts of equity. I was employee #49 and got like 40,000
sharesoptions (that I had to buy)And even if you are like employee #3, the actual owner and investors get more than you
Exactly, there is a place in the world for startups burning 80 hr/wk. Just compensate the people who are doing that adequately with equity, and hire risk takers who want that kind of risk.
I agree in principle that start up employees can be incentivized better than the usual wage or salary slave.
There is always a big butt, though.
Non-capital investors almost always get shares of a lower class that can be denied a share of any future revenue from a sale of the company or god forbid they get real revenue.
These term “Hollywood accounting” exists for a reason and skepticism about the real value of lower class shares is very valid.
I think what he said about startups is more pr less true. Of course, with startups you're putting in a lot of work to break into or create a new market, and you get a percentage of that company, too. It certainly isn't for everyone, and most people don't want to do it for their whole career. And expecting that kind of attitude from a regular employee is simply ridiculous.
Depends how much equity they give their employees
"I work 80 hrs for my own business and I expect everyone else to do so...on a regular salary"
CEOs think their time at restaurants count as working hours
They think that responding to emails every now and then is "working"...
No, on a startup salary. Which might be minimum wage (on a 40h basis). His advice is solid: for someone who looks for work life balance a startup is not the right employer. They will be much happier in a big boring established company. If someone is in their 20s, little family obligations, wants to have a high risk high reward experience, go for it.
People used to start family's in their 20s, cunts like this CEO are the reason they can't and we've developed this garbage mentality.
People can start a family in their 20s today, but not working for a startup. For instance, getan engineering degree, a job in a big company with a good union (IG Metall is the one im familiar with) and you can start a family at 25. That won't get you a yacht like a startup could, but it will give you stability and a very comfortable life.
startup gets you a yacht if you are the lead engineer or the one who starts it. if you are one of the initial employees maybe you get some shares that you can't cash right away and a somewhat a better position and possibly a thanks.
I know personally people with a 3 digit employee number at a company (hard to call it startup at that point) who are millionaires. Anything pre-IPO is serious money, the first 100 employees usually in the high 7 figures.
High risk high reward jobs are rarely a good advice for someone trying to establish their own life in their twenties especially if you don't have a safety net. It is like suggesting math PhD students to go after the biggest unsolved problem of the century. It is much more sane to try to do such stuff when you are established in your career. Also I am not sure what is the rewarding part even if the start-up becomes wildly successful best you get out of those are some shares with lots of strings attached, it is not like CEO makes every initial employee a high end partner.
I'm at the start of my career and decided to join a startup now. I'm at a point in my life where I don't need to support anyone other than myself, and can afford to work a lot for relatively low pay because it's fun to build something new from scratch. I can afford that this flops.
In ten years, I'm hopefully in a place where I want/need more stability, free time, predictability, and better pay. Either the startup works out, and I can have that, or I'm hoping that the experience I get working on it will allow me to get a "normal" job when I need it.
Edit: What's with people downvoting me for saying that I personally have joined a startup because I personally think it's fun and rewarding? Jesus...
I wish you all the luck, but recent trends are that unless you're the founding engineer or close friend of the CEO, then IF the startup makes it (is bought) you'll be left on ice.
To expand: I get very cheap options for a decent share of the company as part of my contract.
Honestly if I am going spend my years on building something from scratch and sacrifice so much for its growth, I would like to have some say on its further development and future course and a fair share of its success too (acknowledgement and financial wise). That rarely seems to happen in startups, apart from top engineers and executives. Even if you come up with ideas that transform the company, best you get is some sort of bonus and maybe sth you claim you have done in your next job interviews.
If you want such rewarding stuff then work in the academia for somewhat a better salary and much more freedom and ownership of projects you develop and supervise (even as a postdoc).
I'm getting cheap options for a decent share of the company as part of my contract, so I will have a say in future development :)
well that sounds like much fairer treatment than the experience of many people around me. do those shares come with strings attached?
Only string attached is that I'm required to sell them back to the company if I quit. I think that makes sense, since we're not publicly traded, and want all shareholders to be people actively invested in the company.
This is the worst advice I have seen in a while. Academia is the absolute worst for salary, with an eternity actuelly not earning anything (or if in the US, having to pay yourself!) plus the stress of constant chasing of funding, politics that make big corporations pale and whims of reviewers that have no idea about your niche. I didn't even consider a post-doc, went straight to industry. Best decision ever.
Only go to academia if it's truly your passion and you don't care about money for some reason.
I am comparing academia to working as an initial employee in a startup though, not to working as an employer in industry in an established firm.
In this case salary is likely better, you still build stuff from scratch on topics that interest you, you don't work so that some guy can achieve his/her dreams, you have a higher chance of getting credit for the stuff you do (though wouldn't say %100 because yea fucking humans...). It even comes with the same levels of future uncertainty that a startup does lol. That being said as with anything luck is the major determinant here too. If you end up with a group of immature people and a bad PI you may live hell on earth (as you would anywhere). But I believe your chances of ending up with a fun gang of intelligent people is quite high, including the PI.
I respectfully disagree. The potential reward in a startup is orders of magnitude higher than academia. The percentage of time dedicated to useful work is higher in a startup (funding proposals suuuuck). The time you start earning money is years earlier in a startup (no need for masters or PhD). I agree about credit (which unless it's Nobel level is almost worthless, and usually the department chair gets the most credit anyway) and luck.
While I don't regret my years in academia, it's only because it helped me land my first industry job which would be super difficult without that background. Academia itself as a career path was a big no for me after my first two published papers.
I'm not suggesting they do it, I'm saying if they do it they should demand a lot of equity.
Well then that startup will likely move to the next candidate (among hundreds) with their ten stage interview. I can understand owners and leads of startups wanting to work their ass of to lift their company and dreams off the ground. But if they expect a regular employee to do the same for a low salary and barely any extra benefits then they are delusional. If they use sentences like "we are a family", "this is our dream", run.
Yep. Add "work hard, play hard" to the list.
But yeah, at least in tech one of the motivation tools for employees is equity, even post-IPO you get RSUs and some form of ESPP. If you don't offer big equity for an early stage startup why would someone work for you instead making mid 6 figures at a FAANG?
Yeah, started out like that. First employee in a startup (when I started it was me and the four co-owners). I helped build that thing up from the ground. I created the whole IT and software development aspect of the company. I did so for the salary of a supermarket worker, even though I was department lead with 7 people under me at the end. Yearly bonus was a €50 Amazon voucher.
I helped raise the company from 5 guys up to 50 in 3 continents. Never got anything for it.
Boss threw a big hissy fit when I didn't want to come into the office during lockdown even though it was against the law to do so.
After I handed in my resignation, the boss never even talked to me once.
Working at a startup is not high risk high reward. It's high risk, high work, no reward.
Anyone who thinks there's reward in it for the workers is naive. Unless the worker gets paid in undilutable shares of the company, all the reward goes to the owner. And unless an owner pays me like an owner, I'm not going to give half a shit about the company.
100%
These startup bros got real "I need an army of desperate folks who can be paid in motivational speeches to make my dreams come true because I bring nothing to the table." Energy lol.
As I always say. With these types, freedom does not mean freedom from tyranny but rather freedom to become a tyrant.
"I'll hustle and work really hard, then one day, I'll get to wear the boot! "
Yeah, it was my first real job in the field. It was a hard lesson learned.
Don't give more than what you get paid for. Don't be more loyal than the company is loyal to you.
If you don't get undilutable shares, why on earth would you work for a startup??? Unemployment has been at an all time low for the last what, 20 years? Plenty of jobs out there, the only argument for a startup is the lottery ticket.
You are exactly the person this advice would have been great for. Only accept the low salary if you get a big chunk of equity in the company: that's the big reward part of the equation. Otherwise you could have been working for a boring multinational going home by 17:00 and have a house with a picket fence by now.
Yeah, I was young, it was my first real job in the field and I didn't have the experience to do better. It would have been a decent job for the first year or so, just getting my feet wet in real-life work to find a better job afterwards.
But idiot me drank the kool-aid that the owners were talking all day ("It's good that you are here, you'd never make it in a corporation", "Remember all the benefits you have here, like e.g. being able to take vacation on only 1 month's notice", "Corporations are so evil, they'll rip you off" and so on) that I was too afraid to look for something better.
Wasted 7 years there. Then I moved to a corporate job, doubled my salary and have never looked back. Corporate work environments are so, so much better than startups.
I received a few job offers for tech lead at startups and therelike, sometimes even with higher pay than I had at a corporate job, but I'll never ever join one of these mini-dictatorships in a startup again. Just far too much power concentration in a single person.
Does this go against some sort of law?
Good advice is if you sacrifice work life balance, make sure you have undilutable shares. I made that mistake already. Never again.
Yes, good distinction. Never happened to me, but I saw it in the Facebook movie.
It's not inherently the case. For instance, my best job ever work-life balance-wise was a start up.
They were a really down-to-earth group, but they were also aware enough to realize that having a good work environment is how you keep your best people when you can't necessarily compete on salary/prestige with the big guys.
That's awesome, but also rather the exception, at least in my experience.
I'd only be willing to put in long hours for little pay at a startup if they agreed to give me shares in the company when I left.
Yeah they talk about equity but were they offering it to this position?
Also, fuck that dude regardless.
I worked at a startup for a couple of years in the '90s. The equity was "we'll take care of you". Spoiler: they did not take care of me.
That's literally not equity (which I think is your point).
That was literally my point.
That is always the case, you get a very generous part of the equity, which at that time is worth nothing, with the hope that in a number of years you can cash out and move from a dingy basement to a tropical island.
If they don't offer a this very generous equity, run away immediately.
And then they either water down the equity you have or get aquihired or some other bullshit.
Aquihired means immediate vesting of all your equity and you can cash out in the short term (usually no later than 1 year, often immediately) sometimes with the condition that you stay employed for a certain amount of time if you are high enough.
If you work 80+h and it doesn't feel like work, then maybe playing golf and eating out doesn't magically turn into work just because you write it off as work expenses.
"No no, you don't understand. You shouldn't have a family, you have to flog yourself to death for this startup company that's making a Gym Membership app. If you don't neglect your kids to vibe code a scheduling system then you just don't deserve a job and you and your family should just die"
Bro, if you don't believe in GimLyfe, maybe success isn't for you.
You should really consider having the grindset to be a self-starter in our face-paced family, instead of having a real family.
Some of you will die but that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.
Massive impact on the world. Lol. Says the guy who makes another SaaS bs solution.
I feel like anyone who says they love their work so much it doesn't feel like work just doesn't have an actual life that they like to live so work just beats out not working everytime.
I mean there is people who work for organizations like Doctors without Borders. Being deployed in a zone of natural disaster or war, they probably rack up 60+ hours a week easily. However their pay is much smaller than what they could get in the "market". Turns out people can love their job, if it does something meaningful, rather than make some rich people more rich.
they also aren't doing any actual proper labor, just at the 19th hole having a "business lunch" with a "possible investor"
or "securing partnerships" by spending 2 days travelling for a 3 hour meeting
Does golf actually have more than 18 holes, or is this a sex joke?
Be kind: I don't know golf...or jokes.
The 19th hole is the traditional joke name for the bar/restaurant that you go to after you finish playing. Not sure where you got sex from, but no, there is no sex involved in golf.
Oh that makes sense, thanks!
It's the internet; it's pretty safe to assume sex (or sex jokes), especially when holes are mentioned.
Rule 34 says otherwise
I love my work, and at times I work long hours, nights, weekends, to meet specific goals or when there is an emeegency.
That is however the exception, not the rule.
I need my day to day to be smooth, I need my blend of work from home, so that when the high energy bursts do happen, I can handle it.
The idea of working at crisis levels all the time as standard is just insane to me, and suggests bad time management and expecations.
I can see a young bachelor with no hobbies choosing that but if you have a family and do this then you might as well just say that avoiding them is your only hobby.
na, they're just lying. people at the top work far less than anyone else.
Their work is primarily flogging the slaves to work harder.
There are exceptions to every rule. There are super lucky people for whom their job really is their hobby. Then, even if they do have a life , they can still find their work doesn't feel like work. Life is not fair - it's not shitty for everyone equally.
I really enjoy my job. I spend my time solving problems and work on projects that improve the water supply for the country. I enjoy working late because I don't have any meetings, so I am unburdened enough to actually work. I don't think I could work more than 50 hours a week though.
People who say that have ‘jobs’ where they blather and other people do work then money comes in.
I think there are people who love their job me included. The clients and co workers make it a bad experience.
I fucking love not working! I prioritize time spent not working over time working every day of my life.
sits back and waits for people to insinuate about my work quality
Exactly. Not a life worth having.
It sounds exploitative because it is exploitative!
I mean, the douchebag CEO isn't exactly wrong.
I myself very much want a good work-life balance, therefore I do not apply for jobs to be one of the first ten people working for a CEO that thinks they're going to change the world.
He did a big favor for that candidate by not hitting him.
looking at the douchebags profile he's also a, surprise surprise, massive advocate for AI with a recent post stating that gpt5 is a "massive change for humanity"
He has the usual tech bro posts with the usual bootlicker middle managers commenting support. Christ on a cracker I wish I could close my linkedin account.
These kind of guys are all so similar you could literally replace them and their posts with an AI.
Super pick me for a techno fascist world
they use it to write text. usually more text than any human would use. they get mad if you ask how much they spent on the slop picture they just posted.
Well considering when you want to make a post on Linkedin the site gives you the option to instead write it with AI. I imagine most of them do.
Throwing all techbros in the middle of the desert would do wonders for humanity
And how much equity are you providing for this role
We haven't figured out the details yet but we're passionate about our business family and we're sure we'll have good news for you at
ChristmasEasterThe New YearThe next AGMhey wait why are you leaving what about those shares? We've nearly sorted out the details!Sad that they haven't found a life that they truly love...
BRO IF YOU JUST GRIND! WIPES TEARS JUST FIND A PURPOSE, BRO. SOBS WORK 190 HOURS A WEEK BRO. IT'S LIKE THE DREAM. GRIND BRO. THE VISION. PUTS THE BARREL IN HIS MOUTH
If that vision was at least their own vision, but so many wage slaves freely give their life away for someone else's. So many management positions that don't get overtime but do 12h days because "otherwise things don't work". Well, they're not supposed to work if that's what it takes. Many of my colleagues are so close to burning out, or rather already sizzling.
I spent 24 years busting my ass so someone could go on RV trips every other week.
I’m out. If I do nothing for the rest of my life I’m good with it.
It's because they're still trying to fit their Proletariat ass into a Capitalist shaped hole.
Well this guy is a capitalist so the problem is he hasn't been minced first
Wonder how many people on their deathbed go "I REALLY wish I put 100+ hour weeks into muh StArTuP rather than just 80! Agggghhhh...."
This is why it's important to be honest about your deal breakers from the employee perspective or at least subtly figure out their plan for employees at startups. I learned this the hard way recently by basically wasting 6 months at a startup, went well for a while, then 60-70+ hour work weeks, then my boss became overbearing.
They weren't honest from their side in the interview for most employees when they would ask about work life balance, the company always said it was great and well above average for the industry and startup environment.
Begin banana metaphor.
Bananas are great. If I ate a healthy amount of bananas a week, I'd be happy with my banana consumption. I'd enjoy bananas.
However, if I ate a lot of bananas each week, let's say 80 🍌/week (that's 16 bananas a day, from Monday to Friday!), I would HATE bananas, regardless of how much I previously enjoyed them. With so many bananas a week, I'd probably suffer from malnutrition and related health problems.
End banana metaphor.
I don't think it's possible to be happy when working 80+ hours a week, even if it's something you used to enjoy. "The dose makes the poison."
That's because workaholics think they're normal and everyone else is lazy. In reality they usually either trying to hide from something in their personal life, or they really are just that boring of a person that they can't think of anything better to do than work.
This is not the same as being passionate, since that usually involves doing something for yourself rather than for another persons business.
I used to be a software developer and I enjoyed being a software developer, but I honestly couldn't give a crap about the proprietary accounting system or whatever it was that we were developing for the client. That stuff was hella boring
Exactly, loving your job doesn't prevent burnout. No matter how much you love it, if you are doing actual work (not some exec shitposting on linkedin all day) then past a certain point your body/mind will just get too tired to function well.
I genuinely love my job. I would do it for free if I could afford to. I sometimes (especially lately) work well over 60 hours a week. But I need to be careful about how much OT I let myself put in because I will burn out. I know that when I push myself too hard I will eventually start fucking up. I will start missing obvious things. I will start making stupid mistakes. With my job I am also far more likely to seriously injure myself when burned out. Allowing myself to become burned out results in worse outcomes for the customers and costs my company more money. Not to mention that if I did injure myself badly enough to be out of work then all those extra hours I put in would be outweighed be the time I miss.
A good manager recognizes that a burned out employee does more harm than good and works to prevent it. A good manager knows that keeping their employees happy, well rested, and fulfilled is in the company's best interest. Sometimes demands pop up that will require a bit of burn out to deal with but the benefit of meeting those demands needs to be weighed against the harm of that burnout. Shitty managers always severely underestimate the harm burnout causes not just to their employees but also to the company.
I think there's a certain element of "do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life" in this.
If you're really deeply invested in a project and doing it brings you joy, then you very well might find yourself investing every waking moment working on it.
But that's not a "job", that's a "passion". You typically don't get to pursue your passions unless you already have a big passive income or a sugar daddy willing to cover your expenses.
"If you're not willing to sacrifice your mental and physical health for me, get out of my sight."
It’s weird how this response also works for the “if you can’t handle me at my worst, you don’t deserve me at my best” posts. Do women still do that? I bet they hook up with the guy in OP.
To be perfectly honest, if a CEO is truly working 80+ hours a week, you almost have to wonder where they would find the time to write walls of text to rejected candidates and to play around on social media.
Granted, I suspect a lot of higher level folks are like the ones I know, they're very generous with what they qualify as "working hours" for themselves. For instance, "I work 12 hour days" translates to I leave for work at 7 a.m. and I don't get home until 7 p.m." so basically they consider their travel to/from the office, the 2 hour lunch break + gym time, picking up kids after school, etc to be part of their working hours. Or if they're away from home for 3 days at a conference, that's 70+ hours of work right there.
And the thing is, I don't completely disagree with any of that, it's just that they tend to take the opposite stance when it comes to people actually doing the work. If you're not sitting in front of your computer or on the phone making calls, then you're not working. Your commute to/from work doesn't count. Your lunch break doesn't count. Your travel time to and from the conference doesn't count for your 38.5 hour minimum billable time for that week.
They count fucking around on LinkedIn as part of their work week, I reckon
They probably count lecturing their kids about their attitude as work as well
Welcome to The WSJ's breakdown of a CEO's 55 hour "workweek":
Wow I wish I could get paid to exercise. Useless parasites.
Right, of course!
Sign up with this guy. Work nights and weekends for three years. Then he cashes out, you get 30.000 shares of worthless "stocks" and a severance notice becauser he decided to pivot . Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
Yep, sounds like fun. :|
Hey, I've had that experience. It sucked.
Oh look, a self-reporting issue
The grammar alone is enough of a red flag.
God I hope he knows he ended up on LinkedIn lunatics
You think people like this have enough self-awareness to be ashamed?
Not inherently, but I'd hope that a public mocking would still cause a reaction
My husband is at the point of his career where he seeks out startups because he like passion projects. He's actually worked for several that have become huge multibillion dollar companies
The look on his face rn as i read this out to him is hilarious
I can't tell what his reaction is from this!
Any stories ? I'd love to hear
In other words, this guy works not for the money, but because it's what he'd do even if he wasn't paid. Sounds like he could afford higher taxes.
"We will exploit you from the very beginning."
Props to that CEO for being open! I'm sure all the other people pressured to work long hours there are compensated as highly as him and there's no wage theft complaints with the Department Of Labor, right...?
RUN!!!! To the closest golf course, that new CEO is probably there and just walk up to them and say “fuck you and “your company” I am out!” Then yell to the people around them to not give money to him… “he’s a grifter who is exploiting workers so he can play golf with you!”
If you want to hurt him, say something along the line: "The product doesn't work and most of the code is plagiarized". Something that implies that the company is about to hit a rough patch. Something that suggests that investors shouldn't invest, lest they lose their money.
It should also go something like this as well.
100%!!
Never seen that movie but now I wanna! Thank you!! 😊
The main character is sort of the prototypical modern incel rage fantasy.
I really enjoy this movie it has a lot of awesome scenes of outrage at normal life, but much like the fight club movie or the novel 'Catcher in the Rye' I feel like people often get the wrong idea about what problems it identifies in society and why the main character is a deeply unhealthy response to a sick world.
Agreed, he’s just a horrid person in and out of acting so it’s savage that he’s trying to pretend he’s not an incel who is a trash actor and hasn’t had anything since his little fame. He’s basically a “D” actor and everything since has been a straight up cash grab because it’s all TRASH!
Yikes, I did not know the dude was a bad person in real life! Thanks for pointing that out!
Also, D-fense, D-list actor! get it?
Non-EU spelling of defence lol
The consequences of my own actions.
Also having dual citenship in the US and EU (Croatia), this is hella embarrasing.
Thank you for pointing out the error of my ways
I just want a stable job working for a co-op or a local government where I make good money, go home at a reasonable hour and have nice benefits. Startup culture sounds like hell. And i wouldn't begrudge them for it, but they keep winding up buying governments and convincing everyone to function like that
I helped one startup grow into a nice respectable company. Got good pay out of it. Then the CEO squandered what he had in a series of bad decisions. It's not worth it, would not recommend a startup.
Put down your pitchforks, people. Self-confessed fabrication: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/bgoldstein3_founder-career-activity-7354574299103436800-HpOn
But you can bring them back out for being such a tool, he still deserves it.
Oh, thank god. Although I've known many managers who openly say that they throw out the application of anyone who mentions "work/life balance", so unfortunately it's a real sentiment.
A fabrication based on a true story.
Yes, a cautionary tale.
"love the uncertainty"
Yeah, nothing like insecurity. Everyone fucking loves the shit outta that fucking shit! Gimme it all. I want nerve wracking, potential poverty around every corner. That's the ticket!
Seriously though, WTF is wrong with this person?
You get this with startups. There's always some pillock who reckons that just because your employee number 17 means that somehow you should be as invested as they are despite the fact that you're getting the wage you're getting regardless. If you weren't a founding member, then it's just a job.
Sure if they do really well as a company maybe you could ask for a raise, but it's not a guarantee and it's not directly mapped to the company's success, so who cares.
If you ever work for a startup in the software industry make sure the base salary is good, because there's no guarantee that any shares in the businesses will ever be worth the paper they're written on. If the company does well, then great, but if it doesn't you still need to have been compensated for your time, after all it's not your fault that subscription-based water fountains didn't catch on.
Entrepreneur brain, stage 4, terminal
Imagine being psychotic enough to brag about this.
"They are not glorious enough to work for my wonderful company and with my pure genius!"
It's basically the same thing that scammers do - they know they have a terrible approach, but that's fine because they are only looking for the easy marks who are too oblivious to sense anything is wrong.
This CEO is preventing anyone with self preservation or a sense of actual industry norms from applying, increasing the proportion of aps from the gullible.
The guy can't even start his sentences with a capital letter. And you're supposed to take him serious as a CEO?
"Sorry I'm not even interested. You behave like a child, don't understand life and clearly treat your employees like shit."
advice to you; lie
Everybody lies in job interviews, and the ones who say they don't lie are lying to us. Both candidates and interviewers lie. It's all a great lie, and indirectly, the main objective is to find the greatest liar, even if no one will admit that, because that's what the interviews actually test for.
No wonder companies are like they are, with deceiving behavior at all levels, and a lot of times, incredibly incompetent, despite their position in the market. And also, no wonder some people, like me, never manage to get a corporate job, no matter how much they try.
When I was looking for a job last year, I made a point to be honest. I was definitely trying to present an appealing version of myself, but I didn't want to land a job to learn a few weeks in that they had toxic management cultures, insane work expectations or other giant red flags. Maybe if I examined everything I said something was untrue, but I certainly tried to be honest.
I interviewed over 30 places, some of them almost certainly rejected me because I was honest about being a poor fit for a toxic environment. But that's fantastic, I wanted them to reject me if they were like that. I'm super happy with where I landed.
Lots of people lie, and there's certainly an expectation to lie and commodify yourself. Some people even believe the lies they tell themselves. But I think being more honest about your basic expectations and minimum requirements is a better strategy. Be yourself, and not the commodity they want you to be, but also make sure they understand why your unique skills are helpful to them. It's a fine line, but I think threading it works well, and if everybody tried to, we'd have a bit better world.
Yup. Kind of like a relationship, where we need to be honest about how we present ourselves to our significant others, and in general the kinds of people we seek affection from should be considered:
Substitute “person” with job/work/career.
Speak for yourself. I have never lied in a job interview. I'd like to, I think it's a good strategy and I don't respect corporations or think they deserve honesty. But I can't, I'm... Idk, too autistic or something to actually do it in the moment.
Me neither, but never got a job
Working in a low trust environment is not good for one's health, but so is not eating.
Seems like the worst of hustle culture to be honest.
I've done this shit for decades. Decades.
I'm exhausted. It's tiring. I've been with startup after startup after startup.
I've vested equity after equity into more equity.
I've made $0 off that equity over nearly 3 decades.
My health suffers because of the stress and strain of the jobs I've been forced to put my body through over the years and there's no coming back from that.
My mental health is at a constant tipping point during my every day of work and I wonder just how much longer I can even manage to put in "regular" hours before I just curl up into a ball and wait for the sweet embrace of death.
I've lost decades of my life, thrown away in offices, cubicles, and shitty pizza party meetings to celebrate meaningless achievements that are wiped out in the next quarterly planning session.
Brett Goldstein can go fuck himself with a sandpaper infused dildo.
Sounds like your experience would make a good book, full of cautionary tales 😁
Appreciated, but I'm not sure if that would be popular🙂
People want to read books about how to "win" at capitalism, not how it utterly breaks you and everything you held dear over the course of your life.
I doubt anyone would even be willing to publish it.
I'd consider writing one if people were interested though. I've done it all at this point pretty much. Climbed up and down the ladder of tech and business two or three times over. I've spoken at huge tech conferences, worked for startups, enterprises, mid tier, tech, non-tech, etc. I've owned my own companies, built startups with friends, with foreign investors, and more.
All it's taught me is that I need to go live in the woods alone until death comes.
The best conference I went to was called FailCon. Nothing but speaker after speaker getting up and talking about how their startup had failed. Learned more there than all the bragfests combined.
Just sayin'.
I was in the same place as you. I quit and now I drive a school bus. I am infinitely happier. I will have to work until I die, but it's a pleasant activity and takes only 4-5 hours of each day and I don't mind the thought of continuing this into my 70s or 80s (our oldest driver just retired at age 84).
Of course AI is probably going to fuck me out of this option, but AI will almost certainly replace programmers before it replaces school bus drivers.
HATE. UNBRIDLED HATE. NO FATE IS TOO BAD FOR THIS SCUM. REEE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92IkddsjtAA
As someone who built up a business working 80+ hrs; fuck that guy. 5 years ago I was paying part timers$26/hr and my only full time (salary) - told him 30 hrs/week max. It was my risk/investment, not theirs. I didn't want them to get burned out. Happier employees perform better.
The only reason people like this would allow their employees to work 30hr weeks, is to avoid giving them benefits.
"We only hire slave labor here. You aren't nearly subservient enough for the honor."
Some will say those are the little guys trying to add competition in the market and compete with the big corporations. But since they are all VC backed, exploit workers, and just end up getting acquired anyway if they don’t fail, it’s hard to see it that way.
Made the mistake of taking an entrepeneurship internship over the summer at university. Every partnership they had in place proposed projects that basic due dilligence disqualified in seconds, and the lead professor was flabergasted that a bunch of business majors, IT, Design and Engineering majors had the noses to smell bullshit.
Okay, so I was even more surprised we were able to convince the business majors with little effort, but they were mostly seniors. Oh, and the one IT major with a viable product/prototype was ejected from the program.
Founder/CEO/Designer - Micro...
Unless that ends in "soft" you're a failure and you're trying to bring everyone else down with you.
If it is "soft", you're a known pedophile and you should be in prison.
We all know it's not MicroSoft but rather MicroPenis1
This man is a cancer on society
Ah, the future value of equity ... sacrifice your life on spec that the venture will succeed when most don't and that your boss won't find a way to fuck you over of it does. Bearing in mind that the more money is on the table, the more likely it is that your boss will try to screw you out of it.
If you want to go to Vegas, go to Vegas. Do an 80-hour stint, see if you get rich, and if you fail then go home. Don't spend years at some shitty company run by an asshole.
If you're not willing to work yourself to death.... We don't want you
Guy probably works, effectively, for 4 hoours a day, and then puts 16 into Jira.
On another note, I work 10 a day give or take, and that's because I can then take a few days off anyway. And I love my work and can afford it. Nobody pays me more than my hourly rate (if it is not a requested overtime in case of a night release [2x hourly] or being on emergency in case something breaks [0.5 hourly, but paid even if no emergency is raised, but have to be on call, so 8 hours of undisturbed sleep is like working 4 hours]). I do this on my own volition.
Would be nice if those companies actually didn't find anyone, but alas they keep being rewarded.
I think this lots. Them "free market" types get real grumpy and start putting their fingers on the scales once it doesn't go their way.
See "nObOdY wAnTs To WoRk AnYmOrE" and finding new creative ways to raise the cost of living at every turn.
Without a
desperate and hungry(ahem) "career motivated and ready" workforce, it becomes difficult to "acquire talent."I love the bit about how people who work for early startups have to work long hours for little pay so that the owner of the company can walk away with a highly successful business that pays them handsomely while you get maybe a decent wage if you're lucky, or if the company doesn't fire you when they realize they can hire three people for half the pay that you were getting by the time the company is actually making a profit.
Guy makes CRM.
Yeah, if someone rejects me for not wanting to work 80 hours a week, I'd be glad. I worked a place where I was working between 50 and 60 hours a week all the time, and it affected my health. I will never do that crap again.
I am honestly surprised to hear people say stuff like this after the pandemic. My perspective post pandemic really changed. The things that are important to me isnt how much I work. Nobody's gonna give a shit that you put in 12 hour days at work when you're on your death bed. Spend time with the people you care about, and work to live. Not the other way around.
This guy (assuming this is real) is the chump, not the person who interviewed.
The interviewee got exactly what they wanted. It's exactly why they mentioned it early in the process.
Only time I would work these kind of positions is when I truly enjoy the job, believe it can succeed AND shares of the company I don't have to buy. If i wanted extra hours and bad supervisors I could go back into the trades
The good thing about startups, even the ceo can do long hours without any rest without a team!
A while back I did consulting for a startup where the CEO would hold all-hands meetings at this home -- on Saturday mornings. Attendance wasn't mandatory, but everyone knew it would look bad if they didn't show up. The 'executive team' also met on Sundays, and made sure on Monday standups mentioning that they had met.
They started messaging me about those meetings, and also texting me at all hours about problems they expected looked at right then or the next day. My work was pretty specialized but they kept trying to drag me into other problems they were having.
I very politely told them to go pound sand. Mentioned work-life balance. That I wasn't an employee and would only be available during the contracted hours. Also, that I had other projects and it wouldn't be fair to drop everything just for them. To their credit, they backed off (not that they had a choice).
A few years later, long after I was gone, they completely imploded. Was told things got worse and more frantic towards the end.
Kept seeing the same pattern in subsequent companies. It all stems from bad management.
A simple "we are going a different direction" would have been enough. Fuck this CEO and cue* the Mario Bros theme!
*thanks, citizen Train.
DO THE MARIO
*cue, as in “this was her cue to step onto the theater stage”
Actually in this case "cue" is the correct form of the word. It's reference to cue sheets for plays
Fixed, just for you, big boy!
Nah we Germans are chillin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_annual_labor_hours
The thing is, as a society we keep supporting these scumbags. If we didn't continue to line their pockets, this would start to go away.
Sort of? Society as a whole may support them, but like most parts of this giant machine mess, it's unknowingly. You pay money to the grocery store, which funnels it to the top, and then those leeches take the money and support people like the ceo fool through investment. Repeat for almost every other industry you are forced to partake in to survive.
I have family who have worked in several tech startups. They are funded by venture capitalists dreaming of the next facebook or google, or just selling out to people snatching up advertising methodologies/companies. I'm not going to blame society as a whole for the actions of relatively few people.
You can always say you are passionate about your job, and then after they hire you, you limit yourself to contractual obligations. It's that easy.
Tar and feathers… some ‘CEO’ make me to think about that old tradition.
My actual reply to this nonsense that I’ve experienced before. Tell me what your startup does that benefits humanity. Other than making a few people rich, how does humanity benefit from this product. You want me to give up my life outside of work and I will, the moment you tell me this product will make humanity better.
I’m too tired of this bullshit. These people would rather just keep digging holes than determine the best way to build a house. If you’re ever in this situation, you dodged a bullet.
Everything he wrote makes sense IF you are working for yourself, for your startup, get paid by the hour (doesn't apply since he mentioned little pay), or you are gaining priceless skills and experience which you can soon after capitalize from (investing yourself).
The work my firm does affords no work life balance, and I tell that to anyone that approaches us for work. That said I also tell them that they will get paid for every hour they work.
Expecting people to work extra without additional compensation is illegal in a lot of states but the slave/hustler mentality has normalized it for many.
PS: At my firm, the number of work hours is determined by the employee. If you are only available for 10 or 20 hours a week, then that's all you work, but that's also all you get paid for. We have a few "retired" experts that only work a handful of hours but they have irreplaceable expertise. It's a win/win IMHO.
No question this guy is a tool, he's posting on LinkedIn. However, he's not wrong about startups being a bad fit for anyone looking for work-life balance. You're literally trying to build a business from scratch as fast as possible before the seed money runs out, and your compensation is usually more equity than salary. No time for anything but work in that scenario, or no one gets paid.
fuck off Brett. report spam
If that’s a decision you make for yourself, that’s great. Do that, as the owner.
Expecting it if anyone else, who, in reality, will never be as into the business as the owner, is exploitative. The level of entitlement in that expectation is not much different than that leechy individual you know who is forever trying to get more from others because he feels like world owes him. Expecting dedication to your dream, not theirs, is like that guy who verbalizes a demand for respect on every occasion.
You want labor, then pay people for it. You want trained, experienced labor, then pay people commensurate with their skill level. This means raises each year as they level up that experience working for you.
On the plus side, sounds like the applicant dodged a bullet.
I don't see the problem. He told him honestly: this is not a job for you.
Maybe it's exploitative, maybe not, maybe they are offering stocks. Maybe they are taking a chance on a junior role. Whatever. It's all good if people are honest and if the work is long hours, that those hours are paid. That's it.
I've worked in a startup and a lot of times it's honest people that want to make something succeed and are in a hurry. It's a normal situation. They want someone that's like them, to put in long hours and make it work. I think that's ok, if it's communicated at the start and then paid in some part ownership. And we don't know if that is the case here.
He gave him honest advice to survive in the toxic industry. If OP wants to work in that toxic industry, they do sort of have to grind that horrible mindset.
It's not nice, but it is the reality
Truth to be told, the only good capitalist is a dead one. LinkedIn kinda proves it every day.
I make exceptions for class traitors.
I know he’s not the only one but the exploitation of salary workers is insane to me. I’m a PM at a niche contracting company, I’m hourly and 40 hours is full time. I’ve had conversations with my boss about going salary and told him that it’s still only 40 hours a week.
I’m still hourly and I work overtime occasionally but you better believe I’m getting paid time and a half for any time over that 40 hours. And if I even touch my work phone while I’m on vacation, I’m billing those hours.
Yep, sounds like startups aren't for me!
If I want to work for next to nothing with little chance of it paying off, I'll just keep my real job and keep making my own videogames.
At least that's actually fun.
A perfect summation of the worthlessness of techbros - outwardly all about "the mission" (inwardly all about getting their $$$ and getting out).
lol startups. “Sorry we are looking for someone to exploit to get us up and running and then fire so we don’t have to agree to pay them what they’re worth once we can.”
I doubt this actually happened because we all know our potential bosses are incredibly fragile when it comes to any traces of reality intruding on the bizarre bubble they’ve created for themselves. You’d lie through your teeth and say “I want to work somewhere that is like a family and I’ll work any amount of time until the job is done!”.
I wish someone wrote a "How to run a company ethically for dummies" book.
Because I want one
Ew
What a tool
Nah. Tools are useful.
What's the bet his start up that he loves for 80 hours a week is just some bullshit marketing company?
Haha true
TOOL as a band is much better than this guy
One of the greatest bands, vs one of the worst people.
To speak in the voice of Yakov Smirnoff, in America, you fire job.
He’s actually not wrong. Startups are brutal, you have to literally take in the whole world with as little as possible.
Once you carve out your niche, then you can relax a bit. But before that you are in a race with an unknown number and quality of competitors. You can’t afford to have a good work-life balance.
So; the candidate did tank their chances by mentioning they wanted better work-life balance. You don’t apply to startups if that’s what you want. Look more towards established banks and the like.
But the dude in the post yapping about loving 80hr weeks is clearly deranged (or trying to impress some VCs)
Yeah I have worked at startup companies, twice, from beginning through 12 years, it's been my career so far, and honestly I like seeing the progression and jump out when it gets too established and bureaucratic and inflexible. Those long hours at the beginning usually do come with some flexibility, and figuring out things and fixing problems, implementing new systems (I am an accountant) is good and interesting work. I guess I got lucky both times since they didn't go under, one got sold and this one is starting to get too corporate.
That's the entire point of saying that in an interview.
It's weird how he states it so plainly, yet people misunderstand it. It's not for everyone. Some people specifically are willing to work at an unstable startup company, and can commit long hours in exchange for ownership of the company. They get a big reward if things go well. If the company just paid a paycheck, that would be exploitative. he's not talking about a shitty job where you're asked to work long hours because some rich assholes need line to go up. It's totally valid to want just a stable job where you go in, do your fucking job, then go home, and get paid, then live your passions outside of work. Get that work/life balance, that should be your choice. This guy is not talking about that kind of job. You guys are a bit too extreme, it can be fulfilling to work hard and get rewarded, just because you had a bad experience working for an exploitative big company doesn't mean all work is like that. If you have a lot of shares, then you're part owner. If they don't offer equity then fuck that, they can't expect anyone to put up with long hours, and what kind of cuck would get enjoyment about making other people rich?
80 hours/week is not sustainable. Anyone who truly works that will be burnt out in short order. Research shows long work hours are counterproductive, especially in "creative" types of work such as engineering. A lot of startup founders have pretty strong anti-dillution protections while the employees don't. 90% of startups just fail, 10% "succeed" but most don't pay out significant amounts to employees (and are then often laid off), and maybe 1-2% have explosive growth that may pay off enough for the employees to offset their initial sacrifice.
It's not sustainable, but with startups the goal is to either get big, or fail, over the span of a few years. You're not supposed to be at that level forever. If someone tries to that, we would call them a workaholic, and they will probably later regret not seeing more of the world while they were still young.
. . . Do you hear yourself? How many weeks/years of 80 hours a week before it becomes "not sustainable "?
Startups typically have to offer both higher pay and a lot of shares.