[wegi]

While reading the text I was asking myself, whether it is an American or a SV thing, to tilt towards 100% work in the work-life-balance. There was recently an article about successful startups from Utah that worked 9-to-5 and still had a good and scalable business running. I see similar things in Germany. We do not have unicorns, but there are thousands of businesses supporting hundreds of workers. And rarely do they have to sacrifice everything to run those.

[jedberg]

I had a coworker once who had spent half his working life in Germany and half in the USA (so about 15 years in each). He often liked to compare what it was like working in Silicon Valley to Germany.

My favorite observation of his was that in Germany, he would arrive at work, go to his cubicle, work until 4pm, and then go and get beers with his coworkers until 7pm, when they would go home to their partners.

In SV, he would come in, we would socialize, he would work, we'd have lunch and drink a beer, do some work, take a break for some beer, so some work, and then have a beer at work before heading home at 7pm to our partners.

We'd get the same amount of work done, and the same amount of socializing, but it would all be done at work.

He never understood why we would want to do that, and not just work all day and then leave to socialize.

[baxtr]

This must have been a very special place. Most people I know in Germany work from 9-5 maybe and then go straight home.

[texasbigdata]

Similar from my experience with family working in a Germany. Cellphone corporate email disabled after 7pm at one firm IIRC.

The crazy thing is French gdp per capita (measured hourly) growth was cited to be higher than America’s in this book by Mitt Romney’s partner at Bain. Aka, hustle porn measures hustle not output. The French just work 1700 hours a year versus the Americans who skewed up towards 2100.

[watwut]

Knowing some people who work in Germany, they are home before 7pm every day, unless they are genuinly working overtime.

Is it possible that your coworker was making choice of going for beer every day till 7pm and other people did not made same choice?

[ido]

It may have been a generational shift - I moved to Austria (similar culturally in that respect, I have since moved to Germany) in early 2005 and in my first job the "older" coworkers (to me at the time, probably in their 40s then so in their late 50s/early 60s today) would go to have beers after work every day, or almost every day.

In later jobs that didn't really happen & I think I caught the very end of that type of thing.

[jedberg]

My coworker would have been working in Germany in the late 80s and early 90s, so this makes sense.

[ido]

I guess there's a lesson in there about using 2nd hand anecdotes from 30-40 years ago and applying it to current day cultures!

[garmaine]

Why would I want to spend 3 hours every day socializing with people who I see all day at work?

[dsun179]

I see many reasons why this could be a good option. For example if you moved to SV from far away and have no social boundings.

[jasode]

>, to tilt towards 100% work in the work-life-balance. [...] And rarely do they have to sacrifice everything

The 4-letter word "work" encompasses very different activities:

(1) The so-called "work" that's genuinely interesting to the entrepreneur and he/she would rather not spend time on anything else

-- or --

(2) the work that people just barely tolerate as a job from 9 to 5

This means many observers using mental model (2) are confused why some founders have no "work/life" balance. In a previous comment, I try to explain what mental model (1) of passionate work feels like.[0]

If a person's MITTD (Most Interesting Thing To Do) happens to be a research scientist working 80 hours a week in a lab trying to discover a new molecule, or a musician practicing guitar "until his fingers bleed", or an Olympic athlete spending most of her time for years to prepare for competition, it's more likely that society romanticizes that "unbalanced life" with more positive labels such as "intense dedication".

But if that MITTD for a human happens to be working 80+ hours a week on an internet startup, we label it with negative labels such as "work" and that the entrepreneur is illogical for not having a good work-life balance.

If Warren Buffet is already worth $80 billion and owns a private jet that can take him to any exotic location in the world, why does he bother going into a boring Omaha Nebraska office every day to look at financial statements?!? Because looking at business numbers is the most interesting activity to him. Other entrepreneurs understand why WB doesn't just take it easy and lay in a hammock in the Caribbean or go whale watching in Alaska. WB is not "sacrificing" a tropical island vacation and he's not suffering at work to look at financial statements. That's what he prefers to do with his time. But to the accountant that wants to gouge his eyes out after balancing debits and credits for the 1000th time, WB's passion makes no sense at all.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23924830

[lmarcos]

Working 60h/week is fine as long as you are the founder. You're working for yourself (as well as the athlete and the musician of your example). The "problem" is working 60h/week for someone else (even if you have equity).

Founders have less work/life balance than regular workers, in US, in Sweden and everywhere else.

[sokoloff]

That’s the calculus that you’ve made for your situation (and it seems quite reasonable and internally consistent) and recommending others consider that for their situation.

For me: I’ve had many happy times in my life. Many of them where when I was working 60+ hours per week on a project that I didn’t own (sometimes literally owned none of it, other times 0.<many 0s>1 of it).

If you pay me well enough (exact definition subject to negotiation), keep the bullshit to a minimum, and put interesting problems onto the field of play, I’ll happily work 60 hours a week doing puzzles that you’re basically overpaying me to solve because I find them fascinating and would do them for free if the world didn’t run on money.

[brabel]

Yes, but as OP said, this is a problem. You're doing it for no benefit to yourself and if you have a family, to the detriment of your family. If you don't have a family and don't want one, no one is getting hurt and I wouldn't judge you for doing it (I myself spend way too long coding side projects but my wife kind of likes it as she also spends huge amounts of time on her equivalent activities), but life is short and we only get one shot at it... as long as we're consciously choosing what is best to spend our time on and remembering those around us and not causing harm to them or ourselves, all is good.

[sokoloff]

What’s the benefit to myself to watching a ballgame, going to the orchestra, putting together a jigsaw puzzle, watching a reality TV show, or any of the other 1000s of things I could choose to do to entertain myself?

[jasode]

>Founders have less work/life balance than regular workers,

If you're applying the "work/life balance" to founders that are doing what they prefer to do, it means my previous comment didn't do a good job explaining the flaw with that distorted lens.

Imagine a retired person spending all day in her garden... planting flowers, trimming hedges into pleasing shapes, etc. When not outside in her garden, she's still reading about gardening in magazines and surfing website discussion forums related to gardening. When doing neither of those tasks, she still thinks about gardening while laying in bed and anticipates the tasks she wants to do the following day and the future plans for the next week/month/year. The sum of all of her gardening effort adds up to more than 40+ hours per week. However, most outsiders would not say the retired gardener is having a "work/life balance" problem or that she's a "workaholic". Instead, we give her a charitable label such as, "she's enjoying life".

For many startup founders, building the business is the "garden" or "creative canvas" to express themselves.

For others where the activities at the job are not the most fulfilling form of living, we then have to construct this mathematical ratio of "work:life" because the work is undesirable and it's the life that is desirable. (E.g. sayings such as "work to live instead of live to work" or "working for the weekend".) Therefore, "work-vs-life balance" is indirect code speak for "undesirable-vs-desirable balance".

The founders that are doing what they truly want to do (even if it's 60+ hours a week) don't have this giant misalignment of desirable-vs-undesirable activity and therefore, the whole "work/life balance" is meaningless to them. Their work _is_ the passionate life. You can't apply "work-life balance" to Warren Buffett. He's been fascinated by business financial numbers since he was a little boy. Thus, forcing Warren Buffett go on a whale watching expedition to fulfill our expectations of "life" in the work/life balance equation is actually cruel torture to him.

[somesortofsystm]

My experience, having worked around the world, including years in the US and Germany, Europe, Asia ..

Daily Work-Load is a function of distance from domicile to workplace.

Germans generally live closer to their workplace, so its easier to come and go early, and also have a lifestyle outside the office (and even away from their own, moderate apartments) in a fairly cosmopolitan cityscape .. whereas Americans make hourly investments in their daily commute, just to get started, and don't typically have the kind of street-life infrastructure of your average European industrial region.

I think when Americans can walk to work, they spend less time overall at the office - but that is because they are more efficient/effective during the day. I have seen American colleagues take a few weeks to get used to the idea of walking everywhere, but then .. usually when the summer starts .. they become as Euro- as anyone.

Purely anecdotal of course, but I've noticed this swing myself over decades across Western world.

(Disclaimer: Japanese work schedule is way different, and I consider it more of an inverse case: Japanese move closer to their workplace, just so they can spend more time working .. and even though they 'walk everywhere' in the big Japanese cities, hours-long commutes are also a norm ..)

[ovi256]

> Americans make hourly investments in their daily commute, just to get started, and don't typically have the kind of street-life infrastructure of your average European industrial region.

The average commute in the US (52 min round-trip, https://www.google.com/search?q=american+average+commute+dur...) is either lower or at most equal to the average European commute (1h24 minutes, https://www.google.com/search?q=Europe+average+commute+durat...)

I really don't know why the popular stereotype, that I held too, is the other way around.

Japan comes in at 1h19 (https://www.google.com/search?q=japanese+average+commute)

[brabel]

Probably because in the US people drive to work, while in Europe they either cycle or catch a train? Still interesting that Americans have shorter commutes, but if what I say is true, then it's quite a difference to consider.

[burlesona]

Just emphasizing those are round trip numbers. I started to comment on how unbelievably long those were for “averages” before realizing you meant the round trip :)

[treis]

>SV thing, to tilt towards 100% work in the work-life-balance.

I think it's a SV (and some other industries) thing. Even more specific, it's a thing for a certain type of product. For a product like the one in the OP it's a natural monopoly. To be really successful you need the designers of a building and the builders using the same software. The plumbing contractor can't say that they don't use PlanGrid and expect to get the bid if that's what everyone else uses. So there's enormous pressure to be the winner since there's only going to be one while everyone else loses.

And the rewards for winning are tremendous. She spent ~7 years on PlanGrid and now is (presumably) extremely wealthy. She never has to work a day again in her life. In terms of balance that is pretty great, no?

[whack]

> There was recently an article about successful startups from Utah that worked 9-to-5 and still had a good and scalable business running. I see similar things in Germany. We do not have unicorns

You just answered your own question. Moderate success can co-exist with any number of other goals and priorities. Extreme success requires extreme dedication.

The great thing about the modern world - no one is "forced" to pursue extreme success. Everyone is free to pursue their own goals and life purpose. You don't have to justify your priorities, and neither does the workaholic.

[romanovcode]

I was thinking the same thing, she romanticizes work so much it's kind of.. ..weird.

Work is work. Especially if you work for someone else - they pay for your time, that is all. Nothing more.

[renewiltord]

Interesting that this is hard to understand. For generations, craftsmen who have dedicated themselves to the art of their craft have existed. Almost all have "worked for someone else".

I saw a monk once, on his hands and knees, maintaining the grass at a temple. This is the craft he has dedicated himself to. Others have chosen other things.

It is not hard to see why many see their life's work as important to them. That isn't romanticism. That's just a different preference vector.

Personally, having read The Remains of The Day, there are certain end results I would consider failure. But clearly men such as Newton did not consider them that.

[keiferski]

This is probably traceable to the amorphous nature of modern work. In the past, working all day meant you had a physical result, whether that’s a clean garden or a pile of widgets to sell. These days in the information economy, working all day mostly just gets you more words on a screen. Humans are physical creatures but our contemporary work style treats them as pure spirit.

Reminds me of this scene in Margin Call, about the 2009 financial crash:

"You're one of the luckiest guys in the world, Sam. You could have been digging ditches all these years."

"That's true, and if I had, at least there'd be some holes in the ground to show for it."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtFyP0qy9XU

[renewiltord]

This is another traditional view but I find it hard to believe the truth of it because of the strong bias (and personal experience): happy people do not generally know they are happy, unhappy people think that doing a different thing is sufficient for happiness.

Personally, I have found fulfillment from menial labour only when I have found no fulfillment from knowledge work. Achievement at the latter beats out the former by a large multiple, and doing the former when I have access to the latter feels me leaving like I've wasted time.

[senko]

> For generations, craftsmen who have dedicated themselves to the art of their craft have existed. Almost all have "worked for someone else".

>> When we only had months of runway left in the bank, there was no work-life balance. We had to work around the clock so that our company could survive. When we were behind on our big product launch, when we’re behind on our revenue goals, when we released nasty bugs to our users, or when our servers were down, there was no work-life balance.

This doesn't sound like someone dedicating themselves to the art of their craft, and I would argue that we released nasty bugs is the complete antithesis of what you meant. This sounds like making desparate moves trying to stay alive.

To me, a perfect modern example of someone putting the craft above all else (including their family) is Jiro Ono [0]. He does that because he wants to, not because he'd go broke otherwise.

I read GP's comment as not critizing craftsmen, but criticizing someone prioritizing the daily grind above their life. And let's face it, startups (or any other business) is 90% daily grind.

--

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiro_Dreams_of_Sushi

[rlonn]

She's an entrepreneur, and her craft is not really building a product, but building a business. I think that's what really drives her.

[brabel]

She fell into the trap of thinking her business was her life and gave equal weight to both. Quite sad to see... even if she becomes a billionaire and her business an unicorn, when the end comes, will she be happy for what she accomplished? Hardly. It's a pretty universal sentiment that what makes people happy is actually close relationships, friendships, family and helping others (not in exchange for something, like in a business, mind you - but helping for the sake of it). People like her and even the greatest in the field, like Steve Jobs, may lead extraordinary lives in our imaginations, but inside, they almost always feel horrible most of the time (the stress so high they grind their teeth to the point of damaging them as the article mentions) and end up dying sad and lonely.

[fairity]

> It's a pretty universal sentiment that what makes people happy is actually close relationships, friendships, family and helping others.

There isn't one path to happiness. Yes, close relationships and helping others in close proximity can feel good. So can wealth, social status, or building a business that positively impacts millions of people. It depends on your values, and your ability to align your actions with your values.

> People like her and even the greatest in the field, like Steve Jobs, may lead extraordinary lives in our imaginations, but inside, they almost always feel horrible most of the time.

I believe you are actually the one romanticizing here. Most people do not have this type of success, and therefore, tend to discredit the lives of those that do in order to protect their self-image.

The story of the outwardly successful CEO who is inwardly emotional distraught is a great Hollywood story, but it's an exception. If you actually follow the lives of most successful entrepreneurs, I think you will find that they are quite happy - enjoying their wealth and social status in their free time.

Yes, the day to day work of a CEO is very stressful. But, when they have time to step back from it all, knowing that they gave it their all and made an impact can be deeply satisfying.

Again, the key is to not assume everyone shares the same values. Family and friendships are one thing to value. Impact, contribution, wealth, and social status are other values. No value system is better or worse, objectively -- as long as you are capable of fulfilling your values.

[renewiltord]

I think this view is best established in The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro. It's a fairly traditional view but well described there.

For what it's worth, I think it depends on the shape of the thing. "What actually" is not a fixed concept like that. For instance, "what makes a good vacation?". One could say "not having faeces on your nose for the whole time" since, after all, it is unlikely that having faeces on your nose the whole time is likely to make a good vacation even if you're on the most lovely beach surrounded by all you live. But that's a baseline that's easy to meet. So what _actually_ makes a good vacation? The truth is: ∄ an activity or characteristic X such that ∀ vacations V that have X, V is a good vacation.

So what "actually makes people happy"? No one knows. We know things that can make you unhappy (faeces on the nose, not having any relationships) and we know that there exists a baseline happiness we have (the Hedonic Treadmill, etc.). But really, not much more.

[romanovcode]

I don't know man. I don't see the connection between Newton and building CRUD SaaS apps. In fact I see it funny how one can compare himself to those great scientists like that because he/she built an app.

[yowlingcat]

> In fact I see it funny how one can compare himself to those great scientists like that because he/she built an app.

I think I see both sides. On one hand, as someone else said, it's not the building a SaaS app that entrepreneurs are proud of -- it's building the business and building the company. That in and of itself is a lot more impressive to me than building just an app.

Is it as impressive and historically significant as the great scientific discoveries of Newton? Maybe, but probably not. Or maybe they are apples and oranges. Suppose Newton had a collaborator who built a giant manufacturing empire with his discoveries. Would those two be comparable in terms of "who was more important", or would comparison simply cease to be meaningful at this point?

To your point, maybe that's what makes the Newton comparison somewhat of a non-sequitor -- it's at best a reach.

[renewiltord]

That's unsurprising. Those whose preference vector is very different won't see it. After all, the thing you see in Newton is outcome and you don't care for the attempt. But that's not the entirety of it (though it is a significant part) for the craftsman. These craftsmen are driven by the craft itself.

So, for instance, while you'd (taking a leap here and guessing) rate it useless for a Theravada monk to master his chanting, there is a portion of it that to him is sufficient to just be good at. A portion apart from the outcome that is just dedicated to the craft itself.

If you're not driven by the craft, you likely won't get it. That's okay. The path to living a fulfilling life is to find your preference vector and optimize for it.

[MattGaiser]

I think it depends on how much you enjoy your work compared to other options available for allocating your time. I had a friend who routinely worked 7 days a week as an intern in technology at a bank. Nowhere near that was expected of him, not even close. Everyone else treated it as a 9 to 5, but he would be online at 3AM on Saturday asking questions on how to do X or whether Y was a good design choice.

Obviously this is an extreme example, but some people just love what they are doing and happen to get paid for it and in this case he was in love with his project.

[Xenoamorphous]

At what point it becomes unhealthy/ an addiction though?

I enjoy having sex, but if I have sex 7 times a day I probably have a problem.

[yowlingcat]

> I have sex 7 times a day I probably have a problem.

If that sex results in you having enough children to take care of you and work on/build a family empire with you, you may have more of a solution than a problem. Historically speaking, this happened quite frequently with male royalty.

[debarshri]

I think she romanticizes work because she is passionate about what she is working for. Passion gives true grit to survive hard times that fall on a startup. Work is work but when your are passionate about work one would selflessly be committed.