On work and family and having a “real life”

For a calm and collected man, you sure do get passionate about work/life balance. Jason Calacanis seems to be the hot button topic this week, it’ll only make the interview more exciting to see. Have fun at SXSW.

I actually liked Jason’s tips. I went through his 17 tips and commented from an engineer’s perspective over on my blog.

I particularly agreed with his point on workaholics.

Though I’m taking no sides in the matter I loved this post! You definitely set a lot of things into perspective that Jason Calacanis should’ve done himself to begin with.

Someone at Techcrunch wrote that Calacanis should’ve taken more time to write the post and maybe he wouldn’t have gotten half of the reactions he’s gotten (though I think that was his point). Nevertheless, I’m glad he didn’t because it’s bringing about a great debate on the issue…

Plus, we’re seeing who’s a true friend (I’d say that’s you) and who’s merely in the game for powerful alliances…

Thanks for the post robert… i think Duncan went off because he feels strongly about family–can’t blame a guy for that. I clearly had a grin when i wrote the “fire people who are not workaholics.. for realz!” line, but sure… i could have been a little more clear.

So, I forgive Duncan and understand he is a family guy. At the end of the day we’re all better for this debate.

rock on,

Jason

ps – not going to SXSW, too much work

“if you want to make arguments like these please go back to Digg.”

Funny. You go to the weakest point I made and reply ONLY to that. Just like a Digger would do

Wow, this is why I hate living on the right Coast…Calacanis is from New York people,even though it sounds like he’s adapting very well to the “laid back, be productive without the hours” Cali style. You can’t please everyone. So as a Guy who has a young family, I think Calacanis has a very even attitude towards Start-up dedication…

I read recently…I think it was in the book Good to Great by Jim Collins…that studies have shown that coders who work more than 8 hours a day do more harm than good as the number of bugs they create skyrocket.

I would rather have well-rounded employees who can bring thought and creativity to the table, as well as well-rested employees who don’t screw everything up because their brains are tired.

There is a happy medium between workaholics and slackers. Nobody wants slackers, but to make the leap that the employees who value brutal hours above healthy families are somehow more valuable is beyond absurd. When there’s trouble at home, the quality of work will inevitably suffer.

I’ve worked at startups, including Tripwire a decade ago. “Workaholics” are usually people trying to overcompensate weaknesses in their lives. If you’re a founding CEO and don’t understand that there is a lot more to monitor and manage than manipulating the number of hours your workers’ asses are in $600 chairs, then I predict that you are the one who will eventually be replaced, if your startup survives at all.

I guess what I always marvel at from where I sit is that you folks are always able to find venture capitalists to pay for this self-indulgent stuff, these “start-ups”.

Do you think that money will always be there?

Robert,

The point which needs to be made is that regardless of Christopher or Jason or EA or any other company, people… and that means all people (in a free country) DECIDE to work where they work. They DECIDE how many hours they wish to work. These are DECISIONS made of one’s FREE WILL. If you don’t like where you work… work for someone else.

If you don’t like it, quit complaining and create something better for yourself.

Simple stuff.

“Calacanis doesn’t disagree. He says he will always work harder than anyone on his team.”

Leaving at 7:00 PM to drive his car around Santa Monica to get useless PR? I’m guessing then he doesn’t fire all his employees if they all leave at 6:59? And please don’t try to convince me his joy riding with you was “work”. Leaving at 7:00 classifies as working arder than anyone on his team? Hope he doesn’t have a heart attack from the stress.

“Is Electronic Arts a startup? No. The reason I was mad about Electronic Arts is because it was a systemic abuse of workers due to poor management techniques. That’s VERY DIFFERENT from Jason’s points, despite what Coulter is saying. Jason’s workers are working hard because they have the opportunity to see a huge reward. No one at Electronic Arts is going to see the potential rewards that Mahalo’s employees will see. I know a few startup employees who work for no money. Why would they do that? Because of the potential upside.”

This is the most convoluted logic ever. So the fact that a company is a start up is the differentiator? That makes no sense. Isn’t EA a public company? Thus the harder the employees work, the more money the company makes, the higher the stock price goes, thus the more the stock options are worth. How is that philosophy different from what you described for Mahalo. Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t many of your fellow employees reap the rewards of long hours and sacrificing family life end up being able to retire due to cashing in valuable stock options? So, how is EA different. Look, I’m not defending EA’s practices, but your defense of your position is a very weak argument. You have no idea what potential rewards Mahalo employees will see. The odds are it is more likely Mahalo will go tits up before EA does. So, I’ll bet on the long term upside of EA over Mahalo.

meant to say “fellow employees at Microsoft”

Robert,

Thanks for this. As a guy who works for Jason, I’m amazed at the vitriol folks have voiced on this topic. I’m trying to figure out if they’re worried about the welfare of folks like myself and my co-workers, or if they just make it a point to dislike Jason.

Jason’s never told me to “leave my family at the door.” In fact, when all the developers flew in to town last month, he flew all our wives in as well so they could meet and hang with the team…get to know who their spouses were working with. That’s not the action of a slave driver.

It’s such an fundamental misunderstanding to think that we work longer hours because he walks around and demands it, whip to our backs. We work long hours because the work needs to get done and we believe in what we are doing. In the end, it comes down to the fact that you need to work hard to achieve outstanding results. It’s really just that simple.

See Robert, you’ve never worked as a software engineer/developer before. You don’t know how it feels how these tools can put you in a chair more than 8 hours. You don’t know how it feels when one stupid bug occurred with no particular reason due to the platform you’re using might take you a whole day to debug.

So you stated that your job (as a PR guy) is to get out from the office, do something “relaxed” (riding a car, talking about anything, unscripted), bring your children to work, etc. These are all nice and fun.

As a Software Engineer, I envy your job because I can’t let people distract me when I’m coding. I can’t get out and talk to people because I need a computer to type the code into the broken platform (Windows, Java, whatever, they all are broken tools).

Most people think or trying to brainwash Software Engineer by telling stories such as “coke, coffee, more caffeine, more monitors, fast computer, code all nighters”. Shame on you people for trying to brainwash us. We are all human being. We’re about the same: we prefer to socialize sometime. We prefer to do whatever we want with no time limitation if possible. For example, I’d rather code outside the office because the weather is nice during summer.

And I hope all Americans think the same way as I do and move out from Software Development field and become a PR machine (or executive like Jason). What’s the point of becoming a Software Engineer when you’re just a “code monkey” supplied by endless hardware and “super smart people” around you when you can’t really do much other than sit and “code” for a company that might fail 99%.

We are all a human being. Unfortunately, you don’t see the way a software engineer does. I’d suggest you to be a professional software engineer once to actually feel how we feel.

This is why I appreciate 37Signals more than ever even though I dislike some of their opinions (especially DHH).

On the topic of Executive. Usually an Executive works longer hour than the employees because Executive needs to stay on top of EVERYTHING. But the difference between Executive and the employees is that the Executive IS NOT the person whose doing the DIRTY work. He’s just telling people what to do. He’s a visionary.

So if Jason works more hours than his employee, it is what it is. You can’t argue that “Oh, Jason works more hours, that means he’s workaholic”. Nu-uh. He MUST work more hours. He MUST know the progress day-by-day or week-by-week. How to get the progress? once everyone calls it a day, an Executive would check “what have we done today?”

But here’s the fun part of being an Executive/Owner: You’re not afraid to get FIRED. You keep doing what you love until you can’t do it anymore (and raise a white flag). And if you ever argued that “that’s your worst nightmare”, you’d have to keep remind yourself the fact that 99% startup fails anyway.

And shit, how many people actually got filthy RICH for working at a startup? So far, I only know Microsoft (during the 90′s) and Google (during the 00′s). Most of the time, the founder/executive got the biggest and fattest paycheck while the other employees got couple hundred thousand dollars if they were lucky. I’d argue that it won’t be as high as million dollars level.

I might be wrong in terms of the compensation post-IPO or post-buyout. But if you have any evidence, please bring them forward.

Basically, a sane engineer should only work on their own startup that they build with their friends. Like them Reddit people: split $10-$20 mill by 4 and Paul Graham & Co.

With attitudes like J and Calcan Mahalo is so flippin’ doomed.

The concept. The creators. The “socialness” of it all. Hamsters in wheels,folks, hamsters in wheels.

Now with whips!

“Leaving at 7:00 classifies as working arder than anyone on his team? Hope he doesn’t have a heart attack from the stress.
Comment by Steve — March 8,”

You know, funny as it may sound, not everything is done by writing code.
Have you seen when he got back to the office at 11PM for example?

If you measure “work” by hours spent at the office, then you misunderstand a few things.

Most of the complainers associates the demand for hard work with “staying until 5AM in the morning”.
I associate it with less frequent coffee and smoke breaks – you don’t need a cigarette every 25 minutes, and the occasional longer hours.

I really, really wonder why do the concentrate on hours spent at the office.
For the record – my boss works pretty hard. And leaves the office at 6PM. And then he is still sending mails at 1AM.
He puts in way over 12 hours a day, AND he spends enough time with his kids.
Getting home between 18:00 – 18:30, he spends his time with his kids till they go to bed, then he resumes work.

I really don’t know why people INTENTIONALLY misunderstand what Calacanis wrote.

Having worked at two startups, I didn’t see the correlation between the number of hours worked and quality work produced. I don’t know what people mean when the use the word, “workaholic”, anymore. Is that someone who just loves to be at the office for long hours or someone who loves his work? I’ve worked with people who work a very inefficient 14-16 hours each day while other got more quality work done in 4 hours. Seriously, can’t we stop focusing on labels and the number of hours worked and start rewarding those that do quality work?

“These are DECISIONS made of one’s FREE WILL. If you don’t like where you work… work for someone else.”

Exactly Steve. Last time I was on the interview, I made it clear that I am looking for a job without needless and crazy overtimes.
It was simple. I told what amount was acceptable and they hired me with that condition.

I think on the interview you can laid the the basic rules. And if I join a startup, I would never think it will be short days. Not necessarily at the office, but you can work from home after you spent time with your family IF NEEDED.

Startups are like huge, heavy trucks stuck in the mud. You can’t free them without getting dirty, tired, and winded.

Robert Scoble: it is nice that you are defending your dear friend Jason Calacanis but please don’t forget that he has libel about me on his blog, and he points in this libel post to posts of Russell even though Russell removed them long time ago (it was misunderstanding) and I am in peace with Russell.

Robert, please you are losing your credibility when you are defending Calacanis.

Robert,
I think the problem isn’t with the reality of what Jason is doing with Mahalo, but with the appearance of a negative attitude towards his workers in his essay.

Based on the essay alone, with no other data, I would go to great lengths to avoid using, promoting, or funding any of his projects. I’m not surprised that the reality is more complex, but the amount of effort required to avoid him and his stuff is trivial compared to the effort to learn about the subtleties of what he really meant.

It’s easier to just skip the effort and make a mental note to not touch any of Calacanis’ projects. It’s not as though he’s Microsoft, where it’s impossible to not feed the beast. He’s just got some small scale stuff that might not pan out at all. I can afford to ignore that.

Summary: Calacanis made himself sound like precisely the kind of boss that we all hate. It is as though he trolled himself on his own blog. Ouch!

I am surprised by all the debate this has caused. I have worked for and led start-up companies and it is clear that these environments require passionate people who are able to wear a variety of hats. I do not think this is measured in hours, necessarily, but by a certain creative fortitude. I suspect that many of these commenters simply do not fit this profile, which is why they rail so hard against it. There is nothing wrong with wanting to hire and retain individuals who bring boundless energy to their work. But that is very different from expecting employees to forgo family and fun (which few successful companies do).

Mahalo has raised $16 million. I’d hazard a guess that employees hired after that funding probably get stock options comparable to what EA employees get (i.e. next to nothing).

You are right that startups need great people. But the mistake being made here is that slackers can be a part of a big company.

I work for a big company and can see that it is the great people who are driving the company. The slackers do get caught and are pushed hard.