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“[Mayer] is by far the hardest working person in Silicon Valley,” Max Levchin told Pando’s Sarah Lacy. “She gave birth to twins and then traded emails w

“[Mayer] is by far the hardest working person in Silicon Valley,” Max Levchin told Pando’s Sarah Lacy. “She gave birth to twins and then traded emails with me about a feature of a product she was launching in a week, within, from what I could tell, 20 minutes of giving birth,” said the PayPal cofounder, speaking before a group of people. The audience tittered. “She is intensely committed to her cause. She’s awesome,” said Levchin, who is now devoted mainly to a new consumer finance startup called Affirm. He also talked about how much he respects Mayer for being a pioneer and one of the few women to ascend to such a high level in tech. “She is a woman who rose through the ranks in the male-dominated world,” he said. “I think that’s pretty special.” Levchin’s comments do more than just celebrate his friend, though. Applauding such an extreme work ethic sends a pretty clear message to those interested in growing and developing their careers: Work all the time and give up everything if you want to succeed. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/marissa-mayer-overwork_us_5783ca9ce4b01edea78eccdd http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/marissa-mayer-overwork_u...

greglindahl 10y ago
This is an excellent illustration of the point dang made: Here you have a Huffington Post editor getting extremely close to putting words into someone else's mouth. It's a dark pattern in journalism.
- aaronbrethorst 10y ago
  OK, let's cut it down to just the quote from Levchin: "[Mayer] is by far the hardest working person in Silicon Valley. She gave birth to twins and then traded emails with me about a feature of a product she was launching in a week, within, from what I could tell, 20 minutes of giving birth. She is intensely committed to her cause. She’s awesome." Per Levchin: Marissa Meyer is awesome because she emailed Max Levchin about a product twenty minutes after giving birth. You can draw whatever conclusions you want to from that, but that sounds wildly unhealthy to me, and is nothing I would ever want anyone working for me—or anyone I work for—to venerate.
  - dang 10y ago
    You completely changed the subject by hopping to a nearby prospective outrage and then getting outraged about it. And then you rewrote the outrage into your own higher-snark phrase, just in case the reader didn't get how outraged you are. That's not a convincing response to a call for more careful thinking. In fact, it's arguably not thinking at all. It's a game of labels, seeking an emotional payoff.
    - aaronbrethorst 10y ago
      paganel: "investors like Levchin do not care one iota about what said start-up founders will do with their lifes after all is said and done" dang: "You can't possibly know what iotas someone else cares about" aaronbrethorst: Here's a quote that describes what Levchin cares about. greglindahl: "Here you have a Huffington Post editor getting extremely close to putting words into someone else's mouth" aaronbrethorst: Here's just the quote that describes what Levchin cares about. dang: "You completely changed the subject" I give up.
      - dang 10y ago
        The error is that your quote doesn't cover every iota he cares about. That's like searching a list to make sure it has no odd numbers in it and stopping when you find 42. We don't commonly make that kind of mistake while programming, but we do commonly make it while venting. Many users come to internet forums to release pent-up emotional energy at their favourite symbolic targets. Monkeys do that too, only with feces rather than words, and not on the internet. We're all monkeys in this respect (edit: i.e. I don't mean to pick on you personally), so I don't believe HN can be immune to this (not for a while anyhow). But I do think we can do a little better. The point here is not about Max Levchin, of course. The point is that feces-throwing is extremely predictable (that's part of its pleasure) and therefore extremely tedious. It cuts against the mandate of this site, which is to gratify intellectual curiosity—the polar opposite of tedium.
        patrec 10y ago

greglindahl 10y ago

This is an excellent illustration of the point dang made: Here you have a Huffington Post editor getting extremely close to putting words into someone else's mouth. It's a dark pattern in journalism.

aaronbrethorst 10y ago
OK, let's cut it down to just the quote from Levchin: "[Mayer] is by far the hardest working person in Silicon Valley. She gave birth to twins and then traded emails with me about a feature of a product she was launching in a week, within, from what I could tell, 20 minutes of giving birth. She is intensely committed to her cause. She’s awesome." Per Levchin: Marissa Meyer is awesome because she emailed Max Levchin about a product twenty minutes after giving birth. You can draw whatever conclusions you want to from that, but that sounds wildly unhealthy to me, and is nothing I would ever want anyone working for me—or anyone I work for—to venerate.
- dang 10y ago
  You completely changed the subject by hopping to a nearby prospective outrage and then getting outraged about it. And then you rewrote the outrage into your own higher-snark phrase, just in case the reader didn't get how outraged you are. That's not a convincing response to a call for more careful thinking. In fact, it's arguably not thinking at all. It's a game of labels, seeking an emotional payoff.
  - aaronbrethorst 10y ago
    paganel: "investors like Levchin do not care one iota about what said start-up founders will do with their lifes after all is said and done" dang: "You can't possibly know what iotas someone else cares about" aaronbrethorst: Here's a quote that describes what Levchin cares about. greglindahl: "Here you have a Huffington Post editor getting extremely close to putting words into someone else's mouth" aaronbrethorst: Here's just the quote that describes what Levchin cares about. dang: "You completely changed the subject" I give up.
    - dang 10y ago
      The error is that your quote doesn't cover every iota he cares about. That's like searching a list to make sure it has no odd numbers in it and stopping when you find 42. We don't commonly make that kind of mistake while programming, but we do commonly make it while venting. Many users come to internet forums to release pent-up emotional energy at their favourite symbolic targets. Monkeys do that too, only with feces rather than words, and not on the internet. We're all monkeys in this respect (edit: i.e. I don't mean to pick on you personally), so I don't believe HN can be immune to this (not for a while anyhow). But I do think we can do a little better. The point here is not about Max Levchin, of course. The point is that feces-throwing is extremely predictable (that's part of its pleasure) and therefore extremely tedious. It cuts against the mandate of this site, which is to gratify intellectual curiosity—the polar opposite of tedium.
      - patrec 10y ago