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Watch a VC use my name to sell a con

• deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
  • dylangs1030 15y ago
    Not a very helpful comment. Opinions aren't facts - there are two sides to the story. If you agree with the author, there's a better way to go about it then ad hominem insults.
• lwat 15y ago
  Anyone got a readable link please
  • jf 15y ago
    Not sure why you're having trouble reading the page, but here is the text of his blog post: "Normally I just ignore navel-gazing tech-industry articles like this, but people keep sending it to me, so I guess this guy is famous or something. Michael Arrington posted this article, "Startups Are Hard. So Work More, Cry Less, And Quit All The Whining" which quotes extensively from my 1994 diary. He's trying to make the point that the only path to success in the software industry is to work insane hours, sleep under your desk, and give up your one and only youth, and if you don't do that, you're a pussy. He's using my words to try and back up that thesis. I hate this, because it's not true, and it's disingenuous. What is true is that for a VC's business model to work, it's necessary for you to give up your life in order for him to become richer. Follow the fucking money. When a VC tells you what's good for you, check your wallet, then count your fingers. He's telling you the story of, "If you bust your ass and don't sleep, you'll get rich" because the only way that people in his line of work get richer is if young, poorly-socialized, naive geniuses believe that story! Without those coat-tails to ride, VCs might have to work for a living. Once that kid burns out, they'll just slot a new one in. I did make a bunch of money by winning the Netscape Startup Lottery, it's true. So did most of the early engineers. But the people who made 100x as much as the engineers did? I can tell you for a fact that none of them slept under their desk. If you look at a list of financially successful people from the software industry, I'll bet you get a very different view of what kind of sleep habits and office hours are successful than the one presented here. So if your goal is to enrich the Arringtons of the world while maybe, if you win the lottery, scooping some of the groundscore that they overlooked, then by all means, bust your ass while the bankers and speculators cheer you on. Instead of that, I recommend that you do what you love because you love doing it. If that means long hours, fantastic. If that means leaving the office by 6pm every day for your underwater basket-weaving class, also fantastic. "
    • yuhong 15y ago
      Probably OP is complaining about the green-on-black style of jwz's blog.
      • jf 15y ago
        Ah. I didn't even consider that. Probably because I'm someone who tried to get an old serial terminal for the authentic green-on-black experience.
        • joezydeco 15y ago
          Best part of reading a jwz post is the afterimage. Rock on, Jamie.
    • dylangs1030 15y ago
      He probably means that the website is reminiscent of the old Yahoo geocities websites - neon colors over a dark (usually black) background, haha. That aside, it's still pretty readable. Besides, the content is worth the eye strain in this case.
      • SimHacker 15y ago
        Ha ha! We're talking about jwz, and you think Geocities is old.
      • suivix 15y ago
        Maybe the website was designed for Netscape Navigator? :)
    • fpgeek 15y ago
      There's always the possibility that lwat is at work and jwz is blocked...
  • deleted 15y ago
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  • guelo 15y ago
    If you can't read that I wonder what you would have done back in the terminal days when you wouldn't have had an option. Everybody back then seemed to be able to read it with no problem. Maybe youngster's eyesight has become worse for some unexplained reason.
    • __david__ 15y ago
      I think it's just what you're used to. When I first saw a Mac I thought it was crazy the way all the windows were white and the text was black. All the white burned my eyes and I thought it was a terrible decision. But obviously everyone can cope with it just fine and it became the norm. The "oh my eyes" hyperbole about green on black is because people aren't used to it and it is in stark contrast to what "normal" is nowadays--but just use it for an hour and you'll be just fine. I personally think it's a little less straining on the eyes because there's less light hitting your eyes. Lately my terminals and emacs always use a black background.
• someone13 15y ago
  Some people may not enjoy the green-on-black text, so this might be of use: http://www.readability.com/articles/dirqhjff http://www.readability.com/articles/dirqhjff
  • pelemele 15y ago
    The color scheme is not random. He is probably an old timer like me remembering old green/black monochrome 14" monitors. http://www.classic-computers.org.nz/blog/images/2011-04-24-ibm-xt-with-mono-monitor.jpg http://www.classic-computers.org.nz/blog/images/2011-04-24-i...
    • Vivtek 15y ago
      Green and black monitors didn't rip my retinas to shreds. This does. I think he just does it because he can, part of the whole jwz f-bomber persona.
    • someone13 15y ago
      Oh, of course - I own one myself! But it's rather hard on the eyes, so I keep the Readability bookmarklet around :-)
    • draven 15y ago
      Use the phosphor screensaver (written by jwz) in the xscreensaver distribution together with Lynx/Elinks, as it can function as a terminal emulator: /usr/lib/xscreensaver/phosphor -scale 1 -program "lynx -dump http://www.jwz.org/blog/2011/11/watch-a-vc-use-my-name-to-sell-a-con/ http://www.jwz.org/blog/2011/11/watch-a-vc-use-my-name-to-se... | less"
  • renownedmedia 15y ago
    What could possibly be more readable than the phosphorous CRT look? :p
  • dminor 15y ago
    I find this Chrome extension pretty handy for that: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/nlbpiflhmdcklcbihngeffpmoklbiooj https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/nlbpiflhmdcklcbihn...
• felipemnoa 15y ago
  >>Follow the fucking money. When a VC tells you what's good for you, check your wallet, then count your fingers.<< This is just gold.
  • deleted 15y ago
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  • mjijackson 15y ago
    Been thinking a lot about this statement, but still not sure exactly what he means by it. I could interpret it a few different ways, and I'm probably over-thinking it. How do you interpret this?
    • guelo 15y ago
      It just means that the VC doesn't have your best interest in mind, they only care about making money.
    • duncanj 15y ago
      You may think you're shaking hands with someone but he's actually picking your pocket. "Count your fingers after shaking hands with that guy" is an idiom suggesting that the guy will steal one.
    • interlagos 15y ago
      It means that people pushing advice usually do so primarily for their own good. This is a universal truth that applies to many situations.
  • corin_ 15y ago
    It struck me more as simple than gold. If a VC that invested in a company gives them advice then obviously his goal is to make more money... but that goal will, in turn make you more money too. If you don't like the fact that a VC has the potential to make more money than you, the solution is to not take investment from one, not to ignore them after they take investment. Also remember that yes, they're not putting in a lot of work to make the money - but you aren't putting in a lot of money that you might lose, which they did. I'm not arguing for or against working crazy hours, just against the idea that you should be scared of any suggestion from a VC.
• kanwisher 15y ago
  Makes total sense, enjoy your work and don't buy into you have to kill yourself to make it big in a startup. And the payout might not be worth it in the end unless your in a lucky percentage.
• prawn 15y ago
  I'm glad he finished with a note for the people who actually get something out of hard work on their personal project because I doubt I'm alone in getting a lot of personal satisfaction in performing like that. It's not all the time that I pull an all-nighter or a couple of weeks of hard slog, but I often feel better for them. And I'd rather be doing that for myself on a side project or in the start-up lottery or within my own business than for someone else. If that isn't possible, then even for someone up the chain. If someone else (VC, client of mine, landlord, etc) also profits from this endeavour, so be it. Sometimes you have to know the lows to fully appreciate the highs. Further to that, I tend to enjoy weeks of fulfilling hard work with those glimpses of recreation more than I do the ones where I'm procrastinating, spinning my wheels or at a loss for something I can be bothered doing that day. Hard work, or hard holiday - that half-arsed stuff in the middle rarely satisfies.
  • dskhatri 15y ago
    I appreciated the final words too. I've noticed an increase in the number of people offering advice about how to do things "right", followed by comment streams about why that's wrong, and "right" would be doing things a different way. But what's right for one person is not for another. I too find myself working super hard on projects that may seem worthless to some, trading off my sleep once in a while. It makes me feel good. Maybe, rather than give advice, authors should do more of simply describing their experiences, and let the readers make inferences for themselves. Edit. Deleted the first word (Amen). Another growing practice, and one that I am guilty of in this case, is the overzealous use of showy phrases solely to draw attention.
    • paganel 15y ago
      > I appreciated the final words too. I've noticed an increase in the number of people offering advice about how to do things "right", followed by comment streams about why that's wrong, and "right" would be doing things a different way. Yeah, amen for that. I also have at least 3 personal projects to which I dedicate as much time as possible. I don't want nor expect to make any money out of them, and when one of my co-workers asked me why didn't I spend my free-time on freelancing to gain even more money (like he does) I answered that what I was doing made me feel good and that was that :)
• tom 15y ago
  I hope this signals the end of folks walking on egg shells around Arrington. He's no longer a "newsman". He's no longer going to make or break every startup that ends up on AOLCrunch. He's just an investor hoping for deal flow. An investor who's proven he's probably not the guy you'd want to work with, probably not the guy you'd want to partner with, probably not the guy who will ever be on anyone's side but his own. Kudos to Zawinski for calling him out.
  • notatoad 15y ago
    people walk on eggshells around arrington? i thought he was pretty much universally reviled, people are constantly calling him out for various crap. maybe not startup people who want his money/coverage, but bloggers and other hangers-on. i like this site: http://www.ismikearringtonadick.com/ http://www.ismikearringtonadick.com/
  • akkartik 15y ago
    jwz would have said this a year ago or three years ago. Timing has nothing to do with it, I think.
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      • dpark 15y ago
        He made multiple temporal references. "I hope this signals the end ..." "He's no longer..." Timing was definitely implied.
  • igorgue 15y ago
    I don't think he was ever able to "make or break" a startup.
    • 15y ago
• brk 15y ago
  I find that I really connect with about 1 in 4 of jwz's rants. It is a general rule that anytime there is someone above you in the hierarchy, they are going to make $2 for every $1.50 you make. Of COURSE the VC's will make more money than you. And the people who put the actual money into the funds should make even more than THEM. The startup world, and economy in general has changed dramatically from the last time jwz was heavily involved, IMO. It's good that he made what qualifies as his own fuck you money and can now look in on things from the outside and comment thoughtfully. For a lot of people though, working 80 hour weeks grinding out a startup or 3 is still the most probable way of banking a decent retirement fund AND still having some life left to enjoy. I don't think that I'd advise many people to do a 30 year career of crazy startups, but it's kind of a geek lottery and worth the gamble for lots of people. I don't really see where this is using his name to sell a con. If that were the case, I would think Arrington would pick someone who hadn't dropped out of the game a decade ago to sell his 'con'.
  • bigiain 15y ago
    "I don't think that I'd advise many people to do a 30 year career of crazy startups" And that's at least what _I_ took away from jwz's rant - doing it to get rich is a mug's game, choose to do "crazy startup" type things because you love doing it. You may get rich, you may not - truth is most of us can't tell from the inside whether we're "improving our chances" or not by slogging through as something we hate, it's ~90% likely to fail anyway. In the long run your chances of "happiness" are probably significantly improved by doing what you love now (instead of what you think might be outrageously lucrative).
  • deleted 15y ago
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  • gnufied 15y ago
    First thing, Michael Arrington does not understand one thing about software engineering. I have slogged for 4 years in a startup for very little equity and I know for a fact that, sleeping in office and not taking shower for days - does not mean somehow you are creating more. For a lot of us, we had little social life outside office and staying in office meant, staying somewhere I belonged. Glued to computer screen, does not mean - I was creating more, I was probably just fixing mistakes that wouldn't have been made, if clarity of thought would have been applied.Heck to be entirely honest, sometimes I would spend entire night on #ruby-lang, adding little to actual product. Michael Arrington, picks something jwz wrote in 1994 as an argument for - that is the only way to build software. Michael Arrington has not build anything himself. At best, he has an outsider perspective at least about actual act of writing code. And if you read between the lines, jwz burned out pretty fast, so much so that - he no longer makes software, now as VC you choose whether you want to invest in a company whose founders burn out and leave the mess or you will invest in a company which is here for long term. Here is the bottom line though - you will probably still work hard (occasionally), but not because Michael Arrington told you so, not because EA bosses are ready with a whip and probably because you love doing what you do and that is entirely different thing altogether.
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• bigohms 15y ago
  Wow. I didn't expect this one bit from Arrington. I'm surprised he is choosing to mine Internet archives for blog fodder over putting that much more time into guiding his portfolio to fewer mistakes and possibly 1% more potential. Startups, hard? Yes. We ALL know this. Are his opinions skewed towards his agenda? Also yes. There is no hiding the fact that he's in the money. The problem is that the "thought-leader" portion of his rant was lacking. And it's a bit of unfair baseball to bring up a random blog post from some guy nearly 20 years ago. My bets are that he didn't even bother doing follow up on this guy after the fact.
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• aspensmonster 15y ago
  > What _is_ true is that for a VC's business model to work, it's necessary for _you_ to give up _your_ life in order for _him_ to become richer. Isn't this more or less the case for any profits-go-to-owners business model? Or rather, any business model where employees are viewed as calculated costs and not owners worthy of a commiserate portion of the profit? I've often wondered how a different ownership model would work for a company. One where the owners still make more money than the VPs, who still make more money than the engineers, who still make more money than the techs, who still make more money than the CSRs, who still make more money than the cleaning staff, but everyone is seeing a salary that is at least XX.X percent higher than it was before. Or perhaps a function of CPI, per Capita GDP, and a few other variables. Honestly, company ownership just seems like one big game of who can grab the most power in a given time metric. Rather than money being a means to an end, it is the end. But that's just my inexperienced, undereducated take on the whole thing thus far.
  • guelo 15y ago
    > Isn't this more or less the case for any profits-go-to-owners business model? Almost every industry out there manages to make good profits without their employees having to give up their lives.
    • aspensmonster 15y ago
      I should have clarified. I was trying to make an observation on "employment" in general, whether you're treated with dignity as an employee or not. Even if you love your job, work <= 40 hours a week, have every weekend and holiday off, see your family every day, and life is going just swell, you're still probably never going to see _profits_ going to you, precisely because you're not considered an owner. You're a cost. And that deal may work out nicely. A six figure salary is nothing to sneeze at. But you're still not an owner. And in all likelyhood, you will never see past 7 figures. I suppose I think there might be a model out there that better reflects ownership and the concepts of who earned what. More than anything, I don't believe the owner "earns" all of the profits of a company. The [owner + every last other employee in the organization] "earned" the profits. But while every other employee is more or less capped in their earnings, the owner gets the profit. I understand the concept: take on a big risk, be rewarded for said risk with big gains. I suppose I just don't think anyone should be rewarded for winning a lottery of circumstance. If I owned a company, I don't think I'd see myself as having "earned" tens of millions of dollars and I don't think I'd be OK with taking home millions while the hundreds of staff beneath me did all of the brute work. But then again, I've never owned a company. Maybe if I did I'd feel a whole lot differently about the whole thing.
• rbreve 15y ago
  the goggles they do nothing
  • rbreve 15y ago
    The color theme make my eyes burn here is a readability link http://www.readability.com/articles/dirqhjff http://www.readability.com/articles/dirqhjff
    • ars 15y ago
      So strange - I love the color scheme, so easy to read. (The human eye is most sensitive, and has highest resolution in green.)
      • chrislomax 15y ago
        I'll be honest, it killed my eyes too. I was reading it up close on my big monitor and by the time I was looking back at my laptop all I could see were lines!
• pithic 15y ago
  To succeed, one must work hard and smart. Overwork is rarely smart and, if done regularly, practically a guarantee of failure.
• bl4k 15y ago
  wait, does jwz really expect us to believe that he doesn't know who arrington is? I mean, the techcrunch conference afterparty two years ago was at his night club .. and I am pretty sure i saw both of them there.
  • benatkin 15y ago
    He didn't imply that. What he did imply is that he underestimated Arrington's level of fame. Merely saying "this guy" doesn't imply not knowing who he is. As far as the nightclub thing...it could have been just a transaction from jwz's perspective.
  • mahmud 15y ago
    In this instance, identification of the individual VC responsible for this specific instance of The Lie is not important. Leaving him unnamed helps us abstract out the pattern to its most condensed brown residue, so we can recognize it on our feet should walk at night in the park, or frequent certain scene sites. Also, it's not that jwz doesn't know the dude, it's that jwz just doesn't give a fuck. [Edit: Just asked jwz, turns out he really doesn't know the guy. Increment jwz-man-crush https://twitter.com/#!/jwz/status/141359337401626624 https://twitter.com/#!/jwz/status/141359337401626624 ]
    • deleted 15y ago
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    • bl4k 15y ago
      when I re-read it I can see that is it more that he doesn't give a fuck. and thanks for clarifying with him.
  • tptacek 15y ago
    I would have been surprised and disappointed if Zawinski knew who Arrington was. Why would he? Zawinski is past the valley tech scene.
  • cdibona 15y ago
    I've booked/had people book the DNA and it's not uncommon to go through someone other than Jamie. So, yes, it's possible.
• betterlabs 15y ago
  I would love to hear PG's comment / viewpoint on this whole issue. I have done 3 startups so far (1 VC funded, 2 bootstrapped) and I work very hard because I love it BUT I never ever work at the expense of the time with my kids and anyone saying you have to give up your life to find success in the startup world is just misleading in a big way. There are tons of examples of highly successful people across many industries who have made a fortune without giving up their lives. And its wise to look beyond such myths which are made to seem like the "norm" sometimes.
  • akkartik 15y ago
    PG's described startups as 'compressing working life into a few years' (http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html) But Arrington and Zawinski aren't talking about founders and their startups. They're talking about working too hard on somebody else's startup. Totally different thing.
    • betterlabs 15y ago
      I was actually referring to PG's views on that issue that Arrington wrote about. And the whole discussion definitely applies to founder and their startups too, imo. The issues are the same and so are the trade-offs. Would you give you your life for your startup but not for anyone else'?
      • akkartik 15y ago
        Ah, I assumed the three startups you mentioned were your own. jwz talked about working hard and enriching others. That's not an issue if it's your own startup.
        • betterlabs 15y ago
          They were my own :-)
        • vidarh 15y ago
          It is an issue if there are VC's involved. One of the startups I co-founded and owned 25% on at outset ended up with a whopping 1% of the proceeds of the exit. I'm not bitter - in this case the exit recovered maybe 30% of the cash the VC's injected, after about 8 years - and so the dilution was understandable. But unless you bootstrap, you will increasingly be working to also enrich others, after VC's, options to other employees etc.. Exceedingly few VC-funded businesses end up with founders holding on to massive stakes all the way through to an acquisition or IPO. That is the tradeoff you make whenever you take VC money: You hope you accelerate your growth enough to more than offset the piece you give away. That is also why it is often more financially attractive for regular employees to join a VC funded startup: the growth rates are often similarly faster (but you often fail faster too, and more spectacularly; though failing faster is not necessarily a bad thing if you're first going to fail)
• moonchrome 15y ago
  Yeah VC's have it easy, it's all hookers and cocaine for them... His advice about "do what you like" is true in general but doesn't really account for the fact that you choose to work for a startup and you choose to accept VC money, with all the ups and downs attached to it. If you can't stand the heat - get out of the kitchen.
  • ryannielsen 15y ago
    Not all startups take VC. Not all startups that take VC require insane work schedules. Arrington's article is misleading and destructive – sleeping two hours a night isn't required for success and often leads to outcomes far removed from success. It's rather depressing that it's commonly believed all successful startups are driven by people with a single-minded focus who have no other lives. JWZ's post is, on the other hand, quite constructive – do what makes you happy. You don't have to fit the mold to be successful. Yes, a startup will sometimes command your life but that doesn't mean it needs to always command your life. I know many startups who haven't taken VC and let their employees lead fulfilling lives outside of work. I know companies that have taken VC and still encourage their employees to work sane hours. Working grueling and exhaustive hours doesn't guarantee success.
    • moonchrome 15y ago
      And I didn't say all startups take VC money, nor did I say that all startups require insane work schedules (that was addressing the VC will work you to the bone). But just because it's not always required, it's always a possibility that you will need to work like that in order to succeed, even in a big corporation things can go very wrong and you end up pulling a bad month (when launching a project in one big company I worked with the integrator went bankrupt and we had to finish the project on our own, IIRC I did 320H that month but got 5x pay check). In startups chance that you will need to work long hours is so high it's almost a certainty - startups are just like that, disorganized, unpredictable, underfunded and understaffed - for various reasons. You have no way of knowing that you won't need to do 80 hours in one week if something unexpected happens, that's the nature of it, it's a high risk/reward game (and I'm not implying that reward is guaranteed if you work "hard") and anyone entering should know what they are getting them selves in to.
• Chirael 15y ago
  Are there I <3 JWZ shirts yet? :)
  • mahmud 15y ago
    WWJWZD bracelet.
• deleted 15y ago
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• dschobel 15y ago
  I love that this is the top story on HN. I only wish that PG got as much flack for his startup economics hype piece[1] and proposition to compress a lifetime's worth of work effort into four years. [1] http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html
  • 9oliYQjP 15y ago
    I've not seen eye to eye with PG on everything he has written. But this particular essay is one of my favourites of his. PG laid out an upper bound, which he later clarifies: "If $3 million a year seems high, remember that we're talking about the limit case: the case where you not only have zero leisure time but indeed work so hard that you endanger your health." And his upper limit for hours worked was 2x that of a corporate employee. Taken literally, this could be 80 hours per week, or 16 hour days. PG is not advocating this lifestyle in his essay. He's saying that it's theoretically possible but at the cost of your good health. Arrington says to hell with your health: quit the whining and work through the pain. This is not an upper bound but in fact an average that he's trying to push. That's why I despise the Arrington article but don't take issue with PG's.
    • DeAngeloLampkin 15y ago
      Overall, I loved the "Wealth" essay. I do wonder though if Paul ever considers that the same thing he says about Bill Gates' success could also be said about his own. "Bill Gates is a smart, determined, and hardworking man, but you need more than that to make as much money as he has. You also need to be very lucky." Or perhaps PG thinks his personal success is based purely off his own brilliance with no helpful outside factors needed (i.e. competitor blunders, etc)? :)
      • zck 15y ago
        One has to be a lot luckier to make fifty billion dollars than ten million dollars.
        • 15y ago
• deleted 15y ago
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• EGreg 15y ago
  This is the comment I left on Uncrunched: (PS: if you feel inclined to downvote, cool -- but I would like to know the reason. Maybe you can reply and tell me why you seem to disagree.) LOL Mike. Our company gets things done without having to live like slaves. There is a reason http://qbix.com/about http://qbix.com/about has pictures of all of us in nature. It’s subtle but it all fits together with our company’s vision. We want to have fun and enjoy LIVING LIFE as we enjoy creating the tools that improve other people’s lives. Yes, we work hard. And we create things together. But with the internet, 3G, and Wifi we are able to work from anywhere! This is more than can be said for any other industry, and we are lucky to be around in this time when we can travel and still get things done. Not only that, but the geographical constraints are now loosened. Not too long ago you could only choose among engineers that live nearby. Today you can hire engineers that do great work even if they live halfway around the world, and you can connect over the internet, Skype, and a host of other tools that just work. We are building more of these tools. We believe in liberating people from their computers and focusing on just living their lives and getting things done. We love freedom. We want it for others, and we want it for ourselves. It takes a careful system and a focus on process, but it can be done. With the right tools, the right guidelines and habits, we can be productive without sleeping under desks. After all, you have one life, and work is a part of it. We have a motto: people live lives, companies create products.
  • walkon 15y ago
    Nice plug.
    • EGreg 15y ago
      Not really a plug - just proud of what we are doing. Actually from a strictly selfish point of view I'd rather have kept it a secret and not said anything, because the more people realize how much talent is out there without geographical boundaries, the harder it'll be for us to hire. But at the same time we really do like our freedom, including freedom of information, and we want to lead by example. Think of it this way ... the guys at 37signals always have their own vision and culture that they are pushing. We have the culture of freedom, enjoying life, getting things done, and making smart tools that empower people to get things done better, have control over their data and liberate them from having to waste their time on the computer. We are proud to be a company that is able to take advantage of the latest opportunity that is out there ... to get work done without all the nonsense, and to still have time to enjoy our lives!
• staunch 15y ago
  It's the height of ridiculousness for someone who retired, at like age 30 to run a nightclub, after working at a startup to say it's a "con". What kind of terrible "con" turns the victim into a millionaire. There are far more startup employees that have become rich than founders or investors. Tens or hundreds of thousands of them. Of course they don't get as much money as the founders or investors, but how is that anything other than perfectly fair? Empirically it does require extremely hard work to make a startup successful. You can't point to any major success like Netscape or Google that didn't involve someone at some point sleeping under a desk. That's really all Arriington is saying, and it's quite obviously correct. For some people it might be no better than playing the lottery, but for other people their odds are going to be very high. Someone like Bill Gates would have been hugely successful as a McDonald's franchisee or anything else he chose to do. Just because some people are delusional about their odds doesn't make it a con.
  • vaksel 15y ago
    for an employee to get rich at a startup...and by which I mean $1 million cashout(which isn't really all that rich anyways)...the company would need to sell for $100mm...and much more likely, the number is closer to $250mm...since employees tend to get ~ half a percent of equity..and that's early employees...so the number is even lower for those that come in later. So sure, there are billion dollar companies where employees get millions...but those are rare...almost as rare as the number of people who make millions playing the lottery
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  • InclinedPlane 15y ago
    JWZ acknowledges that he got lucky with the "Netscape Startup Lottery" and is trying to tell people that most employees at most startups won't see the same results. Even if they are world-class genius coders. Even if they put in 80 hour work weeks for several years. JWZ isn't a good example to emulate because he is a rare example. Patio11 is a better example because there are literally thousands more devs in a similar position. Self-employed, doing well, but not retired and not outrageously wealthy.
• mike_esspe 15y ago
  What do you care about someone becoming rich due to your work, if you are becoming rich too? Let's consider two situations: 1) You work X hours, paid Y dollars for that 2) You work 2 * X hours, paid 100 * Y dollars for that, and some VC is paid 1000 * Y dollars. Should you chose the first?
  • InclinedPlane 15y ago
    The point that JWZ is making is that you are by no means guaranteed getting rich, or anywhere close to getting rich by following the "work your ass off as a startup employee" advice that Arrington seems to be providing. It is a pretty sure-fire way to generation substantial ROI for VCs, but it's not a good strategy for coders. Indeed, overall it is probably a less worthwhile strategy than punching a clock to the barest minimum of requirements to earn a salary and then using the remaining free time to acquire new skills (technical or otherwise) or work on personal projects (like one's own startups).
• kamaal 15y ago
  Oh, C'mon. So I'm not supposed to work hard and get rich because as a side effect that some one else also is? My dad is a cab driver. He really works his life off. Under absolutely dismal financial conditions he and may mom have given their whole lives to bring us out of poverty. They got me and my sister decent education. They did what every poor family in India does. They worked hard, saved money, invested it and got their kids good education so that we could now stand on our own legs. He still pushes a 12-16 hours schedule everyday. You know what? Compared to most of his cab driver peers we are like 1000x better. He has achieved what none of them have ever or will ever achieved. He pays a lot of commission to the travel office which gives him rentals. And sure they are getting rich too. He is using them and they are using him. That's how it all works. But he would not exist without them and vice versa. He can of course sit back at home, he is old too(like he is nearing 65) and tell the travel office is getting rich because of his work so he won't go to work. But, he doesn't do that. He works hard for everything he has every earned. Of course most of his friends and peers call him merely lucky. And that he is also a fool to be working hard not smart. I really want people to define smart work. Its like people try to say there is some magical way to produce wealth and value out of nothing and that only smart alecs are capable of that.
  • quanticle 15y ago
    It's not about working hard or getting rich. It's about working until you've put your health in danger. It's about coding until you're hallucinating. It might be necessary. But it's not laudable. Likewise, with your dad, what's laudable is the result. What's not laudable is the process. I'm sure that your dad would have jumped at the opportunity to make the same amount of money for fewer hours worked every day. In life, you don't get credit for trying. You get credits for results. Yes, working hard is necessary. It's not sufficient, though. You need a lot of luck to strike it rich like jwz did. That's the point he's trying to make. Sometimes, you work 16, 20 hour days, and you just go home bankrupt because the market just isn't there, the investors aren't willing to believe, and the customers don't give a damn. Then what do you have? You've ruined your health, you've alienated your family, you've isolated yourself for what? A dream. An illusion. I'm not trying to take anything away from your dad. Those 16 hour days had value. But let's not pretend that there was zero luck involved. What if the travel agency hadn't given him rentals? What if his taxi had broken down and he'd been forced into debt in order to secure repairs? What if he'd come down with diabetes, heart disease, cancer, or any number of ailments that could have ended his career? All those things (and many many more) would have prevented him from being able to provide you with that college education. So yeah, definitely celebrate hard work. But don't pretend that pure hard work and saving money gives you the ability to stand on your own two legs. Those are the prerequisites, but there's a whole lot of other things that have to go right for everything to turn out well.
• alexwolfe 15y ago
  Some good advice and wisdom in this post. Getting rich from a startup is a lottery, I've personally worked for many over the last ten years (most fail). What isn't a lottery is your time and how you use it. If you do something that makes you happy every day, you don't need to win the lottery to be successful. Nice article.
• codeslush 15y ago
  I LOVE, absolutely LOVE his home page! http://www.jwz.org/ http://www.jwz.org/ WELL DONE SIR!
  • basugasubaku 15y ago
    It's been like that since like 1999. And there's always been this comment in the source: <!-- mail me if you find the secret --> <!-- (no, you can't have a hint) -->
• barce 15y ago
  tl;dr: don't get played by Arrington.
• mythz 15y ago
  Massive respect for jwz.org for disregarding popular opinion and dropping truth.
• snowwrestler 15y ago
  It's worth pointing out that while Arrington is a VC now, he also started his own company (TechCrunch), worked very hard to grow it for years, and guided it to a nice exit to AOL. So this is not necessarily a case of "do as I say, not as I do." He was famously hard working when he was growing TechCrunch.
• rwmj 15y ago
  And don't forget the people who worked hard, slept under their desks etc and then got ripped off and ended up with no lottery win at all.
• antirez 15y ago
  Humans are not designed to: 1) Stay long hours sitted, immobile. It ruins your health. 2) To provide a steady high quality output in creative disciplines (writing code qualifies) for more than a 4/5 hours a day (add to this the time to do breaks, install your updates, check news sites, fix the email client, and you'll reach the 7/8 hours per day figure). It makes sense in a startup to work hard in crucial weeks, you can sustain that for a few days both from the point of view of your body and your productivity, but making this the rule is just plain silly. Also, remember that a startup has a small percentage of probabilities of making you rich, so better for you to also enjoy life while working at a startup. Try hard in your working hours (but it is more a matter of doing the right things than the wrong things for a lot of hours), but enjoy life when it's 6 pm. What's silly is that also VCs are likely to don't really get more return from you by overworking you, but there is nothing than humanity has seen more often than a silly boss that feels more comfortable if you are overworking yourself.
  • alexandros 15y ago
    It seems to me that Arrington does not realise that managing coders is not the same as managing journos on a blog. Maybe writers can churn and churn while working miserable hours for years on end. It does not work that way in coding. One hour of coding without thinking carefully can have a large negative contribution to your company's ability to meet its goals, by way of causing bad architectural decisions, bugs, and/or downtime.
    • dgalling 15y ago
      I highly doubt writers can work the same way. Anyone doing any type of creative work needs these types of breaks. Similarly, one article published without adequate editing/fact-checking can do wonders to destroy the credibility of a blog...
      • duck 15y ago
        I agree, but maybe this would explain why most TechCrunch articles are so bad.
      • 15y ago
• jorkos 15y ago
  I don't think Mike is writing in the spirit you suggest; he's just arguing that you have to work hard to achieve something great. Is there something wrong with that argument? Of course, VCs want the people they invest in to work hard....does that surprise anyone? No one has to take VC money.....know what you're signing up for.
• frouaix 15y ago
  Somehow I fail to equate Zynga with "dent in the universe". Netscape did make a dent. Google did make a dent. If you have the choice of where you'll work, and you want to work that hard, you might want to pay attention to how what actual value will come out of your work for the rest of us...
• Joss451 15y ago
  I've lived through a programmer's career already. Everything was good until age 50 when my body punished me for punishing it for 25 years. Seven heart surgeries. High blood pressure. Damaged kidneys. Removal of an inner ear (from flying while ill and not getting to a doc in some place or another). Take care of your body, blokes. It's the only thing keeping your brain intact. The cummulative effect of stress over a number of years is to attempt to kill you.
  • bigohms 15y ago
    Thanks for this
• dlikhten 15y ago
  While reading this post I was thinking of a few funny things about life and money: Money makes money. An example is Kim Kardasian. What does she produce? Nothing. Does she actually make anything better than others? No. She has money. Using that money she was able to be part of a TV show, which she used as an oportunity to make herself a character people liked, used that to up-sell whatever crap she made, used that to make shittons of cash on her wedding. How is that relevant? Well, same happens here. If you have money, you can invest, money that is much needed for business to get off the ground. Now you may argue that "don't get investment money, start small, then make a bigger business when you can affort it" which is actually quite valid. However if that is not what you want then you are basically asking people for money. They made the money, and are reaping the benefits of that money. So basically you get rich, they get rich. You did the work though. However once you get rich, you can now make the bigger business that you wanted to, this time bootstrapped.
• mmaunder 15y ago
  This argument has been painted as VC's vs employees. You're either one or the other and a VC gets rich and employees do all the work. What about company founders that get rich and work insanely hard?
• agentultra 15y ago
  For the argument that "my father taught me to work hard...": If I get more done in an hour than you do, should I continue to work as many hours as physically possible just to get ahead? What if the experience I've gained over a decade of doing this allows me to do twice the work that you do in an hour? Simply working more hours is just a race to the bottom. There's nothing there. In fact I'd argue that it stifles the mind from seeing the bigger picture. A good mind built for solving problems doesn't try to exhaust itself with repetitive, menial tasks. You may work 16 hours a day but I argue that you will get less and less done per hour. And in the end whether you get rich or not all you'll have to show for it is diabetes, some form of erectile dysfunction (if you happen to have those bits), coronary disease, and an amphetamine addiction. Instead cultivate your mind and aim higher. Perseverance does pay off. That should be the lessons of your fathers/mentors/etc who "worked hard."
  • s73v3r 15y ago
    Working hard isn't simply working more hours.
• AznHisoka 15y ago
  Overworking yourself sounds sexy, and glamorous until you experience what it's like for your brain cells to literally attack itself due to not getting enough sleep.
• grellas 15y ago
  "Those who work hard make good" is a profoundly American theme that dates back to Horatio Alger and before - it can hardly be said to originate from a cabal of VCs trying to "put one over" on hapless founders and startup employees in Silicon Valley. No doubt Mr. Arrington adds his peculiarly abrasive touch to the debate (toughen up, don't whine, and let's applaud Zynga for what it did to its employees), but he did something very similar not too long ago in chiding investors who were whining about being in the "middle of a terrible blubble" (http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/24/were-in-the-middle-of-a-terrible-blubble/ http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/24/were-in-the-middle-of-a-ter...). Like it or not, this is his philosophy and outlook about what it takes to play the startup game. It is his expression of ideas and social commentary. One can disagree with it as much as one likes but it is unfair to say that this is nothing more than a con job. It is also unfair to take him to task for quoting from a publicly available source to support his idea of what the experiences of startup employees have been like in Silicon Valley - if the goal is to illustrate such experiences, then what better source to use than a diary whose purpose was precisely to document them. If the author of that diary wants to say, "no, that's not what I meant" in response, that is fine but that doesn't justify an ad hominem attack on the person using it to illustrate ideas he wants to espouse. My point here is strictly about fair argumentation, not about the merits of the debate. Whether right or wrong on the merits, I think the author takes an unfair shot in the way he makes his points here. We all have ideas and core beliefs, even those who are VCs. We all should be free to express them without being accused of nefarious motives.
  • sausagefeet 15y ago
    But it is nefarious. Long hours do not equate to more money. Arrington is pushing a work philosophy that help him, not the people he's directing it at and he's using a big name to do it.
  • Fliko 15y ago
    Everyone is free to express themselves, being accused is just a side effect of expression. Hell, Arrington took a stab at jwz in his response. jwz's advice is extremely valid, it doesn't matter if it's about VCs or vending machines. You have to work hard, but you also have to work smart and be wary that there is always someone waiting to profit off of what you built, he never said it's always the VC.
• thewisedude 15y ago
  I think just talking about only hard work being a means to success is a over-simplification of working of this complex world. Working smart as opposed to working hard is also important if you want to benefit financially. Lets say a kid works hard in his college days and gets to be a dentist or a lawyer or somebody like that. Lets say another kid in similar circumstances chooses not to work that hard or makes a bad judgement and ends up in a not so rewarding area- rank and file job. It is totally fathomable that the dentist kid could end up making twice as much by working half as hard as the rank and file kid for the rest of their lives. All in all, the idea that working harder will reward you in the future seem fair or karmic. The real world probably is not that simple. I would think there are many other equally important factors like opportunities, luck, judgement etc.
• jebblue 15y ago
  I couldn't stay on the web page for more than three seconds, all black.
• neilk 15y ago
  Please check out erinn's comment, which is as good as the original post if not better: http://www.jwz.org/blog/2011/11/watch-a-vc-use-my-name-to-sell-a-con/#comment-98274 http://www.jwz.org/blog/2011/11/watch-a-vc-use-my-name-to-se...
• joshontheweb 15y ago
  From all of these comments it becomes apparent why Arrington doesn't allow comments on his blog ;P
• beachgeek 15y ago
  This has been a great discussion all. Being a tech guy myself, I agree with the majority of you. Its pointless working oneself (to death?) for someone else like we do, especially when the end result isn't even cast in stone. But every time I think my job sucks, its too hard, my boss sucks etc, I think of this guy. I took this pic in India when they were laying a road near where I live. It was 100F and 100% humidity. The guy in the picture was carrying hot rocks and tar in a metal pan and spreading them across the road: http://i624.photobucket.com/albums/tt328/hmbsandman/carrying_rocks.jpg http://i624.photobucket.com/albums/tt328/hmbsandman/carrying... In general, I am thankful and immensely grateful. If you are reading this you should be as well.
• losethos 15y ago
  Yeah -- the Xytec job was set-up by the CIA within biking distance from my house after I had exposure to image processing on the Ticketmaster bar code. I'm greatful for the job. I learned a lot. I didn't like the job, at all. I barely worked 40 hour weeks. The graphic technology job was set-up by the CIA here in Vegas. At Ticketmaster, I prototyped a laser printer and expressed an interest. The graphic technology job seemed like red team blue team and I was the red team. It got insane when my boss wanted me to reverse the secure hash algorithm. Losing battle, asked to do the impossible. They studied how I got the parallel port to logic analyse and they set the frequency of stuff just faster. Stuff like that. Since then, I've realized all jobs expect the impossible because the state of the art is the best people can do. I did nothing to distinguish myself at Xytec--I learned and was a peon without passion. God says... C:\LoseThos\www.losethos.com\text\SWIFT.TXT hether it were the custom in his country to say the thing which was not?" I assured him, "I had almost forgot what he meant by falsehood, and if I had lived a thousand years in Houyhnhnmland, I should never have heard a lie from the meanest servant; that I was altogether indifferent whether he believed me or not; but, however, in return for his favours, I would give so much allowance to the corruption of his nature, as to answer any objection he would please to make, and then he might easily disco ----------- The CIA spends buttloads of money on radio just for me. Dwarfs my disability check or even $100,000. Relax, God is just. I win the grand-jackpot lottery a hundred times a day, after all. :-) Be afraid. God says... nerd furious theft King_Midas nope as_a_matter_of_fact you're_wonderful hang_in_there I'm_not_sure crash_and_burn peace you're_in_big_trouble I_am_not_amused BRB shucks you're_fired OperatingSystem ridiculous -------- I will counter sue the CIA for driving me insane. Put-up with actors and shit annoying me and radio talking to me. You're in deep shit, morons, WTF!!! God talks!! You know that? A psychotic Norway dude would be page 4 when God is proven! REvelation, mother fucka!! Moses killed a dude and yet gave the commandments. Yawn. God says... C:\LoseThos\www.losethos.com\text\PLATO.TXT e philosopher has to be ascertained. We must come to an understanding about him, and, when we have done so, then, if I am not mistaken, we shall also acknowledge that such an union of qualities is possible, and that those in whom they are united, and those only, should be rulers in the State. What do you mean? Let us suppose that philosophical minds always love knowledge of a sort which shows them the eternal nature not varying from generation and corruption. Agreed. And further, I said --------- I know the mormon dude's claim to own a world. I underastand what "born again" means. God talks in riddles, just like in the Bible and all that tenderkindness stuff has been confirmed. Book 1984 makes sense. Tons of movies have been written about me--perks by the CIA. We won't get into what I've done with my little world. God says... C:\LoseThos\www.losethos.com\text\BIBLE.TXT he mountains, in the cities of the vale, and in the cities of the south, and in the land of Benjamin, and in the places about Jerusalem, and in the cities of Judah, shall the flocks pass again under the hands of him that telleth them, saith the LORD. 33:14 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will perform that good thing which I have promised unto the house of Israel and to the house of Judah. 33:15 In those days, and at that time, will I cause the Branch of righteousness to grow up un ----- Evil CIA fuckers nuked serial ports so you can't connect a generic terminal device--they need a specific USB driver. Try hooking-up a little microcontroller. It's not like the old days with hyperterm. God says... C:\LoseThos\www.losethos.com\text\2CITIES.TXT d of feet; some, as it seemed, under the windows; some, as it seemed, in the room; some coming, some going, some breaking off, some stopping altogether; all in the distant streets, and not one within sight. "Are all these footsteps destined to come to all of us, Miss Manette, or are we to divide them among us?" "I don't know, Mr. Darnay; I told you it was a foolish fancy, but you asked for it. When I have yielded myself to it, I have been alone, and then I have imagined them the footsteps of t
• someone13 15y ago
  COMPLETELY unrelated, but I do wonder - is this the most upmodded submission here on HN? I know reddit has the /top/ modifier you can add to links (e.g. http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/top/ http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/top/), but I was unable to find anything similar here.
• aaronf 15y ago
  Working consistent long hours does not mean you're getting more done. I believe RescueTime has data showing the average person at work 8-hours a day is only working 2-4 hours. The people I know who are consistently first in and last out are not getting more done - in fact they're usually doing it to make up for something. One theory on productivity says procrastinators and workaholics have the same core issue - but respond to it in opposite ways. This reminds me of the Seinfeld episode when George Castanza leaves his car at work so his boss thinks he's always there. We need to stop measuring productivity by hours worked. Instead, productivity should be about finishing what you set out to do. If that only takes 4 hours, GO HOME. Plan the next day. Get some rest. Your output will be higher, and you'll be healthier and happier.
• mncolinlee 15y ago
  I would argue that some of the best code I've ever written didn't take long to write. If Arrington understood both the physical and mental nature of bug-quashing, he'd have a more nuanced view of the slavish work sessions he's advocating. Sometimes it makes sense to pull overnighters and sometimes it simply burns a coder out and drives him to poor productivity and an infectious bad attitude. It takes an expert to know the difference.