>> Bret Taylor, former chief technology officer at Facebook and a founder of Quip, with his son Sam and daughter Jasmine.
>> He leaves work at 5:30 p.m. so that his employees will not feel obligated to stay.
Bret is pictured in his expensive home, standing in front of a gas range that was at least $10,000. He can afford to take it easy. He's already sacrificed and put in the 16 hour days.
Yes, Bret has a nice home, expensive stove, and kids. It sounds to me like he's doing the right thing by not pressuring his employees to appear like they are "putting in the hours."
First thing they told us in training sessions after promoting us: you head home at 5:30, and remove pressure for your subordinates to stay in the office.
You may login after hours to wind up your day's work (it is, in fact, expected), but you are to make damned sure nothing hits your subordinates' inboxes until 8:30AM the next day. If that means putting delays on your messages in Outlook, so be it.
Makes for a much more relaxed and productive team.
When the top guy leaves, that signals to the rank and file it's OK to leave. It tends to look bad when the rank and file leave before the boss. It's an extremely well understood social signal (whether you buy into that or not, doesn't matter. It's the signal).
So there is a strong understanding of this in aware managers - they will leave in the 4:30-5:30 bracket, so their employees don't feel compelled to work long hours.
So what's your argument? He should actually work late? Working sixteen-hour days actually reduces productivity so much that someone who does it regularly gets much less done than someone who's in at 9 and out at 5.
The OP's argument (I believe) makes an unjustified assumption that the CEO is falsely implying falsely that people who leave at 5:30 can make it to the C-Suite. That assumption lies in the subtext of an experienced, well paid, successful individual encouraging a work-practice that he did not follow himself. Read literally, the CEO is making no such claim about career (and wealth) advancement at his company beyond "you won't be intentionally penalized for leaving at 5:30."
Well, if it's true that people who leave on time can't do that I'd argue it has more to do with signaling than with actually being productive. Everything I've ever read about productivity suggests regularly working long hours makes your productivity go through the floor to the point that there is not any net benefit.
I agree with you and have read similar studies/articles.
Hours worked is a useless signal at best and a misleading signal at worst. (as an aside, I also believe the 40hr work week is a waste for both companies and employees)
Number of hours a superficial signal that it easy to imitate. People know that productive "hustlers", "gamechangers" "showrunners" get promoted. They tend to know who the hustlers are and thus they know that hustling often requires more than 8 productive hours a day of work. So they stay after hours despite diminishing returns and lower median throughput.
Once a large enough percentage of the imitators stay afterhours, now your average operational employee has to stay in order to conform to the perceived status quo.
So I agree with with the CEO leaving early as long as he enforces a culture that not only encourages people leaving at 5:30, but penalizes people who stay late. Then the hustlers will follow, and then the imitators will follow and the operational staff will feel comfortable to have their 40 hour work week.
>> He leaves work at 5:30 p.m. so that his employees will not feel obligated to stay.
Bret is pictured in his expensive home, standing in front of a gas range that was at least $10,000. He can afford to take it easy. He's already sacrificed and put in the 16 hour days.