The rest of the context seems important
for founders and entrepreneurs: if you’re serious about starting a company.
this post was submitted on 05 Apr 2025
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Not that I want to encourage this kind of life but with that context he is kinda right. Entrepreneurship is one of those areas where you genuinely get out what you put in. If you want your business to be better, you have to commit the time to it.
Yeah, that’s honestly very true about starting a small business.
I dig it with context. I did the same thing in 2001 when I decided to go back to my original career of tile and flooring.
I got into IS/IT in 1998 after a decade in flooring and worked a couple jobs until I found some wicked smart programmers and they made a search engine while I was "adult supervision". Fact was, I bought my first suit in '99 and played businessman. It was typical dot-com startup energy, we had some crappy office space that I renovated with some help from my ex-employees on the construction side. Found some venture capital in our new smelling conference room. Bought a foosball and air hockey table. Some weird automatic coffee machine that never worked right. Hired a receptionist/office manager. Bought lunch every day from a takeout or delivery place on the company card. MANY late nights and we'd either chip in for dinner or I'd buy, because lets face it, I was riding their coattails. I could negotiate and write emails, I made sure the network stayed up and I was a good shit filter.
By mid 2001 we sold that search engine to a porn clip website which is since defunct. Not fuckyou money but definitely set the fortunes of the seven of us. Those six guys all went on to do various shit and by all measures are successful with a work/life balance. They all have families now and the kids are either grown or still in college. The only guy I really kept in touch with immediately went into a large university IT department, he's been there since. I took my money and went all-in with tile and flooring and I worked my ass off for 15 years. Stacked money, got a little lucky with mining bitcoin, and now I have a 401k and a mutual fund.
Now I work 40/week for another company and they know I can technically walk away any time I want at 54 years old. (note: the latest stock market shit may have weakened my position but I refuse to look during the panic period). It's fucking EASY compared to either the dot-com startup or the 15 years after that. I mean, I worked 16 hour days on dark, humid bathrooms just to finish on schedule. 70 hour weeks setting tile will really wear your ass out.
So I guess this is a long ass post to say, "I understand the grind, but you can't do it for 30 years. If you have an exit plan then grind away but if you don't see that brass ring in front of you stop killing yourself."
Yeah, that's actually a fair comment. Getting a new business off the ground, pretty much any business, is something that requires a big time commitment at the start.
Guess what kind of boss a person following this bullshit advice would make
Thanks, the fact that this the source is an American business magazine made me expect this wasn't meant for the underpaid and overworked.
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LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman should go eat glass. This is how his likely schedule looks:
8 am: Meetings (optional)
11 am: tax deductible "business" lunch
1 pm: meetings (optional)
6 pm: tax deductible "business" dinner
The worst people on Earth are the ones who are constantly obsessing about "winning" every situation, so that makes perfect sense to me.
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Achieving a healthy work-life-balance IS winning. That's what the mindless drones don't get.
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Winning what? Profit for other people?
For me, winning is a job with flexible hours that let's me go home and do some garage work and then cook. I want vacation time and time to see the doctor. I want a good retirement plan and good coverage for the 3 bullshit doctor things... The body doc, the eye doc and the teeth doc. I want a doctor who enjoys work and is not simply seeing me and a thousand other people. I want cheap medicine that is effective. I want free analysis and no copay surprise. i want free hospital stays. I also want free schools k-12 and university for my kids. And I want free vaccines and freedom of speech without fear or retaliation. And I want diversity at my work, I don't wanna be the only black guy! Or the only Chinese or Korean or woman. And I want my job to not make things that hurt people.
"Jeez what a loser"
_- Asshole linkedin co-founder, probably
I'll be joining the Dow people next week when it drops another 68 percent. They say it hurts less if you jump from the fifth floor or higher. But if you go too high like the 20th floor, you could have enough times to freakout. So you gotta find your Happy medium.
This is it. When they forced us back into the office, it was less about afternoon naps and avoiding traffic. It was more about being able to see my dr that closes at 4pm or taking my elderly parents to their appointments. Cooking dinners to avoid takeout and getting ‘me’ time between zoom calls. They took that away from us. Now it’s 9-5 and not a minute more.
Anyone who devotes the majority of their life to their job is sort of a loser in my opinion.
Unless it's something they're genuinely passionate about that gives them purpose, it's the saddest thing in the world. I don't think that describes the vast majority of us doing our mundane corporate slave work though.
Agreed. I've met some people who devoted their lives to work in nonprofits or public service who I would definitely not call losers. I wouldn't want to be their spouse, but I admire them.
Weird. I feel like I’m winning when I’m on a long vacation doing something adventurous and I feel like I’m fucking losing when I’m staring at a computer screen in an office.
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Workers, at best, only get a tiny fraction of "winning" when it happens. Why should anyone destroy themselves for spoils that multimillionaire C-suites take for themselves?
I am not committed to winning. That's a good thing. I'm committed to living a decent life.
Some might say that is winning.
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This man is a sociopath. He shouldn't be running a major corporation. He should be living in a rubber room.
You're damn fucking right I'm not.
Translation: You're not someone we can overwork so easily.
Yeah ...dont fall for this shit
He absolutely has free time and a work and life balance he just wants to take away YOUR life and exploit you
We have different definitions of winning. If I never work for an asshole like you ever again, I win.
Just because he has no life doesn’t mean others shouldn’t have one. Boo this man.
Boo, Wendy Testaburger boo
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I guess that would make sense to someone with narcissistic or psychopathic personality organization. "All benefits must accrue to me."
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Winning by whose definition?
His line going up.
If you're not willing to sacrifice your life and happiness for me then what do you think you're doing with your life?
I'm not even committed to competing to begin with.
Yeah well I don’t believe life is a race, and even if it is it’s rigged so who fucking cares?
Yeah fuck that, every fuckin job description I read these days with some variation of "ownership mindset" makes my blood boil, fuck this economy and fuck society I'm not having kids and see them go through the same rat race as me, let these cunts cry about lack of workers and demographic collapse
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Title bait. He said that about entrepreneurship and starting a business, which I can understand as it is very unlikely that you work as an "standard" employee.
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Lol dumbass, I'm barely earning my participation trophy.
If I even get a participation trophy, I'll probably skip the ceremony.
I'm only committed to winning in that way if winning means that I am getting a cut of the company profits.
I'm at my salary will reflect the profitability and growth of the company.
Otherwise I'm just another wage slave that you're trying to abuse, and take away my work is rights
I worked at LNKD through a good part of its rampup. Jeff Weiner made Linkedin what it was. Reid Hoffman was mostly useless and came along for the ride. His "masters of scale" podcast series was a bit of a joke too, he never had anything to do with anything technical or at scale. He is just stealing credit from his betters.
Objecting to alienation is lèse majesté, serfs! Labor for the labor god.
Win a career, loose a family, mmh...
Not committed to him winning. Fuck that shit.
I don't give a fuck about winning, I want to be happy.
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