Obsession, Tier 1 Builders, and Nights and Weekends

You can’t be a tier 1 builder unless you work nights and weekends. This isn’t actually the classic trope, “the only way to be successful is to work nights and weekends in your 20s“. It’s actually a symptom of an irrational obsession about what you’re building. Love of the game. Every tier 1 builder I know has this characteristic.

The classic symptoms are the characteristic of feeling viscerally uncomfortable having not fixed problems. Not shipping. Go to market not working. Something in the application is broken. In these states, it’s impossible for these builders to feel comfortable. The only thing that fixes this problem is the borderline cathartic feeling of fixing it and moving forward.

Typically when an employee has this much angst, the general management prescription is to say “you’re burnt out“ and give them a break. The problem with the builders that are this obsessed is that taking a break won’t actually help, because the problem hasn’t been fixed. For these builders, the only way out is through.

In this way, the symptom of working nights and weekends isn’t a hustle porn goal - it’s part of a broader mental state that causes it. These people aren’t working nights are weekends because of some desire for money or success. They’re doing it because they will never feel really settled until they fix the problem.

This is a very narrow segment of the population (1-2%), so when these people explain their problems to others, the others won’t get it. My family doesn’t get this, nor did my old investors, friends or girlfriend. It leads to this “always on“ state that is impossible to turn off. I think my average slack response time on pretty much any message is around 2 minutes. When I’m really at it, the amount of code I crank is wild.

The people in the world that are this way are special, and truly are the ones moving the world forward. Worth betting on, but often very misunderstood. You have to be it to know it and see it.