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More posts like these need to go up on HN. I became a developer during the first boom (97) and spent countless all-nighters working on products for companies th

by columbo 14y ago

More posts like these need to go up on HN. I became a developer during the first boom (97) and spent countless all-nighters working on products for companies that simply no longer exist. I remember sleeping at the office, being up for days in a row, all that work for software that is probably stored in an IT closet, or purchased and used simply for the patents. With this second boom and it's Hackathons and 2-week-challenges I find myself saying "No" quite often. "No, this is my daughter's soccer practice.", "No, I have a dinner date with my wife." and so on. I stil work on startup ideas and I tend to take on more than I can chew. But now if I've got to make a choice between finishing a product or being a good parent/husband I'll take the latter.

cantrevealname 14y ago
> if I've got to make a choice between finishing a product or being a good parent/husband I'll take the latter And that's why most successful startups are founded by childless, unmarried, under 30s. Being young correlates to being energetic and not risk averse, and having no family commitments correlates to choosing the product over going to soccer practice.
- mmatants 14y ago
  I'm not sure that working 16hrs per day vs 8hrs gives a 2x increase in productivity. Maybe not even 1.5x - maybe not even 1.2x. And even if it was a 2x increase in output, I'm not sure that that's an enabling variable in a startup's success.
  - columbo 14y ago
    I agree. I may be an old codger but when I think back on all the 16+ hour days I've worked the vast majority fell into a few categories: 80% Fixing some stupid emergency drop everything issue that was somewhere between the user's keyboard and the oracle database. 19.99% Implementing some feature that got lost in the shuffle when clients are showing up tomorrow morning for a demo 0.01% Actually bringing the product forward and beating out the competition. Honestly, over fifteen years I can only think of a few days where I ended at 10pm and said "yeah, that was a good day, we really got ourselves ahead", more often than not it was "shit, at least we are barely above water." Of course YMMV
- hkmurakami 14y ago
  Let's work smarter, not harder.
- snowwrestler 14y ago
  > And that's why most successful startups are founded by childless, unmarried, under 30s. Do you have a citation for that? It does not match the research I'm aware of. For instance: > Founders tended to be middle-aged—40 years old on average—when they started their first companies. Nearly 70 percent were married when they became entrepreneurs, and nearly 60 percent had at least one child, challenging the stereotype of the entrepreneurial workaholic with no time for a family. http://www.kauffman.org/research-and-policy/the-anatomy-of-an-entrepreneur.aspx http://www.kauffman.org/research-and-policy/the-anatomy-of-a...
  - anothermachine 14y ago
    Having children is not the same as having time for children, as plenty of children can attest.

by columbo 14y ago

cantrevealname 14y ago

> if I've got to make a choice between finishing a product or being a good parent/husband I'll take the latter And that's why most successful startups are founded by childless, unmarried, under 30s. Being young correlates to being energetic and not risk averse, and having no family commitments correlates to choosing the product over going to soccer practice.

mmatants 14y ago
I'm not sure that working 16hrs per day vs 8hrs gives a 2x increase in productivity. Maybe not even 1.5x - maybe not even 1.2x. And even if it was a 2x increase in output, I'm not sure that that's an enabling variable in a startup's success.
- columbo 14y ago
  I agree. I may be an old codger but when I think back on all the 16+ hour days I've worked the vast majority fell into a few categories: 80% Fixing some stupid emergency drop everything issue that was somewhere between the user's keyboard and the oracle database. 19.99% Implementing some feature that got lost in the shuffle when clients are showing up tomorrow morning for a demo 0.01% Actually bringing the product forward and beating out the competition. Honestly, over fifteen years I can only think of a few days where I ended at 10pm and said "yeah, that was a good day, we really got ourselves ahead", more often than not it was "shit, at least we are barely above water." Of course YMMV
hkmurakami 14y ago
Let's work smarter, not harder.
snowwrestler 14y ago
> And that's why most successful startups are founded by childless, unmarried, under 30s. Do you have a citation for that? It does not match the research I'm aware of. For instance: > Founders tended to be middle-aged—40 years old on average—when they started their first companies. Nearly 70 percent were married when they became entrepreneurs, and nearly 60 percent had at least one child, challenging the stereotype of the entrepreneurial workaholic with no time for a family. http://www.kauffman.org/research-and-policy/the-anatomy-of-an-entrepreneur.aspx http://www.kauffman.org/research-and-policy/the-anatomy-of-a...
- anothermachine 14y ago
  Having children is not the same as having time for children, as plenty of children can attest.