According to Marissa Mayer, long hours and weekend work will lead to success | Hacker News Reader

According to Marissa Mayer, long hours and weekend work will lead to success

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23 pointsmuddyrivers12 comments

The article is overly narrow in its interpretation of her comment - its a figure of speech saying that yes hard work matters. Sometimes execution and its extent matters a lot more than the idea itself. She didn't qualify it by saying nothing else matters. Obviously she knows its one of the factors, but its a way of saying "Yes, hard work is really important for early stage startups."

Not saying she is the best CEO ever, but dumbing down what she said to this level and going on a long rant is just stupid.

A VC once told me he would drive by our office at 11pm to see if the lights are on.

"Otherwise you're fucked"

Long hours and weekends are cool, as long as I'm getting a slice of the pie! If it's just a salary, nope. If there is equity, there's a good chance I'll toss in regular Saturday afternoons and periodical late nights. No equity? No way.

I loved when big companies complain about it work ethic not being like "the ol' startup days." Well no-shit. No one here is on the cusp of a huge IPO payday.

I used to feel the same way, but now I realize that "a slice of the pie" isn't real. If you're a founder and you own a share of the company, then you've got equity. IF you've got options that are vesting (especially during the cliff period) you're really just working for salary as the expected value is zero. (The expectation is you are not working for a unicorn.)

The last time I worked for a startup that offered me stick, I said Thanks!, but inside, I was thinking: just pay me a damn salary and let's not pretend this company is my life from here on out.

Elon Musk has said the same thing, but he built multi-billion dollar companies instead of tanking them.

Will repost an earlier comment of mine:

"I met a director from Tesla just after their unveiling of the Model X. She said a small number of people were assigned to fully assemble / prep each vehicle shown that night.. for roughly two weeks they worked 20 hour shifts and slept 2 hours each night. Most teams were working on them right up until the cars rolled on stage; there was still wet paint on one. Also, it was said a "normal" workweek of 16 hours days isn't uncommon..

She can't wait for options to fully vest and gracefully exit. It's not for lack of thrill, growth, etc. – just that after 3-4 years it is heavily taxing and a pace of sanity is much desired."

That's really something i don't understand. After 5 hours of intense work i'm unable to code or think anything. I may be able to do many 4 hours work periods if i'm resting inbetween, but i can't do it multiple days in a row, otherwise i simply start slowing down and take bad decisions.

The best decisions i take are usually in the morning after a good night of sleep, and the problems i've been struggling for the evening simply seem a lot easier.

Even in week-end hackathons, the rookie's mistake is to not get enough sleep in the friday evening, create bugs during saturday, and end up completely unable to work on sunday.

Whenever i coach team, i usually tell them not to run the wrong race. If you're running a marathon, don't run at maximum pace because you'll never make it to the end.

Same here.

Management work is different, though. More about making decisions than being hands-on.

It all depends on what you are working on. If you are Tesla and building that next big car everyone is so excited to see as a short term strategy it might work.

Working overtime on a sinking ship is rubbish. You need to rush for the nearest exit.

Note: The comment is very very irresponsible on part of Mayer. Yahoo! anyways is not a preferred employer these days. How is she supposed to hire the best talent with these kind of statements ?

the only legitimate reason i can think to work long hours is if i am reasonably certain it will translate into a significant, liquid year-end bonus.

if the only reward for meeting an insane project deadline is 'not getting fired', then that's a shit job and it's time to find a better one.

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