This weekend I read an article about Gen Z in the workplace with a funny title: The 37-Year-Olds Are Afraid of the 23-Year-Olds Who Work for Them. There was a choice quote that stood out to me:

Mr. Kennedy [a millennial] interviewed a Gen Z candidate for a full-time position who asked if she could stop working for the day once she’d accomplished the tasks she’d set out to do. He responded that her role was expected to be a nine-to-five.

CEOs and managers are going to have to radically change the way they think about employment in order to adapt to today's world and succeed. In my mind, when an employee has finished the work they need to accomplish for the day, they should do whatever they want. They can go to the spa. Take the kids fishing. Work on their side-project. Even work another job. Several years ago I'd have balked at what I just wrote, but why the hell not?

One of the things I've come to understand over time is you need to be crystal clear about the expectations you have for employees. Like write-them-down-and-share-them-and-review-them-every-month-type-clear. It makes life super easy when it comes to performance management and to objectively tell when someone is living up to your expectations and doing their job well, or falling short. Writing them down and regularly reviewing them is also a great way to stay on the same page and course-correct if needed.

So when someone is living up to expectations and doing the work they need to do on a day-to-day basis, it really shouldn't matter if they put in two hours a day or fifteen hours a day. In a world where things are becoming increasingly remote and virtual, outcomes matter most (they always did, but this is increasingly amplified). Meeting expectations matters. The raw number of minutes hunched over a keyboard doesn't mean shit.

Now that doesn't mean a two-hour day is for everyone. But for someone who wants to get the job done and then do other stuff, this option will become commonplace. Because why not? It makes sense. Other people will want to drastically exceed expectations and give their all to a thing and work tirelessly. It doesn't necessarily make them better, it's just different. You need both types of people when building a company. I've talked to several founders and technology execs recently that are internalizing this. It's impacting the way people think about hiring and constructing teams and they're rethinking roles especially for IC positions where it's totally cool for someone to get the work done and that's that. For people who want to do this, employers are going to have to quickly adapt because the most talented people who want variety and particularly prefer the IC route are going to likely pursue this option.

The world changed fast in the past two years, and this is a welcome evolution that will free a lot of people from the silly construct of a 9 to 5. So if you're hiring for a role where you know exactly what you need and a candidate asks if they can leave after they've done the job, I hope you happily answer Yes.

I've been reading Albert Wenger's blog for around a decade, so I was excited to read his book The World After Capital. The premise is rather bold: we are exiting the Industrial Age in which the key scarcity was capital and entering a new epoch, one Albert calls the Knowledge Age, in which the key scarcity is attention. In previous transitions (i.e. Forager > Agrarian > Industrial) things were not smooth (e.g. lots of violence, death, tumult, etc.), and Albert proposes that our transition to the Knowledge Age need not follow suit. In order to do so we must invest in three types of freedoms for everyone: economic, informational, and psychological.

If you're interested in reading the book you can do so here. Albert shared it on GitBook which is the first time I've used the service. He also tweeted the TLDR version if you want to quickly get a sense for the major themes.

The first conversation I hosted with Keith Rabois and Frank Rotman received such positive feedback that we decided to do a back-to-back follow-on (see what I did there?).

Frank and Keith cover a lot of ground in this one, and there are plenty of topics that I think are particularly relevant to anyone who participates in the VC / entrepreneur ecosystem. I continue to learn from these two and have already found myself referencing their knowledge in my day-to-day conversations.

Give it a listen if you want to know what they think about:

• How the future of the VC industry will play out

• Banks entering the M&A landscape and the implications for investors and entrepreneurs

• How investors reference for their portfolio companies that are "middle of the pack" during diligence

• Why "Oh Shit!" board meetings are becoming more commonplace

This weekend I read an article about Gen Z in the workplace with a funny title: The 37-Year-Olds Are Afraid of the 23-Year-Olds Who Work for Them. There was a choice quote that stood out to me:

Mr. Kennedy [a millennial] interviewed a Gen Z candidate for a full-time position who asked if she could stop working for the day once she’d accomplished the tasks she’d set out to do. He responded that her role was expected to be a nine-to-five.

CEOs and managers are going to have to radically change the way they think about employment in order to adapt to today's world and succeed. In my mind, when an employee has finished the work they need to accomplish for the day, they should do whatever they want. They can go to the spa. Take the kids fishing. Work on their side-project. Even work another job. Several years ago I'd have balked at what I just wrote, but why the hell not?

One of the things I've come to understand over time is you need to be crystal clear about the expectations you have for employees. Like write-them-down-and-share-them-and-review-them-every-month-type-clear. It makes life super easy when it comes to performance management and to objectively tell when someone is living up to your expectations and doing their job well, or falling short. Writing them down and regularly reviewing them is also a great way to stay on the same page and course-correct if needed.

So when someone is living up to expectations and doing the work they need to do on a day-to-day basis, it really shouldn't matter if they put in two hours a day or fifteen hours a day. In a world where things are becoming increasingly remote and virtual, outcomes matter most (they always did, but this is increasingly amplified). Meeting expectations matters. The raw number of minutes hunched over a keyboard doesn't mean shit.

Now that doesn't mean a two-hour day is for everyone. But for someone who wants to get the job done and then do other stuff, this option will become commonplace. Because why not? It makes sense. Other people will want to drastically exceed expectations and give their all to a thing and work tirelessly. It doesn't necessarily make them better, it's just different. You need both types of people when building a company. I've talked to several founders and technology execs recently that are internalizing this. It's impacting the way people think about hiring and constructing teams and they're rethinking roles especially for IC positions where it's totally cool for someone to get the work done and that's that. For people who want to do this, employers are going to have to quickly adapt because the most talented people who want variety and particularly prefer the IC route are going to likely pursue this option.

The world changed fast in the past two years, and this is a welcome evolution that will free a lot of people from the silly construct of a 9 to 5. So if you're hiring for a role where you know exactly what you need and a candidate asks if they can leave after they've done the job, I hope you happily answer Yes.

I've been reading Albert Wenger's blog for around a decade, so I was excited to read his book The World After Capital. The premise is rather bold: we are exiting the Industrial Age in which the key scarcity was capital and entering a new epoch, one Albert calls the Knowledge Age, in which the key scarcity is attention. In previous transitions (i.e. Forager > Agrarian > Industrial) things were not smooth (e.g. lots of violence, death, tumult, etc.), and Albert proposes that our transition to the Knowledge Age need not follow suit. In order to do so we must invest in three types of freedoms for everyone: economic, informational, and psychological.

If you're interested in reading the book you can do so here. Albert shared it on GitBook which is the first time I've used the service. He also tweeted the TLDR version if you want to quickly get a sense for the major themes.

The first conversation I hosted with Keith Rabois and Frank Rotman received such positive feedback that we decided to do a back-to-back follow-on (see what I did there?).

Frank and Keith cover a lot of ground in this one, and there are plenty of topics that I think are particularly relevant to anyone who participates in the VC / entrepreneur ecosystem. I continue to learn from these two and have already found myself referencing their knowledge in my day-to-day conversations.

Give it a listen if you want to know what they think about:

• How the future of the VC industry will play out

• Banks entering the M&A landscape and the implications for investors and entrepreneurs

• How investors reference for their portfolio companies that are "middle of the pack" during diligence

• Why "Oh Shit!" board meetings are becoming more commonplace