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Ask HN: Can I make it in the Valley and live a well-rounded life?

39 points by bicx ↗ HN
This may seem like a strange question, but there may come a day where I have to decide whether or not to move from my quaint little tech hub of a city to The Valley (some opportunities have arisen, but I haven't yet accepted any). I enjoy software development. Got some good experience working at a vibrant startup. However, I am pretty skeptical about how well I would fit into (what I perceive to be) the Valley lifestyle. I like to spend my free time doing things like kayaking and rounding out my brain rather than hacking on side projects every evening. I enjoy a 40-50-hour work week and prefer a marathon to a sprint. Have I just fallen for a stereotypical representation of The Valley as a self-obsessed technology mecca filled with warrior-priests who live and breathe code 24/7, or is there more of a well-rounded atmosphere where I can still fit in without selling my soul to my career?

21 comments

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CocaKoala
I'm going to guess that the answer depends a lot on the culture of the company; not every company in the valley is the same. I have a friend who's constantly talking about the 16 hour days she pulls at the office; in contrast, when my fiancee came out to visit for a few days my manager practically kicked me out of the office early so I could spend time with her.
paulbaumgart
There aren't many people with a lot of free time at small startups, especially in the early days. But more mature companies definitely let you find the right balance for you.

Though I've seen some people find a different balance: a couple years of intense work followed by lengthy sabbaticals to unwind.

zinssmeister
At a later stage company (post A or B round) you will probably have a similar work-life balance than at your current gig. But if you are thinking about doing an early stage startup you should be prepared to "work" around the clock. Most of my friends working out here have to be available 24/7 and work well over 50hrs a week.

You will also most likely make more money outside of Silicon Valley by being able to save more of your take home pay.

jtoeman
OF COURSE you can. but it's about choices. you must weed OUT the 60+ hr/week startups for the ones who work normal hours. this will eliminate some fun/great opportunities - BUT - it will NOT eliminate ALL great opportunities.

our startup's been a ~50hr/wk place for 2 years, built great product, and got acquired in January. we didn't make $19B, but we aren't complaining either.

from your priority set, which I personally agree with, you have plenty of options - but you'll have to be "on guard" for the manic places that think 70hrs is normal and the "only way" to be successful. pro tip - they are incorrect.

i do recommend coming up to SF over the peninsula though.... YMMV.

baytrailcat
But, watch out! There is a constant exposure to these glorious tales of success and achievement and it will change anyone's mind and attitude. After sometime here, if you a have a little bit of ambition, you wouldn't mind these long working hours and you will also be trying hard to "make it" in the valley.
rhizome
Are you saying that ~50hr/wk is in the "normal" category?
diego
I'm going to say something controversial, so take it with a grain of salt. I believe it depends significantly on the age/experience of the leaders (I'm 44 years old).

One thing that comes with experience is the realization that hours of startup work do not necessarily translate into results. At IndexTank I routinely averted multi-week efforts (saving lots of late night hacking) because I realized that their potential value to the company would have been marginal at best. It's true that there are times when a team needs to fix something ASAP, which may require 24-48 hours of near-constant work. However, this should not be the norm.

In the long run, having a team where everyone works insane hours leads to burnout, turnover, and monoculture (i.e. mostly twentysomethings without family commitments). A leadership team who can figure out that 500 hours of X is as valuable as 2000 hours of Y can yield the same results without unnecessary suffering.

api
I completely agree. I'm seeing an increasing amount of real evidence backing up skepticism over what I call the "cult of the 80 hour work week."

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/06/27/sleep-as-a-competitiv...

I think it's quantity vs. quality. There are times when a huge overtime crunch is needed or when something is "on fire" and has to be dealt with right now, but the data is showing that overwork, lack of sleep, and too much focus on only one thing results in a loss of higher-order mental capacities such as creativity and long-term thinking.

I've experienced this subjectively myself... doing the workaholic thing for more than month or two and literally being unable to remember what it was that I was really doing or why I was doing it. You basically degenerate into some kind of crank-out-the-next-thing automaton with no big picture thinking ability or vision.

I've also seen second hand what occurs when this happens to a company's leadership, and I think a lot of avoidable failure spirals originate this way. If you're not being successful you need to pivot, and that takes creativity and an ability to stand outside the box of what you're currently doing. Those mental abilities are the first to go in an overwork scenario.

Other negatives include depression, anxiety, and impulsive behavior. It was actually kind of scary. I had to give up the tech entrepreneur orbit for a while until I could re-center myself, and coming back to it now I consider it very important to avoid that trap.

Personally I think the cult of workaholism is more about machismo than real performance. There's this weird ego thing in a number of industries including tech where people brag about how many hours they work, how little they sleep, etc. It's stupid.

jason_slack
I moved from the east coast to San Jose about 8 years ago. The adjustment for me was weird. I left a small town for the big city. I had to find things to do here that were easy for me back home.

What I discovered is that there are always places to hike, bike, walk, play basketball, social groups, tech circles you just need to find them.

I'm 37 (so 90 in Valley Years) and I share the same vision you described above. What worked for me was making sure I separated myself from my work. Make it appoint to get out and find the things I like to do and then dont make an excuse not to do them. Does that bug really need to be fixed tonight? Or can you fix it in the morning after some exercise, food, sleep and for me a clearer mind....

YMMV.

incision
>'I enjoy a 40-50-hour work week and prefer a marathon to a sprint.'

Is 40-50 hours a week the new casual? That's 9-12+ hours of work and/or adjacent things per weekday considering lunch and any sort of commute.

I've done everything from 40-70+ per week, for quarters at a time.

Personally, if I was being heavily recruited I'd be looking for 20-32 hours per week of consulting over a 40+ hour grind, preferably in a place without a high cost of living.

ryanSrich
It has been my experience that Startups in the valley expect you to work for at least 10 hours per day, everyday.

For example last year I interviewed with a former YC company and they were saying that it's not uncommon for 90% of the team to still be in the office after 9:30pm.

Occasionally putting in long hours is a requirement of every job. I understand that, and in fact prefer to work late some times. But working past 9pm every night, never seeing your family, never doing anything with anyone outside of work? That's just absurd. Unfortunately that's the culture of the Valley.

rhizome
Well, to put a finer point on it, the "culture of the Valley" sounds to me like poor management and disorganized development.
bicx
After doing the 80/hr week grind in the earlier days, I'm really glad to get to a consistent 40ish-hour week. If I could pull off a steady 20-32 hours, that would be awesome. Honestly, using time trackers like Harvest has shown that I'm really only productive 6 hours a day, and after that it's a struggle to focus. With that in mind, your 20-32 hours is on the mark.
incision
>'Honestly, using time trackers like Harvest has shown that I'm really only productive 6 hours a day, and after that it's a struggle to focus.'

This is actually part of my thought.

My completely anecdotal notion is that the typical 8 hours a day breaks down to something closer to half that in truly productive work.

We're just stuck with ancient conventions about time and pay that really don't make a whole hell of a lot of sense applied to knowledge work.

I think it would be a better deal for everyone involved to get 4 hours of relative brilliance per day than the same or less overall productivity out of 8+.

VikingCoder
Everyone I know who works at Google has a well-rounded life.

Sure, they're nerds, so they enjoy "weird" stuff, but they are not workaholics.

Other companies in the Valley may be different. Other people may know workaholics at Google.

But my anecdotal evidence is that yes, people can make it in the Valley and live a well-rounded life.

dasil003
If you're a good engineer you can make it. These days there are so many wannabes trying to get into "startups" as a career move. They are encouraged and preyed upon by the bootcamps and the general anti-credentialist counter-culture that has come from Silicon Valley's roots. They are even founding companies and getting funding because there's so little places for capital to go these days everybody and their mother in the 1% is looking to become an angel investor since it seems perhaps a little less risky than rolling their dice with Goldman Sachs or whatever other shark wants to use them as a pawn at the top of the financial food chain.

But if you come out as a solid programmer with good technical sense and enough seasoning to figure out existing systems and work on them without introducing a maintenance nightmare down the line, that will be recognized and rewarded. If you are good at what you do and professional the only one who will look down their nose at you for working a solid 9-5 are fools and megalomaniacs—most of whom are destined to flame out spectacularly without ever having built anything of value.

johns
Don't believe everything you read. While there is definitely a valley culture, not every company is the same. For instance, we put a huge emphasis on actual work/life balance. We've even posted proof: https://www.runscope.com/jobs
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lily2014
I'd like to suggest thtat you can talk with the startup about the work hours first.It more accurate and objective.
kromodor
When I was younger and didn't had models of the world, my fist one was one of a workaholic - 10+ hours per day in the office; working weekdays. Everyone around me was following this model, so naturally, I thought the normal way is this. Thus was a financial audit company.

Then, I entered the other spectrum in a corporate structure company. Most of the people there didn't give much effort and just waited for the time to get to 5pm for then to leave home. The day was full with smoke breaks and coffee breaks.

When we (with friends) started a startup, 7 days a week was the norm. This quickly proved inefficient in the long term as people started resenting, not to mention long term thinking was missing and a lot of honest effort was a complete waste.

We're now into a normal work week model with the occasional up/down depending on the situation. But we got sufficient funding. Before we didn't and sometimes the pressure triggers a short-term mode where you want to grind as much as possible for the money-time-food you have available.

tl;dr - you are your own master and commander. You don't have to follow the "norm" but others may expect you to do so. In the end it's your choice.

@diego and @api summed up the benefits of a normal work time. Smart people value their rest. And, as you are probably aware - the best ideas usually come in the times when you are resting from work.

Free time has allowed me to get good at psychology, philosophy, sociology, marketing, critical thinking, martial arts, game design, have a decent fitness and endurance levels, social contacts with healthy people and so on resources, which I wound't have had of I was focusing only on work. Not to mention I would have probably go haywire.

Actually, without the knowledge of those fields, my overall suitability for business would be severely limited.

chris_va
While there are exceptions, the majority of the valley is more the weekend biking, hiking, 40-50 hour a week with good work-life balance. There is a lot of stereotyping, which always has some grain of truth, but it is not the median.