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Are We Growing or Just Getting Fat?
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How We Secretly Lose Control of Our Startups
Should Kids Follow in Our Founder Footsteps?
The Evolution of Entry Level Workers
Assume Everyone Will Leave in Year One
Stop Listening to Investors
Was Mortgaging My Life Worth it?
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When Our Ambition is Our Enemy
Are Startups in a "Silent Recession"?
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Michelle Glauser on Diversity and Inclusion
The Utter STUPIDITY of "Risking it All"
Committees Are Where Progress Goes to Die
More Money (Really Means) More Problems
Why Most Founders Don't Get Rich
Investors will be Obsolete
Why is a Founder so Hard to Replace?
We Can't Grow by Saying "No"
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Is the Problem the Player or the Coach?
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The Value of Actually Getting Paid
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Wait a Minute before Giving Away Equity
You Only Think You Work Hard
SMALL is the New Big — Embracing Efficiency in the Age of AI
The 9 Best Growth Agencies for Startups
This is BOOTSTRAPPED — 3 Strategies to Build Your Startup Without Funding
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A Steady Hand in the Middle of the Storm
Risk it All vs Steady Paycheck
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How to Recruit a Rockstar Advisor
Why Having Zero Experience is a Huge Asset
My Competitor Got Funded — Am I Screwed?
The Hidden Treasure of Failed Startups
If It Makes Money, It Makes Sense
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$10K Per Month isn't Just Revenue — It's Life Support
The Ridiculous Spectrum of Investor Feedback
Startup CEOs Aren't Really CEOs
Series A, B, C, D, and E Funding: How It Works
Best Pitch Decks Ever: The Most Successful Fundraising Pitches You Need to Know
When to Raise Funds
Why Aren't Investors Responding to Me?
Should I Regret Not Raising Capital?
Unemployment Cases — Why I LOOOOOVE To Win Them So Much.
How Much to Pay Yourself
Heat-Seeking Missile: WePay’s Journey to Product-Market Fit — Interview with Rich Aberman, Co-Founder of Wepay
The R&D technique for startups: Rip off & Duplicate
Why Some Startups Win.
Chapter #1: First Steps To Validate Your Business Idea
Product Users, Not Ideas, Will Determine Your Startup’s Fate
Drop Your Free Tier
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Growth Isn't Always Good
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Staying Small While Going Big
Investors are NOT on Our Side of the Table
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Actually, We Have Plenty of Time
Quitting vs Letting Go
How Startups Actually Get Bought
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Startup Financial Assumptions
Why Every Kid Should be a Startup Founder
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If a Startup Sinks, Founders Go Down With it
Founder Success: We Need a Strict Definition of Personal Success
Is Quiet Quitting a Problem at Startup Companies?
Founder Exits are Hard Work and Good Fortune, Not "Good Luck"
Finalizing Startup Projections
All Founders are Beloved In Good Times
Our Startup Culture of Entitlement
The Bullshit Case for Raising Capital
How do We Manage Our Founder Flaws?
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Startup Failure is just One Chapter in Founder Life
6 Similarities between Startup Founders and Pro Athletes
All Founders Make Bad Decisions — and That's OK
Startup Board Negotiations: How do I tell the board I need a new deal?
Founder Sacrifice — At What Point Have I Gone Too Far?
Youth Entrepreneurship: Can Middle Schoolers be Founders?
Living the Founder Legend Isn't so Fun
Why Do VC Funded Startups Love "Fake Growth?"
How Should I Share My Wealth with Family?
How Many Deaths Can a Startup Survive?
This is Probably Your Last Success
Why Do We Still Have Full-Time Employees?

Let's Kill the 40 Hour Workweek

Wil Schroter

Let's Kill the 40 Hour Workweek

Why are we still paying people in units of time?

It's been about 100 years since the Industrial Revolution and yet nearly everyone on the planet still gets paid like a dock worker, where units of time equal measurable production.

That made sense when nearly everyone had an output that could be tracked by time, but in our current economy, why do we still think every job should be performed for exactly 40 hours within a 9 to 5 schedule?

We're at a point where we can no longer justify a one size fits all type of output metric. It's time we burn down the old institution of work hours and build a new mechanism that actually applies to what employers are paying for, and what employees actually do.

Let's Pay for Outcomes

As Founders what we care about more than anything is the outcome of our costs. If it takes our developer 20 hours to finish their project or 60 hours, do we really care? Isn't that ultimately something they should be managing and not us?

We should be focused on setting our desired outcomes and the amount we're willing to pay for those outcomes. That's the deal. It's our job to manage our pay, and the employee's job to manage their time.

Let's Revisit "Business Hours"

At some point, the world agreed that "business hours" would exist roughly between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. in whatever time zone we existed in. That made sense when we had to physically coordinate a lot of people all at the same time meet face to face, collaborate, and yell at each other.

But we've long since outgrown those conditions since we started using email about 30 years ago! Nowadays between email, text, and messenger apps, we've moved to a world of asynchronous communications, and more so, where our physical location generally doesn't apply.

What we're really trying to do is establish expected "response times." It's not about whether someone is "in their seat working" during specific hours as much as they are responsive when we need them. We can map this to a common set of hours so we have expectations, but we can provide flexibility and responsiveness at the same time.

Let's Abandon the "40 Hour Benchmark"

We've gotten really hung up on this concept of 40 hours being the standard-bearer for productivity. If we work fewer hours we're a slacker and if we work more hours we're overworked. How is that possibly the same for every person in every profession at every stage in their life?

The 40-hour benchmark assumes too much. It assumes that if we've worked 40 hours that we must have been productive. If we work 20, we're underperforming and if we work 60 we're overworked. Our productivity should be measured by how much we can get done in as few hours as possible. If it takes us 40 hours to do 20 hours worth of work, we shouldn't get a high five.

We need to break free of this antiquated 40-hour workweek mentality that has so little relevance in today's workplace. Instead, we need to wipe the slate clean and design a new system that takes into account what the world really looks like, what we're really trying to achieve, and if we're being just crazy — makes our lives significantly better.

In Case You Missed It

How Much Should I Be Working? (podcast). Wil and Ryan take a deep dive into the benefits of thinking quality and not quantity when it comes to your weekly punch card.

Optimizing for Productivity. Working through peak productivity is easy. It’s the valleys that we’re concerned about. The key is to plan for and optimize the valleys so we can recharge effectively.

I’m Burnt Out. What Do I Do? When we hit a point of burn out it's important that we understand what to do about it. If we ignore it, the problem only gets much worse. So let's take a look at what Founders do to deal with burnout head-on.

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Michael Wheeler

Because it is law. They can not be contractors unless they are working for your competition. Or they are hourly. Those are the only two options from wage and hour. We business owners are not allowed to make labor contracts with employees. It is illegal.

Reply3 years ago

Trying to imagine a person in a position of power thinking, "hmm, my employees complete their work in 20 hours so... LET'S ALL GO SAILING!" Instead, they are much more likely to swing the pendulum - hard - in the other direction until everyone (including the self-driven founder with exclusive, personal benefits for the company's success) is working 60+ hour workweeks. There's a lot of articles on "work/life balance" on this site; shouldn't that apply to employees as well?

Like "lines of code per day", the 40-hour week is a fuzzy and frankly poor metric, but an established metric nonetheless. In the startup mode with fewer employees, founders need to delegate responsibility to the managers to be aware of individual employee productivity and adjust tasks and/or employment accordingly.

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