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>@ryancarson can you blog about how you spend your day running your biz? What biz activities do you focus on now that the product is up? The person on Twitter

>@ryancarson can you blog about how you spend your day running your biz? What biz activities do you focus on now that the product is up? The person on Twitter clearly asks about the business. The author then proceeds to write 18 points about his day, only five of which are actually about the business, including some gems like, "Crank through todos". Does this guy think he's a celebrity or something? Why am I interested in his personal life whatsoever? He's the "CEO" of a small company most people have never heard of. Someone in the comments asks him why he calls his phone an iPhone, rather than just a phone, to which he replies that he wants us to know the all the details and specifics. Oh, so you go into detail about how eating right away boosts your metabolism, but 3 hours of the day is "meetings"? Thanks for being specific.

Void_ 14y ago
How to be cool, a HN guide: 1. Get up at 5 AM or sooner 2. Go to gym every day 3. Eat organic food or be vegetarian or vegan 4. Use iPhone and 11" MacBook Air 5. Work from coffee shops 6. Write a blog post about it and post it on Hacker News Feel free to add ideas. :) (I'm not mocking the author, but the idea.)
- crusso 14y ago
  People want to "live the life", I guess. You can't blame them for wanting money, free time, power, celebrity, and a beautiful family. I think that shooting for success in a "balanced" life is a great thing. What that balance is varies tremendously by the individual. My only beef is when sideline critics go ballistic just because someone works hard and wants to be a part of a team that works hard. Take a look at the HN-linked article from yesterday where the Google manager talked frankly about being driven and the manager of a group that's very work-oriented and driven. From some of the comments in the thread, you'd think that she was talking about her joy of drowning kittens. It's a shame to see that kind of attitude dominate the conversation of even one thread on HN, a site that should be open to many routes to success for entrepreneurs, including very hard work.
  - ZanderEarth32 14y ago
    "Celebrity" would be a negative side effect to me. Constantly under the microscope, open to criticism over every aspect of your life. Some people handle it well, but most do not it seems.
  - slurgfest 14y ago
    I can't blame people for working in order to have money, bargaining in order to keep some free time. Those are constructive. Dominating everyone and being known by everyone are greedy goals which won't make you happy. If you want a spouse and kids you had better think they are beautiful. People go ballistic when you suggest that they are obligated to accept terrible working conditions where they don't have (for example) any free time to spend with their beautiful family. They go ballistic because such arguments tend to be very successful and result in bad working conditions. Hopefully you understand that hard work does not require you to put in 160-hour weeks.
    - crusso 14y ago
      People go ballistic when you suggest that they are obligated to accept terrible working conditions where they don't have (for example) any free time to spend with their beautiful family. No, that's a straw man. I'm talking about people going ballistic when there's no true obligation in question. We're in a high-demand industry where you can normally go get another job. I'm not saying there aren't exceptions, but typically there isn't a need to suffer in a bad job. When I don't like my work/life/compensation balance, I find a new job. People I work with do the same thing. Hell, HN is a site dedicated to people who have or aspire to creating their own companies to mold the work environments that suit them and the people with whom they wish to work. Read the article this thread is attached to. Ryan Carson is living a work/personal life balance that is enviable by many standards. I would argue that in order to allow people like Ryan to go out and do what they want, you need to allow other people who want different work/life/compensation balances to pursue the environments they want. Freedom of choice and encouragement to experiment would seem to be a much greater set of principles to embrace, rather than sniping at hard workers from the sidelines because their idea of working through a Saturday evening with their team while they're trying to get that big contract isn't your cup of tea. What place does glorified perpetual self-victimization have here?
pliny 14y ago
That's a bit generous, 'todos' appears in four different points during the day, the specifics he gives are that he chats with Alan, goes to meetings, thinks about the company, communicates, and researches solutions.
whyleyc 14y ago
> Why am I interested in his personal life whatsoever ? Give Ryan a break. Running a startup and balancing that with personal / family life is a huge question for many entrepreneurs, and I for one am pleased to see Ryan being candid about it. Glossing over the "Crank through todos" section is fine with me too - These are likely different day-to-day, and I'd rather he painted a picture of how he steers the company, than get bogged down in company internals. Besides, if you want to know specifics just ask him (he hangs out here), rather than acting like a douche.
tonyjwang 14y ago
I think you're being unfair. 1. The person on Twitter doesn't exclusively ask Ryan about the business. He specifically asks how he spends his day. Even if the asker wanted to know more about the business and less about his day, Ryan's response is appropriate given how the question was phrased. 2. Ryan does talk about which business activities he focuses on. He specifically mentions how he used to handle newsletters, wireframes, support emails, and marketing plans but now focuses on strategy, product, and team communication. 3. Ryan is a CEO of a venture-backed company and people, including ones on HN, are sometimes interested in the lives of people like him, both the personal and professional aspects. The personal details he shared helped me understand how he's able to maintain work-life balance, notwithstanding the demands of a CEO, which I find personally useful. 4. As to your complaint of him specifically mentioning his iPhone, one of the other commenters put it best: "Because his identity revolves around the brand of his phone and he's just begging for your validation. OR The post is full of specific details and he owns an iPhone." If you want Ryan to be more specific, you could ask him on his blog. But I think it's unreasonable to expect that Ryan should have had the foresight to be more specific, and then subsequently criticize him for not being specific.
- tatsuke95 14y ago
  >"The person on Twitter doesn't exclusively ask Ryan about the business. He specifically asks how he spends his day." Wrong. He asks: "can you blog about how you spend your day running your biz?" followed by "What biz activities do you focus on now that the product is up?". "Biz" is referring to business, in case you didn't pick that up. >" Ryan is a CEO of a venture-backed company and people, including ones on HN, are sometimes interested in the lives of people like him, both the personal and professional aspects. " I'll tell you what his life is like: it's just like yours, or anyone else who has a work-day. Do you really think that somehow being a venture-backed CEO of a tiny company changes your life? That's incredibly naive. >"As to your complaint of him specifically mentioning his iPhone" I didn't complain about it, someone in the comments did. His reply was what interested me. >"If you want Ryan to be more specific, you could ask him on his blog." No, I don't care to read his blog. As I've said, I have no interest in his day-to-day life. I care about reading HN, and this article appeared today. It's the only reason I stumbled on it, mostly because it had such an eye-catching title.
tjr 14y ago
What I got out of reading about his "non-business" items on the list was an emphasis that his life is not solely focused on running his company. He values his family; he values his life. His entire existence is not summed up in what he does for his company. Does this matter, since he's a relatively-unknown CEO of a small company? Would it matter if he were a famous CEO of a huge company? That might attract the interest of more readers, but I don't think it really matters any more or any less. He's a fellow human who is offering his insights. Maybe you don't need his insights, but that's okay. There are lots of people offering things that I do not need, but that doesn't mean they should keep to themselves.
runjake 14y ago
> Does this guy think he's a celebrity or something? Not to slam the guy, but if you examine his submission history, he seems to be using HN as a tool to build his "personal brand". Regardless, readers upvote it.
- mindcrime 14y ago
  It people find the content valuable, does it matter if he's gaining something from the exposure? Come to think of it, aren't a lot of the people who post here doing it (at least partially) to promote themselves or something they're building? I mean, I freely admit I am, for one[1]. [1]: Fogbeam Labs, the up-and-coming Open Source collaboration/knowledge-management company. http://www.fogbeam.com http://www.fogbeam.com Go there now and sign up for our newsletter. It's not necessary for you to spend the rest of your day thinking about how cool Fogbeam Labs are, and how much you want to email all your friends and tell them about us too. But if you can remember a time when you were really excited about a company like Fogbeam Labs, then think back to those feelings and how that made you feel, and do the right thing.
  - crusso 14y ago
    > It people find the content valuable, does it matter if he's gaining something from the exposure? No. Nothing wrong with tatsuke95 giving the reasons why he thinks the emperor has no clothes either, though. Maybe if the consensus at HN is that some organizations are over-using link bait for self-promotion, a little more awareness of that isn't a bad thing. Personally, I found the link to have a couple of interesting tidbits, but I welcome contrary thoughts on the value of the article as long as they're stated reasonably politely and appear to have some logic behind them.
  - larrys 14y ago
    "Come to think of it, aren't a lot of the people who post here doing it (at least partially) to promote themselves or something they're building?" I don't have an issue with self promotion on the part of anyone including what you have done with the [1]. (As an aside I've never charged anyone for anything mentioned in my hn profile although somehow I suspect that some people have felt that I am self promoting. (Which is not to say I won't charge I just haven't so far...) There appears though to be an imaginary line that some HN posters cross that seems to upset people here depending on the poster. Based on a recent ryancarson post he may have crossed it. (Someone wrote sarcastically that he writes the BEST blog posts, Ryan thanked that person, then someone else basically told ryan he was a schmuck for not seeing the sarcasm (the parent was quickly deleted interestingly). Regardless of whether someone finds Ryan annoying, pompous or not (personally I don't like the picture of him with the hat, sorry Ryan) I definitely know who Ryan is now and I think he's gained more than he will ever lose by tooting his own horn. And that can only help him. To this day people still make fun of Donald Trump. So if a hacker would rather toil in obscurity and not brag that is his choice. But there is a benefit to bragging and being pompous in achieving your goals and that should be kept in mind. Being humble only gets you so far. As an aside, you need to get some serious lorum ipsum on your site if you are going to promote it as you've done. http://fogbeam.com/about_us.html http://fogbeam.com/about_us.html
ngilmore031 14y ago
One of Ryan's big points in a lot of his articles is about work life balance. He explains his entire day which is great. Spending time with family and eating right are all important items that a lot of people forget about. Great post with a well rounded view of his day.
s_henry_paulson 14y ago
Meh, it's a generic question, and I think he does a good job going over his routine giving some insight into his activities.. and I think minute things, for example, going over big-picture items very early in the morning is something more people should adopt. >Why am I interested in his personal life whatsoever? Didn't you just open an article called 'A day in the life of a CEO'? > He's the "CEO" of a small company most people have never heard of. He's got 50 people working for him, and works from home. I think most of us would love to have 50 people working for us and to never have to suit-up to sit in a closet for most of the day. I can see why you're nitpicking about some of the items, but for the most part I've picked up some valuable tips from these posts, and I'd rather see content like this then a dozen repeated posts about something silly facebook did.
- ZanderEarth32 14y ago
  Just curious, what exactly did you pick up from this post that was helpful? Can you transfer any o this knowledge, or advice to your own life? Even if you were a CEO that worked from home, the odds of any of this applying to you would be small. To be honest, it sounds like an ideal schedule. A schedule many would love to have, including myself (minus the kids :D). The bigger picture I get from this post, is to take control of your life and schedule. Design the type of life you want to live, and then figure out the small details like how to afford this lifestyle and make time for it.
mindcrime 14y ago
Does this guy think he's a celebrity or something? Does that matter? If you find the content valuable, does it matter whether or not he thinks he's a celebrity? Conversely, if you don't find it valuable, does it matter whether or not he thinks he's a celebrity? Maybe it would be better to focus on the message and not the personality behind it? He's the "CEO" of a small company most people have never heard of. I'm not sure why you put CEO in quotes there... are you saying he isn't actually CEO of a company? And what difference does it make whether or not most people have heard of the company? Most people haven't heard of most of the companies founded by people who post on HN... and it sounds like Ryan has already done more than most of the wantrepreneur types who hang around these kinds of forums. What try to put him down for what he's accomplished?
- kevinskii 14y ago
  What try to put him down for what he's accomplished? He isn't being put down for what he has accomplished. He's being put down for writing a shallow self-serving blog post that is completely devoid of intellectual content, and then submitting it to HN. I hope enough others here flag this as well.
  - mindcrime 14y ago
    When somebody writes about him as a "CEO", with an implication that he's somehow less than a "real" CEO, then yes, that is putting him (and his company) down. It's ridiculous, IMO. This guy is out there, in the trenches, building a real company, and tries to share his experience, and he's getting slammed for it. This isn't what I've come to expect from HN. :-(
    - kahawe 14y ago
      > and tries to share his experience I think the point is: he might be trying but he is doing a horrible job at sharing that experience because the only thing he gives us is "he is a big picture thinker", he "cranks through to dos" and that Paul is important. There is hardly any "meat" or really interesting, helpful stuff in there - that's what the slamming is about. Is this really so difficult to see or differentiate?
brown9-2 14y ago
If you are reading a "day in the life of" article written by someone, I think it follows that you are interested in all the things that happened in that persons day. If not, why are you reading the article?

Void_ 14y ago

How to be cool, a HN guide: 1. Get up at 5 AM or sooner 2. Go to gym every day 3. Eat organic food or be vegetarian or vegan 4. Use iPhone and 11" MacBook Air 5. Work from coffee shops 6. Write a blog post about it and post it on Hacker News Feel free to add ideas. :) (I'm not mocking the author, but the idea.)

crusso 14y ago
People want to "live the life", I guess. You can't blame them for wanting money, free time, power, celebrity, and a beautiful family. I think that shooting for success in a "balanced" life is a great thing. What that balance is varies tremendously by the individual. My only beef is when sideline critics go ballistic just because someone works hard and wants to be a part of a team that works hard. Take a look at the HN-linked article from yesterday where the Google manager talked frankly about being driven and the manager of a group that's very work-oriented and driven. From some of the comments in the thread, you'd think that she was talking about her joy of drowning kittens. It's a shame to see that kind of attitude dominate the conversation of even one thread on HN, a site that should be open to many routes to success for entrepreneurs, including very hard work.
- ZanderEarth32 14y ago
  "Celebrity" would be a negative side effect to me. Constantly under the microscope, open to criticism over every aspect of your life. Some people handle it well, but most do not it seems.
- slurgfest 14y ago
  I can't blame people for working in order to have money, bargaining in order to keep some free time. Those are constructive. Dominating everyone and being known by everyone are greedy goals which won't make you happy. If you want a spouse and kids you had better think they are beautiful. People go ballistic when you suggest that they are obligated to accept terrible working conditions where they don't have (for example) any free time to spend with their beautiful family. They go ballistic because such arguments tend to be very successful and result in bad working conditions. Hopefully you understand that hard work does not require you to put in 160-hour weeks.
  - crusso 14y ago
    People go ballistic when you suggest that they are obligated to accept terrible working conditions where they don't have (for example) any free time to spend with their beautiful family. No, that's a straw man. I'm talking about people going ballistic when there's no true obligation in question. We're in a high-demand industry where you can normally go get another job. I'm not saying there aren't exceptions, but typically there isn't a need to suffer in a bad job. When I don't like my work/life/compensation balance, I find a new job. People I work with do the same thing. Hell, HN is a site dedicated to people who have or aspire to creating their own companies to mold the work environments that suit them and the people with whom they wish to work. Read the article this thread is attached to. Ryan Carson is living a work/personal life balance that is enviable by many standards. I would argue that in order to allow people like Ryan to go out and do what they want, you need to allow other people who want different work/life/compensation balances to pursue the environments they want. Freedom of choice and encouragement to experiment would seem to be a much greater set of principles to embrace, rather than sniping at hard workers from the sidelines because their idea of working through a Saturday evening with their team while they're trying to get that big contract isn't your cup of tea. What place does glorified perpetual self-victimization have here?

pliny 14y ago

That's a bit generous, 'todos' appears in four different points during the day, the specifics he gives are that he chats with Alan, goes to meetings, thinks about the company, communicates, and researches solutions.

whyleyc 14y ago

> Why am I interested in his personal life whatsoever ? Give Ryan a break. Running a startup and balancing that with personal / family life is a huge question for many entrepreneurs, and I for one am pleased to see Ryan being candid about it. Glossing over the "Crank through todos" section is fine with me too - These are likely different day-to-day, and I'd rather he painted a picture of how he steers the company, than get bogged down in company internals. Besides, if you want to know specifics just ask him (he hangs out here), rather than acting like a douche.

tonyjwang 14y ago

I think you're being unfair. 1. The person on Twitter doesn't exclusively ask Ryan about the business. He specifically asks how he spends his day. Even if the asker wanted to know more about the business and less about his day, Ryan's response is appropriate given how the question was phrased. 2. Ryan does talk about which business activities he focuses on. He specifically mentions how he used to handle newsletters, wireframes, support emails, and marketing plans but now focuses on strategy, product, and team communication. 3. Ryan is a CEO of a venture-backed company and people, including ones on HN, are sometimes interested in the lives of people like him, both the personal and professional aspects. The personal details he shared helped me understand how he's able to maintain work-life balance, notwithstanding the demands of a CEO, which I find personally useful. 4. As to your complaint of him specifically mentioning his iPhone, one of the other commenters put it best: "Because his identity revolves around the brand of his phone and he's just begging for your validation. OR The post is full of specific details and he owns an iPhone." If you want Ryan to be more specific, you could ask him on his blog. But I think it's unreasonable to expect that Ryan should have had the foresight to be more specific, and then subsequently criticize him for not being specific.

tatsuke95 14y ago
>"The person on Twitter doesn't exclusively ask Ryan about the business. He specifically asks how he spends his day." Wrong. He asks: "can you blog about how you spend your day running your biz?" followed by "What biz activities do you focus on now that the product is up?". "Biz" is referring to business, in case you didn't pick that up. >" Ryan is a CEO of a venture-backed company and people, including ones on HN, are sometimes interested in the lives of people like him, both the personal and professional aspects. " I'll tell you what his life is like: it's just like yours, or anyone else who has a work-day. Do you really think that somehow being a venture-backed CEO of a tiny company changes your life? That's incredibly naive. >"As to your complaint of him specifically mentioning his iPhone" I didn't complain about it, someone in the comments did. His reply was what interested me. >"If you want Ryan to be more specific, you could ask him on his blog." No, I don't care to read his blog. As I've said, I have no interest in his day-to-day life. I care about reading HN, and this article appeared today. It's the only reason I stumbled on it, mostly because it had such an eye-catching title.

tjr 14y ago

What I got out of reading about his "non-business" items on the list was an emphasis that his life is not solely focused on running his company. He values his family; he values his life. His entire existence is not summed up in what he does for his company. Does this matter, since he's a relatively-unknown CEO of a small company? Would it matter if he were a famous CEO of a huge company? That might attract the interest of more readers, but I don't think it really matters any more or any less. He's a fellow human who is offering his insights. Maybe you don't need his insights, but that's okay. There are lots of people offering things that I do not need, but that doesn't mean they should keep to themselves.

runjake 14y ago

> Does this guy think he's a celebrity or something? Not to slam the guy, but if you examine his submission history, he seems to be using HN as a tool to build his "personal brand". Regardless, readers upvote it.

mindcrime 14y ago
It people find the content valuable, does it matter if he's gaining something from the exposure? Come to think of it, aren't a lot of the people who post here doing it (at least partially) to promote themselves or something they're building? I mean, I freely admit I am, for one[1]. [1]: Fogbeam Labs, the up-and-coming Open Source collaboration/knowledge-management company. http://www.fogbeam.com http://www.fogbeam.com Go there now and sign up for our newsletter. It's not necessary for you to spend the rest of your day thinking about how cool Fogbeam Labs are, and how much you want to email all your friends and tell them about us too. But if you can remember a time when you were really excited about a company like Fogbeam Labs, then think back to those feelings and how that made you feel, and do the right thing.
- crusso 14y ago
  > It people find the content valuable, does it matter if he's gaining something from the exposure? No. Nothing wrong with tatsuke95 giving the reasons why he thinks the emperor has no clothes either, though. Maybe if the consensus at HN is that some organizations are over-using link bait for self-promotion, a little more awareness of that isn't a bad thing. Personally, I found the link to have a couple of interesting tidbits, but I welcome contrary thoughts on the value of the article as long as they're stated reasonably politely and appear to have some logic behind them.
- larrys 14y ago
  "Come to think of it, aren't a lot of the people who post here doing it (at least partially) to promote themselves or something they're building?" I don't have an issue with self promotion on the part of anyone including what you have done with the [1]. (As an aside I've never charged anyone for anything mentioned in my hn profile although somehow I suspect that some people have felt that I am self promoting. (Which is not to say I won't charge I just haven't so far...) There appears though to be an imaginary line that some HN posters cross that seems to upset people here depending on the poster. Based on a recent ryancarson post he may have crossed it. (Someone wrote sarcastically that he writes the BEST blog posts, Ryan thanked that person, then someone else basically told ryan he was a schmuck for not seeing the sarcasm (the parent was quickly deleted interestingly). Regardless of whether someone finds Ryan annoying, pompous or not (personally I don't like the picture of him with the hat, sorry Ryan) I definitely know who Ryan is now and I think he's gained more than he will ever lose by tooting his own horn. And that can only help him. To this day people still make fun of Donald Trump. So if a hacker would rather toil in obscurity and not brag that is his choice. But there is a benefit to bragging and being pompous in achieving your goals and that should be kept in mind. Being humble only gets you so far. As an aside, you need to get some serious lorum ipsum on your site if you are going to promote it as you've done. http://fogbeam.com/about_us.html http://fogbeam.com/about_us.html

ngilmore031 14y ago

One of Ryan's big points in a lot of his articles is about work life balance. He explains his entire day which is great. Spending time with family and eating right are all important items that a lot of people forget about. Great post with a well rounded view of his day.

s_henry_paulson 14y ago

Meh, it's a generic question, and I think he does a good job going over his routine giving some insight into his activities.. and I think minute things, for example, going over big-picture items very early in the morning is something more people should adopt. >Why am I interested in his personal life whatsoever? Didn't you just open an article called 'A day in the life of a CEO'? > He's the "CEO" of a small company most people have never heard of. He's got 50 people working for him, and works from home. I think most of us would love to have 50 people working for us and to never have to suit-up to sit in a closet for most of the day. I can see why you're nitpicking about some of the items, but for the most part I've picked up some valuable tips from these posts, and I'd rather see content like this then a dozen repeated posts about something silly facebook did.

ZanderEarth32 14y ago
Just curious, what exactly did you pick up from this post that was helpful? Can you transfer any o this knowledge, or advice to your own life? Even if you were a CEO that worked from home, the odds of any of this applying to you would be small. To be honest, it sounds like an ideal schedule. A schedule many would love to have, including myself (minus the kids :D). The bigger picture I get from this post, is to take control of your life and schedule. Design the type of life you want to live, and then figure out the small details like how to afford this lifestyle and make time for it.

mindcrime 14y ago

Does this guy think he's a celebrity or something? Does that matter? If you find the content valuable, does it matter whether or not he thinks he's a celebrity? Conversely, if you don't find it valuable, does it matter whether or not he thinks he's a celebrity? Maybe it would be better to focus on the message and not the personality behind it? He's the "CEO" of a small company most people have never heard of. I'm not sure why you put CEO in quotes there... are you saying he isn't actually CEO of a company? And what difference does it make whether or not most people have heard of the company? Most people haven't heard of most of the companies founded by people who post on HN... and it sounds like Ryan has already done more than most of the wantrepreneur types who hang around these kinds of forums. What try to put him down for what he's accomplished?

kevinskii 14y ago
What try to put him down for what he's accomplished? He isn't being put down for what he has accomplished. He's being put down for writing a shallow self-serving blog post that is completely devoid of intellectual content, and then submitting it to HN. I hope enough others here flag this as well.
- mindcrime 14y ago
  When somebody writes about him as a "CEO", with an implication that he's somehow less than a "real" CEO, then yes, that is putting him (and his company) down. It's ridiculous, IMO. This guy is out there, in the trenches, building a real company, and tries to share his experience, and he's getting slammed for it. This isn't what I've come to expect from HN. :-(
  - kahawe 14y ago
    > and tries to share his experience I think the point is: he might be trying but he is doing a horrible job at sharing that experience because the only thing he gives us is "he is a big picture thinker", he "cranks through to dos" and that Paul is important. There is hardly any "meat" or really interesting, helpful stuff in there - that's what the slamming is about. Is this really so difficult to see or differentiate?

brown9-2 14y ago

If you are reading a "day in the life of" article written by someone, I think it follows that you are interested in all the things that happened in that persons day. If not, why are you reading the article?