
Trickle-down workaholism in startups - ingve
https://m.signalvnoise.com/trickle-down-workaholism-in-startups-a90ceac76426
======
maerF0x0
The thing I dont understand is the exceptionalism and lack of understanding
research. You'd think that an investor would want to choose the path that
increases their odds of success.

To me this looks like:

1\. Sleeping hours seems to be genetic, telling an 8 hour sleeper to just
sleep 6 is going to undermine chances

2\. People's productivity seems to drop after about 40 hours per week,
especially if sustained long term. Outliers exist, but coercing a non-outlier
to try and act like one leads to a reduction in total productivity, not an
increase.

3\. If investors really want people who are outliers they should find a way to
test/verify they're working with outliers. Burning out the leader of a company
they've invested in is counterproductive, it will just lead to the loss of
their investment. Once the company is funded the investor should do what they
can to make that specific person do their optimal path, which may include
sleeping 12 hours a night.

~~~
azernik
Because people (investors included) are not rational individuals, and tend to
warp the information they are exposed to in order to fit their preconceived
notions and values.

They valorize the overworking founder with no personal life, and have grown up
with not-so-accurate tales of the Big Names who were like that. And so you get
quite sincerely held but incorrect beliefs that are shockingly resistant to
evidence.

Welcome to the human species.

~~~
maerF0x0
The thing is that some of those "Big Names" tales could be completely true, if
they're outliers. Sadly the desire/willingness to work extremely hard doesnt
turn one into an outlier.

------
alexandercrohde
I really respect the author for going against the grain this much. I'd like to
distill some of the points it makes, because the intensity can make it easier
to treat this as an all-or-nothing:

[Ideas posited] 0\. Companies that fail rarely fail because of delivery speed
(e.g. yahoo mail vs google mail).

1\. Investors mistakenly believe working harder is the key to startup success.

2\. Investors also have a financial incentive to objectify/manipulate workers,
even when those very workers may have negligible equity often they are put
under more pressure than the investors themselves.

3\. Mission-focused-talk is likely to be disingenuous because investors know
most companies will fail, and those mission statements are lofty anyways.

I largely agree with each of these points, however I think the attitude is too
gloom-and-doom. If you stay late at work, it's because you chose to. If you're
afraid of losing your job if you don't, that's because of market forces.

I also believe that working smart rather than hard helps the investors as much
as the individual, so there is a win-win if people are open-minded to it.

~~~
coldtea
> _If you stay late at work, it 's because you chose to. If you're afraid of
> losing your job if you don't, that's because of market forces._

So? How does that invalidate what they write? Market forces do exist, doesn't
mean people should use them as a leverage to fuck people over.

------
mnm1
Pretty good case for avoiding most startups and any company that demands
overtime. There are jobs out there that aren't barbaric and don't require
sacrificing sleep. I can't think of something I'd be willing to sacrifice less
than sleep at this point. No wonder these startups want young, inexperienced
people to come work for them. It's just so much easier to take advantage of
the young, to the point where they become complicit in their own demise and
start glorifying these inhumane tactics.

~~~
ikeyany
This is apparent to anyone outside of the echo chamber that is Silicon Valley.

~~~
nucleardog
You'd think so... But a lot of people see Silicon Valley, see the TV shows and
movies, hear the stories of a dozen people in a 10'x10' room working 30 hour
days and ordering in pizza for every meal and becoming rich... And they think
that's a model to follow.

When, in your mind, "more hours = more product", then it's not a huge leap to
think that the abusive and ridiculous parts of the "Silicon Valley Model" are
the reasons _for_ their success, not that the success happens despite it.

I've run across several local (and very far from Silicon Valley) businesses
that try and model themselves after the Silicon Valley startups, thinking it's
some key to success. But the parts they model aren't the parts that, arguably,
actually lead to success - exploring new ideas, MVPs, failing fast, making
industry connections - it's the workspace design and cultural attitude towards
hours and work/home balance.

We have several local web development shops that try and act like Silicon
Valley while pumping out $3k brochure websites, and can't figure out why
they're not rich yet.

------
olleromam91
From Wikipedia:

| Rabois came to Thiel's attention after he was found outside an instructor's
home, shouting homophobic slurs and the suggestion that the instructor "die of
AIDS."

I must be doing this all wrong.

~~~
hkmurakami
So strange since Thiel is gay and Rabois is rumoured to be the same as well...

~~~
ForrestN
Thiel persecuted the publication (Gawker) that outed him to an incredibly
disproportionate degree, hatching an elaborate scheme to destroy them. As a
gay person who absolutely loves being gay, it is my opinion that Thiel is...
not exactly unconflicted about his identity. I don't know anything about
Rabois.

~~~
s73ver
At the same time, not every gay person wants to be publically out. I'm
perfectly fine with any publication that forces that upon someone dying in a
fire.

~~~
ForrestN
I'm not prepared to disagree with you, but it's at least a complex question,
right? Maybe there is a real social benefit to rich, powerful people being
"out." Maybe there is something bad about who you are attracted to being a
secret that you have the right to keep hidden if you want? Not all queer
people are even capable of hiding it, right, so maybe Thiel being "in" is a
sort of privilege that isn't fair in the first place? I don't like the idea of
forcing someone "out" but his status as a powerful public figure complicates
all this in my mind.

~~~
s73ver
No. It doesn't matter how "rich" or "powerful" you are, that does NOT give
anyone else the right to decide if you're out or not. Thiel being who he is
doesn't complicate things in the slightest.

~~~
ForrestN
So even if, say, Thiel being out saved four teenagers from committing suicide,
that has no bearing on his right to hide himself?

Do you disagree generally with US law that public figures do not have the same
rights to privacy as other people?

~~~
s73ver
I reject your premise entirely. And I reject any notion of the idea that
anyone else, aside from the person in question, gets to make the decision on
whether they're out or not. That is my final say in the matter.

~~~
ForrestN
That's not really much of an argument, and I can't imagine why. As a society
we decide what information is hidden and what isn't all the time. Some
cultures make women cover their faces even. And, that doesn't address the fact
that some queer people cannot pass as straight.

~~~
s73ver
Because this isn't something to be debated. A person has the sole right to
decide whether they are out or not. No one else. End of story.

------
redleggedfrog
The most precious resource you have in your life is time. Unless you like
working long hours, you're wasting your life. Even if you do like working long
hours, you're probably still wasting your life. And a big pile of money does
you no good when you don't have time to use it.

------
mc32
Being constantly under the gun is not healthy. Continuously working harder to
compensate for understaffing is not healthy. But, on occasion, for sprints,
overwork can compensate and allow you to get to your (immediate, intermediate,
etc.) goals. Balance, or rather, knowing the limits of this option are key.
One can't just give up when misfortune springs up, but also one can't keep on
compensating indefinitely.

------
stretchwithme
Elon Musk is big on working long hours. And it's hard to argue with what he's
accomplished.

But is it sustainable? Obviously, a young person can do it for years. But can
they do it for decades? Or is there a cumulative cost that will shorten their
life?

It also matters whether those long hours involve constant sitting or not. Is
there a lot of creative interaction? Do they personally care about the mission
of the company? Or is just about the money?

~~~
williamstein
Elon Musk has done what he has done for decades. For some people working very
hard is sustainable and for others (probably most) it is not. I much depends
on constitution and also what one values and enjoys in life. I have personally
also "worked" very hard since the 1970s, I enjoy doing so, it makes me feel
good, and I plan to continue working hard into the future. One of my
mathematician colleagues (Barry Mazur) is 80, and is one of the most
mathematically productive people I know. For some people there is a cumulative
benefit to long hours of hard work... for others it is surely a total
disaster. Life is so complicated.

~~~
stretchwithme
Yes, there is a great deal of variability.

------
samlevine
> The Kobe Bryant workout routine features a hefty mix of track work,
> basketball skills and weightlifting. His off-season workout has been called
> the 666 program because he spends 2 hours running, 2 hours on basketball,
> and 2 hours weightlifting (for a total of 6 hours a day, six times a week,
> for six months).

This seems disingenuous, given that Kobe does a lot more than just work out.

~~~
trustfundbaby
In a way I think this particular example actually hurts his argument. 6 hours
of physical training a day is pretty damn high for an athlete. In college
(soccer team) we had two-a-days 2 sessions of training (2-3 hours each) for
about 2 weeks before the season started and that was an absolute killer, by
the end your body would be ripped to shreds, and we'd have one week of a much
lighter load and ball work to recover. Doing this six days a week for six
months is almost the classic definition of overtraining, and shows the
freakish nature of Kobe's physical ability.

Totally agree with his overall point though.

~~~
Zenbit_UX
I think it's hyperbole. I don't see how it's possible, even for a super
athlete. I'm sure it's highly inflated numbers, there would also be not
benefit for Kobe to come out and say, Na that's wrong... I train half that.

------
hammock
Ask HN: what is workaholism? There always seem to be a lot of exagerration.
How many hours a week is it? And how many of those hours are productive, vs
waiting around, dicking around, or optics/politics related?

~~~
xyzzy_plugh
I don't think it's being over worked. To me, workaholism is when you're
sitting on your couch after dinner, or maybe midday on a weekend, and you
decide to pull out your laptop and do work. Or you're at a friend's house or
at a bar or event and pull out your phone and start scrolling through work
email, or reading code reviews.

~~~
zyamada
Exactly.

I was inches away from a total breakdown this past November after putting in
months of long (some up to 90 hour) weeks.

Following the conclusion of the project I took some time off; almost an entire
month (thank god for the xmas/new year holidays). For me, it was that or
compromise my long-term health. The time off came and went, and I didn't feel
revitalized at all, not a single bit. I started to think the problem was me.
However, more recently I took another vacation, but this one was only a week
long. In this instance though, when I came back from my time away, I felt more
like myself, more productive, and happier than I had in years.

So what was the difference? During my first vacation I was still on-call, I
was still expected to reply to emails and chat in a timely manner, review pull
requests and so on --- you know, the stuff that is part of the "off-the-clock"
aspect of many of our jobs. Essentially, while physically I wasn't at work,
mentally I didn't leave the office for a single second.

This second vacation? It was the first time I my spouse of eight years and I
were able to take a vacation together, in my mind it was the honeymoon we
never got to have. So, I spoke with my management and asked for permission to
go completely offline for the week. After some negotiation, I was granted the
permission to do so. When I left the office for the last time before starting
my holiday, I sat in my car and disabled all work related notifications and
alerts, then I just sat there for as long as it took for the panic of knowing
those notifications were disabled to subside.

It may feel like you're only taking 30 seconds out of your time away from work
to send off a quick two-sentence e-mail reply or thumb-up a tiny pull request.
However, many of us are already too deep in the hole of a workaholic mindset
to even see all of the hidden costs of such behaviors and thinking, regardless
if they are personal, professional, mental, or physical.

(P.S. Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Frquhar, the founders of Atlassian, hosted
a great presentation/panel discussion during the 2016 Atlassian Summit where
they talked about and hosted a panel discussion surrounding the issues of
workaholism and burnout and how they handle it at Atlassian.

During this sessions they spoke about how within Atlassian, if somebody
(probably of significant importance at least...) is exhibiting the typical
signs of burnout as we currently understand them they will force the affected
employee to take a vacation, not a stay-at-home vacation, but an go-out-and-
have-fun type vacation. They've even gone as far to conspire with the spouses
of affected employees to ensure that they leave their company provided devices
at home and do not bring them with them on vacation)

P.P.S. If you are interested in learning more about workaholsim and burn out:
what it feels like, how to spot it within your team and colleagues, and how to
actually help those being affected by it -- I would suggest you check out
Avleen Vig's USENIX LISA 2016 presentation [Don't Burn Out or Fade
Away]([https://www.slideshare.net/avleenvig/dont-burn-out-or-
fade-a...](https://www.slideshare.net/avleenvig/dont-burn-out-or-fade-away))

~~~
mattmanser
The permission to do so?

You need to get out of that incredibly toxic environment.

~~~
Zenbit_UX
Probably but I also get it. In startups the core team members sometimes
fulfill duties that no one else is either trained, able or has the necessary
credentials to do...

It sounds like OP has put himself into this situation and made himself
indispensable and now he needs to figure out how to fix it.

------
davidivadavid
I don't necessarily disagree with DHH's points, but most of his stuff comes
across as completely oblivious to the fact he's not representative of the
average startuper/developer. He's a complete outlier.

Sure, you can succeed if you're a top 0.1% programmer, and you don't have to
work as much as other people. Do other people who are ambitious but not quite
as talented have the same luxury?

~~~
walterra
I think the more common ground here is that _all_ very successful people are
outliers regardless if they work "hard" or not.

~~~
davidivadavid
That may be that case, but the more relevant question is whether non-outliers
can benefit from hard work. DHH says no (because he's a biased outlier, in my
opinion). I would say it's far from clear.

------
rb808
Agreed, there is a lot of startup hype. Make sure you're doing it for the
right reasons.

