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Although the comparison of schedule types is interesting, the application to YC's schedule makes no sense. An investor may use the manager's schedule for his w

Although the comparison of schedule types is interesting, the application to YC's schedule makes no sense. An investor may use the manager's schedule for his work-day where he meets with prospective investments, meets with current investments, "grabs coffee"s, etc. When he goes home, he does not spend an hour with his wife, an hour with his kids, an hour reading "the brothers karamazov", and an hour of sleep. He goes home and has the maker's schedule. Similarly, PG mentions that YC operates on the maker's schedule. But what he means is: if he grabs coffee it will cost him half a day's making work, not a half a day's YC managing work. PG, I'm assuming, writes essays, writes code, etc, not for YC investment management but for other projects. YC does operate on a manager's schedule: he mentions that Office hours are scheduled, interviews are in timely segments, etc. So really, YC spends less time on investment management than other investors. There's nothing wrong with this. That's great. But let's not suggest that management is better done on a maker's schedule.

pg 17y ago
Strangely enough, management may actually be better done on a maker's schedule. It's certainly no worse done. Office hours seem to work fine for all the startups who want to talk to me. And in addition, compressing them all into the shortest time means that a group that shows up for an appointment during office hours is likely to meet several other groups of their peers while they're there. They invariably talk, and often end up helping one another. Plus you're assuming that doing making work doesn't affect the quality of one's managing work. But that isn't true. Actively working on webapps myself makes me a much better advisor to startups doing it.
- thunk 17y ago
  "Management on a maker's schedule" is a powerful idea. Imagine the world under that paradigm. So much quieter. Unrelatedly, for some reason I'm leery of terms like 'office hours'. They seem ... infantilising. I guess 'office hours' is a precise description, though.
  - pg 17y ago
    Yeah, I don't love the term "office hours" either. It's not even correct, since people have actual appointments; they're just clumped together. But I got into the habit of calling this thing office hours, and it is probably too late to change now.

pg 17y ago

Strangely enough, management may actually be better done on a maker's schedule. It's certainly no worse done. Office hours seem to work fine for all the startups who want to talk to me. And in addition, compressing them all into the shortest time means that a group that shows up for an appointment during office hours is likely to meet several other groups of their peers while they're there. They invariably talk, and often end up helping one another. Plus you're assuming that doing making work doesn't affect the quality of one's managing work. But that isn't true. Actively working on webapps myself makes me a much better advisor to startups doing it.

thunk 17y ago
"Management on a maker's schedule" is a powerful idea. Imagine the world under that paradigm. So much quieter. Unrelatedly, for some reason I'm leery of terms like 'office hours'. They seem ... infantilising. I guess 'office hours' is a precise description, though.
- pg 17y ago
  Yeah, I don't love the term "office hours" either. It's not even correct, since people have actual appointments; they're just clumped together. But I got into the habit of calling this thing office hours, and it is probably too late to change now.