

The most important trait of an aspiring entrepreneur - be there or be square - ilovecookies
http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/230107

======
nostrademons
I think that one reason the author feels that this is " _the_ most important
trait" is because of selection bias. He says in the article that he does not
trust anyone who isn't punctual. Therefore, if there _are_ entrepreneurs out
there who are successful despite not being punctual, he would never do
business with them, and they would fall off his radar screen before becoming
successful.

Certainly there _are_ successful entrepreneurs out there who are habitually
late. The Google founders had a punctuality problem in the beginning that
became enshrined in the company culture; when I joined I was quickly educated
about "Google standard time", which runs 7 minutes behind wall-clock time. One
of Larry's first actions when he became CEO was to try to change this culture,
which he's largely succeeded at with new hires, although many executives who
were there in the old days are still habitually 7-15 minutes late to meetings.

I think a more accurate model of the world is that there are _some_ people who
care deeply about punctuality, and there are some other people that show up
when they show up. And the two camps don't interact much, because the latter
folk are inscrutably annoying to the former, and the fact that the former are
annoyed is inscrutably annoying to the latter. So everybody thinks that most
of the people in the world are like them, when it's really because they simply
refuse to associate with the people who are not.

If you're a founder, the best way to harness this dynamic is to be "strict
with what you output but lenient in what you accept." Always show up to your
appointments on time, but carry a smartphone or something with you so you can
do something productive and not get too annoyed when a person is late. That
will let you interface with the greatest number of people, which exposes you
to the greatest number of opportunities.

I'd further venture that each of these styles correlates with other traits
that are desirable in an organization. Lateness correlates with creativity and
deep problem-solving ability; someone who is "in the zone" solving a tricky
problem is very likely to lose track of time and miss their next appointment.
Punctuality correlates with planning and organizational skills; someone who
can manage their own time is far more likely to be able to manage somebody
else's. I suspect that Larry's culture change is because the needs of Google
as a large company are very different from Google as a startup - the culture
was driving away planning & organizer types who are very necessary for
coordinating the work of hundreds of people. And the cost of that is that the
new, more rigid culture drives away creative types, which is why so many
recent products (outside of X and acquisitions) have been ho-hum.

------
fluffyduffy
It's funny but looking at it, there's a lot of truth to this. I've seen this a
few times where some of the best entrepreneur or investors I met were almost
always right on time, but were also very efficient with theirs - you can get a
lot done with those guys / gals in an hour, so even if they didn't have a lot
of time for you they really made very good use of it.

