Care to share some of that real data? You're right about the haze of wishful thinking around the issue and seem to be in a position to clear it up a bit. You can infer something about the value of face time from the universal FAANG commitment to centralized HQs, despite the huge costs of this policy.
But I know for both us, and others i've talked to, there is a bunch of good reasons folks don't want to publish the more raw data, some privacy, some competitive, some legal, etc.
In this case, not releasing the data often means we don't publish more formal papers or studies because of the inability to make the underlying data available with the paper (for example).
I will say while this situation is a bit sad to me from an academic perspective, pragmatically, even with all the data from us, MS, apple, etc, i don't think it would pragmatically answer the broader questions for a whole ton of reasons.
It's definitely useful for research and further exploration, and trying to distill overall considerations and insight. It's probably useful on the internet to spike someone who says "WFH is more productive" or "Office is more productive".
But it also won't tell you what the future of work should be for your company.
For better or for worse, the system is named "capitalism" not "hardworkerism".
In the "you can't cheat an honest man" department, you can be sure that some of the engineers complaining about nepotism now were expecting to cash in on the CEO's connections when they signed on.
I'm the one complaining about nepotism. They were just complaining that he is an inexperienced tool that underpays them. That said, I'm sure they did count on his family connections creating an unending runway when they signed on.
> You are actually hurting startup founders by farting
> out this HN-optimized fluff of platitudes and having
> your co-founder vote it up. Please stop it.
> -- notbitter
As you might imagine, I don't agree with it. More, I don't actually understand what you're really trying to say. I gather you don't like it, and I do understand that some people will have different opinions to mine, but if you don't explain clearly then I really don't have a chance to learn from you.
So, if you don't mind, could you expand on your comment and make your arguments clearer?
I'm also interested in what seems to be some sort of accusation. In particular, you say:
> ... having your co-founder vote it up.
I didn't write it, and I am not a co-founder of the person who did, so I'd be interested to learn who you think is a co-founder of whom. Otherwise this smells of an accusation of dishonesty.
I look forward to your reply.
Oh, and I just thought I'd add, I haven't downvoted you, not least because I can't. HN doesn't allow downvoting of replies to one's own submissions or comments
Thanks for your passive-aggressive reply. My comment was directed at the author, not at you. I don't know what if any connection you have to the author.
However, you should note the content-free enthusiastic comment by LeonW, posted right after you submitted the article, in which he does not mention that he is the author's co-founder. You might also have noticed that many articles from this blog are similar: a catchy headline, a bunch of vague inspirational words on an uncontroversial subject, a token link to the conversion funnel, and a surprisingly high rank on the HN front page.
If you aren't even slightly suspicious that this article is 99% conversion fodder and maybe 1% altruism, I am not going to be able to explain it to you.
Hmm. My reply was absolutely genuine. You appear to be ascribing to me motives that don't exist. I honestly wanted to know the reasoning or beliefs underlying your comment, because I honestly didn't understand why you were calling it a "fluff of platitudes". I honestly wanted to know why you believe that this item is "actually hurting startup founders." That's why I asked for more information, and in particular, I asked for more details of why you said what you said, before I made any kind of judgement about your motives.
So thank you for your reply, I have found it interesting and enlightening. And believe it or not, I'm being genuine when I say that.
> My comment was directed at the author, not at you.
That wasn't clear. It often appears to me on HN that people direct comments at the submitter of an item, rather than at the author. After all, the author might not read HN. Thank you for your clarification.
> I don't know what if any connection you have to the author.
For reference, none.
> However, you should note the content-free enthusiastic comment
> by LeonW, posted right after you submitted the article, in which
> he does not mention that he is the author's co-founder.
Noted. Personally, I've always pretty much ignored content-free, enthusiastic comments, or even down-voted and in some cases flagged them. I do that without wondering whether people have connections, or are co-founders, or whatever, simply because I tend to act on the content (or lack thereof) rather than perceived, inferred, or supposed connections or motives. That's just me - I don't look for conspiracies.
> You might also have noticed that many articles from this blog are
> similar: a catchy headline, a bunch of vague inspirational words
> on an uncontroversial subject, a token link to the conversion
> funnel, and a surprisingly high rank on the HN front page.
So, you obviously think the high rank is undeserved. Fair enough - why do you think that might be the case? I know that there is a reasonably effective voting-ring detector on HN (at times possibly too aggressive) so it doesn't seem likely to me that it's just the author getting lots of cronies to upvote it. Do you think the HN audience is insufficiently critical?
One reason I ask is this: for a slightly different context, I could've written this article and I would have meant every word of it. I'm active in certain circles, and I frequently mentor and give time and advice with absolutely no expectation of return or reward. The reason? Pretty much exactly as listed in this item. That's why it resonated with me, and that's why I submitted it - I'd like to see more people give back to their communities, whatever communities they may be.
As it happens I do get benefits in return, largely in line with those listed in the item. It's not why I do it, it's not why I did it in the first place, and it's not why I'll continue to do it. In truth, I think it's important on some level, and I think it's right.
> If you aren't even slightly suspicious that this article is
> 99% conversion fodder and maybe 1% altruism, I am not going
> to be able to explain it to you.
Well, I read things to gain insight, learn stuff, and with any luck, to become better at what I choose to do. Sometimes I find real truths in unlikely places.
But here's one thing I've found. For me, evaluating things critically for what they are, and not for where I think they come from, or why I think they've been produced, and independently of any real or assumed motives on the part of the author, works for me. After all, the overwhelming majority of material on the web has some motivation behind it, and I deal with that by treating everything on its merits.
It's taken me some time to compose this reply. I hope you find it an interesting insight into a point of view other than your own. No doubt we won't agree, but I've learned something from you, and I hope this affords you the same opportunity.
If you avoid the questions "why was this written" and "how did it get from the author to my eyeballs" you will never develop a working bullshit detector.
Early 30s, largely working on maintenance & refactoring of a 10-years-old codebase, with some iOS devs mixed in.
(Perhaps I shouldn't speak for them, as people might hide all sorts of unhappiness to avoid rocking the boat. But they seem happy, and when I've offered them jobs on my projects - which I think are much more interesting, but I've learned that what's interesting to me is not necessarily what's interesting to everyone - they've declined.)
They are bullshitting you. Big companies can have rigid salary structures, but at a startup you have lower pay because that's what you accepted. The degree argument is a negotiating tactic to get you to accept lower pay.
That said, if you don't get a degree you will likely be fighting this battle over and over for the rest of your working life. And college is a lot more fun when you're the same age as your classmates.
terminology around this issue can be VERY confusing
You are not making it any simpler by redefining "control" in this theoretical way. You are making some very naive assumptions about independence: you'd be much better off treating the investors as a single voting bloc, which is what the usual sense of "control" assumes - and if there are multiple founders you should assume that serial investors are very sophisticated at splitting them.
A good followup would be to go out and actually measure the distribution of voting outcomes rather than making a strong claim based on the most tractable assumptions you can find.
