we moved our startup from London to SV in Jan 2007 partly due to this line of thinking. it is false, no-one productively works 24/7 and trying to do so is a mistake i don’t intend to repeat on my next startup.
the vision of the workaholic, always at their desk entrepreneur is in my experience usually propagated by people with little actual operational experience of raw startups. this post from Naval Ravikant sums up what i've learnt about productivity, http://startupboy.com/2005/11/29/the-80-hour-myth/
and on the london vs SV work ethic. my peers in london work just as hard as my peers in SV.
I think there is a popular ideology (perhaps of protestant roots) that makes it "noble" to work long hours, hence why such stories are appealing to readers (and writers). It's a kind of narrative fallacy which people use to explain success without getting into too much detail: "he worked long hours he succeeded, this makes sense to me logically and ethically as those who work visibly hard are truly worthy".
If you want to create a great company it's best to seek proper work/life balance that delivers best outcome over the entire period of the few years, rather than optimize an appealing narrative.
The worst thing you can do it get trapped in the narrative yourself.
Startup scenesters tend to confuse work with "features"; the most productive days are actually spent pulling contracts over the phone, not implementing RESTful APIs for exotic handhelds :-)
"obviously the absolute pool of talent is smaller here in the UK/Europe than it is in the U.S. (and that cannot be disputed nor is it anything more than a function of population)"
It can be disputed. I am disputing it. The writer needs to check his population statistics.
Population of the US: 304 million
Population of the Euro area (therefore not including UK, Poland, and several other countries): 329 million
Source:
Eurostat
U.S. Census Bureau, Population Division
Looking at it from the other perspective, it's an example of how an unhealthily competitive culture can lead to wastage; where everyone is forced to work harder to keep up with the competition, but as a result everyone has less time for culture, social life or sleep. Are you really any better off for it as a society? Where does the extra value go if there's no time to enjoy it?
Also: a lot of hungry people chasing each other's tails in increasingly manic circles, does not necessarily make for technological innovation with lasting value to society. Some of it might, but I imagine a lot of it just contributes to the "technology treadmill", or to burn out, or to poor ideas conceived after 4 hours sleep...
One other thing: a lot of european cities are great, beautiful places to live with a lot of culture going on. You don't pay a premium to live in these places if you want to spend 12 hours a day working (or at least if you do, you'll go work for a bank where the pay's much better).
Companies that seem to be 'slacking' probably just haven't achieved product-market fit yet. If a company has achieved this, and is growing like a weed, I doubt the employees will be 'coasting'. Greed will take care of that.
So, I'd be willing to bet that the referenced companies are still trying to figure out what they're really going to build. Don't blame the employees, this is the job of management.
I could be wrong of course. Are there companies that are growing rapidly that have problems motivating employees?
In Europe it's quite usual to refuse business when you're busy. A lot of small businesses never grow larger than 10/20 people; after that the owners are satisfied and have enough money for a comfortable lifestyle. Companies don't fail catastrophically fail here, they just peter out.
The entrepreneur that "dreams big" is the exception. And people with entrepreneurial aspirations are themselves exceptions. I think I read an article in the NY Times a while back that over 70% of MIT students are interested in business, and that 30% or so take a stab at it.
Over here in Europe many college kids subscribe to the "profit is evil" philosophy and starting a business is "something they maybe want to do some day".
I wasn't even suggesting that there's anything wrong with that approach.
Needless to say, if you're a VC you want to fund people who want to create a company that can get a big exit. And people with those aspirations are few and far between in Europe.
I am from Europe and several of my colleagues went to work to our USA branch (within the same corp). They told me the same thing I am reading in the article - in USA, they work harder and more hours per day. And we are not a startup!
[By contrast here in the UK I’m well aware that the legal requirement is 20 days (4 weeks’ worth!) and everyone is keeping track — and actually taking them!]
This is funny - I am really surprised that the author is surprised about that. ;-) Of course, I take those full 4 weeks, and I am also required to do so, otherwise the company would have to pay me extra money for those days, which they usually do not want to do. We are also encouraged to take at least one two-weeks long vacation "to fully recover". Moreover, in my country we have as much as 15 non-working days (state holidays).
Anyway, I'd like to hear some perspective of you living in USA - it is really enough for you to have just 10 days of vacation per year? Is that number even correct? And... what you think is the actual reason that working so many hours and days per year is valued so much? What's the point - to make more money, or to prove oneself, or is it just a best spended time? I am really curious to learn more about it.
I get 12 vacation and 5 sick days/year, plus a few (maybe 9) holidays off. I think I'm probably at about the median of vacation days for a standard American professional (maybe on the low end for the software industry).
I like the month plan better. I think there's a split in ideology here. A lot of people think we lose our competitive edge if we take more vacation. I think we'd really be at about the same productivity level but a lot happier. I think, in general, we're heading to the more leisurely schedule that you guys are. And I think that in talent-based work, a more leisurely schedule will bring about better quality and productivity.
I always thought the 4 weeks compulsory time off in Australia (same as UK I guess) was on the low side. I mean if you don't get some time every year to sit back, take a holiday and enjoy what are you working for?
I guess there is a big difference between doing a job you love and being stuck in something to.
The OP states that the legal holiday entitlement in the US is 10. I have yet to find any mention of it in labor law, however, so I would put the number at 0.
That said, I have yet to have fewer than 8 holidays plus 10 vacation days officially allotted, though it's only ever been tracked at larger companies (or small/startup companies run by managers with a large-company mentality).
In China they work even harder for less money.
From my European perspective it is all about how much you are willing to sacrifice for your job. Because no matter how much you love your job, it's still a sacrifice.
As an inidividual I'm more concerned with the quality of my life than the local quality of investors options. This guy is simply pushing is own agenda here, and the people insecure enough to listen will work harder. Which apparantly is everyone in SV. But without a proper social safety net in the US, I can very well imagine.
From the article: "Something I’ve realised and have to admit is that while obviously the absolute pool of talent is smaller here in the UK/Europe than it is in the U.S. (and that cannot be disputed nor is it anything more than a function of population) another factor."
- Last time I looked there was 300M people in the US and 500M in the EU.
I'm Italian, currently living in Paris. I have worked in small and large companies (even startup) all over Europe and I hear what the British VC says. I totally feel that in Europe personal life is way more important that the professional one and most of the people doing tech work are not passionate about it. Europe working culture is very much about "how many days of holidays I have left", bittered employees and clueless managers.
There is certainly a correlation between a competitive environment such as that in SV and elevated work ethic, but is this really something that is so unique, geographically speaking? Why does the author and philip Letts (see the comments on site) seem to think that such a condition is impossible to replicate elsewhere?
Being able to speak about workplace legislation of taxation in the EU would have been a topic of interest on founding a startup. However the author chose to squander the article on meaningless speculation.
Seriously? There's even concern over whether startups "work as hard" Silicon Valley ones?
If that's where they're at, then there is almost no hope? The concept "working hard" is just ingrained in entrepreneurship. If you don't work hard, work smart, then you aren't really an entrepreneur; you're something else.
the vision of the workaholic, always at their desk entrepreneur is in my experience usually propagated by people with little actual operational experience of raw startups. this post from Naval Ravikant sums up what i've learnt about productivity, http://startupboy.com/2005/11/29/the-80-hour-myth/
and on the london vs SV work ethic. my peers in london work just as hard as my peers in SV.