Jack Dorsey does 8 hours at Twitter, 8 hours at Square, 0 hours at life, daily.
In other words Jack is free to do whatever he likes, but it is not a good example for most of us. I'll cite a very short poetry by a Sicilian poet called Salvatore Quasimodo:
"Everyone stands alone on the heart of the earth / transfixed by a ray of sunshine / and it is suddenly night"
Having lived in Italy and the US I can tell you there is a cultural divide that makes these verses very hard to grasp that side of the Atlantic. This translation in English is beautiful though
I'm pretty familiar with Jack's situation.
Yes, this is indeed true, now. For a time he was splitting one day on / one day off at each company.
Frankly, Jack has very little time outside of his work, but I wouldn't say that he doesn't have a life. His work is his life and they are closely intertwined. This is great, since it means he's quite passionate about both product sets and the quality of his companies' net output really shines, IMO.
The danger of this obsessive behavior though is that it can begin to warp ones perspective on others' work/life balance. Jack works like a dog because he's excited about what he does, so it seems to baffle him when those around him aren't equally excited and committed to their work as well.
In the case of Square, they've been very quick to fire anyone who isn't putting 80+% percent of their life into Square -- often with little warning or reason.
Square sounds like a terrible place to work, then. We should stop giving startups free passes for demanding ridiculous hours out of employees in the name of equity, when they usually end up screwing their employees out of it anyway.
I think startup politics generally reflects the power structure surrounding it; whether that be founders or investors that hold a relatively big stake in an organization, or the society surrounding it.
The US is not always the most meritocratic or egalitarian environment, and it seems that those that latch onto or come into some power tend to hold to it very tightly and don't share with those around them.
Equity, unless you're very lucky or diligent, often doesn't equate to much. I think, too often, folks tend to place too much emphasis on equity. The terms and value of which are not often immediately obvious to the recipient and can get diluted over time. Twitter's on what... round G now?
Ultimately, starting a startup is a big uphill slog. At the end of the day, everyone needs to put in some level of herculean effort from time to time if it's going to work.
The trick is figuring out how to effectively value the things that each contributor is best at.
If you're working in an organization that primarily values software engineers, it can be hard to get recognition as a visual designer.
In an organization that primarily (and sometimes only) values and recognizes software engineers that make things you can see or touch, it can even be hard to make it as a systems plumber or kernel hacker.
His work is his life and they are closely intertwined. This is great... IMO.
In the case of Square, they've been very quick to fire anyone who isn't putting 80+% percent of their life into Square -- often with little warning or reason.
What does this mean practically - that employees are expected to put 134 hours a week into working at Square? Or does sleep time not count against them, meaning they are expected to work only 89.6 hours a week? How many hours of sleep each night does Square recommend their employees get?
No number is made explicit -- they can't really be demanding more than 40 hours / week for exempt employees in California. You're expected to "find your own work/life balance", but there is strong social pressure to stay in the office nights and weekends.
I would expect to work 70 - 80+ weeks there if you're really into it (and checking in / working at home in the evenings and mornings).
How many startups come from NZ? The point here isn't "employment law", it's the fact that in the USA (generally, in the private sector) employment is considered a contract, not an entitlement.
If people at Square don't like the environment, they are free to find another job. Similarly, if Dorsey doesn't like an employee's output for any reason, or "the cut of his jib" for that matter, he pays him up to the day and fires him. If it can't be shown to be due to discrimination (race, gender etc), and there was no employment contract, that's that.
Without this culture, starting a company would be nearly impossible. You can see evidence of this in the number of innovative startups out of more heavily regulated countries vs. the US.
[edit: I would add that there is a perverse incentive here: I believe US startups under-hire women and people of color _precisely_ because it is not that difficult to make a case for discrimination in promotion, compensation, and treatment of employees here. Hiring white, upper-middle-class males greatly reduces that risk. I think it's an unfortunate unintended consequence of the desire to redress discrimination.]
I'm not sure there's a very solid correlation on that. It's true that the U.S. has a lot of startups, and also at-will employment, but actual experimental data is pretty weak, and the U.S. has been a technological leader through various routes for decades, not all of them startup-ish. For example, the old-line engineering firms (AT&T, Boeing, Lockheed, IBM, etc.) drove technical innovation for decades, and had much more "Europe-like" working conditions, where working more than 40 hours/wk was uncommon, employees were rarely fired except for gross incompetence, etc.
If anything, the 80-hour/wk and ready firing of employees thing was traditionally seen as a more "mom-and-pop business" type culture, associated with lower-status industries like the family-owned restaurant, not with technology.
Everyone here likes to believe there's a bit of a startup boom in Wellington at the moment - government R&D grants and the Grow Wellington business incubator certainly seem to have gone a long way towards helping the culture along. In any case you can't walk down Cuba St without running into people from all the different tech startups these days. It's great, since fifteen years ago the only other employment options in this town were cafés or the public sector.
Like who? How much revenue do they make, combined, compared to the combined revenue of US companies? Let's not kid ourselves here - I'm European, there are many things I like about the place I live, but the tech company scene is laughable here. It's hard to find anyone who is even capable of thinking beyond the 'I set up Active Directory network and fix pc's' or 'I make websites for the local pizza place' level.
(yes there are some counter examples, I know, but I'm talking about magnitudes, not frolicking in the margin)
Personally, as I said in another thread, I think the US anti-discrimination laws are fundamentally flawed. Hiring is an art, not a science. But that is another topic.
I'm not sure what you mean about "US employment law is nuts". If you are an hourly employee, you get paid so many dollars/hours, for the number of hours you work, and after you work so many hours a day, you get paid overtime.
If you are exempt (Salaried) - you basically work when your manager tells you to. I've been at (several) companies where we had 3-4 month death marches with _everyone_ working late and on weekends in the office to push the ball over the line.
> If you are exempt (Salaried) - you basically work when your manager tells you to. I've been at (several) companies where we had 3-4 month death marches with _everyone_ working late and on weekends in the office to push the ball over the line.
That is nuts... Here in Australia, my salary is paid based on a 40 hour working week, minus 4 weeks holiday and sick leave. This is pretty standard for a full time job.
I can choose to work over that amount, and time worked over those 40 hours is time-in-lieu, which I can take off pretty much whenever I want (although I have to get approval if I want to take more than one day off at a time - but if it's just a day, or half a day then I just shoot them an email that morning)... My company are a bit more flexible on taking that time off than a lot of places, but apart from that, the conditions are similar to a lot of other places...
I think he means exactly what you just described. That if you're paid hourly you'll get overtime so don't complain lest you be fired. That simply deciding you don't want to work those hours regardless of the overtime pay is not on the table. That if you're a salaried employee and a white collar worker, somehow any and all abuse is justified in the name of making you really earn that 85K a year plus some options we're probably going to screw you out of anyway. That you can be fired for trying to organize. That you can be fired for being sick, subsequently lose access to health care, and die. That you get two, maybe three weeks vacation a year, if you're lucky. And we'll shit on you for taking it, btw.
I guess what he's getting at is that the US is a pretty terrible place to work and live, gilded though the cage may often be, and it is hard to disagree.
Well, they don't actually let us follow Jack around all day - we have our own jobs to do. So no, I honestly have no idea how long he's in the office or outside the office doing Square work or at the other company.
Did you really just ask that question? Unless somebody says: "Yes, and he even work more" you are not gonna get someone saying "No he doesn't work that much".
Clever guy. First he builds Twitter to make sure all other entrepreneurs are busy checking their tweets. Then he starts another company without any competition.
sounds so sinister. maybe there is an agenda behind square too - making everyone open a mom & pop store or sell from a cart - leaving the field open for him to bulldoze the high tech stuff
I think Jack Dorsey is doing an amazing job and it is extraordinary what he has shown at Twitter and Square.
That being said, what we are seeing here is basically "story telling" and "legend building" in action. The same happened when Jeff Immelt took over GE and The story was "Look at that guy! The hardest working GE employee, putting in 100 hours a week. What a leader!" (you can Google it).
While I believe that Jack didn't craft a master plan for this, somebody is certainly putting some effort into building a coherent story that helps Jack but ultimately also Twitter and Square and therefore its investors.
And once again: it get's us talking as well, so I would say: Mission Accomplished.
Regardless of whether or not he actually works 16 hour days, the Monday through Friday scheduling and focus on specific areas of the business are really interesting. An entire Friday dedicated to the company and culture -- fantastic for building a team that's with you for the long haul.
Maybe explains why Twitter is so bad at so many things.
Like making money.
Why don't they offer a customized twitter feeds of all the GOP presidential candidates and sell ads off of that feed?
For example...
I have had a strong suspicion that the upper management at Twitter are not really on top of it, they appear lazy, and content with just going along for the ride, instead of steering the what appears to be rudderless ship.
Agreed. We all have to remember we're not Jack Dorsey. A year ago I might have actually tried to emulate this. Experience tells me unless it's coming naturally it's a kamikaze mission. I totally respect mr. Dorsey, I just hope to god the naive don't get a hold of this article and start copying the 16 hour work day part.
I did 80+ hours per week for years in medical school, residency, and fellowship. Many people in medicine make a career of it. It's not as unusual as you think. There is certainly a fair argument to be made that it's not particularly healthy or a good idea, but I can assure you that for some people it's quite sustainable.
> I did 80+ hours per week for years in medical school, residency, and fellowship. Many people in medicine make a career of it. It's not as unusual as you think.
Possibly a bad example; in most developed countries the medical professions have amongst the highest rates of depression, suicide and divorce.
Good point. And if you look at the folks working in banking and management consulting, they'd laugh at the concept of a 9-5. 80+ hours / week is not that much of an outlier.
There's also significant variation (apparently biological) in how much sleep per night people need. If you're one of the people who can get by fine with 5 hrs/night of sleep, you have almost 20% more awake time over someone who needs 8 hrs/night to maintain the same alertness.
(You can also try to modify it via caffeine or other drugs. I'm not sure I'd recommend it, but apparently many of the people historically known for their superhuman workhours were heavy amphetamine users--- Winston Churchill, Ayn Rand, Paul Erdős.)
Why is everyone complaining that this isn't a lifestyle to idolize or emulate when the resounding sentiment here is that it isn't a lifestyle to IDOLIZE OR EMULATE?
We get it. I get it. You get it. Everyone gets it. I think plenty of the commenters here do a damn fine job of trivializing other readers' intelligence.
I'm also certain that Jack Dorsey doesn't work 16-hour days for the attention. We didn't know this up until now, and Twitter and Square have been running just fine. That's what matters, and if Dorsey feels like putting in that much time is necessary, so be it. If he burns out, he'll burn out; if he doesn't, good for him.
<rant>
Four-hour work week? Work smarter, not harder?
I just don't buy those kind of ideologies if you really believe your idea will change the world. If you want a lifestyle business that provides for you and your next of kin, more power to you.
And if that's the route you take, please stop trying to convenience everyone your path to enlightenment is the right way. For awhile, I found that whole movement to be quasi-religious and therefore quite annoying.
When you love what you do, it's not work and therefore there's no reason to want to avoid it. And that's why they win.
</rant>
If I recall correctly, Four Hour Workweek doesn't say you can change the world in four hours a week. It specifically describes how a "lifestyle business" can provide for you and let you travel many days out of the year.
You recall correctly. The key takeaway from that book (from my perspective) is that you can make enough money to sustain yourself doing as minimal work as possible that lets you do what you want with your time. If you want to travel and sip wine with your time, go for it. Or, you can start an exciting new business in your free time without sacrificing all your cash flow and taking huge risks.
My experience is that it more or less depends on your goals. I tried to do the 4 hour workweek thing and it worked... kind of. As others noted, it probably is possible to support yourself in a frugal lifestyle in 4 hours, but you're still left with the question of what to do with the other hours of the day. I've seen enough startups up close now to pretty confidently say that if you want to succeed in the startup world, its gonna take some 100 hour weeks. So, if you want to do a startup, you'd better make sure you love what you're doing.
The fact is, all -- ALL -- the research on work effectiveness & work-related health shows that this kind of work schedule is terrible. Not only do you stop working effectively after a few hours (you only get the illusion of still being sharp), it's terrible for your body.
pfft... All I see in the article are 8 unproductive hours every day. Research has shown that humans really don't need 8hrs sleep to work at their optimal best and 4-5 hrs of sleep should be more than enough. He could use those extra 4 hrs every to further develop the companies or even better try launch another startup on the side. Also walking 2 blocks every day between the two companies? That seems a waste of time which should be spent working, I know it doesn't sound much but walking two block every day adds up as a ton of wasted time. He should iron that inefficiency out of his schedule by having a common office for both jobs and using skype if he really needs to talk to someone. Also taking weekends off? Don't even get me started on that.
Well the schedule looks like its not really "hard" work. When i do all these things in my startup i feel like i am not really working, i only have the feeling of accomplishment when i write code and improve the product. Marketing and Biz dev sure is very important but personally i dont feel like i get stuff done when doing it, which might be bad.
Then again i couldnt put in 16 hours of work everyday, thats insane and i cant believe hes doing that for a very long time.
After 10-12 hours of coding and working on technical things, i am done for the day. Some sport in the evening to stay healthy and blow off steam and thats it. And even that leaves me with very little real life during the week, which sometimes is frustrating.
What's interesting is that he could have cashed out after Twitter and led an incredibly entertaining and enjoyable life, but still chooses to push on further for more success, more challenges, etc to the extent that such a huge portion of his waking life is taken by "work" like this.
I could understand it (and put in a lot of hours myself) driving to get that first home run, but less so afterwards. I'd struggle to sit idle and travelling non-stop isn't the holiday everyone thinks it is, but my dream lifestyle definitely wouldn't involve 16 hour days once I had the means to pursue all my interests to a desired extent.
When given the chance, most entrepreneurs will work 16 hours
on their company. If you only had 8 hours, you may be more likely to do a better job at managing your time/tasks.
A balanced one. I already spend a vast majority of my waking hours focused on "work". I also have my kids, my wife and other leisure activities that I find make my life worth living.
Given these pieces of life, which most entrepreneurs have - most entrepreneurs will not want to work 16 hours a day on their companies.
I hear you, but you can talk about that with a guz in his early twenties who has no responsibilities in terms of family. I dont work 16 hours a day, but i work alot and putting my friends down again and again when they ask me to go out etc is sometimes frustrating and does not work very well for a long time. Same goes for family of course.
I posted this in the other thread about his hours:
Being a manager and accutely aware of legal ramifications of hours worked (boring I know), does anyone have any insight into whether there is something in the US akin to the European Worktime Directive? Over here (UK, but the E.U as a whole) the average working week is 40 hours by law, and the worker must opt in to be eligble to work upto a maximum of 70 hours per week. As well as this 70 hour maximum, 11 hours must be taken between end of work one day and start of work the next, and an entire 24 hour period of non-work must be taken once every 7 days, or alternativley a period of 48 hours of non-work must be taken in a 14 day period.
Overtime doesn't apply to a number of class of workers (including executive, administration, professional, outside sales, and computer related workers).
And I believe you could read "professional" as "anyone with a college degree working a white-collar job".
If you're a learned professional (matching all of the three criteria on the page - one of which is salaried), artist/creative, teacher, law/medicine practioner, or are highly compensated (making > $100,000/year) overtime doesn't apply to you.
The definition of Overtime is actually getting paid, yes? The law I am referring to over in the E.U is actually working, full stop - paid or not. I am at a position where I am not paid any overtime - I'm still not allowed to be present at work for more than 70 hours a week.
Does nothing like this exist in the U.S? As in, you could technically work 168 hours with no legal ramifications?
Generally not. There are some rules for people who work on an hourly basis, but I think those vary by state. For some jobs there are also safety regulations. E.g., airline pilots and truck drivers. And many union contracts have substantial restrictions.
I think here we rely more on a liquid labor market than on government regulation to encourage sane working conditions. Which definitely has its drawbacks, but has the upside of not indulging the "lump of labor" fallacy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy
Over here (UK, but the E.U as a whole) the average working week is 40 hours by law, and the worker must opt in to be eligble to work upto a maximum of 70 hours per week
I believe the EU Working Time Directive mandates 48hr maximum working week. The UK was given an excemption to allow employees to 'opt out' of the law. Other EU countries do not have a legal opt out. Some countries (e.g. France) have a lower 'maximum hours per week'.
> Over here (UK, but the E.U as a whole) the average working week is 40 hours by law, and the worker must opt in to be eligble to work upto a maximum of 70 hours per week.
In Ireland, you can't even opt into a 70 hour week; it's flat-out illegal (though there is a system where you can do 96 hours per 14 days, or something, without necessarily equal allocation).
having just recently finished reading the Jobs biography, this turn of events for Dorsey reminds me of him: ousted from leadership, appointment on the board, heading a new company (Square vs. Pixar), and then serving as head of two companies simultaneously.
I am not surprised or in awe that he is putting in 16 hours a day. Every passionate founder would likely be doing it. I am sure most of us have heard Steve Job's on how building a company is usually a 18x7 work-week.
What I am in awe and admiration is that he is managing two companies and in this case two completely different ones by nature! A rule generally accepted in the startup land is that you don't work on multiple ideas, in order to stay focussed on building one thing well. While twitter is not a startup (any longer) and Square is probably a very big/late-phase startup (if we can qualify it as that), they both definitely need the caring and nurturing of a founder (IMO). Given that, it is remarkable he is able to do the context switch needed to run both the companies. I would love to know how effective his leadership is, in both these companies, given that he isn't there longer than a typical day in either of them.
I am so tempted to try doing more than one thing, but then since I am a coder, I guess its not easy to digress daily as he can.
A rule generally accepted in the startup land is that you don't work on multiple ideas
Interesting. I have not heard this before. As it stands, I have always worked on multiple projects for as long as I can remember. My current main company started out as a side project, for example.
Is there a canonical reference or blog post that the startup community refers to, to elucidate the reasons for one-project focus?
The other source again from PG, that I can infer as not doing too many things/working on too many ideas is: http://www.paulgraham.com/startupmistakes.html
Read the #18 (A Half-hearted attempt)
I am sure there are folks who have juggled more than one Idea and succeeded in all of them. Also, I think the relevance of these posts also probably make sense to someone starting out early (like say during building the product/company) and probably not for someone who already is working on established companies (like in Jack's case). IF you see Jack in fact moved out of twitter to completely focus on Square and only when it had hit the road running, did he embark back on twitter.
Extremely impressive but is it really sustainable in the long run? I personally do not think that working 16hr days is good for you in the long run. It is not healthy.
What use is he if he gets burned out in a year or two? Not much I would wager. Sure one might argue that this pattern of long working hours is crucial in the first few years of a company.
The question if he does so much more in 16 hours than he could have done in say ten or twelve? I doubt you can remain very efficient 16 hours per day.
I'm sure they would disagree with me but to be fair, will you make good decisions if you don't sleep enough and work 16 hours a day? I'm thinking sure, if this goes on for a short period of time but most people will eventually burn out.
Many can, of course, handle such working conditions but it can hardly be considered healthy in the long run.
You are. The worst possible thing you can do at a startup is plow ahead and put in hours like crazy. Just like Steve Jobs killed product lines, or an engineer removes thousands of lines of code, you can remove 100 hours from the next month if you think about it carefully for one hour.
I can easily do 60-70 hour weeks as long as I use the weekend too, but 16 hour days are ridiculous. I can't believe that the guy is able to give his 100% every day for 5 days a week at both companies. The most a normal person would be able to do is a half-assed job, but perhaps Jack is just an ubermensch.
I've worked with startups in varying capacities for 6 years and my schedule is always tight. Jack Dorsey represents the limit, but I wonder whether the topical schedule (Mon: management, Tues: product, etc.) is a good organizational tactic for those of us who wear many hats.
"If you work hard, and become successful, it does not necessarily mean you are successful because you worked hard, just as if you are tall with long hair it doesn’t mean you would be a midget if you were bald."
I will never, ever work 16 hour days like this. That said, if I cofounded Twitter and Square (and thus had that much of an effect on the world), I sure as hell would work a lot.
Now that is what I call impressive and determined.
This is how you get ahead and be successful, off course with a smart mind and the skills Jack has, it makes a difference!
This is not something to be idolized. Maybe it works for Jack, or maybe it's really exaggerated but there are going to be people reading this that are going to want to try it. I feel bad for those people. Your first instinct is to think that you can't succeed without killing yourself. Then you figure out that if you're killing yourself youve forgotten why you started to begin with.
That's exactly what I was thinking while reading this. The person who wrote this article just sees things at the surface, and lacks any insight/depth into the long term consequences. Jack Dorsey may be a freak, but for most people, working this long leads to mental breakdowns, and health problems. It makes for great journalism, but that's about all.
Agreed. I see a lot of articles that scare me lately. They make it sound like business owners should do these things. These stories are the exception, not the rule.
He's still building Twitter and Square. Jobs never stopped building Apple.
Building companies goes well beyond building apps.
This comes up frequently on HN and seems to polarize people. The more it polarizes people the more on the fence I seem to find myself. I have worked similar hours split between two companies for four years. At times it sucks and at times it's great. Everyone is different.
From what I have learned from others, exceptional results require exceptional work and passion. Working 16 hours days is how it works for Jack. Ben Hogan was reported to work with a similar ethic when he started his golf career and he's now known among many as the greatest ball striker ever.
To me that's admirable, to others it isn't. Both positions are acceptable.
Of course it does, but he isn't the only one doing it anymore, and I suspect has a team of people at each company that assists and supports throughout the day, which was likely not the case in the very early days of twitter.
The required mental focus and energy to get one thing "off the ground" - past bootstrapped startup phase - is considerably different from keeping something going - and even growing - once it's hit an operational level that twitter has. I won't profess to know both sides from direct experience, but can see that they're not in the same place they were operationally/financially as they were 4 years ago.
OT: I was probably downvoted by someone who considers Twitter and Facebook as "startups".
His weekly schedule looks awful. I would never want to live a life like this. Hope his example does not turn into something that is expected from people.
I work a job as a software engineer and do computer science engineering studies at the same time. Although I don't do nearly the hours Mr. Dorsey does, I'm still physically and mentally exhausted. And like Mr. Dorsey, I love what I do, but it's still very hard on me.
I think you succeed by being better than enough other people. If there are enough people this good willing to make that sort of sacrifice, it just makes it that much harder for the competition to keep up.
That might be true but hes not doing this alone. Hes the one making the decisions and the strategy but Square has >100 employees and Twitter has like what ? 600 ?
This would be true if a big percentage of all the employees would be putting in these kind of hours, but i highly doubt thats the case.
Also it doesnt factor in luck, which is a big part of startup success. Could Jack have pulled off Square as a nobody without the help of twitter ? I guess not.
You could have started a Square Competitor at the same time as him, working even harder with all your people and even if you had the better product, you most probably wouldnt have won.
That's impressive, but I can't understand how either of these companies are happy with that situation. It's like trying to argue a polygamist can be fully dedicated to both families.
I don't think it would be the hours as much as the mental focus. When I get done working for 8 hours, I'm usually with my family about an hour and a half before I can mentally break away from what I've been doing all day, and some nights my mind will always be on my tasks no matter how hard I try to refocus.
Imagine going from 1 high pressure 8 hours job to another with only a 2 block walk between them, maybe lunch. I don't know, it sounds like overload to me.
I find it is significantly easier to work two eight hour jobs than it is to work one sixteen hour job. The context switch is refreshing.
Unlike Dorsey, I have never attempted to maintain that schedule over the long haul, but over periods of time at least, it is not as difficult as it sounds.
He should maybe buy an island and retire, since both Twitter (less and less used and not used by anyone under 30) and Square (with NFC on the horizon) can basically only go down.
In other words Jack is free to do whatever he likes, but it is not a good example for most of us. I'll cite a very short poetry by a Sicilian poet called Salvatore Quasimodo:
"Everyone stands alone on the heart of the earth / transfixed by a ray of sunshine / and it is suddenly night"