
The CEO of RevolutApp on Slack: “Why Aren’t You Working on Weekends?” - deepsy
https://twitter.com/phillipcaudell/status/1101081229351415808
======
lohszvu
I appreciate the CEO being direct. It gives you a chance to find another job
before you get fired.

~~~
kemiller2002
Honestly, I can't tell if you're being sarcastic, but I really think you're
absolutely right. Some people really like working in that environment.
Personally, it's not for me, but at least the CEO is upfront about what he
expects. Really, he's being a good leader in that respect. I wouldn't want to
work for him, but he's clear about what he wants which a lot of people in
management miss.

 __EDIT __

Let me explain why this is good. First as your boss, I 'm not your friend. I'm
not your pal. My sole responsibility is to ensure that I communicate clearly
and effectively what needs to be done and make sure it happens. That's it.
Does this mean, I'm not compassionate? No, of course not, but what it means is
that I am tasked having uncomfortable conversations about things that need to
be done and to make it understood. Have I asked people to work nights and
weekends? Yes. Several times? Yes. Do I like doing it? No. This is the job. If
you want to quit over this. No hard feelings. I make it clear that this is
what we have to do. Have I fired people for under performing? Yes. Do I feel
bad about it? No. That's my job. I feel bad, when I have to let someone go,
because we don't have the money to keep them. When management says, "lose two
heads, because we want to cut costs," and they were good employees. I feel bad
then.

Working weekends sucks, I agree, but sometimes you have to. If you've never
worked for a company that is on the brink of bankruptcy, you really don't
understand what it's like to have to lay things on the line. The CEO is being
honest about consequences. We honestly, don't know the situation from that
blurb. It sounds like he's being an ass, but there maybe an underlying reason
for it. (Probably not, but you never know.) Whether you choose to keep going
is your choice.

A previous company I worked for, was on the brink of going out of business.
Only a few of us knew (out of 200+ employees). We had a shortfall of money and
we didn't know if we were going to make payroll that month. They didn't want
to tell anyone (in fact I was instructed not to), but I knew, because I knew
several of the executives. I pushed my staff, and myself for those three
weeks, because I knew that if we didn't bill, the company could quite possibly
go under. People say working weekends crosses a line. Knowing that your co-
worker (or employee) may get evicted from the country, lost their house, etc.,
because you didn't do your job for those couple of weeks, I can't do that.
That's crossing a line for me.

~~~
dvfjsdhgfv
On the other hand, there is a lot of toxicity in there. If your bonus is zero
no matter how work you hard, and you are encouraged by the CEO to "push" your
colleagues (some of which are working on weekends), it's a terrible company to
work for, no matter what pay they offer (of course it's good, otherwise the
CEO wouldn't have the balls to treat his employees in this way as everybody
would just walk out).

~~~
HenryBemis
It is a type of Social Engineering. Politicians are using this all the time.
When one group is e.g. on strike, they ignore the 'problem' and wait until
other affected groups start throwing rocks at them. Classic example of
teachers striking everywhere on the planet. Politicians know that parents will
revolt at some point.

This is a shitty CEO and an equally shitty HR director imho. You got problems
with deadlines/projects?

Do a root cause analysis, find out what is wrong, fix THAT wrong thing. Don't
ask Alice to threaten Bob!

~~~
boomlinde
_> Do a root cause analysis, find out what is wrong, fix THAT wrong thing.
Don't ask Alice to threaten Bob!_

I'm cynical enough to assume that the KPI targets, deadlines etc. in this case
are deliberately set beyond reasonable expectation to use as leverage when
coercing people to work for free. Management in that case is not incompetent,
just scum.

------
HenryBemis
Self note: never do business with the person that says: Bonus more important
that weekend family time.

If projects are behind, re-group, re-train, re-focus. Waving the whip and
telling people "work on the weekends" was never my style (to instruct or to
receive).

~~~
RubenSandwich
Not only that, but by not having a consistent schedule, for example 40 hours a
week, makes it impossible to know how long an upcoming feature is going to
take. Because there are people who are willing to do those herculean tasks in
the ridiculous timeframe and then burn out. So mangement never really learns
anything and continues pushing features at the same pace. It is in your
companies best interest to have a predicatable schedule.

------
throwaway2016a
It takes experience to know why this doesn't work and some CEOs / CTOs / PMs /
etc get there faster than others.

I was involved with a company once (larger than this one) where something very
similar this happened.

They threatened layoffs. What happened was that the team became immediately
LESS productive. Effectively instant burnout. If not from the hours than from
the loss of morale.

One of the biggest "mistakes" is they told everyone when the layoffs would
happen so all the top performers had better jobs lined up for that next
Monday. The really high performers phoned it in just enough to not be fired
early and took their severance package when they were inevitably laid off.

Personally, I tried not to phone it in. But I actually lobbied to be laid off
(there was a significant group of people that wanted to keep me). I built up
my vacation time (in the US it becomes due to you as cash when you leave) and
got a month severance on top of it plus a 20% raise. And I timed my start date
for a week after getting laid off just to have some rest. I was a key player
on the product team... the other key players left too and that entire product
died a couple months later.

It takes a while for people to realize that workers will stretch or compress
their work to meet the schedule. If you expect them to work weekends they will
just do the same amount of work just over 7 days instead of 5. Conversely,
some studies have shown a four day week has no negative effect on
productivity.

Thinking to meet KPIs you throw more hours at it is a sign of a "leader" who
hasn't figured that out yet. Maybe by their 5th startup they'll get it.

Edit: As an aside. I too have asked my team to work weekends occasionally (I'm
a CTO not CEO but same premise). It always goes like this:

> I'm really sorry to have to do this but we really need you to put in some
> extra time on the weekend to meet the deadline next week. Pick a couple days
> next month to take off and we'll let you take them off without using your
> PTO. Thank you, I really appreciate it! As a company we'll try to make sure
> this doesn't happen very often.

~~~
happythought
Perhaps try giving them 4 future days off in exchange for working two weekend
days. Weekend days are more valuable than weekdays because your family is free
from work/school and there are more events.

------
readhn
RIP RevolutApp with such CEO leadership you are doomed to fail. Nikolay
Storonsky - you will lose your best people and drive RevolutApp into the
ground.

EDIT: just read a wiki on Nikolay. It all makes sense - his dad is a high up
in Putin's enterprise machine (Gazprom - russian gas related entity) = part of
the corruption machine. Not surprised that the son has such morals and how he
treats other people is probably coming from his dad.

Regular folks are just lowlife slaves and peasants that exist to enrich him
and his business (this is the way an average russian oligarch thinks).

~~~
ulfw
Their CFO seems to be sick of weekend 'work' too:

[https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/01/revolut-cfo-peter-
ohiggins...](https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/01/revolut-cfo-peter-ohiggins-
resigns/)

~~~
readhn
"Storonsky also responded to the Telegraph story with a blog post that denies
any wrongdoing. He claimed Revolut suspended the use of “a more advanced
sanctions screening system” and instead reverted to a previous one."

haha they stopped flagging "certain" suspicious financial activity for a
period of time. Its a well known fact that russian politicians and oligarchs
launder their money through European banks... How "convenient" that they
stopped flagging certain transactions..

Did his Dad or his Dad's buddies have to funnel some money through Europe?

------
dougmwne
I am very pro work life balance and think anything over 35-40 hours per week
will just lead to eventual burnout and reduced performance.

Having said that, I can't bring myself to be too bothered about this tweet. At
least the expectation is clear: hit your KPI goal or else.

If you were to find yourself behind, you could either work harder, lobby to
change the goal, lobby for more resources, pivot your strategy, or start
looking for a new job. This guy is being a dick by threatening weekend work or
the dole to push people to hit their numbers, but there are worse management
sins.

~~~
maaaats
But what if the KPIs are unreasonable? I would say they are, given that it
seems multiple teams are failing to meet them.

~~~
lewiscollard
> But what if the KPIs are unreasonable? I would say they are, given that it
> seems multiple teams are failing to meet them.

Yep. Unless the employees are slacking off in their work week (I have no
reason to think this is the case) this seems true _by definition_.

------
stagas
So the strategy is this: Assemble teams with a low salary, then offer the
withheld salary as bonus promises as an excuse to have people working on
weekends and justify firing. Yes, that sounds like something it'll work for
long term and is not toxic at all for the employees.

------
brbrodude
Seen a lot of comments trying justify it, so check this which is where the pic
comes from: [https://www.wired.co.uk/article/revolut-trade-unions-
labour-...](https://www.wired.co.uk/article/revolut-trade-unions-labour-
fintech-politics-storonsky)

They were using hiring process for free unpaid work to reach those sweet
KPIs... much worse.

Each applicant was expected to bring 200 new paying customers to go to the
next phase. Any problem yet?

------
vasilakisfil
Ok, won't use Revolut again.

~~~
pas
Can you recommend an alternative?

~~~
krn
Bunq[1] is an alternative to Revolut with a banking license in Netherlands. I
personally don't trust N26 from the technical point of view[2], and Monzo is
available to the UK residents only.

[1] [https://www.bunq.com/](https://www.bunq.com/)

[2]
[https://media.ccc.de/v/33c3-7969-shut_up_and_take_my_money](https://media.ccc.de/v/33c3-7969-shut_up_and_take_my_money)

------
apercu
I have never been very productive when trying to do knowledge work for more
than 4-5 hours a day and more than about 28 hours a week. When I start working
50+ hours a week my productivity drops below what I would have gotten done in
a 20 hour week, Things become harder, you get less creative, you start brute
forcing your solutions. You write bad code or documents. These are things you
typically learn with experience.

------
mseidl
People aren't robots they need breaks, vacations, time to decompress, time off
when sick.

~~~
krapp
>People aren't robots they need breaks, vacations, time to decompress, time
off when sick.

It's worth remembering that the only reason employees get these concessions is
because unions and governments forced companies to do so under threat of
(sometimes direct) violence, and that part of the "disruptive" philosophy of
modern startup culture is an attempt to undermine and roll back these gains in
labor rights under the pretense of free-market efficiency.

~~~
hevi_jos
It is worth remembering the real reason there is a limit of 8 hours a day for
work is because of a man called Henry Ford, that studied seriously
productivity on his company's 300.000 workers and got to the conclusion that 8
hours a day means maximum productivity.

This man along other industrialists started to lobby for 8 hours a day and
they got exactly that.

------
yourapostasy
The rational response when those receiving the message are not compensated
with exactly the same, non-dilutive equity share class as founders, is
explained in Urban Dictionary [1] from the Goodfellas movie [2]. Pay peanuts,
get monkey effort. If KPI's were negotiated simultaneously with compensation,
then perhaps there might be some more negotiating leverage equity between
parties and a more honest appraisal and synchronization between goals and
compensation, but standard practice is compensation is negotiated on a lagging
basis compared to how often KPI's are established/modified.

The whole applicant's-must-book-sales-for-free schtick was so trashy they
pulled it [3] once it came to light.

[1]
[https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=fuck%20you%2...](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=fuck%20you%20pay%20me)

[2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8L4HHPTiZN8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8L4HHPTiZN8)

[3] [https://www.crowdfundinsider.com/2018/10/140531-digital-
bank...](https://www.crowdfundinsider.com/2018/10/140531-digital-bank-revolut-
takes-heat-for-clumsy-hiring-ploy-asking-applicants-to-source-200-new-
accounts-to-be-considered/)

------
dexen
>I noticed that several product owners / team leaders

>are significantly below targets

>and still do not work on weekends to catch up.

The CEO addresses it specifically to the middle management (POs/TLs) and not
line employees.

Given that, the vocal outrage, and the calls on Twitter for the line employees
to unionize are both unproductive, and also misleading. Way to discredit your
position.

~~~
akuji1993
Those people shouldn't work on weekends either. If the only way you can make
your KPI's is working middle management to death, you as a leader are making
serious mistakes in management. If you can't build a working infrastructure
for people and be able to sustain and grow your business on a 40 hour week
(except for emergencies, unforseen things), maybe your product or company
model is not that viable.

We really shouldn't encourage this type of work ethic in any way or on any
step of the ladder.

~~~
zwerdlds
This is exactly how i feel about all this too. Metrics not met? Sounds like
you need to hire more people. How often I've seen management shirking and
sending the management THEY should be doing to the next level down...

------
DyslexicAtheist
Money laundering is totally OK as long as you do it on a large enough scale
/s:
[https://www.ft.com/content/527fe170-3b79-11e9-b72b-2c7f526ca...](https://www.ft.com/content/527fe170-3b79-11e9-b72b-2c7f526ca5d0)

~~~
HenryBemis
ML is bad. My apologies, but I fail to see how this is connected to Revolut
CEO.

Edit: Oh SNAP! :) Ok now I read it, a parallel HN discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19279746](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19279746)

------
sztanko
Data Engineer from Revolut here. Feel free to ask me anything. To comment on
the topic, my team was never ever told to work late hours or weekends.

Opinions my own.

Main thread here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19309597](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19309597)

------
toddh
You have to wonder how agreed upon these targets really were. Perhaps
milestones are being missed because they were driven top down and were never
realistic to begin with? Developers with ownership are more likely to work to
complete their goals. If they aren't then that's a symptom of problems, not
the cause.

------
koonsolo
It reminds me that I once worked for a manager who sets deadlines on Mondays
instead of Fridays, so you still had the weekend to finish it.

As with any such managers, the deadlines are set by their own optimistic
guesswork, not by the people actually doing the job (and knowing how to do the
job).

Did I mention I workED for that manager?

------
chapium
Another example of this executive behavior previously discussed here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1455750](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1455750)

------
dwighttk
I hate the idea of working on weekends...

This guy was only talking about people significantly behind on their projects,
for what it is worth.

Of course they can be behind because they are wasting time or because the
project requires too many man hours.

~~~
pixl97
Do you visit the gas station and shop on the weekend? Or is working on the
weekend something only the poor should be forced to do.

Of course I think you mean to say "the idea of a 7 day work week is stupid"

~~~
CoolGuySteve
Thanks Dr. Pedantry.

------
testcross
Now the question is: what are the good alternatives to revolut?

~~~
celticninja
Starling or Monzo

------
baby
Related: Revolut and Monzo are still amazing products. After moving to the US
they make it quite impossible to use revolut or monzo (it’s expensive as fuck
to top up). I’ve looked into simple/varo/chime but they look pretty bad in
comparison to Monzo, they are also reserved to Us citizens only so fuck people
with a greencard. I have chase/capitalone/schwabe and their app are just stuck
in the past. I really wish Monzo would work here :/ anything I’m not aware of?

~~~
falsedan
Use TransferWise to move USD to your GBP account? Or even more, use TW's
borderless account?

You swap a bright pink/orange card for a bright lime green

~~~
baby
Whats tw?

~~~
bbx
TransferWise.

------
icu
This tweet is the exact reason I choose to live in the UK, and not the US,
when it came to pursuing my career in financial services.

I do not believe that the US approach—in many sectors, but particularly in
finance—of putting your career before your family life is a good use of the
unknown and limited time we have on this planet.

That said, I am an entrepreneur, and the buck stops with me, so if I need to
work weekends than I will juggle that obligation while still being there for
my son.

Part of my reason for this approach is based on what my father once told me,
that in life you'll juggle a lot of important balls, your career ball, your
family ball, your health ball etc. The gist was, life is a juggling act, but
his final word on it was something along the lines of, "Your family ball is
made of glass, and if you drop it, it could shatter so much that you will
never be able to piece it together again."

Obviously what is happening in an employee's life will have an impact on their
work life. Saying things like, "if you miss your KPIs than you're fired" isn't
going to motivate your staff, especially the ones who need to up their
performance. Firing people who don't perform creates a situation where staff
members will live under fear and that doesn't usually create great customer
experiences.

And this leads to another point, if you are a good leader, you should never be
in a position where you need to remind people that they need to work weekends
if they are behind or they will get fired. He’s the CEO, the buck stops with
him. If he communicated the problem they are solving, the company’s mission,
and put in the right culture, hired the right people, you don’t need to say
such things.

IMHO a good ‘Culture’ would have the following values:

1\. Spartan Wall – We win the battle for our customers by protecting/taking
care of each other.

2\. Obsessive Customer Empathy – We are our customers’ biggest advocate.

3\. Unfiltered Brutal Truth – Feelings, rank, politics NEVER have priority
over truth and what’s right.

4\. Proactive Problem Solving – When we hit problems, we do not put our hands
up, we find a solution.

5\. Laser Focus – We only keep to the problem and the mission.

6\. One Destination, Autonomously – While we work loosely together, we all
have the same mission and we are all in it together.

I bet you all the money in the word Nikolay Storonsky—the CEO of
Revolut—doesn’t actually understand that a CEO’s job is to create the
environment to find, motivate and retain people who are focused on the problem
the company is solving, believe in the company’s mission, and are a fit for
the company’s culture. IMHO venture success is the result of building an
organisation that does this.

I wish Revolut all the luck in the world but the fish rots from the head!

~~~
craftoman
>This tweet is the exact reason I choose to live in the UK, and not the US

Why are you stereotyping work ethics among __western __countries? That 's
clearly wrong because most of them have the same structure. Believe it or not
the worst work environments exist in "poor" countries like India, or Pakistan,
or even Balcan countries like Romania. White collars are suffering there
that's why their only dream is moving to USA or Germany.

------
adlpz
If people are behind the expected performance due to excessive workload or
poor higher-level management, then this is unacceptable.

If people are behind the expected performance due to incompetence, wasted time
or poor self-management, then this is reasonable.

We are all adults here.

~~~
happytoexplain
I think this is absolutely wrong and, frankly, sickening. It is never OK for a
superior to ask or even imply that employees should work overtime (barring
jobs with very disproportionate impact). Incompetence on the part of an
employee is not punishable by overtime work unless they want to do that on
their own volition. You work with them to solve their problems. If you can't
do so without requiring that they work overtime (again, unless it is of their
own volition), then they are not a good fit for that job. Anything else is
inhumane, disrespectful, and out of touch.

~~~
JeffRosenberg
I'm as offended by the CEO's attitude as the rest, but this seems like a way
over-the-top response. It is literally NEVER OK for a superior to ask an
employee to work overtime?

Insisting that your employees work weekends for months on end is obviously
unacceptable. Asking your employees to work occasional overtime in certain
circumstances hardly seems monstrous to me.

------
aboutruby
main thread:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19279829](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19279829)

------
ykevinator
In his defense, he tied kpis to bonuses.

------
p3nt3ll3r
Culture starts at the top.

------
swalsh
Is it like a rule that these "rising star unicorns" have to be ran by
Sociopaths?

------
NoblePublius
Standard working hours in China are 9-9 six days per week.

~~~
chmod775
And that country is known for terrible working conditions.

Let's very deliberately _not_ do what China is doing.

~~~
NoblePublius
They work that long to _win_. Do you want to win? Or do you want to lose?
Business is fundamentally a competition.

~~~
rndgermandude
Getting worked into the ground so some self-entitled person can "win" in
"business" on the back of my labor and broken body and psyche, now that's a
loss in my book.

------
w8rbt
If you have only ever worked a 9 - 5 work week this may come as a surprise,
but in the real world in America, lots of highly paid people routinely work
weekends and nights and 12 or even 24 hour shifts. Doctors, Police Officers,
Morticians, Firefighters, etc. They use schedules to spread the work and many
only get one weekend off a month of totally free time.

~~~
apercu
> Doctors, Police Officers, Morticians, Firefighters

Hold on. A firefighter is on call in the in the firehouse during their shift.
The aren't (except in emergencies) working straight 24 hour shifts. I see them
at the grocery store a lot during the day. How many teams of software
developers are gaming, shopping and sleeping during their shifts?

most patrol officers work 5 consecutive 8-hour shifts followed by two days
off, though emergency callouts are part of the job.

I don't know any morticians but I assume that is the same. Doctors are in a
different category all together, and I'll bet their shifts and culture
surrounding their hours are responsible for many, many deaths.

~~~
cloverich
Moreover Doctor's hours are controlled by doctor's themselves. If the mass of
physicians would prefer lower salaries and better hours, they could and would
achieve that.

------
NoblePublius
Never ceases to amaze me how friggin lazy and entitled are the British when it
comes to being told they need to work long hours. It’s a high growth startup.
They are vesting you with stock. Hell yes you need to come in on weekends,
bruv.

~~~
chmod775
Do you think I'm a walking charity?

That's what an employment contract is for.

If you want me to work on weekends, put that in the contract.

I can then negotiate an appropriate wage.

If it's not in the contract, get lost.

Alternatively propose a new contract so we can re-negotiate my compensation.

If we negotiated for 160 hours of my time / month, then that's what you're
getting.

And if you can't wrap your head around that, you are not qualified to run a
company and probably shouldn't be trusted with any kind of business
transaction at all.

~~~
NoblePublius
I employ 105 people in five countries. 30 in the UK. Feel free to renegotiate
your contract when asked to work long hours whilst I contact my recruiter to
replace you.

~~~
chmod775
If my employer pulled such a palpable show of arrogance someday, you can bet
I'd have quit before sundown.

I know it'll probably take you half a year to fill my position, while I'll
happily be working somewhere else within the week.

Though from what I gleamed of your personality from your comments, it's likely
you wouldn't have managed to get me on board in the first place.

Also did you ever consider that some of your employees/contractors may be
running their own companies/business when they're not working at yours?

Do you really think they value your business above theirs?

And even if they don't, do you think they value your company above their
family/friends/life?

Do you think your attitude even has a chance of inspiring different
priorities? I highly doubt it.

Your company sounds like a terrible place to work.

