7 ms·

uhm, by all accounts (especially the video in this thread where he says as much) this guy was far past the working-long-hours phase - the company was mature and

uhm, by all accounts (especially the video in this thread where he says as much) this guy was far past the working-long-hours phase - the company was mature and he stressed work life balance. i think mentioning stimulant abuse here is a little ... shitty of you, to be honest. some people just die young/young-ish of natural causes. i personally know several people who have had freak heart attacks or brain conditions and passed away. it's sad, but a fact of life (and death).

jsprogrammer 12y ago
Generally places stress work life balance because the organization doesn't actually afford its members a work life balance, so the perception of it existing has to be constructed through propaganda. i.e. If you already have work life balance, there's not need to stress it.
- bigtunacan 12y ago
  This is just not true. Tech culture is rife with long days, nights, and weekends. In my experience, companies that truly care about work life balance often have to remind people of this just due to the fact that so many people are used to this culture and often have a difficult time escaping the mindset.
- sontek 12y ago
  This is completely wrong. In our area (Silicon Valley) it is common and expected to push hard and work long hours. It is an extremely competitive environment and unless you're forced to go home most people work late into the night. Not making an effort and letting your employees know that you don't expect them to work nights and weekends means you are ignoring the societal norms in our field and most likely have engineers working their way towards burnout.
mreiland 12y ago
why is it shitty? I didn't take it as him implying that's how the CEO died, just that it's an issue that happens a lot in silicon valley and it's dangerous because you can die unexpectedly due to a heart attack.
- wpietri 12y ago
  Worst case, he's implying that illegal drug use is a factor in the death of somebody known to people here. Best case, he's bringing up something irrelevant on a thread where people are paying their respects and/or dealing with a deep and sudden loss and is doing it in a way where he's oblivious to the possible implication. Either way, I think shitty is a reasonable word. If he wants to talk about an issue in Silicon Valley, he can do it pretty much anywhere but this one page.
  - pen2l 12y ago
    No, what's shitty here is you twisting my words. I never said anything about illegal drug use. I have friends who were getting ADHD medicine (subscribed by a licensed psychiatrist), but had to stop because of heart problems. THIS IS COMMON. As I said, cardiovascular diseases are an amazingly big killer of life. That is what I'm talking about. I think it's an apt time to mention this -- people are emotionally engaged, it's this time to be informed of actions we can do to care for ourselves: be cautious of stimulants (not just illegal ones), eat well and healthy, and make time to exercise.
    - wpietri 12y ago
      I did not twist your words. You also never said anything about legal drug use, so when I said "worst case" I was pointing out one end of a scale of possible interpretations. That you were talking about technically legal abuse of drugs is on the scale I describe. I stand by my point: either you were suggesting that drug abuse might be a factor here or you were bringing up something approximately irrelevant. Either way, that's shitty. Let people have their time to pay their respects and mourn without you jumping in with your kids-eat-your-veggies hobbyhorse.
      - mreiland 12y ago
        Of course you stand by your point, how often do you see people online not stand by their point. That would be the unusual thing. It's been observed many times before that when someone online starts describing another persons stance as "either you X or you Y" they're generally involved in a false dichotomy. So congratulations wpeitri, you're just like almost everyone else on the internet. You have an opinion and nothing will convince you otherwise. Are you happy about that?
pen2l 12y ago
Oh no, sorry, I did not mean to imply it was stimulant abuse. But you know even normal use of stimulants is a sudden killer for some people with cardiovascular problems. I mentioned it mainly because I've read many threads on HN indicating that stimulant usage is kind of high in this field... and that's fine, as it's prescribed to folks with disorders like ADHD. You just have to be very careful with it though, because again, cardiovascular diseases are one of the biggest killers. Easiest way to prevent is to eat healthy and exercise, it's really as simple as that.
jimjam7382 12y ago
Hard to believe this was just death by "natural causes." It's dangerous to speculate, yes, but I think we can all safely assume that he had access to the best of the best in terms of healthcare. To die suddenly at his age with no warning signs at all is very strange.
- bau5 12y ago
  Even if you can afford it, you've got to ask for it, if you're in the tech field. A professional basketball player, and probably also a coach, is going to have their physical health watched over, whether they take the initiative or not. Wealthy people in many other fields are free to go to the doctor as rarely or as often as they want. That said I think his wife probably made sure he got good access to healthcare, if he didn't take the initiative himself. But it probably is somewhere between every three months and every year. Major sports players, top celebrities or Paul Atreides have the level of access that make it extremely rare, but a well connected tech executive just has a level of access that reduces the risk somewhat.
  - at-fates-hands 12y ago
    >>> Even if you can afford it, you've got to ask for it. This. A thousand times. So many people in the valley just lose track of time, or they put their health on the back burner for just one more month, or miss that yearly physical, and then suddenly it catches up with them. Saying he was a proponent of work life balance does not mean his job was a walk in the park either. You're in one of the most competitive markets, with a successful startup. I can easily see why executives at his lever would start to cut corners on their health. It's too bad really. He sounds like one of the guys you would really root for to be successful. At the very least, I'm glad he was able to achieve some of his dreams - something a large portion of the population never get a chance at. If anything it should remind everybody. Take a break, call your family and tell them you love them, hug your kids and tell them you love them. You never know man, you just never know when your time is going to be up.

jsprogrammer 12y ago

Generally places stress work life balance because the organization doesn't actually afford its members a work life balance, so the perception of it existing has to be constructed through propaganda. i.e. If you already have work life balance, there's not need to stress it.

bigtunacan 12y ago
This is just not true. Tech culture is rife with long days, nights, and weekends. In my experience, companies that truly care about work life balance often have to remind people of this just due to the fact that so many people are used to this culture and often have a difficult time escaping the mindset.
sontek 12y ago
This is completely wrong. In our area (Silicon Valley) it is common and expected to push hard and work long hours. It is an extremely competitive environment and unless you're forced to go home most people work late into the night. Not making an effort and letting your employees know that you don't expect them to work nights and weekends means you are ignoring the societal norms in our field and most likely have engineers working their way towards burnout.

mreiland 12y ago

why is it shitty? I didn't take it as him implying that's how the CEO died, just that it's an issue that happens a lot in silicon valley and it's dangerous because you can die unexpectedly due to a heart attack.

wpietri 12y ago
Worst case, he's implying that illegal drug use is a factor in the death of somebody known to people here. Best case, he's bringing up something irrelevant on a thread where people are paying their respects and/or dealing with a deep and sudden loss and is doing it in a way where he's oblivious to the possible implication. Either way, I think shitty is a reasonable word. If he wants to talk about an issue in Silicon Valley, he can do it pretty much anywhere but this one page.
- pen2l 12y ago
  No, what's shitty here is you twisting my words. I never said anything about illegal drug use. I have friends who were getting ADHD medicine (subscribed by a licensed psychiatrist), but had to stop because of heart problems. THIS IS COMMON. As I said, cardiovascular diseases are an amazingly big killer of life. That is what I'm talking about. I think it's an apt time to mention this -- people are emotionally engaged, it's this time to be informed of actions we can do to care for ourselves: be cautious of stimulants (not just illegal ones), eat well and healthy, and make time to exercise.
  - wpietri 12y ago
    I did not twist your words. You also never said anything about legal drug use, so when I said "worst case" I was pointing out one end of a scale of possible interpretations. That you were talking about technically legal abuse of drugs is on the scale I describe. I stand by my point: either you were suggesting that drug abuse might be a factor here or you were bringing up something approximately irrelevant. Either way, that's shitty. Let people have their time to pay their respects and mourn without you jumping in with your kids-eat-your-veggies hobbyhorse.
    - mreiland 12y ago
      Of course you stand by your point, how often do you see people online not stand by their point. That would be the unusual thing. It's been observed many times before that when someone online starts describing another persons stance as "either you X or you Y" they're generally involved in a false dichotomy. So congratulations wpeitri, you're just like almost everyone else on the internet. You have an opinion and nothing will convince you otherwise. Are you happy about that?

pen2l 12y ago

Oh no, sorry, I did not mean to imply it was stimulant abuse. But you know even normal use of stimulants is a sudden killer for some people with cardiovascular problems. I mentioned it mainly because I've read many threads on HN indicating that stimulant usage is kind of high in this field... and that's fine, as it's prescribed to folks with disorders like ADHD. You just have to be very careful with it though, because again, cardiovascular diseases are one of the biggest killers. Easiest way to prevent is to eat healthy and exercise, it's really as simple as that.

jimjam7382 12y ago

Hard to believe this was just death by "natural causes." It's dangerous to speculate, yes, but I think we can all safely assume that he had access to the best of the best in terms of healthcare. To die suddenly at his age with no warning signs at all is very strange.

bau5 12y ago
Even if you can afford it, you've got to ask for it, if you're in the tech field. A professional basketball player, and probably also a coach, is going to have their physical health watched over, whether they take the initiative or not. Wealthy people in many other fields are free to go to the doctor as rarely or as often as they want. That said I think his wife probably made sure he got good access to healthcare, if he didn't take the initiative himself. But it probably is somewhere between every three months and every year. Major sports players, top celebrities or Paul Atreides have the level of access that make it extremely rare, but a well connected tech executive just has a level of access that reduces the risk somewhat.
- at-fates-hands 12y ago
  >>> Even if you can afford it, you've got to ask for it. This. A thousand times. So many people in the valley just lose track of time, or they put their health on the back burner for just one more month, or miss that yearly physical, and then suddenly it catches up with them. Saying he was a proponent of work life balance does not mean his job was a walk in the park either. You're in one of the most competitive markets, with a successful startup. I can easily see why executives at his lever would start to cut corners on their health. It's too bad really. He sounds like one of the guys you would really root for to be successful. At the very least, I'm glad he was able to achieve some of his dreams - something a large portion of the population never get a chance at. If anything it should remind everybody. Take a break, call your family and tell them you love them, hug your kids and tell them you love them. You never know man, you just never know when your time is going to be up.