Video: The Great Startup Debate: 996 vs. The 4-Day Work Week | Duration: 5392s | Summary: The Great Startup Debate: 996 vs. The 4-Day Work Week

Transcript for "The Great Startup Debate: 996 vs. The 4-Day Work Week": Nine to nine. Six days ago, voice line. Different weeks. Same dream or see you Monday or maybe Thursday. Am I here? We all here? Yep? Oh, yeah. Sweet. Sweet. Alright. Seems like we can get started. Thank you all for joining. I'm sure we have, nowhere to better to be on a Wednesday than a a b to b SaaS sponsored webinar. We really like to think this is the highlights event of your night across all geos. We got people from, Seattle. We got people in New York. New York represent we got anyone from San Francisco, the 996 capital itself. Drop your location in the chat here on the right. Wanna see where everyone's, dialing in from. Toronto. Love it. Berkeley, Colorado, San Diego, Beverly Hills. Wow. Love it. Love it. Hillsborough, Oregon, Long Beach, Philly, LA. Crazy. Wow. Crazy reach, man. Well, we appreciate you all joining. I think we'll get started here. We got a pretty packed agenda today. All kinds of fun debates on some very relevant topics and tech here as well as some prizes. We even have fancy spinning wheels. There are, like, freemium spinning wheels, so there's ads on them. So since this is a sponsored webinar, there's ads within the ad. So, you know, if in case you needed more ads in your life, stick around for prizes and ads. And we will be doing some polls throughout. So just a quick tech check, the polls will be on the right hand side of your screen, which I believe would be that way if it's, like, you know, doing the mirror image thing. So stay tuned for the polls there. Then there's also, you're gonna have the opportunity to ask questions at the end, and you have to click a mic emoji to ask questions. I don't know where that is, but you guys are tech savvy, so I trust that you will figure that out. Alright? Cool. Let's get started. Melissa, not such thing as too many ads. I agree. I agree. As a content creator, I agree, unfortunately. Cool. Well, quick intro for those who don't know me. My name is Varun. I'm a content creator, and I make sketch comedy about the life of a young stressed out tech worker. So you're in good company here. And I worked in the industry for about six years. And, you know, I always said tech is the industry that is best known for either working way too hard or not working at all and no in between. And I don't know. I came up in tech in the late twenty tens, and we were all just like, how how did we get these jobs? Like, I don't know. We would literally, some days, like, come into work and and pretend, like, act. Like, it was it was pure theater, and times have really changed. I mean, if you're on the unfortunate side of LinkedIn that I'm on, the discussion is really shifting the other way. I mean, hustle culture is is back. Like, it's crazy. I mean, I don't know. It's hard to make sense of all this noise right now. Is sleeping at the office the move? Should I delete Slack every Friday? I don't know. But today, we wanted to hold a discussion in partnership with Rippling to hash it all out in a good old debate. And we have two very special guests here with us today who represent these kinda two different polar opposite schools of thought on this matter. And so we have Cyril who's a YC back founder of a company called CTGT, which is connecting through generative technology, which is enterprise AI governance for high risk applications, whatever that means. And we have Artem here who is VP of strategy at Augury. I Augury. Right? And, the company makes products that listens to machines and predicts failure. Predicting failure is something I probably could have used earlier in in my career before I disappointed my Indian parents with all my, bad career choices. So before we get into the debate and intros, just wanna do a quick poll. We're gonna do a quick poll. How is everybody's energy today? Are we running on pure adrenaline? Are we just deep in the caffeine spiral? Are we barely conscious? Are we just nothing from my end? Thanks, vibes. Go to the poll on the right hand side. Let's check-in. Alright. Everyone's many coffees deep as well as me. And then we have eight people just not listening at all, which is great. I totally feel that. We got a few more votes coming in, but okay. We got a good mix, which is what I like to see. Cool. Well, despite where you're at in energy, we are going to get into this debate, and we're gonna start with some quick opening remarks. We're gonna start with Cyril here today. Cyril, would you like to do your quick intro? Yeah. Absolutely. So my name is Cyril. Thanks for the very charitable introduction, Varun. We do do enterprise AI governance. Basically, what that means is we help companies stop bad things from happening to their AI, like hallucinations or data leakage, stuff like that. I think our work ethic is really a testament to the magnitude of the problem we're trying to solve. I think the way that we get to AGI in the safest manner, that's probably the most important problem anyone could be working on right now. And it's still one of Artem's lines. I think behind every four day work week, there's a nine nine six company that's doing the real stuff in the background. So that's, yeah. I think that's that's it for me. Yeah. I mean, yeah. AI vertical b to b SaaS is, yeah, very, very important, I guess, apparently. Artem, you wanna give us a quick little intro? Sure. So, I've been at, Augury, which is one of the first industrial unicorns, for the last ten years, and I've seen the company grow, over time. I've been a founder before of earlier stage startups. And it's just over time became clear to me that in order to go far, you can't go a 100 miles an hour all the time. Right? So you have to have a balance in life. You have to have a balance in your work. You have to create a culture that can sustain itself over time. And we're at different stages with CIRTL. CIRTL's earlier stage, we're more of a growth company. But I still have that perspective of, you know, you need to take a day off once in a while just to, you know, relax, recharge your team. And, frankly, you know, some of this hustle culture has been there for many, many years, you know, also twenty years ago when I started. But it's a little bit glorified now, and I don't love it. And I think the best argument against nine zero six culture, today is that it's actually illegal. It's not legal in China. So, like, you can't blame the Chinese for being, you know, too chill or lazy. Right? They actually outlawed it five years ago. So, and there's a good reason for that. You know, even they said, okay. We need to chill a little bit here. Let's let's take it a step back. Right? Dial it back a little bit. So, yeah, I don't love, you know, glorifying that culture. I'd I'd it has its place. Right? But it's it's not sustainable. Totally. And, you know, hey. Like Cyril said, you know, behind every great product is, nine nine six workers. So, you know, if you're okay with not having a good product, that's that's your choice, you know. I mean, that so, anyway, I'm kidding. But, alright. I wanna hear more from each of you on, like, why you are choosing to work with your teams the way you are. So, like, Cyril, starting with you, why, tell us, like, why you're so adamant on, you know, having, like, people who are willing to work this this way, what that looks like for your team, how you enforce it, etcetera. Just tell us a little bit more about that. Yeah. It's absolutely not for everyone. I think the reason that people are here the reason people are doing this is we're not counting hours. That's one thing that we totally tell people off the bat. Like, if you're counting someone's hours you've already lost, really why we're doing this is we're all very aligned to the mission. Right? And the mission is something that's relevant, you know, from my academic background, from other people I've been working on in the industry for years, which is there's a huge gap between AI deployment and AI safety. Right? What do you actually need on the ground in order to make AI reliable for those places breaking that out most? You know, this is like giving people access to credit that would never have access to credit before. Giving people access to world cap world class medical advice that have no doctors around them. Right? This is like really important stuff. And all our employees resonate with that and they're all, like, in some part of their lives been touched by that personally. And so we're not really grinding out nine nine six just like some b two b slop. Right? What we're doing is we think it's important to be in person, really talk through these things, banter, bounce ideas off of each other, you know, foster that almost like a collegiate academic environment where intellectual discussion is encouraged. We can share ideas, and that in person collaboration is really key to maintaining that culture. Yeah. No. I like what you said about, like, kind of putting it in the context of, all the craziness in the AI space right now and the the things that are developing and the lack of focus on safety in AI, I think, I like that. You know, there's a it sounds like there's at least a noble mission with, like, risk prevention and safety. So I definitely can respect that. And I like what you said about, you know, fostering creativity. I felt like. So I used to work at a remote start up, completely remote, and we would meet up at our, HQ every few months. And it felt like, you know, we would spend the whole day in these conference rooms making up for lost time. And, like, it was almost, like, counterproductive in a way because we were like, oh my god. Like, we, we are really just coasting for most of the year. And then in person, we're like, oh my god. Like, we have all these ideas coming, and we're not gonna execute on all of them. You know? So, I can definitely see, where you're coming from there. Artem, tell us more about, you know, your four day work week approach, but also tell us more about like, I know you have been in the industry for a while, so a lot of it seems like it's from experience and maybe from some not great experiences you've learned from. So tell us about that. Yeah. I can say, you know, early on, as as a founder, I have a number of executive coaches. Right? And one of them told me, listen. You're what you're doing is you're staying in the office for sixteen hours a day, and your team is looking at you and they have to stay with you. Right? So what you you're going to burn your team out in the next two months. And what you have to do is leave the office at 5PM, go to a coffee shop, to a bar, chill out for thirty minutes, and then come back. Right? So that it doesn't feel like even though you're, you know, crazy and you're on a mission and you, you know, you have to you feel like you have to get all this work done. Make sure your team doesn't feel like it because that's not a great culture. And and and that that really, you know, stayed with me over time, and I did that, and it really helped the team. But there's a difference between how you approach work and what you feel you need to do and the mission that you're on. And, you know, respecting the balance and life of of your coworkers and the people that work around you and your team. Right? So how do you create that right, you know, the right culture? And there's many different ways to to to approach it. One is if your mission is great and people are behind you, they will show up for work. Right? And they'll be motivated. But you also have to give something back to them, you know, in terms of their relationships, their ability to, you know, have a family, pursue hobbies, rest, sleep, you know, go out, and then recharge. Right? And they come back with the creativity back, back in in into the company. And so, you know, my experience at least tells me that that is the the right way to go. It doesn't necessarily mean you have to have a four day work week, and we at all, we don't really have, you know, four day work week every week. It's it's every other week. And we have teams around the world, so we have different hours, different days that they get, you know, they they they can take off. But, you know, people really, really appreciate it. And part of it is also treating people, whether it's founders, whether it's, you know, employees as adults. Right? Within the time that they have, just be efficient, be effective, and deliver on the work they need to deliver on. And then when you need to take time off, take time off. Right? And as a culture, I think that's something that works, just a lot more sustainably over time. Yep. Totally. And, Shane here asked a question about that, which you kinda answered, which is like, it is like a results oriented culture. At the end of the day, it's about getting it done, not about how you get it done. I also think the story you shared about someone your your coach telling you to leave and come back kinda just shows you that this really is just all optics. Right? I think so many people, especially in this new age of, like, LinkedIn and x, like, talking about doing things a certain way and calling it nine nine six. It's a very polarizing term. It shows that half of it is just, like, telling people and kind of like virtue signaling in a way that, like, you work hard, when in reality, like, one, I don't know if most people are actually working that kind of strict schedule. And two, if they are working hard, it's probably with a purpose. I guess, like, Cyril, I'm curious since you're out in SF on the ground connecting with founders all the time. What are those discussions like? Are, like, people feeling like they have to conform to this and, like, put on to their peers or to investors this front, like, they're working harder than they actually are, and do they find that hard to keep up with? Yeah. One thing that's sort of negatively correlated with the actual quality of the company or the product is tends to be people who are terminally online about their work and sort of constantly posting about how much they work. That's definitely negatively correlated with how much work they seem to actually get done with the quality of that work. So that's definitely somewhat of a of a negative signal there. Like I said, fundamentally, what we're doing is, I think the mission it comes back to the mission. Right? So the work comes after the mission. It's not that you're just working to work. And whatever nine nine six may happen, it's not because nine nine six is being instituted. It's because that's just something that's a byproduct of the importance of the mission. And like Artem said, RAs is a later stage company. We're a seed stage company, right? We raised like 8,000,000 from Google like a few months ago. So we're still in that very much, you know, that escape velocity phase. Right? And when you're in that phase, there's a lot that could knock you down. So you sort of just all need to be together working on this really big, hard, important problem. There's a certain gen I say quad to just doing that together. But doing it is the important thing, the media hype circus around it, which this event is obviously a part of. I think that's not productive in and of itself. Totally. And you bring up a valid point on, like, it kinda depends on the stage of your venture and maybe the nature of the work you do. Artem, since, you know, you got some years on us, no offense. No. You know, you're our unk in the room. Have you seen people in early stage or in, like, pre seed series a? Like, have you seen people in that, like, stage try to kind of start from the get go of, like, let's be the four day work week company. And, like, how did that pan out? Or maybe you don't, but I'm curious. I mean, look, the That was glory days. Yeah. So there are definitely studies out there that, you know, have looked at four day work weeks, not necessarily at early stage start ups, but just in general. And, you know, the outcome of those studies is that in general, productivity doesn't drop. In some cases, it goes up in a four day work week work week. Over time, nine nine nine six culture actually drives productivity down because people want to kill themselves. Okay? Right? But, you know, the they basically, over time, burn out. And this is you know, these are studies that have been done in China over over over years. Right? It's just not a great work culture to enforce. But, you know, Cyril is not talking about enforcing our culture. I'm talking about, you know, getting motivated to work, to meet together, and work long hours to to develop and build something. So I think that's admirable. But if I were to now start a company from scratch, right, as a as a seed, you know, early stage founder, I would definitely not pursue, I would have to hustle like everybody else. Right? But I would not pursue that as a culture, as a slogan, because, you know, the the the the stage I'm in, you know, in terms of my life, you know, I have, I have a daughter, you know, and the people I would work with and some people would hire, I would hire a range of people, young, younger, older, right, in different stages of life, different different situations. And so, you know, my perspective is that you have to enable that even at early stage company. And and when you look at, you know, startups that are successful, that are getting funded, typically the founders are either in their twenties or sometime later in their forties. Right? Because that age, you know, between late twenties, early thirties, typically people have young kids. And it's very difficult to be like a good father or mother and also, you know, grind through that early startup stage. That that's typically very difficult. So there's a stage in life where it is very hard to start a company, but people still do it. But I think that at at at a place where I am, you know, I would definitely have, you know, build a culture that enables people at various stages in their life to have some kind of balance and also contribute and also build something really, really good. Yeah. It's interesting. I, I worked on some small, but nimble teams, and there was always, like, even split of, like, young guys like me who were at the time. I was, like, 25 or younger, and then there would be, like, like, people who had, like, young kids and, like and just, unfortunately, naturally, the people with young kids would get the stuff to do that no one else wanted to do, and I would always feel bad because I'm like, man, that sucks. Like, they actually have no choice. Like, they have to do that shit. And I would be sitting here complaining, like, man, I wanna get promoted. They'd be like, y'all dude, I mean, like, I gotta I I just I don't know. Like, I have to get this shit done, and I have to also log off at five. So, you know, like, it's very interesting to see how the hiring pool of a company changes as the company matures over time, which leads to my next question for you. Have a big Yeah. Yeah. Bathroom. There there there is a vibe, you know, I wouldn't overlook, you know, people who have young kids or have young there's a vibe of efficiency for, like, a young like, a a mother or a father with the young kids that's almost unbeatable because you have to Oh my god. Have to get shit done in a way that, that just doesn't leave, room for error. So if you're hiring for a start up, like, don't overlook those candidates. No. I know. Totally. I, I just remember being on calls with some of these guys who I'm still really good friends with. And, we'd be like I'd be like complaining about something, and I'd be like, can you help me with that? And then they'd just be like, yeah. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. After the 12 other things, like, yeah. Yeah. I'll do it. I'll do it before the end of the day. I'm like, wow. I'm I'm out here about to fall asleep. So, like, props to you, Dave. But, yeah, this leads to my next question. So, Cyril, so since you're in the super early stage, super exciting time for your venture, it seems like. You know, hopefully, hockey stick growth, rocket ship growth. You know, maybe one, two years from now, you've got, like, 50 people, a 100 people. Right? I'm assuming right now your hiring pool is, like, pretty young people, maybe fresh out of school, or fresh out of some other, like, young start up. And, like, as you grow, how are you thinking about, like, the culture you're setting now versus, like, how that will scale to a company of, like, 50 to a 100 people and you you get some items under your belt. Right? Like, how are you thinking about that if at all? Or maybe you're not. I'm just curious. No. It's definitely something we think about. Right? The fact that the processes, the standard that we set now will, like you said, be used by hundreds, perhaps eventually even thousands of people, depending on, you know, how many people we end up meeting. It's very important to us to set, a tone and a pace that's that's relevant long term. And for that perspective, we know that in this current stage, sort of things are necessary that are not not gonna be sustainable long term. Right? No one is doing this because they're gonna be working like hundred hour weeks, like for their entire the entire rest of their lives. Everybody knows that that's that's a temporary facet of our current stage. And because of that, there are also things that are naturally gonna change. Now the core culture of being in person, I think that's something that's core to this company. I don't see that particularly changing anytime soon. But I do see, you know, the level of folks having to come in, like, pull all nighters, right, that that generally, that generally is is relaxed. I think as companies get, you know, past series a, past series b, and there's less work required to maintain, that that sort of escape velocity. As we reach more of a secure place and positioning in the market and there's, like, just less, like, again, fatality events that are possible around every corner, at that point, it sort of naturally adapts to that. But in terms of the quality that I mentioned, like the in person collaboration, the environment of learning that we encourage our employees to grow with the company, that's something that we wanna maintain for our hires all the way down the road. And that's that's something that's gonna stay for sure. Definitely. Man, I mean, there's so many great tangents we could go just on this topic. I do wanna ask Artem one more question about this, which is like so I know for me, especially in the later stage game, have definitely worked with people who didn't really work. You know? And sometimes that would be, like, annoying to me. And, like, I think I get that, like, you know, you get things done when they get done, but sometimes they don't get done. And so, like, I'm curious, like, one, like, have you seen this go too far the other direction where, like, maybe someone saw, oh, Friday's off. Great. And then they just didn't finish things? Or, like, do you have accountability mechanisms in place to, like like, do you have OKRs or, like like, metrics that you, like, use to make sure people are, like, delivering, and stuff like that? Yeah. Of of course. You know, it it can easily go the other way. You know, there's plenty of of of countries and, like, bureaucracies around the world where people just show up or don't show up. You know, I just get get a paycheck. That's not the case, at Augury or other companies that I've been, I've been with. I mean, there's definitely some outliers here and there, but it's also pretty hard to fly under the radar because there's a there's a difference between effort and, and, outcomes. Right? So you're gonna measure by by by outcomes. We have pretty strong culture of single threaded ownership for for things and and also, you know, key results, deliverables, objectives. And that helps, but what helps even more is accountability that's driven not just, you know, personally, but through collaboration. Right? So if you're on a team, others hold you accountable. Two things. Right? And and, you know, kind of mission driven accountability to to the goal. So as long as long as there is clarity in terms of what you need to deliver, what the mission of the company is, how you contribute to that mission, and it's measured by the outcome of what you contribute, I think that you can manage. And, actually, the opposite effect happens when you allow people to go and, you know, take a day off, go to a museum, you know, catch up on their sleep and so forth. They come back more creative and get more done as a result or get to better outcomes as a result. So overall, yeah, strong accountability, but, it it pays off pretty well. Yeah. Definitely. I think I mean, like I said, there's so many different, like, parameters that can define, like, how a company works. It's like the stage of the company, the mindset of the founders. And I know it's also it could also very well be, like, the industry and the problem space. Cyril alluded to this earlier about being in kind of the security space and the urgency of that. I am curious, like, Cyril, as you hire and grow your team I mean, someone here in the chat mentioned someone here in the chat mentioned earlier about, like, if you, like, love what you do, then you will normally work more than nine to five. Right? So, like, when you're hiring, are you looking for people who just love working in this industry or love what you're specifically working on? It's clear that there's more than just, like, I want to be at this, you know, like, fluorescent lit room for, like, twelve hours. It's like, maybe there's something more. Right? Like, how are you gauging for that, and how do you make sure it's for the right reasons? Right? Yeah. One of the things that's perhaps counterintuitive is we look for people who have a a vibrant life outside of work, actually. So we ask about their hobbies. We ask what they like to do outside of work. And if that's in some way reveals something about how they think about problems, about how they tackle, you know, work life balance or how they tackle, like, critical thinking in general, that's actually very useful information for us. Right? Because it shows that, one, they have the ability to turn off at certain points because you you can't, you know, you you don't wanna just go straight to burnout. Right? You need you need some sort of outlet. I think all our employees are able to maintain, very active lives. I think to your point, Varun, you know, we provide, like, the Equinox passes for them. We provide, like, catering for them. So we basically want them to be in the best state possible to provide the to provide us, like, the best quality of work, for for the product and what we're building. And that's that's really what we look for, right, that they can be a part of the community in that way, that they have you know, they're able to balance this effectively. So they're pretty much putting in I know there are, like, basically the question is, if they're doing The United States, are they really putting in the same quality of work? And we wanna make sure that they are they are putting in the best quality of work for, longer. And that's that's one of the ways that we do that. Right? When we screen for, candidates. Totally. Totally. And, the the Equinox thing reminded me of, I know, you know, Cluelly the the the start up of the moment right now. You know? I just remembered seeing some videos where they were like, yeah. We get jacked together. Yeah. And we, like I think they, like like, reimbursed their, like, hinge premium membership or something, which I think is insane. But, yeah. No. It is cool to see, like, at least some emphasis on, like, hey. We'll help you take care of yourself and stuff like that. And then, Artem, do you guys, like, actively avoid people who, like, kind of bring this kind of mindset? I mean, of course, no one's gonna say no to, like, a more effective employee, but, like, how do you make sure that it won't contribute to, the culture in a negative way? Avoid avoid what kind of mindset? Like like, overly hustle culture focused mindset of people who you hire, I guess. No. I I think I think that we need, you know it's it's very similar in terms of, you know, you need people who care, you know, people who are smart and people who really care about solving the problem. So, you know, we hire people who, who would think about, you you know, the problems that we're solving in the in our cost customers and our product in in the shower. Right? They'd think about it in their time off as well. You know? They they're concerned. They care about it, and and they want to solve those those problems. So that's not I don't think that's different in any way. Right? The mission is not is not different. It it's it's really the, degree of freedom and accountability and kind of personal responsibility that that they get. The other thing I think is that's important is that, you know, that perspective of, you know, ten years versus, you know, what what's happening in the next year is important because you you then start, to think about people strategically. Right? So that person that's joining your company, it's not just about, you know, they're the next few months that they're going to spend with you or, like, what's their lifestyle right now. They will then go on to learn something really significant by being part of your team and develop, and then they will go on to do something else. They might continue within the company, you know, that some of our, people that that I've worked with, you know, have been around for four, five, six, seven years. But, you know, they can go on somewhere else. It becomes a really good school for them. So, you know, thinking about them in terms of, you know, what happens five years from now is is important. And and the other piece is, you know, it's it's really like you mentioned, Varun, that you need to manage, you know, like, as a founder, you can have set the culture. So but day to day, it's not just about setting saying, you know, I'm going to do this framework with this culture, that culture. It's really managing the energy within the company day to day. Right? So if you see that the energy within the company kind of relaxes too much or you're not delivering, you need to speed up, you can do that as a founder. You can push a bit harder. Right? But you're constantly need to make sure that your team does, like, village that you're building is, you know, it it's really a place that you would want to work at, you know, every day. Like, you would you know, would I want to work at that company if I joined it right now? So so I think that's an important piece. Like, you really need to manage the energy as a founder and think strategically over the course of a few years about the people that you hire. It's all about vibes. Right? We all just wanna have we all just wanna have some good vibes at work. There's a lot of questions in the chat I wanna make sure we get to. If you would like us to answer your question from the chat, please make sure to raise your hand and I can get to it in that order. And, Rippling team, I'll lean on you to help me pick these out. Let's see here. Do we have we have someone else on stage here? Okay. Nick, yes. You did ask a question earlier, but feel free. Hey, guys. Can you guys hear me okay? Yes. Hey. I don't know what's happening in my video, but, appreciate this. This has been very helpful, guys, for the chat. Curious. I wanted to ask if you were forced to run each other's companies or on each other's philosophy for, like, a quarter over a year, what would you want to change immediately, or what do you think you'd have to change immediately, to keep the business from slipping? And then I guess also what would you do if you had to keep the same philosophy? I don't know if you just wanna answer one of those or, yeah. Appreciate that. Thanks, guys. Yeah. So that's a pretty interesting question, Nick. I think if we switch to what our recurrence, which is four days every other week. Right, Arm? Is that is that correct? That's right. Yep. I I think I think we definitely have to facilitate more effective which I don't really think is possible. I'm sorry. But we have to facilitate more effective virtual communication, mediate some of our processes to be async. I think overall, the quality of those deliverables might be reduced, but I do think that it is possible. I mean, the the entire world went remote for a while. Right? So there are some strategies at least. There's there's research that's been done into the remote strategies that work best. So I'd probably look into those, do some research on those, and basically develop more effective pipelines and infrastructure for people to do more stuff remotely. Because I feel that if our employees are are still the same, assuming that's still the same, we we would probably have to, give them more opportunities to connect when they're not in the office. So Yeah. I I think that that that's a hard one. Right? You know, because we're if we have to switch or if if the question is if I were to come into the sales company right now, right, I would really think about what is it that really sticks and what is it that's really productive about, like, the pace and being in person and that that, you know, the the the communication interactions, and I would keep that. Right? And then I would look at things that are, you know, other people staying there just because, you know, they feel a little bit pressured to stay, you know, after hours. Are we really, delivering anything that's important, you know, in this x day? Right? You know, whether it's Friday or whatever. Right? And I would try to find a way to measure, really creativity. So with experiment, right, I will see let's let's maybe slow this down or speed this this part up part up to see how creative we are, how productive we are to really try to balance it out, just because, you know, that would probably suit my style a little bit more, right, at that company. So that would be my personal preference. Thanks, guys. It's really, insightful and helpful. I appreciate this whole, conversation back and forth. Veron, thanks for sending me up. Of course. Of course. Alright. Who's next? Let's get someone else up here. Hi, guys. Hi, guys. Hi, guys. Hi, guys. Greetings from Turkey. It's three it's 03:46AM in the night. Yeah. We spoke on LinkedIn, actually. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for the great chat. And, yeah, I still can't relate the time here with you. Yeah. Like, I don't know. What do you think, like, about just working a nine to five, but pub publicly doing, like, content creating, like, on LinkedIn From a executive or, like, founder perspective, maybe, is it something you think, like, okay. He's too much focused on his podcast, for example. I was last week in the parliament of the European Union, Or is it like, hey. You should focus on ones, like I don't know. How would you see it? Yeah. For b two b, I feel like especially enterprise b two b, LinkedIn is actually, unfortunately, where a lot of our buyers live. And so maintaining active presence on there that's relevant. If you look at my LinkedIn, it's not actually about 996 at all. It's all about, like, enterprise connection request already. Oh, I will I will take a look at it, but I currently have 5,000. So it's it's hard to parse through. But, fundamentally, like, what we what we try to look for is content that's, like, relevant to your to your buyers. Right? So what what I always try to do is think, is this a post that would appear in my ideal customer profile speeds? Is it something that they would like? And if they do, then it's it's, like, likely to be sent to them. So that's that's sort of what I care about. I think there is a danger that a founder can run if their public persona and, like, what they're doing is too divergent from, like, their company and product, then yeah, I can definitely become a distraction. Although some founders do just like start companies that are just to boost their own profiles. If you're doing that, then, like, go ahead and continue that. But, yeah. If if you wanna highlight the product, then it has to be related in in some sense. But it can definitely be powerful if if used correctly. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Cool. Thank you. Who else we got? Victor. Can you hear us? What? Vic, are you with us? I feel like I hear stuff. Like, he's at a place. Yes. I am. There you are. Oh, alright. Anyone else? Do we wanna give or do we wanna give them another shot? There alright. Well, why don't we read some why don't we read some, questions from the chat here? Let's see. So we already did the one on if you love what you do. Let's see what else we got here. Oh, right on the screen here. How do you push beyond when you're already at nine nine six? I would have to imagine a lot of Red Bull or something. But, yeah. I mean, I think, like, that's interesting. Like, is it, like I'd be curious for, like, clarification on this one, but, like, is it, like, you're working nine nine six and maybe it's, it's, like, not enough or something? Like, I don't know. Like, Cyril, how do you interpret this question? You know, what what I'm essentially interpreting it as as like, if you're all doing nine six, it's hard to, like, boost at certain points if there's, like, something that requires you to be all hands on deck. That's potentially the case. That might be the case for certain people. But again, I think if you find the people that are, again, very mission driven, There we have I mean, there there have been times where, like, for example, a Fortune ten client needs, like, a certain deployment tested, by Monday. Right? And they asked you that on Saturday. This this is, like, happened. This is, like, real. Right? And so in those cases, yeah, the entire team does have to be, like, all hands on deck. And fundamentally, they will put out something that's one thing that's important, I think, to realize is, like, one of our investors through YC is, Paul Bucheit. He's a partner, and he's a creator of Gmail. He has this thing called, like, the ninety ten rule. And basically, what that means is there's solutions that you can find, and the theory is, which I agree with, startups are much more likely to find these solutions, where you can put in basically 10% of the efforts and get 90% of the return. And I think we're always trying to find those solutions. So we actually make something that ends up working, even though if you look at, like, the early stages of the company, like Google or or, like, Apple or whatever, there's all it's always like a movie facade, right, where you go to, like, movie set and, like, the back end is, like, held up by stilts and it's, like, wooden frames. But, the what's there or what's what you're able to show is, like, you got the job done, and it's it's a great experience for the client, right, no matter how it's, like, held up on the back end. That's what we sort of strive for when those, you know, periods of work happen. Right? We're very we're very honest, and we we know again, if you have, like, that sort of a deadline, you're not gonna be able to build out, like, 100% ideal product like what you would have if you had months to build something out. But there are ways to get those in high end solution, and that's what we strive for. Yeah. That's actually really important. Right? Like, to understand and prioritize properly. Right? Because there's there's always a fire burning. You know, if let's say you have 400 people in the company, there's always a fire in support and customer success and sales and marketing and engineering, whatever. Right? Things are down. But there's usually, you know, two or three people that are involved in putting that fire out. Right? And then may maybe they need to work through the weekend or through the night. Right? But, yeah, you you really need to, like, pay attention to those things and make sure that one, you know, you you create a way to avoid those things in the future. Right? And you come up with a solution that's probably the the the the the least amount of effort, you know, and then the highest output. But then you also need to make sure that you're you reward those people that kind of pull through for that specific thing and and respect the fact that they, you know, they gave up that weekend. Right? And give something back to them as part of your culture. Right? So that you know that next time you have to really show up and solve a problem, you know, the team's behind you and and then somebody else will step in. Right? And it's not just like a baseline expectation that everyone has to do it all the time. Totally. Pizza party. Right? For for appreciation, but tiny slices. Yeah. We got one more question here. Are either of you have either of you regretted a hire you made because they didn't match your work philosophy? Too chill or too intense? Name names. Yeah. You don't you don't do that. Yeah. I mean, there's there's definitely mistakes with with hiring. It's not you know, a lot of times, it's not the right fit. But But I wanna, you know, I wouldn't say that the the the main factor was ever that the person was didn't match the kind of, like, that time culture, work culture. It would always be a combination of factors that were more you know, have to do more with values or skills than anything else. I I actually agree with Artem there where, yeah, this definitely has been the case. Again, we haven't hired, like, hundreds of employees. Mhmm. This has definitely happened in terms of, again, though, it's not the work culture that's the defining factor. It's more the factor that led to that, dissonance within the work culture, I would say. So again, it has to do with, like, values, you know, what what they sort of value in in collaboration, what they think is important, within in terms of working with a team and building a product. Those are the things that can manifest in having a a work culture that's that disenant with the rest of the org. Totally. Yeah. You you would get I mean, a lot of the times you'd, sometimes people work for, like, a large enterprise and expect a certain type of support infrastructure and a certain type of pace, and it's hard for them to work for us. Even for, like, a a later stage growth start up, it's very difficult for them to adjust. But sometimes you make the call and adjust quickly. So, you know, you can you can never tell. Totally. Totally. In the interest of time, I wanna make sure we give you guys an opportunity to do your, closing remarks. We would love to hear, your, you know, what you think that each what do you think the other side gets right with their approach to work and work life balance? Yeah. I like what you just yeah. I like what you just said, Artem, about giving something back to the employees. I think that's important. And I think that's something that you guys obviously care a lot about. And, Aubrey, you're talking about how you, you know, essentially feel like a family with with your with your employees. And I think that that's something that's that's very valuable. And the fact that that's, you know, that's the impetus to do it rather than, you know, perception can be like that you wanna work be like just, like, work less. Right? The fact that, you know, creating more actually as a community when people are, like, you know, more well rested or have spent more time with their families, right, they're able to put in more. I like that that train of thought. Right? That's something that are both of our goals are fundamentally aligned there. Yeah. And I appreciate that. I think that, yeah, just makes it more sustainable. I I can say that from, like, what what I hear from you, it's, you know, it's you definitely don't sound like a founder that's just, you know, doing 996 just for the sake of, you know, sounding like they do 996. That's definitely not the case. You know? And, it's, you know, early stage, getting everyone together, very competitive environment. There's a lot of stress. Right? And it's not like that stress goes away after you, like, raise your series a, b, c, the d, and and etcetera. Like, that stress doesn't go away. Right? It just, you know, it it just it kind of, like, merges into something else. That's something a little bit different that you need to build systems for. But that feeling, that, you know, everything is on you and, like, the pace that you set as a founder is what is actually going to make or break the company, I think that's about right. Right? And and and the other piece is that, you know, like, I think you realize, you know, just came through to the conversation that you realize that the way you work with as a founder or maybe your co founders is not exactly the expectation that you have from your team. Right? And you can kind of like make it clear that and as long as you do that and make set that expectation that there's a mission, but, you know, founders have their own crazy way of working, and then the team, you know, is not expected to do that. They actually have are expected to to build relationships, to have a balance in life, to, you know, to create something that that works for them. I think that that goes a long way. And, that's a really good setup for for a company. Aw. We're all friends. Aw. How cute. We love that. I like the the we're a family thing. I mean, yeah, it's healthy, an until it's not, you know, but I like the spirit of it for sure. Cool. I there's there's some other questions, but we do want to, get to the raffle. Did we want to show the results of those polls on the screen real quick? Just, like, real quick, flip them on the screen. Alright. Looks like most of you would go four day work week. I voted that personally. I have just stopped caring, so I'm I'm with you on that. And there was a second poll, I think. Which philosophy would you bet invest on? Four day work week, that's interesting. I don't know. I'm I'm hearing that investors are starting to prefer the former, but, hey, I guess time will tell. I guess time will tell, and hopefully, Cyril can help us, make sure that, AI doesn't, take over the world, I guess. Cool. Let's go into the raffle here. We've got some really fancy wheels that I'm gonna share on my screen, once I figure out how to do that. There we go. I got it. I got it. This is for an Airbnb gift card. I forgot exactly how much it's for, but there's an Airbnb gift card if you can all see this. Let me know if you can't see it. I'm gonna click to spin it. We haven't gotten ads on it yet, so big win right here. Alright. This Airbnb gift card is gonna go to 54. Hopefully, we're actually here. Okay. We wanna move on to the next one now? Do we need to yeah. Okay. Cool. So next one, we're giving away a Rippling sleeping bag. Wow. They really put all the names on there. Alright. The rippling sleeping bag, infamously seen on LinkedIn, is going to and then finally, we are going to do a month's worth of Red Bull to the winners team. And the month's worth of Red Bull goes to Susan Ku. Cool. I'm assuming, Rippling will handle all the logistics behind getting those prizes, getting all your Red Bull. Hopefully, your team isn't that big, and, it's not too big of a Red Bull tab. But, alright. Cool. Well, moving on here. We've really appreciated having you all here today. And, you know, since this is, a Rippling supported event, we did want to talk about some really exciting, new features, with Rippling. Rippling just launched self serve payroll. We're gonna watch a demo video by, Pete Fishman, who is a former YC founder at Mozart Data, which, and he's now a VP of data science at Rippling. And so stick around for this video. You don't have to, but the first five people who stick around and vote in the poll and book a demo get a Theragun or a $200 gift card. And, yeah, it's a great demo, and, we think it's important because no matter how many hours your employees work, you gotta pay them. And free labor is bad, and you need to stay compliant, which is another value prop of Rippling's product suite. So, yeah, we love that. We love product. Alright. Let's put some product in their face. This was super fun. This was great. And, follow me on socials. Just my first, last name. Go follow Artem and Cyril on LinkedIn. Go buy their products. Go get them all your money. Get me some too, and, this is fun. See you on the other side. Hi. I'm Pete Fishman. And today, I'm gonna talk to you about Rippling for startups. Today, I work as the BD of data science here at Rippling. But before that, I was a startup founder. In fact, I was the cofounder and CEO of Mozart Data. We were part of Y Combinator's summer twenty twenty batch. One of our earliest challenges was paying myself, my cofounder, some of our early employees. Now, unsurprisingly, I'm a data person, and I really didn't have very much experience running payroll. Today, that's a lot more easy of a challenge. Let's walk you through it. So here's how to get started with payroll on Rippling. So there's really two ways to get started. First is that you can talk directly with an expert. You book a demo. The second is you can self serve. You first for your company information. You then set up a pay run. You then choose a Rippling plan, and then you run the payroll. Pretty straightforward. Rippling will go ahead and verify your company information and get back to you within a day. In the meantime, you can set up your payroll. You can choose your plan. Now don't worry. You won't be charged, Rippling until you make your first payroll. Then you go ahead and run payroll for the first time. Rippling has transparent pricing that you can easily view within the application. It's just that easy. That's sort of the high level overview of it. Let me show you what it looks like. So first, you select the pay runs that are relevant, and then you run your payroll. Now Rippling will highlight any missing information or any errors that need fixing. They'll explain those, and that'll help you prevent any compliance headaches in the future. Then simply approve your pay run, and you're off to the races. Now how do we do this? Well, Rippling leverages its employee graph. What is the employee graph? It's information about the employees that come from many sources, the employees themselves, the company, and third parties. And by doing that, we propagate a bunch of relevant information to different HR applications. Who uses Rippling? A number of scaling companies, including Cursor. So Michael, the CEO of Cursor, unsurprisingly, is an AI expert, but he was able to, run payables as the company was rapidly scaling. And that's because he was building his application, leveraging Rippling for HR, not just payroll, but also health insurance and benefits and more. Now Cursor is not the only AI company that's built on Rippling. In fact, Clay, Jasper, Sarah, a number of AI companies are leveraging the power of Rippling. How can you use Rippling? Well, it's pretty easy. We have something called the startup pack, and, the great news is that today, we're offering six months for free for venture backed start ups. So if you wanna serve, you can be very quickly up and running with payroll. But, also, if you'd want to book and attend a demo, we're offering, free Theragun to the first five people who end up booking a demo, probably something that I could use. What Rippling's gonna allow you to do is focus on the things that you're great at as you're building your company. So thanks for listening, and I wish you a lot of, good luck and success.