My friend and fellow writer at Tech.li, Jason Rowley, wrote an excellent editorial today on Michael Arrington’s recent article about people “whining” at startups.
Jason brings up the suicide of Ilya Zhitomirskiy at Diaspora and quotes some other people talking about the importance of expressing your feelings and not getting burnt out.
Arrington included a passage written by an engineer in the early days of Netscape talking about how he should be out enjoying life, how working non-stop was wrecking his body and his soul. It was written in 1994.
Mike’s reply:
You can imagine the same words, the exact same words, being written by the guys that created the early Zynga games. Or Google. Or Facebook. Or some startup that failed miserably and was forgotten. Maybe some of those people think that they’ve been worked harder than anyone else has ever worked in Silicon Valley. That working so hard, working all the time, is an extraordinary demand on their soul.
They’re wrong. This is what startups are made of.
I respect Jason Rowley and his opinion very much. He is a brilliant guy and when his startup launches in January I predict great things for him and his team. (They are pretty damn smart as well). It should also be noted that Jason and his team are notthe whiner type. Maybe they are more in tune with their feelings…maybe not. They are made of the stuff that entrepreneurs need to have to succeed which makes me feel a little bad writing this op-ed. Just a little though.
On this point, I think Jason is wrong and I’m with Arrington- all of you whiners out there need to shut the hell up and get back to work. Don’t like it? Go work for Big Mega Corp where HR will lecture you ad nauseam about what constitutes ‘Casual’ attire and you’ll spend half the year wondering if your raise will be 3% or 5%. (Assuming you get one.)
Now that the startup culture has matured and spread outside Silicon Valley to cities like my hometown of Chicago, it has also attracted a new generation of would-be startup founders and employees. Young people across the country now view working for a startup (or founding one) as a viable career option. I remember being in college obsessed with the startup culture and my friends looking at me like I had a 3rd eye on my forehead.
The people that got into startups in the 90s all read ‘The Nudist on the Late Shift’. Now most people in their twenties haven’t heard of it. In that marvelous book chronicling the tale of the rise of the dot-com boom, all the people in the book had the same mentality- strip your life down and work.
Your friends are out for sushi? Too fucking bad. Work. Your friends are asleep at night? Dating? Having sex? Having a life?
Too bad. Work.
I meet this new generation of startup workers and it becomes very apparent, very fast when I am talking to someone who is attracted to the sexy idea of a startup. Dress casual! Work whenever! Great Parties! Huge exits! These are people who have been told their whole life every idea and opinion they have is important and if they work hard, they will be rewarded.
What they don’t realize about the startup world is that you have to work even harder and second place is just the first loser. There are no trophies for ‘participant’
Jason quotes entrepreneur and Yudunu cofounder Jordan Philips who says, “We should definitely caution people against irrational exuberance, and make sure people’s expectations are appropriately anchored. But a machismo-driven position of ‘stop crying and work more’ does a disservice to the real human suffering that the entrepreneurial life creates for even the most industrious of people.”
No Jordan, it doesn’t. Stop crying and work more is what a startup is- there is no time for exploring feelings. Know before you get in it will be hard. A startup by its very nature requires the utmost sacrifice and willingness to do what ever needs to be done to make the company a success. If you are one of the ‘most industrious’ people, prove it. Build something. Succeed.
I have said before the best education I ever got was in the United States Army. As you might guess, there is no room for working ‘too much’. In the military, there is mission completion. Is the mission complete? No? Then keep going. It’s raining? It doesn’t rain in the Army, it rains on the Army. Keep going.
In the military people die when the mission isn’t complete. In a startup someone willing to work harder, longer and faster than you will beat you every time.
When I look for people to work with me, I look for the “whine less, work harder” crowd. When I was discussing plans with my colleague, Lindsay O’Neal, about the future of where I wanted to take Tech.li, she said, “I want to go 300% and build this.”
That was all I needed to hear. Lest anyone think I am generation bashing, Lindsay is a millenial and she has the fire in her belly and the passion to get shit done. We don’t have a debate when something needs to get done and we don’t talk about how late it is or how tired we are. We do it.
Do we look for ways to do things better, streamline processes? Yes we do. But we don’t start crying and complain that things are too hard. If we wanted a 9-5, we wouldn’t be in a startup.
In the Army, there is an old saying they used in commercials. “We do more by 9 a.m. than most people do all day.” That’s usually because you hadn’t slept or were up at 4a.m. and working- anyone that wants to work for a startup or found one needs to learn that line and internalize it.
Mike was right.
View Comments (12)
Boom. There it is, Domain. Another great place for startup biz dev types to sleep? The airport! SFO has some great spots that get quiet late at night...
I have done my fair share of sleeping in an airport. Â I always hated the arm rests on the chairs that made it harder to stretch out...ha
I have to say I agree. The talk that "depression" is especially prevalent at start-ups and we should really dig deep into our feelings to talk about it is straight bullshit. Depression is a chemical imbalance and can strike even those with very light workloads. There are many industries with people working harder than start-ups, I promise you that. So suck it up.Â
Exactly Zach. Â If one is prone to depression, I would recommend seeing a medical professional that is much smarter than I am in that arena.
Going into a startup one should have their eyes WIDE open- its going to be hard. Â Really, really hard. Â Creating something new isn't easy- it sucks 90% of the time. (Maybe more). Â
The success tastes all the sweeter, of course, and the defeat stings- but it is far better than being with those cold and timid souls who know neither. (I'm stealing from Theodore Roosevelt's 'Man in the Arena' speech)
Edward - I referenced that speech the other day, love it.Â
Actually, I think the pro/con sides of Arrington's argument are talking about two different things. Arrington said stop whining about being overworked, not about being depressed. I'm sure he would agree that if anyone was clinically depressed they should receive treatment for it. His post was more about the modern day start-up employee bemoaning their situation (which they chose) when most if not all before them have gone through the exact same thing. It wasn't about ignoring depression at all, but it seems like that's what people are making it.
Respectfully I think that's complete bollocks. Â People should definitely shut up and stop whining about their hours, but working long hours doesn't make a good product or a successful startup. Â Working better and smarter does, and longer hours are 90% of the time are the opposite of that, taken up with organising and replying to emails and other political BS that is no substitute for a fresh, well rested, and enthusiastic team tackling a difficult problem.
Steve I agree with you- I said myself we are looking for ways to streamline processes and work smarter, not harder.
My assertion is that in a startup, you don't have an accounting department, HR, legal, amrketing, etc. Â YOU do all those things until there is money to get it done.
Arrington talked about the employees at Zynga complaining- and yet they had on site acupuncture and an organic kitchen.
If someone wants an 8 hour day, corporate America is always hiring :)
First, thanks for the quote. As a guy just trying to get started in Silicon Valley, having my first tech news coverage be me calling one of the titans of the industry a selfish jerk is a good thing, right? ;-)
I feel a bit like this is an argument between "the sky is blue!" and the "the sky is grey!" Both are true, depending on where you look.
Are there folks who think they can make a gazillion dollars off of a few weeks' work, and then complain when it turns out that's not so? Sure. It's annoying if those people are bouncing around the ecosystem complaining about their misfortune; we can agree they ought not to do so.
Are there folks fighting the good fight, doing all the right stuff, but who just can't get things to come together? Certainly. I can't construct a sensible notion of when it's fair to express unhappiness in which these people aren't justified in occasionally complaining about their misfortune.
If both cases exist in reasonable proportions, the only reason to vociferously claim one is dominant over the other is to legitimize one's own situation.
It can't be true both that the system is unfair, and that we shouldn't ever complain (for sensible worldview in which it's ever acceptable to express unhappiness). The reason to claim that people shouldn't complain, then, is to suggest the system actually is fair. Hard work is rewarded! The best ideas with the best execution triumph!
If that mantra sounds familiar, it's because Arrington is pulling us into an old cliche - the people at the top of a system are convinced it's a functioning meritocracy, where their success was earned and should be emulated; the people at the bottom are convinced it's roulette, and that the winners got lucky or cheated. That's why I read this and roll my eyes.
If anybody seriously thinks any large market, including the tech start-up industry, is a well-functioning meritocracy, well, we should get some beer, because it's gonna be a long talk.
I should clarify: when I say "I read this and roll my eyes," I mean Arrington's article, not yours, Edward. I get where you're coming from; it's when guys as on-top-of-the-world as Arrington make these pronouncements that I get flustered.
Sure I'll agree nothing is ever perfect- but for Silicon Valley its as near as good a meritocracy as anything gets (IMO). Â
You don't have to be an alumnus of Harvard or Yale or Stanford to get your idea done. Â You just have to want it and work incredibly hard. Â No one is telling anyone 'No.' Â You may be trying to raise money and not be getting anywhere, but less than 1% of all startups get funding.
If you build a product/service that the market wants, you will get customers/users and you can make a business. Â
If you can't- you fail. Â No one cares what sex or race you are. Â Its all about ideas and the ability to execute on them-
and don't worry about rolling your eyes- you wouldn't be the first (or last) person to roll their eyes at something I said. Â
You've only got one life. You can live it however you want. Â If you want to work your ass off, possibly at the exclusion of other areas of your life, in pursuit of some hot new product that'll perhaps be the next big thing, and maybe even make some bling in the process... well, that's you're prerogative. But don't foolishly fall into the mind-trap that that's all life's about. Our capitalistic culture sets that up as the ideal. it keeps all of us running on the hamster wheel. keeps the economy humming. I just feel bad for those who wake up after decades of slaving, realizing that they forgot to experience the rest of life while they were chasing the american dream.
I personally don't complain. - I Bitch and loudly..and then work some more..