
Shopify CEO says long hours aren't necessary for success - sjs
https://twitter.com/tobi/status/1210242184341000192
======
bwb
I don't believe anyone really does 80 hours. I just don't think it is possible
and I don't think you can call sitting at a desk doing nothing "work".

I've done 60 hours during intense periods just fine... but it was only
effective because of the nature of the work I was doing at the time. And, I
usually took a break down the road to compensate. In no way was it even 50%
creative work.

4 to 6 creative hours seems right, but a lot of work isn't creative. There is
also the bullshit work that still has to get done, ie, loading up contacts in
a CRM, building and nurturing relationships, reviewing emails, checking links,
etc etc etc..

~~~
AndrewKemendo
Most of my work weeks clock in around 50-60 hours regularly. It's pretty
simple how this happens. It's meetings all day and then once meetings are over
it's email, documents, admin paperwork, training etc...

Here's an example of just last Thursday which was busy but was at least not
double booked and had some times I could stop and go to the bathroom, I also
wasn't traveling this day which was good:

8-12 - US Senate Staff Delegation and budget review

12-1 - Software Requisition Review

1-2 - Infrastructure planning meeting

2-3 - Conference call with colleague in HI

3-4 - Meeting with an LP

4-5 - Talking with my Deputy and Admin

5-7 - Meeting with Army Futures

7 - Dinner

8-10 - Emails, Award review for employees, look over presentations due in
Jan/Feb

Now, almost none of that work is creative because I'm not in a creative job
anymore really. I am an executive with a 200 person data engineering and data
science team building the future way the DoD builds and runs software.

That's how you get to these hours.

I'd also suggest that "Building and nurturing relationships" isn't "Bullshit
work."

~~~
mindblownlazy
I keep seeing this but why do non-creatives count dinner, commuting and
exercise as work? (You don't do all these but you put dinner there)

As a creative I find it hard to justify that, sure I did talk about work
during lunch with a coworker or an ex coworker or friend but damn I was just
enjoying my pork chops, that's not work!!!

~~~
jcims
Why do we culturally accept the distinction 'creatives' and 'non-creatives'.
It's gross.

~~~
ClumsyPilot
People like putting themselves in boxes, and the one he used is generally
accepted classification. I don't think it's something to be offended about.

I think Tech community is quite elitist at times

~~~
jcims
No domain has a monopoly on original thought, so calling some of them
'creative' is just lazy and imprecise.

I'm just pissing into the wind. Ultimately it doesn't really matter and I
agree it's not worth getting offended about.

~~~
username90
Some people get paid to have original thoughts while others get paid to not
have original thoughts. To me that seems like a pretty clear line. It isn't
about whether the people can be creative or not, but whether they are expected
to be creative at work.

------
thetrumanshow
A few thoughts to add to the discussion, loosely related:

1) If I know exactly where to spend my time for the best rate of return, its
likely that I'll have to spend relatively few hours achieving success.

2) For most people, the success they can achieve through just having a plain
old job can be had for a mere 40 hours. Anything they want above what 40 hours
can grant them should probably be done elsewhere (second job, side-hustle,
etc) since the ROI will be very low for spending those additional hours at
work.

3) The 80 hour week lifestyle is probably necessary for people who are still
frantically doing what Felix Dennis calls "The Search", trying to build a
company without the foggiest notion what people want.

~~~
simonw
Study after study has shown that working 80 hours dramatically reduces your
productivity during those hours.

I loved what Tobi said in this tweet:
[https://twitter.com/simonw/status/1210622908143415297](https://twitter.com/simonw/status/1210622908143415297)

"For creative work, you can't cheat. My believe is that there are 5 creative
hours in everyone's day. All I ask of people at Shopify is that 4 of those are
channeled into the company."

5 creative hours in a day absolutely matches my experience based on my own
career. I can get a HUGE amount done in those 5 hours if I apply them
sensibly.

~~~
pastor_elm
If he's asking for 4 hours of work, then why ask for a 40 hour work week and
not a 20 hour one?

40 hours (9-6) is rough enough!

~~~
taytus
No. He is not asking for 4 hours of work. He is asking for laser-focused, 100%
productive 4 hours work. You can do additional work in the rest of the hours
left that not necessarily is going to require that level of focus.

------
hintymad
These successful people sound like working long hours is an absolute evil. I
think they underestimate the effort that an ordinary person needs to be even
moderately successful. What if it takes me twice as long to debug a problem as
my team's standard? What if a concept is so simple to everyone else in my team
yet it's just so hard for me to understand? What if I see an opportunity to
build a truly great product, yet I don't have the required technical
background while I have at most two weeks to catch up? What if I really want
to tap into machine learning yet I have meetings all day, so my only choice is
to study after work? Now, before you ask me to switch my career, what if I do
have a passion in tech and I'm even worse at doing anything else?

See? Working long hours sometimes is not a burden, but a choice, a choice that
one makes to master what they love, and to make sure they won't regret wasting
their life when looking back years later. And sometimes working long hours, as
long as it's voluntary, is the only way to succeed.

~~~
zeruch
If it's a choice, that is fine. If it's an assumed baseline that management
leverages to squeeze ever more "productivity" out of people without
compensating them for it, then its not.

If the latter, I guarantee you will have just as much regret looking back
years later. The 'voluntary' part is the gray area that most seem to talk
around.

~~~
hintymad
True

------
pmoriarty
_" I've never worked through a night. The only times I worked more than 40
hours in a week was when I had the burning desire to do so. I need 8ish hours
of sleep a night. Same with everybody else, whether we admit it or not"_

So he didn't. What about his employees?

Not to imply that long hours are necessary. I think they're abhorrent. But
they're also endemic. Some bosses do get away with working shorter hours while
they flog their employees to work like crazy. On the other hand, workaholism
at many companies tends to gets worse and worse as you gain responsibility,
and some of the most insane hours are worked by those near the top.

~~~
arcticbull
> Not to imply that long hours are necessary. I think they're abhorrent. But
> they're also endemic.

That's definitely true of the Bay Area, but Shopify is an Ottawa, Canada
company. Having gone to college there, I don't get the feeling that Tobi is
doing anything out of the ordinary for an Ottawa company. That may not be the
case in Kitchener/Waterloo or Vancouver -- and it's definitely not true of the
Bay Area -- but it's much less endemic out there.

It's at once nice to see but also frustrating because I feel like Ottawa tends
to lack that drive, motivation and commitment broadly speaking to develop more
Shopify-type companies. There's IBM, Mitel, Adobe, Blackberry, Corel and a
bunch of companies selling into government out there from a tech perspective.
But hey, hopefully Shopify leads the way here and we see more of them.

Shopify is something of a point of pride for Ottawa and I do wish them all the
best!

~~~
eigenvector
For those who are not familiar, Ottawa is Canada's capital and its labour
market is dominated by government jobs. It's a very 9 to 5 (actually, more
like 9 to 4:30) culture and anything else would be a shock to the system for
most people.

~~~
3pt14159
The people in Ottawa are so nice, and the bilingualism is pleasant and if
you're comfortable living on the Quebec side of Ottawa, housing is dirt cheap,
something like 2x or 3x gross salary.

I just wish it had a night life. The expression "nothing good in Ottawa
happens after 8pm" is funny because politicians mean it one way, while people
from Toronto mean it the other.

------
bertr4nd
I always like Richard Hamming’s take on hours worked: “ Knowledge and
productivity are like compound interest.'' Given two people of approximately
the same ability and one person who works ten percent more than the other, the
latter will more than twice outproduce the former.” (From “You and Your
Research”:
[https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html](https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html))

I started incorporating this thinking into my own work schedule, and I believe
it to be true. I certainly found that I grew incredibly quickly in my
abilities when I started working more (as long as I was applying the hours
intelligently, which is admittedly its own trick)

~~~
dangero
I think this is the generally accepted and obvious view, but there seems to be
a push from several popular personalities to virtue signal against it in the
name of better working conditions. In the process they are accusing startup
founders of abusing their workforce if they mention such an idea as working a
little extra to get ahead.

~~~
Crusoe123
As they very well should.

If startup founders want to work extra - let them. But when they create a
culture where they expect everyone to give the same extreme amount of
sacrifice and work while they stand to gain only a fraction of what those who
own the capital or have power in running the companies will gain - that is
something that should be fought against as vigorously as possible on every
level of society - culture, law etc.

So I applaud this "virtue signaling" and call it common sense.

~~~
manigandham
Why? Other people who also want to work hard exist. If that particular startup
or culture is not for _you_ then you should leave, but don't tell everyone
else what to do.

------
BadassFractal
In a "fresh out of school / fresh out of first job founder-wanting-to-build-a-
startup" context, you often start with no connections, no capital, no world-
class skills, no team, no game-changing idea. The only variable you can
control is the amount of effort (time) you put into the venture trying to find
something that works before you can no longer afford ramen. The hours are
justified in that scenario, because you have no other resource to leverage
outside of time.

Years later, when you're already comfortable, have a rich network of experts
and trusted past associates, have easy access to capital, have decades of
experience of building businesses, and a deep understanding of an industry of
two? Yeah, you don't need the long hours, you're fine.

------
IB885588
Original thread on twitter:
[https://twitter.com/tobi/status/1210242184341000192?s=20](https://twitter.com/tobi/status/1210242184341000192?s=20)

~~~
dang
Thanks! We changed the URL to that from
[https://www.businessinsider.com/shopify-ceo-success-long-
hou...](https://www.businessinsider.com/shopify-ceo-success-long-
hours-40-hour-week-2019-12), which is mostly just reporting on it.

What does the s=20 do?

~~~
ivl
> What does the s=20 do?

Seems to be tacked on by Twitter to track the source of shares. Pretty sure
the number changes by device.

~~~
mcpherrinm
s=20 is shared from mobile website (iOS and android tested). 21 is iOS app.
Don't have others to test offhand.

There's a Twitter thread from a few years ago where a few folk collected a
bunch of them, but I can't find it anymore.

------
jariel
Me thinks there's a bit of selection bias here.

If you're fortunate enough to hit product market fit without too much struggle
... and then can scale it as a regular company - good on you.

But I suggest in the early years, it's really not like that for most founders
as they pivot and strife.

In the scale years, I suggest it probably could be more like that for most
company employees and leadership. And FYI I think most companies are like this
i.e. more or less 9-to-5, even very well known corps.

I also think this might have very much to do with the nature of the technology
and the inherent competitiveness/barriers in the category: in companies
wherein there's a significant number of talented individuals needed to focus -
crunching happens.

For example: Pixar films. Apparently people work pretty long and hard to make
production work. It involves a lot of specific talent, working together with
ambiguous timelines and schedules, last minute creative changes.

Spotify seems to be the kind of company perhaps wherein the work can be spread
out fairly efficiently thereby enabling not only 9-5 hours, but perhaps more
importantly: no need for A+ Valley Top Talent. I know Ottawa very well and
there isn't remotely enough raw, high end A+ talent and specialisation of
skills to make something like the iPhone.

Spotify can be built with a large number of 'smart people' (which Ottawa has
aplenty), but I'm doubtful there will ever be an iPhone or 'Toy Story' come
out of Ottawa either (though I would desperately like to be wrong).

~~~
leblancfg
s/Spotify/Shopify/g

~~~
jariel
Yes, of course. Shopify.

But weirdly enough - the same _might_ be said of Spotify.

In the sense that Stocholm is not the Valley and doesn't have A+ stars in many
tech categories. But - because Sweden has a historical special relationship
with the music industry, and Spotify requires 'smart people and a few geniuses
but not tons of specialised geniuses' \- Stockholm might make a better choice
than the Valley.

One thing about Sweden though - they hit way above their weight in other, more
classical industries. They're a small country that makes massive international
brands, car companies - for gosh sakes they make the most complicated product
category: _Jet fighters_. Mind you, not all of it, especially the engines, but
making a 'Jet Figther' requires A+ players across a broad set of industrial
categories, including a diplomatic corps that's deeply and efficiently
embedded with industry, as many European countries have. Canada does not have
this at all, and is probably last place in the OECD for this kind of economic
cooperation.

------
patrickdavey
In my opinion there's absolutely nothing to be proud about in working long
hours for long stretches. All you're doing is setting up or maintaining a
completely unmaintainable situation. If you're finding you have to work > 40
hours regularly, someone is making and signing off on bad estimates.

If you're salaried, and you're working extra hours regularly, all you're doing
is reducing your effective hourly rate.

------
vgchh
The reality is that there is no single answer. There are companies like
Shopify that are able to build a platform while encouraging work-life balance.
And then there are companies like Tesla, where employees are expected to forgo
work-life balance. I think it comes down to how quickly you as a company may
die if left on autopilot. I am going to guess that Shopify had near death
moments, but probably fewer. OTOH, Tesla, remains in the default dead
territory even now, that they are close to shipping half a million cars per
year.

That said, a great work-life balance is great to strive for, just that
depending on what your company does, it may or may not happen soon enough.

~~~
dmix
Shopify started off selling snowboards on the internet, Elon took on one of
the most powerful, politically connected, and entrenched industries head-on.

There’s always going to be significant differences in the business dynamics
and the public pressure on Tesla and their crew was insane. Unfortunately that
shit rolls downhill sometimes and it’s hard to control.

Shopify also never faced the massive and constant vitriol and naysayers from
day one. It was a massive play out of the gate, not a hockey stick growth but
a massive capital investment covering multiple very difficult verticles all at
once from design to operations to production and managing a very expensive and
risky customer lifespan and regulatory risk for every car sold. Not to
downplay how hard it is to do what Shopify accomplished, which was significant
and very admirable. But ultimately it’s comparing apples to oranges at a high
level like that.

------
gremlinsinc
1st week of December, I did 87 hours clocked on clockify for clients. I turn
clock off when I go to the bathroom, or get distracted on HN/Reddit. It's only
on while I'm coding.

But I get burnt out fast when on a schedule like that, and knew I'd have some
downtime with holidays and need to fill up on work to pay bills in January.
Definitely couldn't sustain hours like that unless I was CEO and it was my
baby then I'd be more apt to just keep going because it's a passion project.

------
cdiddy2
Its funny following this story since I saw the original tweet from Ryan Selkis
a crypto twitter entrepreneur.
[https://twitter.com/twobitidiot/status/1209443243924045825](https://twitter.com/twobitidiot/status/1209443243924045825)

It has spread to take over twitter and spawned articles and CEOs of large
companies weighing in, and now on hacker news. Fascinating to watch where our
news starts from and how it spreads

------
bhouston
Jason Fried was talking about this a few days ago:

[https://twitter.com/jasonfried/status/1209115637148274690](https://twitter.com/jasonfried/status/1209115637148274690)

I wholeheartedly agree as well. The key to working less, while being
successful is to focus on what will give you the best rate of return and not
doing the things that are not useful. That is really hard to figure out
initially though. But I think it gets easier as you get more experienced, as
your personal value system gets better tweaked to match reality.

This applies to the company as well like Jason Fried said. The company should
have clear values that are attuned to market value and it should be
professionally run.

------
Ericson2314
I'm quite glad that working more hours isn't productive. It's good we have an
inate defense against that race to the bottom. Makes the societal battle
(imagine it being illegal to work more hours, deemed being unfair competition)
a bit easier to win.

------
shanemlk
The word "work" is not specific enough in this context, and this whole
discussion lacks nuance. When we talk about "work" are we talking about
renting your own time, or building something you have a stake in? Does a side
project that may give you insight into your main focus apply as work? Does
reading and curiosity count as work? I spend nearly every waking hour trying
to be successful... is that work? I'd like to introduce the word "toil" into
the discussion. Elon Musk may "work" 100 hours a week, but there's no chance
he's "toiling" 100 hours a week.

------
keyP
I find if you have a exciting project and you've developed a great team (which
includes soft-skills; great technical skills does not necessarily make a great
employee), I find a lot of team members voluntarily thinking about the project
outside of hours or staying late because they want to.

Whilst more hours certainly doesn't mean more productivity, the idea of
nurturing intrinsic motivation is often omitted in discussions about working
late and it's more an implicit by-product of a good working environment.

------
nathanvanfleet
I remember when I applied to work there as an iOS engineer and they didn't
even phone screen me because I didn't have a strong enough social media
profile.

~~~
andruby
Did they communicate this reason to you? That seems like a ridiculous
requirement. Especially for engineers.

------
wrnr
Long hours are neither necessary or sufficient to be successful, some have to
work long hours just to keep their head above water.

------
rajacombinator
If you hit the product market fit jackpot, long hours aren’t necessary. Until
then, most of us have to grind it out.

------
CitrusFruits
I think the shortening of "financial and business success" to "success" can be
a bit unfortunate.

My big metric for success is currently how many hours I can spend on my bike a
week while still feeding myself and providing for loved ones responsibly.

------
ixtli
This is really a lovely thread. In general I loathe working at large companies
and try to avoid it, but this really changes my perception of Shopify. The
fact is that people who say they work 80 hours don't really do it. If they
_ever_ do it it's a rare event in the totality of their labor.

------
neo4sure
If Tesla took Shopify's advice it will be dead right now. Every scenario is
different.

------
krishsai
Long hours or continuous working exhausts. This does not lead to productive
work. Creative work is key and that depends upon flexibility.

------
wesleywt
Working long hours is for the poor who need to make the rent. Not for
successful.

------
nif2ee
let's see what happens if he starts today all over again. He forgot to mention
the most important thing, that he was at the right place and right time. No
matter how you come up with a 1000x better Shopify today, you most probably
won't go anywhere. Many clunky business projects that were started with the
rise of social media (around 2004-2013) made their owners kings ONLY because
they were at the right place and time. The free ride is over. His argument is
mostly bullshit for anyone starting today, the internet is much more
centralized and you can't go viral unless you spend a fortune assuming having
a superior product. It's a billion times harder today to succeed with a great
product today than with a barely average one 15 years ago.

~~~
GVIrish
I don't think that argument holds at all. The low hanging fruit from 10 years
ago has been picked. But in a lot of ways we only see it as low hanging fruit
in hindsight. Today there are new business opportunities that in 10 years will
seem like they were low hanging fruit. There are new technologies today that
will enable new businesses that wouldn't have been feasible before.

Even then, there are only going to be but so many companies that get to the
kind of scale of Shopify and that was true 15 years ago, and it's true today.
But there is plenty of room for new small and medium sized companies to make
millions of dollars. Success doesn't always have to be at the 3 comma level.

~~~
nif2ee
I get your argument and I appreciate it. But the nature of those low hanging
fruit are more complicated today. For example, you can't just recreate
Twitter, Facebook, Reddit today in your home with a couple of friends with no
solid experience. You similarly can't start most successful SaaS ideas that
were started in 2010-2014. Most successful YouTubers started their channels
around 2008-2011. This was a time when you could make a very successful
venture relying on the viral marketing by social media and Google search.
Nowadays, this is over. You can go and try this same hippie way for starting a
small business today but your chances of success are 1000x lower. The internet
is much bigger, and it's much more centralized and concentrated and the
competition is much more harsher.

~~~
howon92
Snapchat was founded in 2011 when people thought there couldn't be any other
successful social media company. On the other hand, Salesforce, an epitome of
SAAS, was founded in 1999. I believe there are always business opportunities
and I'd argue there are more opportunities today because the space is more
complicated and the cost of starting a company is much lower than before.

~~~
veggieburglar
I don't necessarily disagree with your argument, but Snapchat might not be the
best example. Snap has never posted a profit and their stock, even after a
rise of almost 275% this calendar year, is still 42% below its IPO price.

------
rolltiide
In jobs that don't compensate overtime, that have no improved networking
component after hours, and suffer from declined cognitive output after 6-8
hours you absolutely shouldnt work longer

Success is never defined

------
dvt
What's unfortunate is that on the other side of the coin, "rockstar CEOs" like
Elon Musk claim they sleep 4 hours a night and work 90 hour weeks. I think
Musk does this mostly for publicity/image reasons and not that it's actually
true, but you've got plenty of wantapreneurs parroting this (imo) unhealthy
lifestyle.

~~~
zarkov99
There is anecdotal information that he does indeed do what he claims. And he
is the most impressive CEO in this generation, perhaps in history, so long
hours must work for some people.

~~~
dvt
> ... he is the most impressive CEO in this generation, perhaps in history

How anyone can say this with a straight face blows my mind when even in the
tech vertical he has some serious competition (are we forgetting about Jeff
Bezos, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, etc.), let alone
actual _historical_ figures like Henry Ford, John Rockefeller, Cornelius
Vanderbilt, etc.

~~~
mikeg8
>How anyone can say this with a straight face blows my mind

Elon is the only person to ever start four 1bn+ companies (paypal, tesla,
SpaceX, Solarcity). He has/is driving innovation across multiple industries on
a time scale that I don't think any of the people you mentioned can really
touch, not to mention hyperloop and the Boring Company. Its not even debatable
IMO.

~~~
NathanKP
I'd still say that John Rockefeller is more impressive. Adjusted for inflation
John Rockefeller's company Standard Oil was worth over $1 trillion.

Or Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, the guy who started the Dutch East India company,
which adjusted for inflation was worth over $8.2 trillion.

Modern companies have nothing on what entrepreneurs did in the past and how
much money they made. It doesn't matter how many markets Elon Musk "disrupts"
nothing he can do will ever match the impact that the Dutch East India company
had on the world:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_East_India_Company](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_East_India_Company)

~~~
anon73044
>I'd still say that John Rockefeller is more impressive. Adjusted for
inflation John Rockefeller's company Standard Oil was worth over $1 trillion
dollars. >Or Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, the guy who started the Dutch East
India company

Yeah, it's amazing what those guys could get away with back in the days of
slavery and before regulation. /sarcasm

~~~
walterclifford
Standard Oil was founded in 1870, five years after the 13th amendment
completely abolished slavery in the US.

Rockefeller's success is attributed to his relentless pursuit of horizontal
and vertical integration, not cheap labor via slavery.

~~~
anon73044
Hence the >and before regulation.

------
wbharding
I think we're all rooting for the narrative that it's possible to get ahead
working 9-5. But it's hard for me to ignore the survivorship bias at play
here. Yes, if your company has a market cap in the billions, you probably
don't _need_ to be grinding on the weekends anymore. If you've built a company
with amazing programmers and predictable revenue (e.g., dhh/Jason Fried) you
probably don't need to grind weekends.

But when you're at the front lines, striving to create something new, you'll
be competing against very motivated entrepreneurs. These entrepreneurs will
often have more resources than you, and zero aversion to working weekends. In
those circumstances, Tobi's lifestyle probably isn't going to cut it. When an
entrepreneur is working to create that spark, it pays to be completely
obsessed, sometimes for years.

Thankfully, very few of us are on the front lines struggling to launch
something momentous. Tobi once was, but he was smart and surrounded by great
people, and now he's in scaling mode, which seems like a much different beast.
I'm grateful that he and other successful tech leaders don't force their teams
to work as hard as they needed to in the early days.

~~~
zorpner
> But it's hard for me to ignore the survivorship bias at play here.

Surely it works the other way as well -- for all the stories of people who
worked all night to achieve success, there are others about people who either
did so and didn't win, or worse yet burnt themselves out or hurt their lives
in other ways.

~~~
k__
This.

Everyone thinks their experience reflects an universal truth.

That's the one big error, in my opinion.

What I learned in my life is, find your individual way. Don't play other
peoples games, play your own game.

Pick what you need from the system and throw the rest away.

I'm bad at standing up before 12 and even worse at working 40h a week.

I'm don't like doing the same stuff for years.

I'm bad at networking for work, most people I meet there are just boring or
upsetting to me.

All these things set me up for failure, still I'm doing better than most of my
friends who are better at these things by a mile.

------
pastor_elm
Shopify is obsessed with growth like every other public company. They are
nothing like Basecamp. They can get away with shorter hours, maybe, because
Canadian salaries are relatively low compared to San Francisco, but something
will eventually have to give.

~~~
abledon
whats the average hours for FAANG in SV? 60-65 ?

~~~
kilbuz
It depends what hours you are trying to count. In the office? Remote? Actually
'working'? Including shuttle time? In my FAANG circle, small N, none of those
values would be above 40 hours a week, except possibly if you include shuttle
time. Certainly not anything approaching an average of 60-65 hours a week.
That's _averaging_ a 12-13 hour day, in a 10am-4pm core hour culture.

------
samwestdev
_> For creative work, you can't cheat. My believe is that there are 5 creative
hours in everyone's day. All I ask of people at Shopify is that 4 of those are
channeled into the company._

He's practically asking to put company success before personal growth. That's
incredibly selfish if you ask me.

~~~
MattConfluence
That's not how I read it.

Some others, with job titles similar to him, speak of "giving 110%" and how
their employees are so dedicated to the company, they gladly take on overtime
and crunch and whatnot. This seems refreshingly honest to me in comparison.

Using his math, there's 35 creative hours per person per week; assuming a
5-day work week, he's _paying_ for 20 of those and leaving 15 for personal
growth. Sure, some might prefer a different ratio, but at least he's
acknowledging that there needs to be a balance.

------
misterman0
I think it's wrong to celebrate a company that claims 80% of what it is to be
you, even when other companies claim even more. I question the reason behind
us devoting ourselves to these undemocratic structures.

~~~
richardlblair
I worked at Shopify for 4 1/2 years. I was happy to devote those creative
hours because I believe in the mission. It's where I wanted my energy to be
spent, and this was the general sentiment.

You have to remember most of the people who work there can work almost
anywhere. They have specifically chosen to dedicate 80% of their creative
energy at Shopify.

~~~
thor24
Why did you leave? (I am just curious) I am considering applying for the
company in the coming months.

~~~
richardlblair
I needed some serious change in my life. Stepping away from Shopify was very
difficult, but felt like a good first step in where I was personally.

Honestly, I think about going back almost weekly. It's a fantastic company.

------
Reedx
Long hours aren't necessary for success, and you should do what works for you,
but they’re needed if you're aiming for the top in your field.

It's an inconvenient truth, but you're not going to be able to reach the John
Carmacks of the world if you're working 40 and they're working 60:
[https://twitter.com/id_aa_carmack/status/1210593150303031296](https://twitter.com/id_aa_carmack/status/1210593150303031296)

Anyone who thinks he would've achieved the same with far fewer hours are just
kidding themselves and pulling crabs down into the bucket. Also implicit in
that is Carmack being a fool for working 60, when he would've been as or
more(!) effective with less? Nonsense.

~~~
wiwillia
Founding and being the CEO of Shopify, a $48bn company and one of the best-
performing stocks of the last few years, isn't "the top"?

Different people have different styles that work for them. Some people love to
work 60+ hours and are productive doing it, others get more and better work
done when they limit themselves to 40 and take time off. What works for
you/Tobi/John doesn't universally work for others.

