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Comment by sn0w_crash | Hacker News Reader

You can do whatever you want just know that the market will decide if you can do this. In a few ways:

A. Capital - Investors will be highly skeptical of this approach. Is there a CEO they can invest who does not give people 2 months off? If so, they’ll probably send their money that way.

B. Competition - Your competitors will be delighted to learn that your workforce is 10-15% less active than they are.

C. Recruiting - yes, many will be excited about the prospect of so much time off. But experienced employees will be skeptical of this approach and may see it as a risk. There are also people who gasp do not want to take 2 months off and enjoy working throughout the year.

Again, as leader you are free to do what you want but for every major decision you can ask yourself a simple question - does this help accelerate or slow our revenue?

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The first point is definitely true - for sure, this can’t be possible for the first year (or even two) of the startup anyway since we need to get a viable product off the ramp and garner enough interest and hopefully revenue. I agree that we can’t compromise on overall productivity.

Which brings me to the next point which is that I do strongly believe that productivity will not take a massive hit overall - as much as managers like to think engineers are like factory workers assembling a toaster, my personal observation has been that we’d get things done when they are needed (within reason) and would subconsciously pad out the time when we can afford to.

A long sabbatical would make me immensely happy and I think more focused when I’m actually working. Importantly if we all prepare for the same full on break that’s scheduled that’s more manageable than individual engineers taking time off at random intervals and having everyone cover for them.

Just still spitballing so for sure all comments are appreciated.

Ok I would encourage you to Ask other engineers if they feel like taking 2 months off would affect their focus on a long term project.

Reacclimating to work after a long weekend is hard for some people. 60 days off can be mentally jarring for others.

Startups move quickly. Coming back and finding out what’s going in the company, the people, this all adds complexity.

Finally, not everyone is an engineer making $320k and suggesting 2 months off. Some people genuinely enjoy work and don’t want to take more time off. What works for you as an engineer might not be what others in sales, product, marketing and operations want.

I might feel like I do better work high it doesn’t mean I’m going to subject my team to a mandatory daily edible.

All that said if you end up starting a company and are taking 2 months off in cycles - there will be people who don’t do this and will wonder “where is our boss / when are they going to show up?”

At the least you’ve convinced me that some engineers will find the concept quite unacceptable. Probably sufficient to table it as an idea I think! Thanks I suppose lol.

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