I can identify with what sebastian is experiencing here. Its easy to work with friends, or be friendly with your employees. Its easy for things to get casual. Its easy for people to start running everything by you.
Its VERY easy for the sense of urgency to just go away. Its very hard to get people highly motivated about time. It's easy to kill an entire day with BS, and let things just stretch out. Especially when you're an employee, and you're working for options. Options are so intangible. You're theoretically motivated, but on a day to day basis, do stock options get you doing 6 things in an hour instead of 3 or 4? Especially if your boss isn't there? (And if your boss is there then you're likely to be inhibited.) It's really easy to kill time by running everything thru your boss too... it lets you cover your butt, and you can read HN while you wait for him to make a decision.
I don't know how you teach initiative... but this is a good attempt.
Find a way or make one. Good advice.
Its a shame most of the comments on this seem to be reddit quality. Almost as if the people making them have never been in this situation. (and this was the situation I found myself in at my very first startup-- when we all felt we had no clue what we were doing, and tended to wait for direction, rather than take initiative.)
Its a shame most of the comments on this seem to be reddit quality. Almost as if the people making them have never been in this situation.
I think the problem is, anyone that's worked in the startup world for a while has been in this situation. But most of them have seen it from the other side.
Where you've got maybe 2% equity in a company if you're lucky, and a salary that's about half what you'd be making flipping Java-burgers at a bank. Where you, the sysadmin-at-large (amongst other hats that you wear) see first-hand that traffic levels are a couple orders of magnitude less than you were supposed to set up the system to scale to. Where you're asked to put in 55 hours this week instead of the usual "lazy" 50 because the killer hail-mary-feature that's going to save the company (and is suspiciously similar re: customer visibility to the killer hail-mary-feature of last week) has to be pushed out by Monday or else, ...what, all 20 of the people that bothered to sign up to the mailing list will be disappointed at the missed deadline...? Blech.
Sure, sometimes the situation is different, sometimes it really is a matter of a few people with equal stakes in the outcome not equally pulling weight, and that can be a real problem worth worrying about. But I'm always skeptical when I see CEOs complaining about lazy drones, quite often these complaints are more indicative of top-down scope-creep, bad time estimates, or a failing business model than any actual problem with the workers.
I was a huge fan of the thesis, but as I kept reading the situation seemed very familiar. Very familiar to the multiple times I have worked for a non technical guy that really just doesn't have a clue.
I was really not a fan of the part where he told his guys not to make excuses, but then made a very large excuse for himself.
If I would have read only the first few paragraphs I would have been a huge fan of this article.
* If you are always running your business with a sense of urgency, you are going to burn out. You are going to burn out your employees. You've might have bitten more than you can chew. Some things are not possible and you need to have realistic expectations. It is fine to have stretches of busy time, but that can't last forever.
* > Its very hard to get people highly motivated about time. -- Ok so it is crunch time. Try communication & openness. Put up a whiteboard, show how many days left, how much money is left, the list of unfixed bugs, and whose name is next to it. Update frequently. Detect problems and slips early and try to fix. Don't yell at them or talk about fucking Hannibal, because you know what? You look like a Joker then.
"If you are always running your business with a sense of urgency, you are going to burn out. You are going to burn out your employees."
That's not really true. If you're always running your life with a sense of urgency, you're going to burn out. But your life doesn't have to be your business.
I'm a big fan of the "give me six good hours a day" school of thought. You're not at work your whole life (or maybe you are, but you're not doing urgent stuff your whole day). You don't expect your employees to be at work their whole lives. But when you are at work, you focus on the tasks that need to get done, and you finish them. If problems come up, you figure out a way around them, redo your plans, and adjust your schedule accordingly.
The difference with Hannibal is that if he and his forces didn't keep advancing, they would literally starve to death. On the other hand, the author here is trying to create senses of urgency with very nebulous justification.
According to Car and Driver, the Corvette ZR1 can beat the Ferrari for a 3rd of the price. As for the GTR, too boxy. I want to drive a fast car and impress the ladies, not look like some chinzy wannabe extra from Tokyo Drift.
I'm more of an older Vette fan. If I were to get a new sports car today I'd go for a Porsche 911 (991). I just really like the design and look, and always have.
If you read Sebastian's blog, he wants to have the power to change the world, essentially, when the world needs changing. He believes his path is the most pragmatic way to do so. I think I agree.
totally agree with you..some of us(maybe just me!) should really take a look at ourselves for being the jokers that we are!....I will come back and read this post whenever I am slacking!
Its VERY easy for the sense of urgency to just go away. Its very hard to get people highly motivated about time. It's easy to kill an entire day with BS, and let things just stretch out. Especially when you're an employee, and you're working for options. Options are so intangible. You're theoretically motivated, but on a day to day basis, do stock options get you doing 6 things in an hour instead of 3 or 4? Especially if your boss isn't there? (And if your boss is there then you're likely to be inhibited.) It's really easy to kill time by running everything thru your boss too... it lets you cover your butt, and you can read HN while you wait for him to make a decision.
I don't know how you teach initiative... but this is a good attempt.
Find a way or make one. Good advice.
Its a shame most of the comments on this seem to be reddit quality. Almost as if the people making them have never been in this situation. (and this was the situation I found myself in at my very first startup-- when we all felt we had no clue what we were doing, and tended to wait for direction, rather than take initiative.)