I get angry reading criticism of hard work

(written by lawrence krubner, however indented passages are often quotes). You can contact lawrence at: lawrence@krubner.com, or follow me on Twitter.

I get angry reading criticism of hard work. Matt Douglas is critical of Seth Priebatsch. Matt says that Seth works too much:

Are you disturbed by these comments from a leader in our tech community? I am. I’m not impressed by the bravado, and I don’t think the work ethic is impressive. In fact, I think Seth is setting a poor example for the tech community. In my opinion, the greatest challenge of a start-up is to find work/life balance: he just hasn’t figured that out yet.

Some of Seth’s employees might buy into this manic behavior, but I’m guessing the majority of them wish that he would get a life. It’s one thing to ask people to work hard, but it’s another thing to set an example of having no social life and working every weekend. How can SCVNGR provide a healthy workplace environment if Seth sets an example by sleeping at the office? At Punchbowl, hard work ebbs and flows — we work towards very aggressive deadlines, while we maintain a healthy perspective. In fact, one of our best employees spends the majority of his weekends skiing. And everyday, I leave the office at 6pm to make sure I’m home to have dinner with my family and put my 1 year old daughter to bed.

It is awesome that Matt is home each night to put his daughter to bed. But it is really not cool that he feels the need to brag about it. It is also not cool that he feels the need to criticize Seth’s work ethic. I have to wonder if, on some level, Matt feels insecure about his decision to take time off from work, to go home for dinner? Otherwise, why publicly criticize a fellow entrepreneur?

Post external references

  1. 1
    http://www.startupswami.com/2010/11/seth-priebatsch-get-life.html
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