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The CEO of RevolutApp on Slack: “Why Aren’t You Working on Weekends?”

185 pointsby deepsyabout 6 years ago

29 comments

lohszvuabout 6 years ago
I appreciate the CEO being direct. It gives you a chance to find another job before you get fired.
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HenryBemisabout 6 years ago
Self note: never do business with the person that says: Bonus more important that weekend family time.<p>If projects are behind, re-group, re-train, re-focus. Waving the whip and telling people &quot;work on the weekends&quot; was never my style (to instruct or to receive).
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throwaway2016aabout 6 years ago
It takes experience to know why this doesn&#x27;t work and some CEOs &#x2F; CTOs &#x2F; PMs &#x2F; etc get there faster than others.<p>I was involved with a company once (larger than this one) where something very similar this happened.<p>They threatened layoffs. What happened was that the team became immediately LESS productive. Effectively instant burnout. If not from the hours than from the loss of morale.<p>One of the biggest &quot;mistakes&quot; is they told everyone when the layoffs would happen so all the top performers had better jobs lined up for that next Monday. The really high performers phoned it in just enough to not be fired early and took their severance package when they were inevitably laid off.<p>Personally, I tried not to phone it in. But I actually lobbied to be laid off (there was a significant group of people that wanted to keep me). I built up my vacation time (in the US it becomes due to you as cash when you leave) and got a month severance on top of it plus a 20% raise. And I timed my start date for a week after getting laid off just to have some rest. I was a key player on the product team... the other key players left too and that entire product died a couple months later.<p>It takes a while for people to realize that workers will stretch or compress their work to meet the schedule. If you expect them to work weekends they will just do the same amount of work just over 7 days instead of 5. Conversely, some studies have shown a four day week has no negative effect on productivity.<p>Thinking to meet KPIs you throw more hours at it is a sign of a &quot;leader&quot; who hasn&#x27;t figured that out yet. Maybe by their 5th startup they&#x27;ll get it.<p>Edit: As an aside. I too have asked my team to work weekends occasionally (I&#x27;m a CTO not CEO but same premise). It always goes like this:<p>&gt; I&#x27;m really sorry to have to do this but we really need you to put in some extra time on the weekend to meet the deadline next week. Pick a couple days next month to take off and we&#x27;ll let you take them off without using your PTO. Thank you, I really appreciate it! As a company we&#x27;ll try to make sure this doesn&#x27;t happen very often.
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readhnabout 6 years ago
RIP RevolutApp with such CEO leadership you are doomed to fail. Nikolay Storonsky - you will lose your best people and drive RevolutApp into the ground.<p>EDIT: just read a wiki on Nikolay. It all makes sense - his dad is a high up in Putin&#x27;s enterprise machine (Gazprom - russian gas related entity) = part of the corruption machine. Not surprised that the son has such morals and how he treats other people is probably coming from his dad.<p>Regular folks are just lowlife slaves and peasants that exist to enrich him and his business (this is the way an average russian oligarch thinks).
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dougmwneabout 6 years ago
I am very pro work life balance and think anything over 35-40 hours per week will just lead to eventual burnout and reduced performance.<p>Having said that, I can&#x27;t bring myself to be too bothered about this tweet. At least the expectation is clear: hit your KPI goal or else.<p>If you were to find yourself behind, you could either work harder, lobby to change the goal, lobby for more resources, pivot your strategy, or start looking for a new job. This guy is being a dick by threatening weekend work or the dole to push people to hit their numbers, but there are worse management sins.
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stagasabout 6 years ago
So the strategy is this: Assemble teams with a low salary, then offer the withheld salary as bonus promises as an excuse to have people working on weekends and justify firing. Yes, that sounds like something it&#x27;ll work for long term and is not toxic at all for the employees.
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brbrodudeabout 6 years ago
Seen a lot of comments trying justify it, so check this which is where the pic comes from: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.wired.co.uk&#x2F;article&#x2F;revolut-trade-unions-labour-fintech-politics-storonsky" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.wired.co.uk&#x2F;article&#x2F;revolut-trade-unions-labour-...</a><p>They were using hiring process for free unpaid work to reach those sweet KPIs... much worse.<p>Each applicant was expected to bring 200 new paying customers to go to the next phase. Any problem yet?
vasilakisfilabout 6 years ago
Ok, won&#x27;t use Revolut again.
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apercuabout 6 years ago
I have never been very productive when trying to do knowledge work for more than 4-5 hours a day and more than about 28 hours a week. When I start working 50+ hours a week my productivity drops below what I would have gotten done in a 20 hour week, Things become harder, you get less creative, you start brute forcing your solutions. You write bad code or documents. These are things you typically learn with experience.
mseidlabout 6 years ago
People aren&#x27;t robots they need breaks, vacations, time to decompress, time off when sick.
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yourapostasyabout 6 years ago
The rational response when those receiving the message are not compensated with exactly the same, non-dilutive equity share class as founders, is explained in Urban Dictionary [1] from the Goodfellas movie [2]. Pay peanuts, get monkey effort. If KPI&#x27;s were negotiated simultaneously with compensation, then perhaps there might be some more negotiating leverage equity between parties and a more honest appraisal and synchronization between goals and compensation, but standard practice is compensation is negotiated on a lagging basis compared to how often KPI&#x27;s are established&#x2F;modified.<p>The whole applicant&#x27;s-must-book-sales-for-free schtick was so trashy they pulled it [3] once it came to light.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.urbandictionary.com&#x2F;define.php?term=fuck%20you%20pay%20me" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.urbandictionary.com&#x2F;define.php?term=fuck%20you%2...</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=8L4HHPTiZN8" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=8L4HHPTiZN8</a><p>[3] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.crowdfundinsider.com&#x2F;2018&#x2F;10&#x2F;140531-digital-bank-revolut-takes-heat-for-clumsy-hiring-ploy-asking-applicants-to-source-200-new-accounts-to-be-considered&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.crowdfundinsider.com&#x2F;2018&#x2F;10&#x2F;140531-digital-bank...</a>
dexenabout 6 years ago
&gt;I noticed that several product owners &#x2F; team leaders<p>&gt;are significantly below targets<p>&gt;and still do not work on weekends to catch up.<p>The CEO addresses it specifically to the middle management (POs&#x2F;TLs) and not line employees.<p>Given that, the vocal outrage, and the calls on Twitter for the line employees to unionize are both unproductive, and also misleading. Way to discredit your position.
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DyslexicAtheistabout 6 years ago
Money laundering is totally OK as long as you do it on a large enough scale &#x2F;s: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ft.com&#x2F;content&#x2F;527fe170-3b79-11e9-b72b-2c7f526ca5d0" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ft.com&#x2F;content&#x2F;527fe170-3b79-11e9-b72b-2c7f526ca...</a>
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toddhabout 6 years ago
You have to wonder how agreed upon these targets really were. Perhaps milestones are being missed because they were driven top down and were never realistic to begin with? Developers with ownership are more likely to work to complete their goals. If they aren&#x27;t then that&#x27;s a symptom of problems, not the cause.
koonsoloabout 6 years ago
It reminds me that I once worked for a manager who sets deadlines on Mondays instead of Fridays, so you still had the weekend to finish it.<p>As with any such managers, the deadlines are set by their own optimistic guesswork, not by the people actually doing the job (and knowing how to do the job).<p>Did I mention I workED for that manager?
sztankoabout 6 years ago
Data Engineer from Revolut here. Feel free to ask me anything. To comment on the topic, my team was never ever told to work late hours or weekends.<p>Opinions my own.<p>Main thread here: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=19309597" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=19309597</a>
chapiumabout 6 years ago
Another example of this executive behavior previously discussed here: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=1455750" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=1455750</a>
dwighttkabout 6 years ago
I hate the idea of working on weekends...<p>This guy was only talking about people significantly behind on their projects, for what it is worth.<p>Of course they can be behind because they are wasting time or because the project requires too many man hours.
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testcrossabout 6 years ago
Now the question is: what are the good alternatives to revolut?
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babyabout 6 years ago
Related: Revolut and Monzo are still amazing products. After moving to the US they make it quite impossible to use revolut or monzo (it’s expensive as fuck to top up). I’ve looked into simple&#x2F;varo&#x2F;chime but they look pretty bad in comparison to Monzo, they are also reserved to Us citizens only so fuck people with a greencard. I have chase&#x2F;capitalone&#x2F;schwabe and their app are just stuck in the past. I really wish Monzo would work here :&#x2F; anything I’m not aware of?
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icuabout 6 years ago
This tweet is the exact reason I choose to live in the UK, and not the US, when it came to pursuing my career in financial services.<p>I do not believe that the US approach—in many sectors, but particularly in finance—of putting your career before your family life is a good use of the unknown and limited time we have on this planet.<p>That said, I am an entrepreneur, and the buck stops with me, so if I need to work weekends than I will juggle that obligation while still being there for my son.<p>Part of my reason for this approach is based on what my father once told me, that in life you&#x27;ll juggle a lot of important balls, your career ball, your family ball, your health ball etc. The gist was, life is a juggling act, but his final word on it was something along the lines of, &quot;Your family ball is made of glass, and if you drop it, it could shatter so much that you will never be able to piece it together again.&quot;<p>Obviously what is happening in an employee&#x27;s life will have an impact on their work life. Saying things like, &quot;if you miss your KPIs than you&#x27;re fired&quot; isn&#x27;t going to motivate your staff, especially the ones who need to up their performance. Firing people who don&#x27;t perform creates a situation where staff members will live under fear and that doesn&#x27;t usually create great customer experiences.<p>And this leads to another point, if you are a good leader, you should never be in a position where you need to remind people that they need to work weekends if they are behind or they will get fired. He’s the CEO, the buck stops with him. If he communicated the problem they are solving, the company’s mission, and put in the right culture, hired the right people, you don’t need to say such things.<p>IMHO a good ‘Culture’ would have the following values:<p>1. Spartan Wall – We win the battle for our customers by protecting&#x2F;taking care of each other.<p>2. Obsessive Customer Empathy – We are our customers’ biggest advocate.<p>3. Unfiltered Brutal Truth – Feelings, rank, politics NEVER have priority over truth and what’s right.<p>4. Proactive Problem Solving – When we hit problems, we do not put our hands up, we find a solution.<p>5. Laser Focus – We only keep to the problem and the mission.<p>6. One Destination, Autonomously – While we work loosely together, we all have the same mission and we are all in it together.<p>I bet you all the money in the word Nikolay Storonsky—the CEO of Revolut—doesn’t actually understand that a CEO’s job is to create the environment to find, motivate and retain people who are focused on the problem the company is solving, believe in the company’s mission, and are a fit for the company’s culture. IMHO venture success is the result of building an organisation that does this.<p>I wish Revolut all the luck in the world but the fish rots from the head!
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adlpzabout 6 years ago
If people are behind the expected performance due to excessive workload or poor higher-level management, then this is unacceptable.<p>If people are behind the expected performance due to incompetence, wasted time or poor self-management, then this is reasonable.<p>We are all adults here.
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aboutrubyabout 6 years ago
main thread: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=19279829" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=19279829</a>
ykevinatorabout 6 years ago
In his defense, he tied kpis to bonuses.
p3nt3ll3rabout 6 years ago
Culture starts at the top.
swalshabout 6 years ago
Is it like a rule that these &quot;rising star unicorns&quot; have to be ran by Sociopaths?
NoblePubliusabout 6 years ago
Standard working hours in China are 9-9 six days per week.
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w8rbtabout 6 years ago
If you have only ever worked a 9 - 5 work week this may come as a surprise, but in the real world in America, lots of highly paid people routinely work weekends and nights and 12 or even 24 hour shifts. Doctors, Police Officers, Morticians, Firefighters, etc. They use schedules to spread the work and many only get one weekend off a month of totally free time.
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NoblePubliusabout 6 years ago
Never ceases to amaze me how friggin lazy and entitled are the British when it comes to being told they need to work long hours. It’s a high growth startup. They are vesting you with stock. Hell yes you need to come in on weekends, bruv.
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