Ask PG: Do you ever get overwhelmed?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5242957

by clicks • 13 years ago

93 24 13 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I just saw the story "Y Combinator-Backed Zenefits Gives Small Businesses A One-Stop Shop For Finding And Managing Employee Benefits" on Techcrunch, and was quickly reminded how difficult I found my short stint in that line of work to be (office side of managing employee benefits). YC is investing in such an incredibly large variety of startups, and getting into many different big industries. I can barely imagine the kind of work it must be to research everything so you can make good decisions

Between maintaining HN, being a VC who many founders look up to for advice, etc., doesn't it ever get a little too much? If yes, what do you do to keep your composure?

DigitalSea• 13 years ago

PG isn't alone. YC do have staff, so it's not a one-man operation. If PG were running everything by himself then yes, he probably would be overwhelmed but there are a lot of people PG can call upon to help him out.

pg3• 13 years ago

There are around 20 people working full or part time for YC now, including 5 of us doing what I used to do alone in the old days. There are 47 startups in the current batch, which works out to less than 10 apiece. So things are actually pretty easy right now.

Last night's server troubles took more out of me than anything I've had to deal with in YC proper.

clicks• 13 years ago

Thanks for responding!

brudgers• 13 years ago

Your hard work is appreciated. Thanks.

benhamner• 13 years ago

A different way to frame the question: "what keeps you up at night?" (beyond the very uncommon event of HN being down)

Massive quantity of emails? YC startups that aren't the rare runaway success? YC startups that are the rare runaway success? Meta issues around YC? Something unrelated to YC? Pressure to live up to the pg legend irl? Not being disciplined about avoiding overworking? Something in your private life that's not appropriate to share? Anything?

jrnkntl• 13 years ago

Well, pg actually said he went to sleep while it was down, so that didn't keep him up.

someperson• 13 years ago

After Elon Musk mentioned his sleeping patterns on a couple of recent interviews (answer: 6 hours a night), I've been curious to learn about the sleeping patterns, diets and work habits of exceptionally productive people.

I wish biographies on the world's most influential people discussed this (or at least I would like to read scientific studies on this)... Warren Buffet and Bill Gates are famously fond of burgers so I'd expect unfortunately diet habits have more to do with where you live than what you accomplish :(

pg3• 13 years ago

Sick children.

People maltreating startups we've funded.

Any sort of deal involving third parties that might let us down. E.g. fundraising, when we were a fund.

simonholroyd2• 13 years ago

It's interesting that you'd say the downtime was relatively overwhelming. From an outsider's view HN seems like it must be a relatively low stress site to maintain. If it goes down, YC suffers very little. Its community views the site as a public service. If anything, a few hours or even days of downtime just serves to remind the community how valued that service is (and by extension how positive our feelings towards YC are).

Is there a hidden downside to the downtime I'm missing? Worried it brings into question YC's technical chops?

TheMakeA• 13 years ago

Aside from the obvious HN and YC app services, I believe the office hours scheduling and probably any other internal YC service are all part of the same codebase running on the same server. Sounds like it could be a major problem for them.

pg3• 13 years ago

I think almost any programmer running a service used by hundreds of thousands of people would hate the idea of it being down. It's part of building things to want them to work properly.

dschiptsov2• 13 years ago

btw, there is a mood, like so-called flow, when you just do it, just as best as you can, without even worrying of anything. It is like surfing - you just keeping your balance and going with a wave.

Being overwhelmed is a side-effect of fears, doubts and ignorance - what they call insecurity. As long as one tames them, uninterfered awareness is what remains.

It is like a performance of professional musician or painter - you just do it out of habit.

Just doing with relaxed mind is also called Zen.)

ma2rten2• 13 years ago

That is not Zen. Zen is a state of meditative absorption, that is incomparable to any wordily happiness.

see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhy%C4%81na_in_Buddhism

dschiptsov2• 13 years ago

Well, it is the way to that ultimate state, and this intermediate state is very useful.

btw, it is not about words or terminology, it is about what those words supposed to refer to.)

edit: lets make it clear.

Buddha taught the cause of suffering (four noble truths) and the way out (eight-fold path) which could be considered as an ultimate CBT.)

It is very important that Buddha taught the way, not the goal. He just claimed that he have reached the that ultimate state.

Zen as a teaching is based on Buddha's (which in turn were based on Upanishads and his own personal insights, obtained through deliberate practice).

So, Zen is also teaching of the way, not of the goal. It is even debatable if the goal is reachable by ordinary person, but it is obvious, at least for educated people, that the way is the right one.

There are countless examples in all imaginable cultures. Famous "Know thyself, conquer thyself" is the same idea.

microtonal• 13 years ago

Equanimity is one of the effects of Zen practice and also has an effect on daily life.

Wordily life - mental life is a false dichotomy: both are impermanent and inseparable. Is pain in a finger something of matter or something of mind?

mehulkar• 13 years ago

I watched an interview with the Reddit founders and at a couple points they were close to tears overwhelmed with the kind of community they had helped enable. When I first saw this Ask PG, I thought that's the kind of "overwhelm" the OP was asking about. This forum alone and the number of people it touches would be enough to overwhelm me from time to time.

Ask PG: Do you ever get overwhelmed?

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