WEBVTT - Are You Sure You're Working Enough? 0:00:00.400 --> 0:00:03.960 Totally false. That's the two word tweet that's set off 0:00:03.960 --> 0:00:06.960 a huge debate in Silicon Valley about the merits of 0:00:07.000 --> 0:00:11.000 being a workaholic. Is working on the weekends and sacrificing 0:00:11.000 --> 0:00:14.040 your personal life the key to success? Or is there 0:00:14.080 --> 0:00:29.560 another way? This is game plan. Hi, I'm Rebecca Greenfield 0:00:29.720 --> 0:00:33.240 and I'm Francesco Weepy, And this week we're talking about 0:00:33.240 --> 0:00:37.639 how much we work and how hard we work, and 0:00:37.680 --> 0:00:39.800 if maybe there's a better way to do it than 0:00:39.960 --> 0:00:44.080 just plugging in hours until our brains explode. Yeah, there's 0:00:44.080 --> 0:00:46.400 got to be right. I mean, that's what I hope, 0:00:46.680 --> 0:00:50.479 that's the dream. By all accounts, Americans in particular, we 0:00:50.560 --> 0:00:53.559 work a lot. Depending on the study, it's about an 0:00:53.600 --> 0:00:57.280 hour more day than our European counterparts. And for full 0:00:57.320 --> 0:01:01.080 time workers, so people and jobs like ores, Americans work 0:01:01.160 --> 0:01:03.680 something around average forty seven hours a week. And I 0:01:03.680 --> 0:01:06.000 think if you're in a job like working at a 0:01:06.000 --> 0:01:09.360 big corporate law firm or a medicine it's way more 0:01:09.400 --> 0:01:11.840 than that. Yeah. And what I'm wondering and what we're 0:01:11.840 --> 0:01:15.119 going to get into and this conversation is do those 0:01:15.160 --> 0:01:19.200 long hours mean we're working harder or working better or do. 0:01:19.240 --> 0:01:21.880 They just mean we're getting more tired and burning out 0:01:21.880 --> 0:01:25.080 fast and more signaling hard work. That is a thing. 0:01:25.280 --> 0:01:28.520 When I was a blogger, my first job, I had 0:01:29.280 --> 0:01:32.080 a job where I worked ten hour days, no lunch break, 0:01:32.360 --> 0:01:35.279 completely like working all the way through, and that felt 0:01:35.720 --> 0:01:39.440 crazy unsustainable and every single person burned out with writing. 0:01:39.720 --> 0:01:42.479 That's something that I guess you might imagine A boss 0:01:42.560 --> 0:01:45.440 might imagine that you can sit and do it endlessly 0:01:45.800 --> 0:01:48.000 without a break because it's not like manual labor. But 0:01:48.040 --> 0:01:51.120 actually you're going to see really diminishing returns I think 0:01:51.120 --> 0:01:53.640 when you're doing something creative or doing something that requires 0:01:53.680 --> 0:01:57.240 any brain power, because your brain, like any other organ, 0:01:57.480 --> 0:02:01.600 needs a rest. And this is a very American thing. 0:02:01.800 --> 0:02:03.840 It came up in our show last week, which was 0:02:03.880 --> 0:02:06.920 about working abroad and Mom. We talked to our colleagues 0:02:06.960 --> 0:02:09.600 who were not born here about work here. Now all 0:02:09.680 --> 0:02:13.240 of them we're both shocked at the work culture but 0:02:13.320 --> 0:02:17.560 also really liked it. The most surprising thing about the 0:02:17.600 --> 0:02:20.600 work culture in the US is how much time we 0:02:20.680 --> 0:02:22.760 spent working over here. And I tell people as maybe 0:02:22.800 --> 0:02:25.080 to the US, they were very afraid for me. We 0:02:25.120 --> 0:02:28.040 thought that Americans only got two weeks a year of lave. 0:02:28.280 --> 0:02:30.799 I'm from England and to me, the most surprising thing 0:02:30.840 --> 0:02:33.919 about working in the US is how willing people out 0:02:33.919 --> 0:02:36.760 to work on their weekends. The most surprising thing about 0:02:37.240 --> 0:02:40.200 working in the US to me is the lack of 0:02:40.240 --> 0:02:44.919 consecutive weeks of vacation. Yeah, this is an American cliche 0:02:45.040 --> 0:02:47.120 that we are all obsessed with work and logging hours, 0:02:47.160 --> 0:02:50.720 but increasingly companies are moving away from this idea that 0:02:50.960 --> 0:02:53.320 just putting in hours is the best way to get 0:02:53.360 --> 0:02:58.000 work done, both because employees millennials especially do want work 0:02:58.000 --> 0:03:00.960 life balance, but also because they're not sure that just 0:03:01.639 --> 0:03:04.960 working twelve hours in a row leads to the best product, right. 0:03:05.000 --> 0:03:07.440 I feel as a manager, I feel this way. I 0:03:07.480 --> 0:03:10.680 could not care less what time people get into work 0:03:10.880 --> 0:03:13.840 if they're meeting their deadlines and getting work done on time. 0:03:14.280 --> 0:03:17.079 And I think most people have experienced that, Like, when 0:03:17.120 --> 0:03:20.200 you're given a chance to manage your own time, you 0:03:20.600 --> 0:03:22.720 can get a lot done in a really short period 0:03:22.720 --> 0:03:24.320 of time if you're focused enough, And you can get 0:03:24.400 --> 0:03:28.920 nothing done in twelve hours, So the hours are not 0:03:29.040 --> 0:03:32.040 a good way to measure how much work you're getting done. 0:03:32.080 --> 0:03:34.640 I do feel like sometimes if you know you have 0:03:34.720 --> 0:03:37.960 to stay at the office until seven pm, you will 0:03:38.000 --> 0:03:42.160 procrastinate and just stretch out the work until seven pm. Yeah. 0:03:42.200 --> 0:03:43.720 And on the other hand, if you're like me and 0:03:43.760 --> 0:03:46.560 you have to leave it five every day, otherwise you 0:03:46.600 --> 0:03:49.760 pick up your kid late. That endpoint is a nice 0:03:49.800 --> 0:03:53.800 kick in the butt to really consolidate your efforts and 0:03:54.080 --> 0:03:56.040 be more efficient about getting your work done right. It 0:03:56.080 --> 0:03:59.480 doesn't make you any worth have an employee, I hope not. Anyway, 0:03:59.480 --> 0:04:03.520 this whole top bait was reignited recently when a venture 0:04:03.560 --> 0:04:07.760 capitalist Keith Rabboy, got into a Twitter war Blake Robbins, 0:04:07.800 --> 0:04:11.880 another tech investor, made the case for working smarter, not harder. 0:04:11.920 --> 0:04:15.120 So he was on team, you can do it on 0:04:15.160 --> 0:04:18.039 your own time. It's hours logg don't matter. Like working 0:04:18.040 --> 0:04:20.520 on the weekends as no one. Yeah, he said something like, 0:04:20.560 --> 0:04:23.599 it's not cool. It doesn't make you cool to say 0:04:23.640 --> 0:04:25.360 you worked through your weekend. That thing you were talking 0:04:25.400 --> 0:04:28.320 about earlier about like performing work, because that's part of it. 0:04:28.320 --> 0:04:30.880 It's like, oh, I've luked a twelve hour day. Oh 0:04:30.880 --> 0:04:33.240 my god, I'm so busy. Rabbo I see him was 0:04:33.360 --> 0:04:38.800 tweet disagreed, and he tweeted those words totally false, and 0:04:38.839 --> 0:04:42.840 then he went into why he thinks working hard is 0:04:42.880 --> 0:04:44.920 the key to success. He pointed to people like Elon 0:04:45.000 --> 0:04:48.520 Musk and Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg who all put 0:04:48.560 --> 0:04:51.800 in the time and they're very successful. So obviously you 0:04:51.839 --> 0:04:54.360 have to be a workaholic to succeed, was his point. 0:04:54.480 --> 0:04:57.200 They also have another thing in common. They're all men, 0:04:57.400 --> 0:04:59.320 and a lot of the people who end up having 0:04:59.400 --> 0:05:02.400 personal obligations and family obligations on the weekends and at 0:05:02.480 --> 0:05:05.640 night our women. We'll hear more from a boy later, 0:05:05.680 --> 0:05:08.560 but his tweets started a huge debate until I've Gone Valley. 0:05:08.600 --> 0:05:12.520 There are people writing blog post responses and tweets all 0:05:12.520 --> 0:05:14.960 over the place, and one of those people was Sarah Moscoff, 0:05:15.000 --> 0:05:18.280 who took to linked In to write her rebuttal and 0:05:18.320 --> 0:05:21.120 Sarah's joining us now to explain how she feels about 0:05:21.120 --> 0:05:26.400 work life balance. Sarah Muscoff is the founder of Winning, 0:05:26.480 --> 0:05:28.440 which is a start up for parents, and she was 0:05:28.480 --> 0:05:35.200 also an engineer at Twitter, YouTube, and Google. So what 0:05:35.279 --> 0:05:40.800 was your reaction when you saw Keith's tweets about putting 0:05:40.880 --> 0:05:44.080 in hours and working yourself to death as the key 0:05:44.200 --> 0:05:48.760 to succeeding. I was very turned off by the statement. Initially, 0:05:49.440 --> 0:05:52.920 um and and you know, as as a founder with 0:05:53.080 --> 0:05:56.120 children and my co founder also as children, we really 0:05:56.160 --> 0:05:59.640 advocate for building a family friendly work environment that allows 0:05:59.640 --> 0:06:03.119 people to have time to do things outside of work, 0:06:03.200 --> 0:06:05.840 like spend time with their children. Um But the more 0:06:05.880 --> 0:06:08.360 I thought about it, the more I realized I might 0:06:08.440 --> 0:06:11.640 actually be aligned with what Keith is saying or is 0:06:11.720 --> 0:06:15.680 underlying message. Um and. And the reason I think we're 0:06:15.720 --> 0:06:19.120 actually more on the same page than not is because Whinnie, 0:06:19.120 --> 0:06:22.040 we know it. It's going to take many, many years 0:06:22.120 --> 0:06:25.719 to build a really lasting brand for parents. That's part 0:06:25.720 --> 0:06:28.279 of this standard toolkit for every parent. It's not going 0:06:28.360 --> 0:06:30.520 to happen overnight. We're not going to be an overnight 0:06:31.240 --> 0:06:35.280 viral app. And so we're building the company in a 0:06:35.279 --> 0:06:37.279 way that allows us to work on it for many, 0:06:37.320 --> 0:06:40.600 many years. We want to build a culture that's really sustainable, 0:06:41.120 --> 0:06:43.560 not just for us, but also for our employees, so 0:06:43.600 --> 0:06:47.040 that we can spend a really long time on the problem. 0:06:47.080 --> 0:06:50.880 And I think the number one reason startups fail is 0:06:50.920 --> 0:06:53.920 because the founders quit, they burn out, they don't want 0:06:53.920 --> 0:06:57.480 to work on the problem anymore. And we realized by 0:06:57.520 --> 0:07:00.960 building a company where we can have lexibility, and we 0:07:01.000 --> 0:07:04.520 can have breaks and and spend time outside of work. 0:07:04.680 --> 0:07:07.880 It will allow us to really withstand even the toughest 0:07:07.920 --> 0:07:11.240 of times. And his tweets, Keith mentioned a bunch of 0:07:11.440 --> 0:07:15.720 visionaries and really successful people as examples of how you 0:07:15.800 --> 0:07:19.160 have to really work hard and sacrifice everything else in 0:07:19.240 --> 0:07:21.840 order to be successful. What do you say to the 0:07:21.880 --> 0:07:26.480 idea that that's a necessary ingredient for success. I definitely 0:07:26.520 --> 0:07:29.200 think you really have to work hard, and certainly there 0:07:29.200 --> 0:07:32.720 are sacrifices to be made. I think there's a couple 0:07:32.720 --> 0:07:35.640 of things though, that are important to point out. First 0:07:35.640 --> 0:07:38.680 of all, when you're building a technology company, Um, you're 0:07:38.760 --> 0:07:43.280 hiring engineers who are using their brain to solve problems. Uh. 0:07:43.280 --> 0:07:46.080 And when you work on really hard problems that require 0:07:46.120 --> 0:07:49.400 your brain to be operating at like the top capacity, 0:07:49.680 --> 0:07:52.000 you need rest and you need time when you're not 0:07:52.080 --> 0:07:54.880 thinking about the problem to function at the highest level. 0:07:54.960 --> 0:07:58.200 And I think this is maybe something that investors don't understand, 0:07:58.800 --> 0:08:02.880 or some investors don't under stand, because investing in companies 0:08:02.960 --> 0:08:06.640 is very different from writing code. And and when you 0:08:06.720 --> 0:08:08.800 were a team of six engineers, so we're all writing 0:08:08.840 --> 0:08:11.280 code all day, you know, I have a computer science 0:08:11.320 --> 0:08:14.160 degree from m I T. I've worked at top technology companies, 0:08:14.160 --> 0:08:17.080 so I understand what it's like to work work on 0:08:17.160 --> 0:08:20.880 hard problems, uh, and you need rest and you need 0:08:20.920 --> 0:08:24.480 a break. So I think working hard does not mean 0:08:24.520 --> 0:08:28.440 working twelve hours a day, because you cannot work on 0:08:28.640 --> 0:08:31.920 a hard problem for twelve hours and be working at 0:08:32.360 --> 0:08:36.520 the top capacity. What are your hours like, They're like 0:08:36.840 --> 0:08:39.360 kind of the engineer version of nine to five, So 0:08:39.400 --> 0:08:42.080 I would sit around ten to six is when everyone 0:08:42.160 --> 0:08:44.320 is pretty much in the office. You know, we like 0:08:44.480 --> 0:08:47.280 to see our kids off for the day in the morning, 0:08:47.360 --> 0:08:50.120 and then we like to come home and have family dinners. 0:08:50.120 --> 0:08:52.040 And I think, you know, not even all of our 0:08:52.040 --> 0:08:55.960 employees don't even have kids, but they still enjoy that 0:08:56.160 --> 0:08:59.040 flexibility to have a life outside of work and have 0:08:59.200 --> 0:09:02.840 time when they and focus on other things. So you 0:09:02.920 --> 0:09:05.720 have this culture set up at WINNIE that that allows 0:09:06.040 --> 0:09:09.840 that flexibility. But would you say it's difficult in general 0:09:09.880 --> 0:09:13.079 for parents who want to be founders or who work 0:09:13.160 --> 0:09:17.000 in the valley to contend with the expectation or the 0:09:17.080 --> 0:09:20.360 culture around working really long hours at the expense of 0:09:20.400 --> 0:09:23.720 everything else. Yeah, And I think a lot of times, 0:09:23.800 --> 0:09:26.360 you know, even these companies that claim to be very 0:09:26.440 --> 0:09:29.920 family friendly because they have great maternity leaves and they 0:09:29.960 --> 0:09:33.560 may have a awesome lactation room, and those things are important, 0:09:33.559 --> 0:09:35.880 don't get me wrong, but I think a lot of 0:09:35.880 --> 0:09:39.120 it too is the culture that you have for the 0:09:39.200 --> 0:09:41.840 parents that are are working there, not when they're taking 0:09:41.840 --> 0:09:44.160 time off for maternity or paternity leave, but when they're 0:09:44.160 --> 0:09:46.920 actually working day to day. You know, do you have 0:09:47.480 --> 0:09:51.160 late night events that require you to be away from 0:09:51.160 --> 0:09:55.440 your family and drinking, which is not practical for new parents. 0:09:55.840 --> 0:09:59.959 Do you require a lot of travel and long offsite 0:10:00.320 --> 0:10:02.680 where you have to be away from your family. These 0:10:02.720 --> 0:10:07.440 things really lead to a unfamily friendly work environment. I 0:10:07.480 --> 0:10:09.600 think they're often not talked about, but they make a 0:10:09.600 --> 0:10:14.520 bigger impact for working parents than having an extra month 0:10:14.600 --> 0:10:17.680 of maternity or paternity leave. And wondering if you think 0:10:17.720 --> 0:10:23.280 that attitude of someone like Keith is gendered in any way. Oh? Absolutely, 0:10:23.400 --> 0:10:27.400 I mean, I think the idea that you can't possibly 0:10:28.040 --> 0:10:30.880 have a family and spend time with that family and 0:10:30.920 --> 0:10:34.720 have a successful startup is coming from just a lack 0:10:34.800 --> 0:10:39.560 of experience doing both. Uh, And I think you absolutely can, 0:10:40.240 --> 0:10:43.040 and we're sort of here to prove that. Why did 0:10:43.040 --> 0:10:45.800 you feel like it was important to write a response 0:10:45.880 --> 0:10:48.000 to these ideas and put them out there in a 0:10:48.120 --> 0:10:51.280 LinkedIn post. First of all, I think in general, I 0:10:51.320 --> 0:10:56.000 want to see more women start companies, and this idea 0:10:56.200 --> 0:10:59.080 that you can't start a company when you have a child, 0:10:59.720 --> 0:11:01.800 or can't have a family and have a company, I 0:11:01.800 --> 0:11:05.120 think is completely false. Like I I actually think it's 0:11:05.120 --> 0:11:07.960 one of the best jobs you can have when you 0:11:08.080 --> 0:11:10.280 have a family, because you get to set the rules 0:11:10.720 --> 0:11:12.800 and you get to create this culture that can be 0:11:12.840 --> 0:11:15.520 extremely family friendly that you may not find at your 0:11:15.559 --> 0:11:18.720 average tech company. So I think that's that's one reason 0:11:18.760 --> 0:11:22.440 I like to speak out and encourage other women to 0:11:22.800 --> 0:11:27.080 start companies and families. But I think also, you know, 0:11:27.200 --> 0:11:30.160 I want to make sure that people understand that working 0:11:30.240 --> 0:11:35.439 hard isn't just putting in twelve plus hour days every 0:11:35.520 --> 0:11:38.200 day and then burning out. It's working on it for 0:11:38.240 --> 0:11:41.840 a very long time. Uh. You know, Keith mentioned Kobe Bryant, 0:11:41.840 --> 0:11:43.480 who I'm a big fan of. He went to my 0:11:43.559 --> 0:11:48.400 high school, and Kobe Bryant, you know, played basketball forever 0:11:48.800 --> 0:11:51.800 for for his entire life for many many years. Um, 0:11:51.880 --> 0:11:54.240 And that's what it takes to build a successful company. 0:11:54.240 --> 0:11:58.120 It's not just for one year of your life working 0:11:58.160 --> 0:12:01.800 your butt off, it's for every year again and again 0:12:02.480 --> 0:12:05.120 getting up and working on the same thing. And it's 0:12:05.160 --> 0:12:08.600 this endurance that I think he forgot to mention that's 0:12:08.640 --> 0:12:11.000 really critical. So if you set up your your company 0:12:11.000 --> 0:12:13.640 in a way that you can't have endurance over a 0:12:13.640 --> 0:12:17.400 ten year period, then you're just setting yourself up for failure. Yeah, 0:12:17.440 --> 0:12:21.000 to use the cliche, it's a marathon. Yes, it's not 0:12:21.080 --> 0:12:24.120 a sprint. Well, this was really great, Um, thanks so 0:12:24.240 --> 0:12:27.240 much for talking to us about working hard. Thanks so 0:12:27.320 --> 0:12:31.160 much for having me. That was Sarah's perspective. But now 0:12:31.200 --> 0:12:33.040 that all the takes have come in, we wanted to 0:12:33.040 --> 0:12:36.440 see where Keith Radboy, who started this entire conversation, stands 0:12:36.440 --> 0:12:39.160 on the issue. Has he changed his point of view 0:12:39.240 --> 0:12:42.640 or is he standing firm? So to find out we 0:12:42.800 --> 0:12:45.280 brought him on the show. Keith Rabboi is a venture 0:12:45.320 --> 0:12:48.480 capitalist at Coast Aventures. He was also a former executive 0:12:48.520 --> 0:12:51.800 at PayPal, Lincoln and Square. Thanks for coming on, Keith, 0:12:51.880 --> 0:12:54.080 it's pleasure to be with you. So you recently got 0:12:54.120 --> 0:12:59.280 involved in a Twitter conversation about working hard. Do you 0:12:59.280 --> 0:13:02.040 want to tell us what happened. Well, I think some 0:13:02.440 --> 0:13:06.280 young VC junior VC uh sort of advise people on 0:13:06.280 --> 0:13:08.400 Twitter that they don't have to work very hard, that 0:13:08.440 --> 0:13:10.920 they should just work smarter, and so I sort of 0:13:10.920 --> 0:13:13.240 rejected that. I think it's kind of ridiculous for a 0:13:13.280 --> 0:13:16.120 junior associated to be giving anybody career advice, but certainly 0:13:16.160 --> 0:13:19.800 bad career advice is destructive. And what was it about 0:13:19.840 --> 0:13:23.760 what he said that you felt the need to respond to. Well, 0:13:23.760 --> 0:13:27.280 the idea that there's a substitute for hard work, especially 0:13:27.360 --> 0:13:29.640 early in your career. Uh, the one thing you can 0:13:29.679 --> 0:13:32.920 control is the effort in the initiative and the tenacity 0:13:32.960 --> 0:13:35.880 that you have, and if you want to be successful professionally, 0:13:36.520 --> 0:13:39.440 the effort is the single thing that's under your control. 0:13:39.480 --> 0:13:41.240 There's a lot of other variables that you may or 0:13:41.240 --> 0:13:43.760 may not be able to influence, but how how much 0:13:43.760 --> 0:13:45.960 you care and how hard you work to pursue an 0:13:46.000 --> 0:13:48.760 objective and to be excellent at your craft is completely 0:13:48.840 --> 0:13:52.600 under your control. So is that your theory on working 0:13:52.800 --> 0:13:56.560 that you just log the hours? Well, I think that 0:13:56.800 --> 0:14:02.079 the people who really care about being successful and highly 0:14:02.120 --> 0:14:05.920 competitive industries have to be both talented and have a 0:14:06.000 --> 0:14:09.080 lot of grit and determination and at the end of 0:14:09.080 --> 0:14:11.959 the day, there's not a lot of substitutes for that effort. 0:14:12.200 --> 0:14:14.120 So is that how you approach work? Are you just 0:14:14.240 --> 0:14:18.720 constantly logging hours? Well, not necessarily logging. I would reject 0:14:18.720 --> 0:14:20.640 the concept of logging hours. I think it's more of 0:14:20.680 --> 0:14:23.880 a mental obsession, like how how how often is your 0:14:23.960 --> 0:14:27.920 brain tuned into a particular problem and being obsessed about 0:14:28.000 --> 0:14:30.960 improving the world and solving the problem. So it doesn't 0:14:31.000 --> 0:14:34.520 mean necessarily literally typing or literally sitting at a desk, 0:14:34.960 --> 0:14:39.040 but it's how how consciously you're aware of what you're 0:14:39.040 --> 0:14:42.120 trying to do, how you prioritize your time and energies 0:14:42.160 --> 0:14:46.480 around that problem versus other distractions. So some people in 0:14:46.560 --> 0:14:48.840 the some of the reactions to what you said on 0:14:48.880 --> 0:14:52.760 Twitter suggested that for people who want to have families, 0:14:52.760 --> 0:14:57.440 this can be a really problematic approach because you you 0:14:57.600 --> 0:15:00.320 naturally have to give over a certain amount of time 0:15:00.360 --> 0:15:02.480 in order to be good at having a family, and 0:15:02.520 --> 0:15:07.160 that would naturally push women out of the workforce more. 0:15:07.240 --> 0:15:09.160 If everybody was subject to these standards, What do you 0:15:09.200 --> 0:15:11.960 say to that, Well, I think, like, there are only 0:15:11.960 --> 0:15:13.680 twenty four hours in a day, and you know, seven 0:15:13.720 --> 0:15:16.320 days in a week, and everybody confronts that constraint, and 0:15:16.360 --> 0:15:21.480 everybody has priorities and competing sort of things they care about. 0:15:21.640 --> 0:15:24.400 It can be everything from family to kids, to spouses, 0:15:24.960 --> 0:15:30.520 two boyfriends or girlfriends, um to parents, um. But fundamentally, 0:15:30.560 --> 0:15:33.400 if you're going to be one of the best at 0:15:33.480 --> 0:15:36.440 anything in the world that's hyper competitive, there is a 0:15:36.480 --> 0:15:39.480 sacrifice at the end of the day, at the marginal hour, 0:15:39.640 --> 0:15:43.000 the marginal minute, the marginal attention, and it's very difficult 0:15:43.040 --> 0:15:45.400 to be excellent and everything, and so you have to decide. 0:15:45.400 --> 0:15:48.600 I'm not I'm not choosing for people, recommending for people 0:15:48.680 --> 0:15:51.240 what they should decide to be their priorities. But if 0:15:51.240 --> 0:15:53.240 they say I want to be the best in the 0:15:53.280 --> 0:15:56.960 world that a particular sport, at a particular discipline, whether 0:15:56.960 --> 0:16:00.240 it's law or technology or investing, there is into a 0:16:00.280 --> 0:16:03.960 lot of substitute for making that a primary focus of 0:16:04.000 --> 0:16:07.080 your life. It just doesn't work. It'd be nice if 0:16:07.160 --> 0:16:10.680 you could do three things simultaneously and be awesome at 0:16:10.680 --> 0:16:13.520 all of them, but usually there's tradeoffs. The world is 0:16:14.000 --> 0:16:16.160 the world has tradeoffs in your in your company, in 0:16:16.160 --> 0:16:18.800 your life, and you have to decide what's most important 0:16:18.800 --> 0:16:21.280 to you. But pretending that there are in trade offs 0:16:21.480 --> 0:16:24.720 is just insane. I think that's the startup founder that 0:16:24.760 --> 0:16:29.920 we talked to believed that it wasn't really sustainable to 0:16:30.720 --> 0:16:33.440 be obsessed with one thing and that she wanted to 0:16:33.480 --> 0:16:36.400 build a sustainable company where yeah, she could be obsessed 0:16:36.400 --> 0:16:39.840 with the problem she was working on. But um, that's 0:16:39.880 --> 0:16:42.560 radic that's just totally false. Like so Jeff Bezos, like 0:16:42.600 --> 0:16:47.680 if you read his annual letter from says explicitly you 0:16:47.760 --> 0:16:50.160 have to work hard to be at Amazon and be successful. 0:16:50.400 --> 0:16:52.640 Amazon is the most important company in the planet right now, 0:16:52.680 --> 0:16:55.360 probably and he's been doing it for twenty years and 0:16:55.400 --> 0:16:58.000 his most of his executive team has been around forever. Um, 0:16:58.120 --> 0:17:01.440 So that's clearly false. Test is another good example, Ellen 0:17:01.560 --> 0:17:06.000 Comparers starting a company, running a company, teachewing Glass, and Tesla's, 0:17:06.040 --> 0:17:09.320 you know, probably the most sustainable future company in the 0:17:09.359 --> 0:17:12.639 automotive industry. Um. So, I just think that that's just 0:17:12.720 --> 0:17:15.760 false and there's no evidence of that. It's completely made 0:17:15.800 --> 0:17:18.360 up fiction that people like to tell themselves to comfort themselves. 0:17:19.800 --> 0:17:22.159 So do you think it's even possible to work smart? 0:17:22.680 --> 0:17:24.800 It is possible to work smart, So I don't reject 0:17:24.840 --> 0:17:26.760 the idea that you should, of course be smart in 0:17:26.880 --> 0:17:28.960 leverage your time. I talk a lot about and teach 0:17:28.960 --> 0:17:31.760 a lot of classes UM and mentor people on focus, 0:17:31.800 --> 0:17:34.119 and I think that stuff is very very important. But 0:17:34.840 --> 0:17:36.480 at the end of the day, most of the people 0:17:36.480 --> 0:17:39.439 you compete with who are pretty damn good are working 0:17:39.560 --> 0:17:43.720 smart by definition, and they work hard. And I'm not 0:17:43.760 --> 0:17:46.960 saying that there's a work dumb and work more. But 0:17:47.560 --> 0:17:49.560 most of the people who are pretty talented and get 0:17:49.600 --> 0:17:52.359 to a certain level in life are pretty smart and 0:17:52.400 --> 0:17:55.000 are working pretty smartly, And then it's still the question 0:17:55.000 --> 0:17:57.760 of how do you compete with even them? So it's 0:17:57.800 --> 0:17:59.680 like to be the best of the best at any 0:17:59.720 --> 0:18:03.320 feel old requires more than just the talent and being 0:18:03.400 --> 0:18:05.840 pretty good at leveraging your time. If you can't leverage 0:18:05.840 --> 0:18:07.960 your time successfully and smartly, you're probably not going to 0:18:08.040 --> 0:18:10.200 be in a good place anyway. But then you still 0:18:10.240 --> 0:18:12.000 have to put in the effort. I learned this mostly 0:18:12.000 --> 0:18:15.000 as a lawyer UM when I joined Solving the Cromwell 0:18:15.040 --> 0:18:17.320 back in the nineties, which is like the canonical, the 0:18:17.359 --> 0:18:20.879 paradigmatic Wall Street law firm. I was very smart and 0:18:20.880 --> 0:18:24.800 talented as a lawyer, but there's people that were colleagues 0:18:24.880 --> 0:18:28.800 and competitors, meaning people we competed against litigation that we're 0:18:28.840 --> 0:18:31.200 just working harder than I was. And it became pretty 0:18:31.240 --> 0:18:33.880 clear pretty quickly that if I didn't keep up with them, 0:18:33.920 --> 0:18:36.440 not not only would I lose cases, but I would 0:18:36.440 --> 0:18:39.840 lose internal promotions unless I could both be as smart 0:18:39.960 --> 0:18:42.320 or smarter than them and put in the same level 0:18:42.359 --> 0:18:45.040 of effort. So your tweet has started a discussion and 0:18:45.080 --> 0:18:49.040 Silicon Valley about this, and there vcs who even disagree 0:18:49.080 --> 0:18:52.199 with you. Has anything you've heard changed your mind at all? No, 0:18:52.359 --> 0:18:55.400 I don't believe that there's any founders who really disagree. 0:18:55.640 --> 0:18:59.600 I'd say it's plus of people who have actually accomplished 0:18:59.640 --> 0:19:02.480 anything UM that agree with me. UM. I think there's 0:19:02.480 --> 0:19:06.480 people who would aspirationally want to achieve things, but they 0:19:06.480 --> 0:19:08.520 may not be willing to make the trade offs in 0:19:08.560 --> 0:19:11.280 life to achieve a certain objective. You know, as I said, 0:19:11.359 --> 0:19:13.800 I think there are lots of people who want things, 0:19:13.840 --> 0:19:16.040 but there's real trade offs to get from point A 0:19:16.160 --> 0:19:18.600 to point B in life. And you can decide point 0:19:18.640 --> 0:19:20.600 B is not worth it or not interesting to you. 0:19:20.680 --> 0:19:23.720 That's perfectly fine and a valid decision. But pretending that 0:19:23.760 --> 0:19:26.359 there's not tradeoffs to get to point B is just 0:19:26.440 --> 0:19:29.720 fooling yourself. So would you say your work life balance 0:19:29.840 --> 0:19:32.679 is pretty good or okay, yeah right? A venture capital 0:19:32.800 --> 0:19:35.160 definitely gives you more control of your life UM than 0:19:35.280 --> 0:19:38.719 some other jobs, mostly because I really only have fifteen 0:19:38.760 --> 0:19:41.480 or twenty customers, and that there's entrepreneurs I work with 0:19:41.880 --> 0:19:44.440 and only have about four to six partners, So the 0:19:44.560 --> 0:19:49.040 number of people that UM can sort of interrupt my 0:19:49.160 --> 0:19:51.560 days is a lot more limited when I was running 0:19:51.560 --> 0:19:53.879 a company and had teams of tends to hundreds of people. 0:19:54.400 --> 0:19:56.480 If you just assume that one percent of everybody that 0:19:56.520 --> 0:19:59.160 works with you UM is going to have a question 0:19:59.240 --> 0:20:03.400 or challenge, you have a very unpredictable life. Every day. 0:20:03.720 --> 0:20:06.640 When I was running you know, entrepreneurial startups, every day 0:20:06.680 --> 0:20:09.160 something would go wrong literally every day, and the question 0:20:09.200 --> 0:20:11.320 is just the magnitude and what direction it would come 0:20:11.320 --> 0:20:13.640 from UM, And you get used to that at some point, 0:20:13.680 --> 0:20:15.320 like it becomes part of your d n A. And 0:20:15.359 --> 0:20:18.919 part of what makes the role challenging and rewarding and 0:20:18.960 --> 0:20:21.800 exciting is that there's always something new and there's always 0:20:21.840 --> 0:20:25.159 some new kind of mass to help fix and problem solved. 0:20:25.800 --> 0:20:28.480 But you can't control it, so there was no predictability. 0:20:28.680 --> 0:20:31.159 Adventure it tends to be a lot more predictable. So, 0:20:31.200 --> 0:20:34.000 for example, if I think this weekend, you know I 0:20:34.000 --> 0:20:37.840 want to attend a wedding, there's only one percent chance 0:20:37.920 --> 0:20:41.080 that something so urgent occurs that I couldn't attend it, 0:20:41.080 --> 0:20:42.639 Whereas when I was running a company, it might be 0:20:42.680 --> 0:20:45.760 ten or twenty percent chance that something would spike and 0:20:45.880 --> 0:20:49.320 be so important um that it would really disrupt pre 0:20:49.440 --> 0:20:53.880 existing plans. Since you work with founders, do you ever 0:20:54.000 --> 0:20:58.480 worry about them burning out? Um? Generally I don't, So 0:20:58.520 --> 0:20:59.879 I don't believe, and I think there's a lot of 0:21:00.040 --> 0:21:01.960 search that you know I started someone twitter back. It's 0:21:01.960 --> 0:21:06.040 anymore that burnout doesn't come from work effort. Burnout comes 0:21:06.080 --> 0:21:08.879 from something different. Burnout comes from banging your head against 0:21:08.880 --> 0:21:12.040 the law without progress, and which very natural. I would 0:21:12.080 --> 0:21:14.399 say the same thing would occur to me. If you 0:21:14.800 --> 0:21:17.960 tackle a problem and can't make incremental progress on it, 0:21:18.000 --> 0:21:21.080 and can't conquer the problem and the challenge it dry, 0:21:21.320 --> 0:21:23.560 it can drive you to burnout. I think when you 0:21:23.640 --> 0:21:26.199 push yourself really hard, but you're making progress and you 0:21:26.200 --> 0:21:30.000 can see improvement, whether it's personal improvement, professional improvement and 0:21:30.520 --> 0:21:33.200 reflective and metrics. You don't tend to get burned out. 0:21:33.320 --> 0:21:35.679 It's like it's sort of there's a sports metaphor is 0:21:36.200 --> 0:21:39.080