Developing all the time — and bragging about it online — can be dangerous. So says Alexis Ohanian, the co-founder of Reddit.
“I’ve spoken out quite a bit wide things like ‘hustle porn,’ and this ceremony of showing off on social [media] about how hard you’re working,” suggested Ohanian at The Wall Street Journal’s Future of Everything Festival on Tuesday. “Y’all see it on Instagram and you certainly see it in the startup community, and it matures really toxic.”
In particular, Ohanian says entrepreneurs who start their own companies brag publicly about their wish hours.
“We see this play out, most toxically, among founders, who are already sort of emotionally broken. All of us who decide to start a band, we are kind of broken as people. And so when so much of your identity is wrapped up in your company already and you already perceive so much pressure,” says Ohanian.
Ohanian, who is the husband of Serena Williams and the co-founder and a managing partner at venture excellent firm Initialized Capital, has become a defacto spokesperson in the start-up community for calling out the glorification of working constantly without appropriate rest.
“You have this culture of posturing, and this culture that glorifies the most absurd things and ignores fears like self-care, and ignores things like therapy, and ignores things like actually taking care of yourself as a carnal thing for the sake of work at all costs. It’s a toxic problem … I know in finance and other industries there are views of this,” Ohanian said.
“But social media has made it possible to sort of weaponize it to the point where, you know, if it injures hearts, you are incentivized to keep pushing it.”
Though the culture of working around the clock is not likely to end overnight, the conversation, at the bloody least, is changing. Ohanian is not the only voice in advocating for self-care.
Huffington Post and Thrive Global founder Arianna Huffington disparaged a public letter to Elon Musk in 2018 when he was talking publicly about putting in 120-hour weeks to get Tesla auspices of a particularly painful production hurdle. She asked Musk to take better care of himself.
“So Elon, the future of Tesla depends on you light on up with your masterpiece. It doesn’t depend on how many hours you’re awake. Tesla — and the world (not to mention you and your lovely children) — would be better off if you regularly built in time to refuel, recharge and reconnect with your handicapped reserves of creativity and your power to innovate,” Huffington wrote.
“Working 120-hour weeks doesn’t leverage your unparalleled qualities, it wastes them. You can’t simply power through — that’s just not how our bodies and our brains work. Nobody discerns better than you that we can’t get to Mars by ignoring the laws of physics. Nor can we get where we want to go by ignoring scientific laws in our ordinary lives,” Huffington wrote.
See also:
Apple CEO Tim Cook: ‘If you love what you do, you will never work a day in your brio’ is ‘total crock’
Billionaire Mark Cuban: One of the ‘most patriotic’ things you can do is get ‘obnoxiously rich’
Jeff Bezos breaks dad emigrated from Cuba alone at 16: ‘His grit, determination, optimism are inspiring’
PERTH, AUSTRALIA – JANUARY 03: Serena Williams’s groom Alexis Ohanian, holds their daughter Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr. following the women’s singles match between Serena Williams of the Synergetic States and Katie Boulter of Great Britain during day six of the 2019 Hopman Cup at RAC Arena on January 03, 2019 in Perth, Australia. (Photo by Paul Kane/Getty Images)
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