The fallacy of this is that more creates more. More hours, more hiring, more something.
And it is true in a sense. If you put in more work, more work will happen. But I think for most startups, the leverage is really in how differently you approach the problem, how well you cultivate your team, and the strategy.
Any large company can outspend you on hours. They have thousands or tens of thousands more people, spending more hours. If hours worked were the metric, every large company and government organization would always win and do the best work. More hours, better output.
This thinking is often representative of younger founders, where the startup becomes their identity and life. They have a hard time doing anything else, and cannot understand that your work is not the person that is you. But activities outside of work can grow you as a person too and make you do better work.
I’ve never worked this way. As a designer, I always saw the need to take a step back, to take a break. At times, I might work 12 hours or 16 hours, or whatever amount was needed, but it wasn’t the norm. You just can't grind design, you need inspiration. But taking that step away from the work, would give me more perspective, inspiration and I could approach the problem differently or I could just see the solution.
Grinding is never good for any creative problem, and startups or creating new products are often mostly about creative problem solving. Grinding works ok for email jobs, or where you just executing on very clear playbook.
With Linear, we’ve never worked this way. We work reasonable hours, 5 days a week. All of us founders have families. Many of our employees have families. I personally stop every evening, spend time with the family, cook dinner for the family, eat dinner together, and focus on things outside of work. Sometimes I work in the late evenings or weekends, but to me the pride is that I don’t need to. Company should be succesful without it.
My goal is to build a company that is sustainable in the long term, and doesn’t require heroics or personal sacrifices every single day.
There are times when our team is heroic. Launches, incidents, some other work that just needs to be done. They will work late into the night because they know it is the right thing. But we don’t require that every day or every week, and the more this happens, the more I think it is a failure of our company and leadership. The team and the leaders should always keep a reserve to use when something is needed.
Our thinking was also that quality, which we value, doesn’t emerge from working more or stressing people more. It emerges when you create the conditions for it to emerge. Often it is the appreciation, space, time, and how the person feels. A person who is rested will do better work.
I wouldn’t attribute much of our success to working a lot. The success came from having clear thinking, ideas, and focus to do the right things.
I sometimes wish we could move the culture more toward a Zen master.
Real mastery is not exerting the most effort. It is achieving the outcome with the least necessary effort.
These days are almost over, so do not let what remains pass like ordinary time. Fill them with fasting, dhikr, Qur’an, dua, repentance, charity, and every good deed that brings you closer to Allah.
The best day of the year - the day of ‘Arafah is here! Don’t let it pass without taking advantage of it: do your Adkhaar, read Qur’aan, and most importantly, make a LOT of Du‘aa.
This should be recognized for what it is: a terrorist attack rooted in Islamophobia. Anti-Muslim propaganda radicalized these teens into carrying out this atrocity. May Allah have mercy on the victims and preserve San Diego’s Muslim community. Āmīn.
Brother Amin Abdullah was the guard at the mosque in San Diego for years. He was instrumental in stopping the shooters from reaching the children today. This was his final post on FB. On these holiest days, may Allah have mercy on him and accept him as a martyr. Ameen
Today's vote was hard for me personally. I have much love for my local Labour councillors and my hand hesitated at the ballot paper. But voting for them would have been interpreted by Starmer as a vote of confidence in his enduring support for genocide, his subsequent subversion of the law, his rabid pursuit of sweeping restrictions on our freedom to protest the genocide and speak out against it, and his spending our hard-earned tax money on fuelling hatred and division within society instead of improving the lives of ordinary Brits here who need the help.
My votes are Green today.
A Palestinian man was killed and others were injured on Thursday following an Israeli drone strike on the city of Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip, despite ceasefire agreement.
🔗https://t.co/xiWCBZH6dQ
Hatred and bigotry against Muslims is reaching levels of insanity in America.
Our Masjid, @epicmasjid, offers free basic healthcare to anyone who walks in, and we fund it ourselves, while our doctors volunteer their time. Yet, even this act of basic humanity is turned around and used to weaponize anti-Muslim sentiment.
By the way, the existence of this clinic is in fact a manifestation of the very 'Shariah' that these people are trying to ban!
Israeli soldiers torture a one-year-old child in Gaza, including burning his leg with a cigarette and inserting a nail into his leg, according to a report, to pressure his father to make confessions
https://t.co/v0be37LwpV
In case you’re online scrolling tonight, a quick reminder to not let this night which may be Laylatul Qadr go to waste.
التمسوا ليل�� القدر في آخر ليلة
https://t.co/9wzgOehmrE