Reid Hoffman, the visionary behind LinkedIn, says he even expects employees at startups to constantly be working—with the exception of taking time out for dinner
Not that I want to encourage this kind of life but with that context he is kinda right. Entrepreneurship is one of those areas where you genuinely get out what you put in. If you want your business to be better, you have to commit the time to it.
I dig it with context. I did the same thing in 2001 when I decided to go back to my original career of tile and flooring.
I got into IS/IT in 1998 after a decade in flooring and worked a couple jobs until I found some wicked smart programmers and they made a search engine while I was “adult supervision”. Fact was, I bought my first suit in '99 and played businessman. It was typical dot-com startup energy, we had some crappy office space that I renovated with some help from my ex-employees on the construction side. Found some venture capital in our new smelling conference room. Bought a foosball and air hockey table. Some weird automatic coffee machine that never worked right. Hired a receptionist/office manager. Bought lunch every day from a takeout or delivery place on the company card. MANY late nights and we’d either chip in for dinner or I’d buy, because lets face it, I was riding their coattails. I could negotiate and write emails, I made sure the network stayed up and I was a good shit filter.
By mid 2001 we sold that search engine to a porn clip website which is since defunct. Not fuckyou money but definitely set the fortunes of the seven of us. Those six guys all went on to do various shit and by all measures are successful with a work/life balance. They all have families now and the kids are either grown or still in college. The only guy I really kept in touch with immediately went into a large university IT department, he’s been there since. I took my money and went all-in with tile and flooring and I worked my ass off for 15 years. Stacked money, got a little lucky with mining bitcoin, and now I have a 401k and a mutual fund.
Now I work 40/week for another company and they know I can technically walk away any time I want at 54 years old. (note: the latest stock market shit may have weakened my position but I refuse to look during the panic period). It’s fucking EASY compared to either the dot-com startup or the 15 years after that. I mean, I worked 16 hour days on dark, humid bathrooms just to finish on schedule. 70 hour weeks setting tile will really wear your ass out.
So I guess this is a long ass post to say, “I understand the grind, but you can’t do it for 30 years. If you have an exit plan then grind away but if you don’t see that brass ring in front of you stop killing yourself.”
Yeah, that’s actually a fair comment. Getting a new business off the ground, pretty much any business, is something that requires a big time commitment at the start.
The rest of the context seems important
Guess what kind of boss a person following this bullshit advice would make
Not that I want to encourage this kind of life but with that context he is kinda right. Entrepreneurship is one of those areas where you genuinely get out what you put in. If you want your business to be better, you have to commit the time to it.
Yeah, that’s honestly very true about starting a small business.
I dig it with context. I did the same thing in 2001 when I decided to go back to my original career of tile and flooring.
I got into IS/IT in 1998 after a decade in flooring and worked a couple jobs until I found some wicked smart programmers and they made a search engine while I was “adult supervision”. Fact was, I bought my first suit in '99 and played businessman. It was typical dot-com startup energy, we had some crappy office space that I renovated with some help from my ex-employees on the construction side. Found some venture capital in our new smelling conference room. Bought a foosball and air hockey table. Some weird automatic coffee machine that never worked right. Hired a receptionist/office manager. Bought lunch every day from a takeout or delivery place on the company card. MANY late nights and we’d either chip in for dinner or I’d buy, because lets face it, I was riding their coattails. I could negotiate and write emails, I made sure the network stayed up and I was a good shit filter.
By mid 2001 we sold that search engine to a porn clip website which is since defunct. Not fuckyou money but definitely set the fortunes of the seven of us. Those six guys all went on to do various shit and by all measures are successful with a work/life balance. They all have families now and the kids are either grown or still in college. The only guy I really kept in touch with immediately went into a large university IT department, he’s been there since. I took my money and went all-in with tile and flooring and I worked my ass off for 15 years. Stacked money, got a little lucky with mining bitcoin, and now I have a 401k and a mutual fund.
Now I work 40/week for another company and they know I can technically walk away any time I want at 54 years old. (note: the latest stock market shit may have weakened my position but I refuse to look during the panic period). It’s fucking EASY compared to either the dot-com startup or the 15 years after that. I mean, I worked 16 hour days on dark, humid bathrooms just to finish on schedule. 70 hour weeks setting tile will really wear your ass out.
So I guess this is a long ass post to say, “I understand the grind, but you can’t do it for 30 years. If you have an exit plan then grind away but if you don’t see that brass ring in front of you stop killing yourself.”
Have you tried setting tile with your hands instead? Just a thought.
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Yeah, that’s actually a fair comment. Getting a new business off the ground, pretty much any business, is something that requires a big time commitment at the start.
Thanks, the fact that this the source is an American business magazine made me expect this wasn’t meant for the underpaid and overworked.