Scobleizer - Latest Comments in On work and family and having a “real life”

Re: On work and family and having a “real life”

JMN — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 15:35:50 -0000

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We really appreciate your time either participating in the survey or sharing
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Happy New Year!

Re: On work and family and having a “real life”

H Murray — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 20:40:02 -0000

I have never worked for a startup.

I have, however, worked on many large software projects with demanding requirements and punishing (A.K.A "aggressive") deadlines. It has been my experience that you never give development estimates, as much as you commit to delivering by a certain date.

Where I'm baffled is why "startups are different". Because they have limited resources? Most of corporate america is staffed by one person doing three people's jobs. Because they have grandiose goals? Grandiose goals come with the territory - users don't map concepts to source code, it's not how they think. They tell you "I'd like a VERY simple app, REALLY easy - one screen with one big button. When you click the button it brings peace to the Middle East. You can have that in three months, right?"

Show me the biggest, fattest corporation, and I'll show you the person who's job it is to keep the assembly line running. I'll show you the guy who has to maintain 99.5% uptime, or contracts get cancelled. Do you think those folks work 9 to 5? Really?

For nearly a year, at one particular company, I never took showers - only baths. When the shower was running I couldn't tell if my cell had rung, and I couldn't afford to miss the calls. This was a Fortune 500 company, not a startup. The example of Electronic Arts has been given, I won't rehash it.

No, I think startups are different solely in this - they can extract extraordinary effort by promising you the moon. Being an editor for Mahalo is, at best, moderately skilled labor (no offense). A big company would offer you 40k,and would expect reasonable effort in return. A startup can wave millions under your nose, bleed you dry, THEN hand you over to the company who will pay you 40k.

The whole "employees as warriors" bit is just especially effective motivational speaking. Amway beat Jason to THAT punch long ago.

Re: On work and family and having a “real life”

par7133 — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 10:22:55 -0000

[…] Big or tiny company, those concepts are not heritage of productivity, business, leadership by the Ultra Cool Business Bible […]

Re: On work and family and having a “real life”

S.P. Gass — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 00:07:26 -0000

I think what makes a startup successful a really great idea, rather than making people work as many hours as humanly possible without breaks.

Re: On work and family and having a “real life”

ben — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 21:03:05 -0000

I believe you mean FLOUT not flaunting teamwork.

A lot of us have experience in both worlds, with degrees of success and/ or failure. Though your words are written as though you are an expert on the arena, I will take a more 37 signals route and say it has to be in the middle. Too many hours - you are not getting decent returns, diminishing returns or you have no life. No life equals less perspective which equals less quality when it comes to creating. If you want to stamp out something mindlessly, then no life is needed, if you want to create something like software well - then you need both a life and a passion for the craft - not hours.

Certainly more than 8 hours a day is reasonable in stretches and there needs to be a minimum, but many people think away from the office and come in and blow through the work. Does that count in your world? If I leave the office to get a different view, then do I count the 3 hours I pondered? Those are hours that count.

Re: On work and family and having a “real life”

Really? — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 19:17:43 -0000

When is the last time you put in 18 hr days for a $35k per year job, Robert?

I have a sneaky suspicion that FastCompany is paying you a little more than that, and asking for a lot less of your time too...

Re: On work and family and having a “real life”

nae — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 15:01:18 -0000

"...I have a hard time believing that anybody will ever want to purchase Mahalo, because the labor costs to keep it going are going to be astronomical once the page creators will no longer work startup hours at startup wages."

This is my problem with this "start-up rules are different" idea as well - it's not sustainable. Sure, a start-up might want to avoid niggling problems like sustainability and proper pay for long hours, but the Big Companies looking to acquire it are definitely going to look at those problems. I'm all for being frugal, but in any company, people (and their well-being) are the most important thing you can invest in.

Re: On work and family and having a “real life”

TonyLa — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 09:44:11 -0000

I'm sorry, did I read this right? He fired guys for having the audacity to spend their lunch break away from their desk? Are you seriously defending this?

Startup or not, this is wrong on so many levels and to insinuate that people who take a break (when they should) are slackers is absurd.

I agree with the above comments about your whole point being s spirited defence of an asshole employer.

Re: On work and family and having a “real life”

Karim — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 09:41:54 -0000

The night I was there they bought sushi for everyone.

I'm still trying to reconcile this observation with the rest of Mr. Burns' penny-pinching tips. Instead of letting your employees go home, relieve their bladders and microwave a $3 Lean Cuisine, you chain them to their cheap tables and throw $500 worth of sushi at them? Or did Jason leave off the tip that described how to make "sushi" using two cans of tuna fish and a bag of Minute Rice? News flash: putting a toothpick through a chunk of solid white albacore doesn't really count as sushi.

It's a cute mental image, though: Massa Calacanis throwing pieces of raw fish at his employees. Like Sea World, but with code monkeys instead of trained seals!

Re: On work and family and having a “real life”

Steve — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 00:38:24 -0000

@17. That may very well be. However, the only evidence I have of Jason's "working harder than everyone in his company" is Scoble's saying he left at the ungodly hour of 7:00 pm "in the evening" (as opposed to the 7 pm in the morning, I guess). It may very well be that Jason works all hours of the night, puts the rest of us in danger by reading and responding to email while driving around in his Corvette, and spends every waking hour thinking big thoughts. But, we don't know that. All we have is Scoble describing what he saw. So that's what I commented on.

I also have evidence from hearing Jason at conferences that he is a pompous gasbag. But that's a different topic.

Re: On work and family and having a “real life”

Christopher Coulter — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 00:20:35 -0000

No one at Electronic Arts is going to see the potential rewards that Mahalo’s employees will see.

Mahalo’s employees won't see a gold chest at that rainbow's end either, start-ups cheat employees far more than big companies, forever loop-chasing big dreams that never happen, there are landfills of worthless "stock options". A few break through, most don't.

But as a "start-up" they have the right to abuse, if the reward is big enough? But big companies get not that right? Your core logic is always trapped in some weird alternative universe, of which is your strategy, defend the indefensible, friends will brush it off (Scoble being Scoble), but the rogues gallery will become your best buddies. Win, win. Works to a certain extent, problem is, the great productive middle will see you as nothing more than a shrill tool.

The night I was there they bought sushi for everyone. Everyone has huge monitors

I am sure he loves his Mom, goes to church, brushes his teeth and saves the world from global warming too. But it's that attitude that his employees are his own personal property that is the central issue. And any cult has tons of willing members, you don't judge the value of an organization by the ones that "love working there".

Luck doesn't always to those who work hard, luck is luck, it can happen to anyone. You can go Poor Richardistic and say that hard work causes luck to happen, but that's always in hindsight. You can work dead hard, only to see a competitor crush, or go hardly working, only to see a competitor fold. Not preaching the gospel of slackerdom, just saying it's always more random than it seems. Raw talent isn't always what the public buys, many factors at play, including marketing and raw emotional feelings. Hard work can become Soviet-style make-work, producing widgets with no market, just to keep "productive".

Your whole point here is a spirited defense of an asshole employer. Many of us aren’t buying it.

MOST. ;)

Re: On work and family and having a “real life”

Shawn K — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 23:58:27 -0000

Thanks for helping to lend some common sense to this topic. Once again the blogosphere has overlooked the core issue, and made a tremendously huge deal out of something that's quite basic. If somebody really wants to see people who put in tremendously long, hard, back breaking hours, I welcome you to southwest North Dakota, take as much time as you need here, I know plenty of farmers who can show you what hard work is. Not only that, but the last few years prior to this one, they were doing it at 6 figure, or more, losses, never once sitting in a $700 chair.

Re: On work and family and having a “real life”

John Doe — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 14:44:20 -0000

Scoble, scoble.. sticking up for other fatasses with few skills other than gabbing. who's really surprised about these people who have no other real skills. When did "talking" get defined as a skill, let alone a valuable skill? the system needs to start valuing doers over communicators more.

Re: On work and family and having a “real life”

Karim — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 14:43:23 -0000

Some of Jason's "tips" are just pennywise and pound foolish. Some of them are just plain stupid. Some of them are just common f--king sense, in the "don't spend more than you have to" sense. As if some billionaire would stand up 10 years from now and say, "Our startup was headed for utter ruin until Jason Calacanis told us to go buy cheap desks and 'Areon' chairs." Please.

Some of his tips have DOOMED STARTUP CLICHE written all over them. For example, "Who needs an IT department." This is usually espoused by some "visionary" who pats himself on the back because NOBODY EVER THOUGHT OF IT BEFORE. Then Mr. Visionary realizes a few months later that yeah, having a file server would be nice. And yeah, maybe it would be nice if Alice could log onto Bob's computer, only she can't because there's no directory service. And yeah, maybe a directory service would be nice because after you get done firing all the slackers on their smoke break it kind of sucked to have to go to each and every computer and delete their accounts and permissions. And yeah, having a central backup of stuff would be nice, because Bob dropped his laptop and lost a lot of Important Stuff and it's kind of expensive to go out and buy an Apple Time Capsule for everyone in the whole company. So, um, yeah, maybe we could have a small IT department, or better yet, take this developer who is already coding stuff 14 hours a day and put him in charge of it.

And Robert, weren't you just saying that Google Calendar locked your group out because you made the mistake of using some third-party software with it? That has never happened in Exchange, but who needs Exchange! Getting locked out of Google Calendar FTW!

If you have a good business plan, a good product or service, and a bunch of smart people with a half-decent work ethic, success just tends to happen naturally. You don't have to shower them with so-called "tips" like "don't spend $15k per month on PR" because, you know what? THEY'RE NOT COMPLETE MORONS.

If you don't have a good product, and if you don't have the right people, Jason's "tips" amount to so much arranging of deck chairs on the Titanic.

Re: On work and family and having a “real life”

Joe Clark — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 14:20:11 -0000

If you expect your readers to make smart arguments, you need to be smart enough to differentiate “flaunt” and “flout.”

Employees with a medical need to visit a restroom frequently are people with disabilities who need to be accommodated in the workplace. Smart enough answer?

Your whole point here is a spirited defence of an asshole employer. Many of us aren’t buying it.

Re: On work and family and having a “real life”

vinnie mirchandani — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 13:30:03 -0000

Robert, lost in the debate about working hours is actually some great ideas for penny pinching both from Jason and his readers. I mostly work with large companies and see their 10K airfares, their indifference to paying $ 5000 for a gallon of printer ink, $ 4 per gb a month in storage, $ 3 a minute for a mobile call from Europe...the Valley and start ups everywhere are showing a new way to do business...they can actually afford to be a little more relaxed about the intensity of their labor because of their overwhelming efficiencies in so many other areas...

Re: On work and family and having a “real life”

dawnkey — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 13:23:37 -0000

I read some of the employee posts that are meant to defend Mahalo, and now I just feel worse about the company.

A lot of Jason's workers aren't coders but are people who write up pages. They get paid $30-$35k a year and work from 45 hours a week to 60 hours a week "unless there's an emergency," in which case we can assume it goes way up.

To figure out a wage per hour, you normally use 2080 hours for the year. If that's the case, these workers get paid $16.83 an hour for the $35,000.

But let's say the average work week is 52.5 hours (half of the spread above). Then they are making the equivalent of $12.82 an hour.

I consider that a pretty low wage for the area where they live, but that aside, here's the main problem I have with all this. The argument is that "of course, we work hard, this is a startup." Okay, fair enough. But with most start-ups, it's coders who are putting in these kind of hours. The coders are building permanent value. And their work will ultimately slow down from the startup frenzied pace.

But these page building people are going to be an ongoing necessity. There is no end to their hamster wheel run. Is that not correct?

This one guy said he's willing to do this work because he thinks he'll become a millionaire someday. What about the people who are going to have to keep doing this work day in and day out forevermore? What's their motivation going to be?

Unless I'm seriously misunderstanding something (and I'm open to the possibility), I have a hard time believing that anybody will ever want to purchase Mahalo, because the labor costs to keep it going are going to be astronomical once the page creators will no longer work startup hours at startup wages.

They'll have to hire a lot more people at a lot higher wages to keep this going. I just don't see how that's workable in the long run.

So as for employee surprise and confusion over the debate, yes, I think people are sincerely concerned for you employees who are working your hearts out for the team and the vision, because this company doesn't scale and your stock options are likely going to be worthless.

Re: On work and family and having a “real life”

akshat — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 13:19:47 -0000

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.

Re: On work and family and having a “real life”

ojbyrne — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 12:05:07 -0000

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).

Re: On work and family and having a “real life”

folkrockgirl — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 11:30:32 -0000

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).

Re: On work and family and having a “real life”

obble wobble — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 11:17:53 -0000

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!

Re: On work and family and having a “real life”

Comic Strip Blogger — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 06:32:08 -0000

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.

Re: On work and family and having a “real life”

Roland Hesz — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 04:47:40 -0000

"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.

Re: On work and family and having a “real life”

Guest — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 04:45:38 -0000

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?

Re: On work and family and having a “real life”

Roland Hesz — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 04:42:07 -0000

"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.