There are a LOT of things like that. Travel is a good example.
For people making a living wage, some think “I don’t have the money to travel.” Then when they have the money, they think “I don’t have the time to travel.” They don’t really travel until they retire, and then they have trouble going anywhere that isn’t friendly to their knees and faltering eyesight, so they buy an RV.
Others travel in college from hostel to hostel. When they get work, they negotiate longer vacations to travel, or they deliberately become giggers so they can travel.
I met a couple in Thailand who climbed, they worked five months a year around the clock as nurses, and climbed seven months a year literally everywhere. They lived on the cheap so they would have more climbing days.
I have similar stories about people who ride bicycles and dive. If you are passionate, don’t wait for some magical day when you can fly the Concorde to go climbing in Europe with your friends (true story about some Yosemite dirtbags who came into illicit cash).
If you’re passionate about a thing, go do that thing. Now.
Coming up on my 4-year anniversary at a company, having just returned from 2 years in a foreign office, I told my Director I'd like a 3rd week of vacation and no more money. Just treat me like I'd been working here an extra year.
He got me a $5,000 raise, no extra vacation time. Said that he did his best and he was the type of person I'd absolutely believe.
Ever since then, in my mind, a vacation day has to be worth more than $1,000. Simple economics, right? Somehow giving me $5,000 maximizes shareholder value more than giving me 5 extra days off.
My next job was more generous with vacation. They used the accrual method with a maximum and there was an extended period where it had become difficult to take time off and they'd stopped putting our PTO balance on our paystubs... so at some point I track down where to find the info and realize I'd lost 10 days of vacation accrual.
I about lost my mind and HR couldn't understand why I felt like they'd cheated me out of more than $10,000.
Felt trapped in the job forever 'cause eventually I'm earning I think 27 vacation days per year, and 10 to start is pretty typical, maybe 15 if you're lucky... And as much as we might like to think everything is negotiable, reality on the ground is that very little besides salary can be successfully negotiated.
I've negotiated with dozens of people who favor vacation over salary increase and I'm glad to give the extra time off to them. It's definitely negotiable.
A friend of mine told his boss “I’m going traveling for three months starting in January. Am I quitting or just taking a leave of absence?”. It worked.
To negotiate more vacation days at hiring, you need multiple offers. Then you can tell them “I will accept your offer if it includes six weeks of vacation. Otherwise I’m going to Facebook”. It probably means negotiating a little less hard on pay since you need to focus to get it. But that’s probably fair.
> Then you can tell them “I will accept your offer if it includes six weeks of vacation. Otherwise I’m going to Facebook”
I've used that exact line, and they didn't budge, so I went to Facebook. I guess everywhere I've applied is large tech companies. It might work better at smaller firms.
Nothing is certain, but remember that there's a difference between negotiating "unpaid time off" and "vacation days."
A vacation day is a paid thing. Unpaid time off is not. It's all money and productivity in the end, but in many companies it's easier to negotiate unpaid time off, than to negotiate extra vacation days. Even if the money works out the same in the end.
First rule of negotiation is you have to be willing to walk away if you don't get what you ask for. Could be you weren't willing to say "no thanks" if they didn't budge on vacation time.
> First rule of negotiation is you have to be willing to walk away if you don't get what you ask for. Could be you weren't willing to say "no thanks" if they didn't budge on vacation time.
Second would be maybe start asking about that when the offer letter comes in. At which point they are invested in you.
Fwiw, Google allows for unpaid time off of less than 30 days. Your salary stops during that time, but benefits and so on stay on, which is nice rather than going into "Ugh, need to figure out COBRA".
Google also has up to 5 weeks paid vacation in the US, starting at 3 weeks when you join. After 3 years, you move to 4 weeks, and after 5 years you max out at 5. Other countries basically have their government mandated time off rules, but 5 weeks plus unpaid plus holidays is pretty good.
Each week of unpaid time is thus about 2% of salary. That said, I'm definitely in the minority in using unpaid time off (though, even more strange for me is how many colleagues let their vacation accrual reach the maximum and even forfeit days...).
You do have to leave occasionally to have believable leverage. I’ve found that if you announce you’re leaving and will quit if you have to they’re much more amenable.
I haven't checked your link, but John Long told the story in one of his many autobiographical books. He also was credited with the story idea that became the Sylvester Stallone climbing action movie "Cliffhanger," and that is loosely based on the incident.
Your link provides a number of details I do not recall from John Long’s account. Thank you.
On the other hand, John Long is a raconteur par excellence, and I recommend all of his books as entertaining reading about an important time in climbing history.
——
One thing Long wrote/claimed that is not mentioned in the linked post is that two of the dirtbags involved leveraged their haul into an ongoing drug-dealing business. Until they were found, shot dead, in their home.
We want our employees to live first, work second. So we have set it up so people can work from anywhere, and they do. A lot of employees go and work from interesting travel places for a few weeks or months.
He was playing with Lisp before he was wealthy and also while becoming wealthy. HN's software, which runs on Arc, used to run YC too. It was all one codebase. Only after pg retired did YC move the business parts of the software out of Lisp, and it got a lot bigger and more complicated in the process—as any Lisper would expect.
have you thought about publishing the full source from then? The HN source was dense but very educational, and it would be really interesting to see internal tools written in arc.
You wouldn't learn much more from reading it, because (to an almost comical extent in retrospect) the internal code was just like HN. In fact, not just like; it was mostly the same code.
Interesting, am I reading this the right way that the larger YC organization's codebase is an outgrowth of the message board tech? You guys post updates on investments/ideas for what startups should be doing just like news links are shared on HN, but actually on HN/not visible to other normal-HN users?
I was in the room when the decision was made, and it wasn't about more users.
That's the kind of thing people say because they assume it must be so. If you do that about unconventional things, which this software was/is, you'll simply reproduce the conventional view.
A rule devised on college summers from a state school. Students had money or time, depending on if they had a summer job. Seems to hold true to most peoples existence.
until you have enough money to make more money without adding much time..
Completely agree. While I have no idea what I'd actually do if I was this wealthy (maybe just enjoy life and give into time consuming addictions), but I have numerous projects that are "on hold" from lack of time.
It may be the reverse that happens here: he is wealthy enough to have time to play with Lisp.