There's a lot of discussion here of how this was predictable given the absence of a visible prototype for so long, and the over-the-top secrecy of the project. However, for me this was a predetermined failure when I first read an interview with the founder. Classic Super-Visionary snake-oil salesman. He could say nothing about the product, except for how it would change the world more than the world had ever been changed in the history of world changes. Sure, ok. I don't remember Larry and Sergey being like that (because they had a real product). Or Bezos, etc.

Frankly, I'm shocked at how the investors couldn't see past this CEO.

I think it's pretty common for investors to see someone as a Snakeoil-salesman but still invest. It only matters if they think they'll get a return.

Well, I don't have all the data points, but it seems to me that snakeoiler should stand out as an anti-pattern. Maybe VCs see it differently. Maybe they'd inform me that the snakeoil CEOs are sometimes frauds, but the non-snakeoil CEOs always fail (not enough energy, not charismatic enough to attract talent, etc).

("Huckster"... that's the word I was looking for)

Seems to me one person's snake oil has often been another person's cannabis oil, in oil terms I guess where neither type of oil may actually be useful to a particular consumer.

But if you've got a truly persuasive and aggressive salesman who can really get things done and actually sell virtual snake oil like few others, especially for much more than it's worth if genuine to buyers who don't actually need the product or as much as he is selling them; well that salesman needs to be incentivized with excess genuine product to sell, and appropriate adult supervision and probably legal counsel and you can reach goals more impressive than most top salesmen who are themselves very productive.

IOW with that kind of salesman you don't need functional product anyway since you'll do quite well selling the sizzle alone, but if you do actually throw in a real steak it can indeed be relatively non-slimy.

So a product company might be able to slide more product out through a slick pipeline, but when you're delivering something of value you're still a product company.

The problem is a salesman like this who gets too close to executive rank can overcome the supervision and turn it into a snake oil company, and it can ruin everything.

Or with the right connections, found a new high-tech snake oil company where the most important consideration was not a product of value anyway. Unless dreams came true of course.

The hype, overfunding, bust is very Segway.

Did anyone else smell poop while reading this?

(there's gotta be a word for that effect)

Well, now it's the Zhou effect. Congrats!

Pretty sure he knows that.

One of Cohen's schticks is not breaking character. (I wonder who will be embarrassed when his new style's punchline hits?)

I was trying out HN-style pedantry; it didn't work.

Ironically, I knew you knew. Does that make me a super-pedant?

I thought it was perfect!

No one is saying a company should operate without a leader. And also, no one is claiming that just anyone can be a good CEO. Some competence in the unique CEO skillset is required. Every CEO is expected to keep their organization from devolving into tribal chaos, for example.

I don't remember reading anything to that effect.

I could easily be wrong but I didn't think he meant the engineer literally worked 48 hours without sleep or rest, then literally slept for 48 hours. I took it as: the engineer regularly shut out everyone for ~2 days straight and did long, extremely focus coding sessions, then shut out all work for a couple of days to decompress. Taken that way, it's not bi-polar or mental-health issue at all. Seems like this engineer just had the guts to stand up to everyone's ordained-from-the-heavens schedule of interruptions: "I'm gonna ignore distractions for two days to work, then ignore distractions for two days to rest."

All CEO bios like to begin by noting how early they wake up, and how the work out every morning at 6am at the very latest. I used to think this was a form of self-aggrandizement. "I'm a powerful CEO because I have superhuman discipline and stamina that you can't even imagine!"

Now I just wonder: am I lazy?

Now imagine that every single thing in your life that had the slightest bit of friction disappeared. Car doors opened as you walked towards them. When you wanted a coffee you said "coffee" to someone and it was brought to you just the way you like it, and soon as you were done the mug was removed. You never waited even a single moment for anything. The people you needed to meet with were all camped out in conference rooms just outside your office and you went to the next one when you were no longer being entertained by the one you were in. Your calendar was exactly the way you wanted it to, except for the rare occasion you met with someone more senior than you like the president of a country. Every day at precisely the time you wanted to, you had precisely the meal you wanted, cooked to your tastes and nutritional specifications by someone who could be running a Michelin star restaurant. When you got out of bed every day, the sheets were washed and the bed was re-made to military precision by a team of squarely built housekeepers.

Then it wouldn't be so hard to work out every morning at 6am, joined by your personal trainer who won a bronze medal at the 2002 Olympics.

How old are you?

I was a late riser until well into my thirties. Then suddenly something weird happened (well, not so weird sadly -- hormones shifting, I'm sure) and I started waking up early. Now, being up at 6am doesn't sound like some great accomplishment to me. Staying up past midnight on the other hand, now there's a challenge!

If I ran Disney I'd be up at 4 AM too. What a blast. Yeah some stress but some fun ass chess pieces to move everyday.

Yeh it’s basically a choice between hating myself and thrashing around in bed at 5:30AM, or getting up and feeling like I’m accomplishing things. Was not something I had to force really...

I'm your average SV employee, not an industry-dominating CEO.

To me it's a matter of getting it done - no one is going to derail or disrupt your workout at 5:30 AM by calling you to see if you want to go get a drink last minute or by having to shuttle your kids around after school. Similarly, you're not going to be relying on your willpower at 8PM after a long, arduous day.

That's been the biggest benefit to me personally. The confidence (both in appearance and sense of accomplishment) and energy boost throughout the day is icing no the cake.

My willpower is exponentially bigger at 8PM on my hardest days than at 5:30AM following my easiest day.

This is a marketing strategy for the rich. These people have to demonstrate feats of work to justify why they make thousands of times more money than normal people. Of course, no person can do work that is a thousand times more valuable than that of an average person. It's a ruse.

Maybe CEOs don't have families? It's a priority for me to be around to see my kids off to school.

Big shot days run off the rails late. If you manage a significant organization, early morning is probably the only time truly under your control.

Nah. I know a very successful, multi-time Founder/CEO who won't schedule meetings before 10:30 because he doesn't like waking up early. He'll accept meetings with VCs as needed, but then complain to us about it if he has multiple in a week or a particularly early one (8am).

It's comforting, as I'm the same way. I'd rather work 10-10, than 8-4.

You are referring to Jeff Bezos right?

It's just a mode of operation. I start my work around 6am, sometimes earlier. I stopped using an alarm years ago, I just wake up 7ish hours after I go to sleep (I go to bed early).

Personally, it makes me way more productive and less stressed. I get my quality work done before everyone else starts the day, nobody sets meetings at 7 am so im not disturbed. If I get lumped with a task in the evening I dont sacrifice it, instead ill push it until the morning and have it done before the rest get into work. I don't hit rush hour ever.

Note at least for me its not about superhuman discipline & stamina. I prob do the same hours of work, just more productive this way. And im a lazy fart, so you dont need to worry about the discipline. Just need enough to force yourself to go to bed at 9pm for awhile and after a week you'll be up with the chickens too.

1. It’s a lot easier to maintain a schedule like that when you have a team of people to hold you accountable

2. They’re probably describing their ideal day, that actually happens less than 30% of the time

In my experience, this isn't it at all.

The more people who need your input/help and make demands on your time, the less personal and free time you have.

Being a CEO feels exactly like being a Dad with 6 Toddlers. If you want even a micro-second for yourself it has to be before everyone else wakes up.

That's why they wake up at 4:00am. It's not because they are dominating the world... its because they are trying to hide from it.

I wonder how many CEO's are the opposite, i.e. stay up late for the same reasons.

Elon Musk?

Not so. I know people who live this way.

Obviously you shouldn’t compare yourself to a CEO

>Now I just wonder: am I lazy?

Or perhaps you are just normal.

I can't tell if you mean "part of the furniture" is good or bad.

I've been at several places, usually in the 3-5 year range. But at this exact moment, I'm a bit envious of people who have been at the same company for 8-10 years, and get to enjoy mastery over the system, organization, etc.

Trying new things is fun, but it can be a drag always playing catchup.

Having been at my current org for 8 years, I have to say that it's difficult to fully grasp the politics of a place if people only plan on staying for 1-3 years at a time.

I've also become more and more effective at quickly diagnosing problems and creating solutions taking into account the people, politics, tech, etc. involved. Tech is only one aspect of our jobs. A lot of time it's the easiest part.

Why would I stay this long at a job? I love the people in the dept I work in. The best team and job environment I've ever had. The drawback to staying a job this long is that, yes, you will probably be underpaid compared to market rate. Life is full of trade-offs and everyone will have to decide if it's worth it. For now, it is for me, but that might change in the future. If I get a new boss or the president of the org changes and he's terrible... /shrug maybe I'll move on. But life is short and if the position is good there's nothing wrong with staying IMHO.

The move I see a lot of people in my org pull is leaving, getting that pay bump, and then coming back to the same org with a lot of newly learned knowledge + those extra pay bumps.

There is totally something wrong with staying if you're underpaid.

There are nice people everywhere. Go meet them, and take the extra to the bank.

Per Collins: "If you describe someone or something as part of the furniture, you are suggesting that they have been somewhere such as their place of work for such a long time that it is hard to imagine that place without them."

It's neutral, really.

Through the years I have noticed that (most) permanent employees build a bubble around them. They stop working for the end-customer but they end up working for themselves. Create a comfort zone and then build amoat with crocodiles around it. Some people (like the author) wake up from this slumber and change this. The £€¥$ may be good, but work stops being excited. I used to change companies every 4-5 years just because of that. After the 1st-2nd promotion you are part of the "political" landscape and need to join a clique or another.

(Imho) 7 years is a long time to be working on the same topic, in the same company, moving only vertically.

I suspect your starting point was different than OP's. He is describing (I think) a crippling nervousness. This is very different from just tensing or run-of-the-mill nervousness.

All your advice is great, but (from personal experience) it's not enough to overcome phobia-level tension.

I think many people don't understand what phobia-level tension even looks/feels like. My own worst moment: presenting an architectural diagram to a VP, I started panicking, and repeated the phrase "...and we're going to build an abstraction layer..." three or four times in a row, in a slow monotone voice, until someone in the room snapped me out of it. Embarrassing is an understatement.

I always say: Analogies are like raccoons.