Why meetings are toxic

`2:53:57`

until next month. — And there is a temptation for the managers and for the people in the executive layer to do something, which that's something usually means a meeting, right? And so that's why you say... — Their job is telling other people what to do. — Yeah, and the meeting, so this is one of the big things you're against is meeting... — Meetings are toxic. And this really I think ties into this with Jason and I. If I had to count out the total number of meetings we've had in 24 years of collaborations where we in person sat in front of each other and discussed a topic, I probably it'd be less than whatever, three months at a fan company. We just haven't done that that much. We haven't worn it out. One of this funny metaphors that Trump came up with at one point was a human has like a limited number of steps in their life, right? Like that's the longevity argument here. You could do so much activity and then you run out. There's some kernel in that idea that can be applied to relationship. There's some amount of exchange we can have.

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There's some amount of time we can spend together where you can wear it out. Jason and I were diligent about not wearing each other out. And I think that is absolutely key to the longevity of the relationship combined with that level of trust. And then just combining with the level that we really like the work itself. We don't just like the brainstorming. The say where we just come up with good ideas. No, we like to do the ideas and we like to be part of that process directly ourselves. I like to program, he likes to do design. We could go off and do our little things for long stretches of time. In case you, come together and go like, hey, let's launch a great product. — This might sound like I'm asking you to do therapy, but I find myself to sometimes want or long for a meeting because I'm lonely. Like 'cause it remote work is just sitting by yourself. I don't know, it can get really lonely for long stretches of time. — Let me give you a tip, get a wife.

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— Yes, oh, goddammit. — Get a couple kids. — [Lex] All right. — Like family really is the great antidote to loneliness. And I mean that as sincerely as I can possibly say it. I certainly had exactly that feeling you described early in my career when I was working remotely and I was just a, like me living in an apartment. A total stereotype where for the longest time when I first moved to Chicago, all I had on the floor was a mattress and then I bought this big TV and I didn't even mount it. And then I had a stack of DVDs. And I was basically, I was working a lot of time and then I would just go home and do that. And it wasn't great. It really wasn't. Like I do think that humans need humans. And if you can't get them at work and I actually sort of kind of don't want them at work, at least I don't want 'em for 40 hours a week. That's not what I prefer. You need something else. You need other relationships in your life, and there's no greater depth of relationship if you can find someone that you actually just wanna spend a lot of time with. That's key to it.

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And I think it's key for both Jason and I that we've had families for quite a long time and it grounds you two in a way where the sprint of a startup can get traded in for the marathon of an enduring company. And you get settled in a way. We talked briefly about sometimes I get fired up. I mean a lot of times, maybe even most of the times I get fired up about topics, but I don't get fired up in the same way now as I used to when I was 24. I'm still extremely passionate about ideas and trying to find the right things, but having a family meeting, my wife, building a life around that has just mellowed everything out in a completely cliche way. But I think it's actually key. I think if we could get more even younger people not to wait until they were in the late goddamn 30s or early 40s to hitch up with someone,

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we'd be better off and we'd have more stable business relationships as well because folks would get that nurturing human relations somewhere else. Now when I say all of that, I also accept that there are plenty of great businesses that's been built over the years that have not been built remote, that have been built by a gang of hooligans sitting in an office for immense hours of time. I mean, both John Carmack and Tim Sweeney talked about that in the '90s with their careers that that was just basically work, sleep, hang out with the guys at the office, right? A totally fair. That never appealed to me. Both Jason and I saw eye to eye on the idea that 40 hours a week dedicated to work was enough that if we were gonna go to distance for not just the five to seven years it takes to build a VC case up to an exit. But for potentially 10 years, 20 years or further, we needed to become whole humans. Because the only that whole humanness was gonna go to distance,

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which included building up friendships outside of work, having hobbies, finding a mate and having a family. And that entire higher existence, those legs of the stool that work is not the only thing in life is completely related to the fact that we've been around for 25 years. There's way too much, especially in America of false trade-offs. Oh, you wanna build a successful business? Well, you can either have money enjoyment or family or health pick one. What? Why do we have to give up all of this? Now again, I'm not saying, and there are moments of payers in life where you can sprint. But I am saying if that sprint turns into a decade, you're gonna pay for it. And you can pay for it in ways. I've seen time and again seem like a very bad trade that even if it works. And by the way, most of the time it does not.

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Most of the time startups go bust. Most of the time people spend five, seven years or something that does not pan out and they don't get the payout and then they just sit with regret of like, what the fuck happened to my 20s? Early on, Jason and I basically made the pact that working together was not gonna lead to that kind of regret. That we were gonna allow ourselves and each other to build a whole life outside of work. And the fact that that worked is something I feel is almost like forbidden knowledge, certainly in technology circles in the US. It's something that we've tried to champion for 20 years and we still get slack. For just two days ago, I had another Twitter beef with someone saying like, "Oh, well okay, maybe it worked, but you didn't turn into Atlassian. So you're a failure. Basecamp isn't Jira, so why are you even bothering?" And it's such a fascinating winner- takes-all mentality that unless you dominate everyone else

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in all the ways you've lost. When so much of life is far more open to multiple winners where we can end up with a business that have made hundreds of millions of dollars over the years, and we've kept much of that to do whatever we want and that's enough. That's good, that's great. That's actually something worth aspiring to. Certainly it should be a path for someone to consider choosing rather than the VC unicorn of bust mentality that dominates everything. — Yeah, I'd love to ask you about this exchange so you can explain to me the whole saga, but so just to link on that a little bit is I think there's a notion that success for a tech founder is like work for a few years all out and then exit, sort of sell your company for, I don't know, hundreds of millions of dollars. That's success. When it seems in reality,